The Administration Series (32 page)

"What killed Yang?" he asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

Kirkby's smile clicked on again. "Drowning." He said it with a relish that made Toreth's fists clench involuntarily.

"He just —" Fuck. "Just drowned? That quickly?"

"It can be almost instantaneous. Vagal inhibition from the shock of hitting the water can stop the heart, especially if they're drunk —" Kirkby nodded at Yang. "— he'd had a glass or two of something. Normally people hold their breath until elevated carbon dioxide forces them to breathe." Flash of teeth, his eyes intent on Toreth's face. "But they can panic and inhale right away."

Toreth turned away, bracing one hand on the cool metal of the preservation unit. He could barely hear Kirkby's voice over the pounding in his ears. Jesus, he was going to be sick — he didn't dare open his mouth to tell the bastard to shut the fuck up.

'Inspiration of fluid by the lungs induces choking and vomiting. Unconsciousness and death follow quickly.'

Memories flooded back, so vivid, of sitting through the pathology lecture, held back from bolting only because then everyone would see him, everyone would
know
.

"Or there's laryngeal spasm," Kirkby said. "Sometimes —"

"That's enough," Lee said sharply.

"He asked," Kirkby said, sounding hurt.

"Get back to reception," she said.

He heard the hiss of the units closing, and then footsteps retreating. Toreth breathed deeply, trying to think about anything other than his roiling stomach.

A light touch on his shoulder was followed by Lee clearing her throat. "I'm sorry about that, Para."

After a final swallow, pushing down the nausea, Toreth turned round, forcing himself to meet her eyes. "Forget it. I'll need all your interrogation — interview — transcripts and I'll need to speak to the witnesses. Are they still here?"

Lee nodded. "We held the witnesses because of the flag on Yang's file. Do you want to do it now?"

"No, it'll wait until tomorrow," he said, and smiled slightly at her expression of relief. "I'd like to look through the transcripts now, in case there's anything I need to check right away, and then I'll send a couple of investigators round tomorrow morning — Investigator Stephen Lambrick will be in charge. They can . . . may they use your interview facilities? It'll save us both the transfer paperwork."

The change of phrase from a demand to a request didn't impress her. "Whatever you need, Para."

While she made the arrangements, Toreth called I&I and sent a forensic team along to the murder site. With luck, Justice wouldn't have done too much damage up there. The bodies could go to I&I — more business for O'Reilly.

He sat in Lee's small office — obviously shared with two other officers, but empty at this hour. The descriptions of the figure were infuriatingly vague, although four out of the six were positive it wasn't Jin Li Yang. Two said they saw reddish hair, one said dark, three didn't know. No one could agree on a height. All six were either drunk or had systems filled with assortments of drugs that raised even Toreth's eyebrows. Needless to say, there were no security cameras near the scene.

Toreth considered Yang's possessions as they lay spread out on the desk in their protective plastic sheaths: a hand screen yielding nothing on a quick inspection, ID and credit card. No indication Yang had expected trouble, nothing out of place at all. No gun, either. It could be lying at the bottom of the river — people were searching for it now. However, Toreth didn't expect them to find it.

No fucking
evidence
. Story of his life, at least on this case.

The end was always mercifully fast, the unrelenting grip pinning him, forcing his head down. The horror of the water flooding into his lungs and his body's desperate, involuntary reactions.

Choking and vomiting. Unconsciousness follows quickly.

Yes, it had. But not quickly enough to avoid leaving the memory, a seed for the nightmare.

Toreth woke at six-thirty am, jerking awake for the third time that night as the water-distorted noises in his ears faded into silence. He fought his way free of the tangled sheet and sat up, sweat stinging his eyes.

Supposedly, if you died in a dream, you died in the real world too, heart stopping in sympathy. Sara swore that it was true; Toreth knew it was bullshit. He'd drowned in dozens of dreams, and he always woke. Nauseous and with muscles aching from the phantom struggles, but he always woke.

Toreth took a deep breath, as his heart rate settled down. He was already starting to shiver in the cool air.

In the bathroom, it took him a minute before he could make himself step into the shower, and another two before he could put his face under the spray. He stood under the water, fighting down the rising panic until it was over, and the fear settled down. Back to normal again.

He'd expected to have the dream, although three in one night was bad. Fucking Kirkby's fault, Toreth thought sourly as he towelled himself dry. Without his little performance it would have been one — none, if he'd been lucky. If he had another tomorrow, that meant at least a week of them. Maybe even carrying on until the case closed and he could forget about Yang.

Unpleasant as the dreams were, Toreth was used to them. Knowing them, understanding their rhythm, gave him an illusion of control that he welcomed. It was the next best thing to never having another one in his life.

They'd come up once during his yearly psych evaluations. The division psychologist had seemed more interested in discussing them than suggesting any way of making them stop. He'd spent a long time talking about the symbolism of water and fear of death, until Toreth could barely breathe for the tightness in his throat. Eventually he'd told the psychologist that unless he shut the fuck up, Toreth would fetch a couple of friends and demonstrate just how fucking symbolic it felt to have your head held underwater until you drowned. No doubt the outburst had produced an interesting entry in his psych file, but at least it had brought the interview to an end.

He hadn't failed the evaluation, of course. It took a lot more than threats to kill for a para-investigator to fail an I&I psych assessment.

Toreth jogged in to work, and then spent an hour in the gym. No swimming, though, not just yet. Combined with the lack of sleep, the unaccustomed early-morning exercise left him tired, but at least it banished the leftover tension from the nightmares.

When he arrived at his office, Toreth found a message from Tillotson waiting for him. Sara gave him a sympathetic look and promised him a quadruple-strength coffee when he got back.

However, as soon as Toreth walked through the door, Tillotson offered him a cup of his own coffee, which was unusual enough to arouse instant suspicion. Still, he accepted gratefully — section heads received a far better grade of coffee than the lower ranks.

"You're sure it wasn't suicide?" Tillotson asked when Toreth had run through the events of the previous night.

"Positive. Can I — ?" Toreth waved the cup, and Tillotson nodded.

Toreth refilled his cup and sat down. "The SimTech man went in the river and someone left the scene in a hell of a hurry. And we