The Administration Series (31 page)

"Don't be late. And give my love to your wife."

As he watched Belqola make his way out of the bar, Toreth caught sight of Warrick leaning against the bar. There was no reason Toreth ought to be surprised — they were only a few minutes' walk from the AERC. However, the idea of Warrick watching him — as he clearly had been — was peculiarly unsettling. Toreth wondered briefly if Warrick had followed them there.

As soon as he caught Toreth's eye, Warrick picked up his drink and strolled over.

"Good to see the forces of law and order working so hard," he said as he dropped into the chair vacated by Belqola. He settled in with a comfortable casualness which didn't disguise the curiosity in his glance.

"Just getting to know my staff," Toreth said. "Harry Belqola. He's a new junior — finished his training this year."

"Ah. So how's he enjoying the investigation?"

"I don't care — it's a job, not a hobby."

His sharp tone didn't scratch Warrick's poise. "And how's he enjoying the investigator?"

Toreth blinked. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, and hid his smile in his drink.

"Oh, please. Don't tell me he turned you down?"

Toreth looked up, nettled. "Of course not!" Then he caught Warrick's smile. "Bastard. You should come and work for us, you know. You can have Belqola's job."

"Not my field. Besides, it was hardly challenging. Or do you choose your juniors on qualities other than deductive skills?"

"He came highly recommended." By fucking idiots.

Warrick snorted. "I'm sure he did."

To Toreth's relief, Warrick apparently found the whole situation funny rather than . . . what? Threatening? A reason for jealousy? Not the kind of shit Toreth wanted to deal with when he was fucking a witness mid-case.

Warrick sipped his drink and eyed Toreth appraisingly. "You didn't really want him, anyway."

"How the fuck would you know?"

"He was too keen to go along with it," he said judiciously. "Not putting up enough resistance. You could've had him over the table if you'd wanted to — more comfortable than your ten minutes in the toilets probably were."

He noticed an attentive silence at the next table. "He's married," Toreth said, as if it made a difference to how willing the junior had been.

Warrick snorted, unimpressed. "I know. He hadn't even bothered taking his ring off. Which probably means he isn't feeling guilty about it either, and that makes him even less interesting. To you."

"Big assumption from someone who's known me for what, five weeks? I thought scientists were supposed to consider the evidence."

"And the evidence tells me you like to play games. Particular games, at that. Tell me something — how often do you have sex with the same person, on average?"

"Once." Toreth shrugged. "Twice, maybe, if —"

"Well?"

Another fucking interrogation, but what the hell. "If they regretted the first time. You've been spending too much time with Tanit."

Warrick ignored the comparison. "You're only interested as long as your target is putting up resistance of some kind — my point exactly."

"You don't exactly play hard to get," Toreth pointed out.

"No." Warrick smiled slightly. "No, I don't, do I?"

A pause, while Toreth considered this exception that proved the rule. It edged dangerously towards a silence before the explanation occurred. Or rather an analogy — Ange, with her useful influence in Psychoprogramming. "You've got the sim," Toreth said.

"Ah, yes. Of course."

There was a moment of probably mutual hidden relief before Warrick said, "Why did you arrest Tara?"

Not surprising that he'd heard about it — from his calm tone, he'd heard about her release as well.

"She wasn't arrested. We reinterviewed her as a witness, regarding the evidence she gave before."

"You couldn't do that at SimTech?"

"No."

A long pause, then Warrick nodded. "I see."

"Did you speak to her?"

"No. I understand she's at home. She called Dr Tanit."

That explained why Warrick was taking it so well. Once he'd heard Tara's account of her experiences with Parsons and at Psychoprogramming, he'd be less sanguine. Still, his good mood upped the probability of a fuck this evening — Toreth wouldn't mind keeping up the buzz he'd got from Belqola's efforts.

With that in mind, Toreth asked, "Would you like a drink?"

Warrick shook his head and raised his half-empty glass. "I'm fine. I try not to drink too much during the week. Are you making any progress with the investigation? With Legislator Nissim, I mean?"

Toreth shrugged, wondering if the change of topic was a refusal. "Big mess of nothings and dead ends. No suspects, no method, no opportunity. Tillotson still thinks the sim killed her and the others."

"Then he's an even bigger idiot than you said he was," Warrick said emphatically. "It's not possible. And I bet your so-called computing experts who've been thrashing around in my code say it's impossible too."

"No, they say they haven't yet found a way the sim could kill. They also say it'll take weeks to be sure."

"Months," Warrick predicted with relish. "If not years. There are thousands of man-years of effort in it. And in the end they won't find anything that would kill a sim user." He sipped his drink. "While we're on the subject, may I ask why you still have so many of the files at SimTech sealed? It's making work very difficult, and upsetting the sponsors. You have copies, why stop us using them?"

"It's procedure, I'm afraid." Then, one eye on the rest of the evening, Toreth modified the automatic response with, "But I'll have a word with Tillotson about it."

"Really?" Warrick sounded genuinely surprised. "Thanks. Can I do anything in return?"

"Such as?"

Warrick sighed. "Or, in the less subtle version, do you want to fuck? Or was your staff management session too taxing?"

A woman at the next table spluttered red wine all over her white-and-silver skirt. A man Toreth guessed to be her boyfriend started to stand up with intent, took a better look at Toreth's uniform and sat down quickly.

Toreth stifled a laugh, because there was no point in starting trouble. Warrick looked openly amused. "That's a handy perk of the job."

"How the hell do you avoid getting beaten up in bars?" Toreth asked with genuine curiosity.

"Well, normally I don't say things like that — it must be the company I'm keeping." Warrick stood up. "Coming?" he asked in a pointed voice which made white-and-silver skirt giggle again. Toreth winked at her as they walked past and the boyfriend looked daggers at them.

They had reached the door and were discussing hotels when Toreth's comm chimed. "Damn. Excuse me."

Warrick leaned against a pillar and waited. Toreth listened, and sighed, and agreed, and finally finished the call. "On my way."

"I sense impending disappointment," Warrick said.

Toreth opened his hand screen and flicked through numbers. "I have to go in to work."

"Why?"

"Sorry, can't tell you."

"Then I hope it's good news. For someone." Without a farewell, Warrick pried himself away from the pillar and walked out of the bar.

Toreth felt slightly aggrieved. It wasn't
his
fault. Someone had very inconsiderately found a body.

When he reached the morgue in the Justice complex, he discovered it was actually two bodies.

A Justice officer waited at reception for him, a woman in her mid-thirties who looked tired — probably from life in general rather than anything that had happened tonight. Justice officers had plenty of experience in dealing with corpses. She also looked less than pleased to see him, which was no surprise. Better funding, better facilities and a reputation for arrogance made I&I unpopular in the Justice Department and considering the time, she might well have been going off shift when someone ordered her to wait for him.

"Senior Para-investigator Toreth, sir?" He could almost hear her teeth gritting.

He nodded. "Just call me Para. No need for the sir."

"Officer Lee." She sounded surprised, but slightly friendlier. As they walked through the dingy corridors, Toreth amused himself by wondering how she'd look with her severely pinned-up hair let down, and a couple of weeks' sleep.

Once they reached the vast morgue, the officer told him to wait by the empty reception desk while she tracked down assistance. Her footsteps echoed as she walked away, the sound distorted by the tall ranks of preservation units. It was still relatively early in the evening — a quiet time down here, Toreth guessed.

Eventually she reappeared with a scrubbed-looking young man in a spotlessly white uniform and a nametag identifying him as Pathology Officer Kirkby.

"Evening, sir," Kirkby said. His smile was a disconcerting on-off flash, like a torch, leaving the impression he had consciously to operate it.

"This way, please," he added, leading the way across the room. Eventually, he stopped by one of the racks and pulled a flat control screen from his pocket. "Let me see . . . yes. These are the two."

He touched the screen and first one unit opened noiselessly, then a second, spilling chill wisps of condensation into the already cool air.

Toreth recognised one of the corpses at once — Jin Li Yang, his usually pale face now stark white and his spiky hair matted and filthy. His ID must have been the reason Warrick had had his evening spoiled; the man's file would be tagged with his association to a high-priority I&I case, making the call to Toreth automatic.

The other body was of a man of indeterminate age — anywhere between thirty and fifty. He had scruffy clothes and long, tangled hair and beard that were probably brown. Indigent, judging by the smell if nothing else.

"Where did you find Yang?" Toreth asked Lee

"We pulled him out of the river and — sir? Are you all right?"

Toreth had turned away, quickly, but not quickly enough that Lee hadn't seen his face.

Out of the river. The body hadn't looked it. Obviously drowned corpses were bad enough, but surprise intensified the reaction and it slipped beyond his control. He could
feel
the water, choking him, the hands holding him down as he struggled and his treacherous lungs fought to pull more water in. Drowning. He was —

"Sir? Para?"

Slowly, Toreth became aware of a hand on his shoulder. Lee peered up at him, her face creased with concern.

"I just —" Shit, he'd have to say something, much as he loathed admitting the weakness. "I had a bad experience once. Some fucking idiot tried to drown me." Leave it at that.

Lee nodded. "Close the unit," she said to Kirkby.

"No. I'm fine." He forced himself to turn, to look down at the bodies, focusing on the questions he had to ask. "Who's the other one?"

"An indig. We'll get his registered name from the Data Division as soon as the DNA check comes back, but his friends called him Tracker."

"Friends? What's the story?"

"Seven of them, counting this dead one, sitting round a fire. Tracker disappeared — one witness said he thought Tracker might have heard something, one of the others said he thought he had a meeting arranged with 'a friend'. Probably a supplier. I wouldn't rely on either of those statements. Then — a few minutes later, half an hour later or an hour later, depending on who you ask — they heard a yell."

Lee shook her head. "They must have really counted him a friend, 'cause they went to look for him. They looked down the alley and saw a shape bending over what turned out to be the body." Forestalling his question, she added, "Too dark to get many details. Three say a man, one says a woman, two honest 'don't knows'."

Toreth nodded. Lee was almost certainly right that the 'don't knows' were the more honest witnesses.

"Then, and this is a shame, a couple of our witnesses shouted out. Mystery figure saw them and ran. When they got there, it was clean gone and Tracker was dying. He'd been shot in the chest at close range with a silenced weapon — no one heard a shot."

"Did Tracker say anything to them?" Toreth asked.

She shook her head.

"So how did you find Yang?"

"The officer on the scene — that was me — spoke to the indigs there. Two of them mentioned hearing a splash just before they turned the corner. I ordered a search of the river and we found him —" She hesitated, gaze searching his face, and he gestured impatiently for her to continue. "He'd been pushed, or fallen, into the water. The river's deep and fast-flowing there, but the body snagged on some railings underwater — the tide would have washed it clear within the hour."

"How you get there so quickly?"

"The indigs called Justice." The officer shrugged in response to his expression of surprise. "They called the Administration indig medic service and they called us at the same time. It happens more often than you'd think." She gave Toreth a sly smile. "Of course, you wouldn't know about that, up in the rarefied heights of I&I."

Toreth acknowledged the jab with a smile of his own, but it annoyed him that the woman was right. He didn't know much about Justice work and although normally he didn't care about the good opinion of Justice officers, he found himself bothered by it now. Perhaps it was because Lee had displayed a higher degree of competence than the run-of-the-mill Justice employee.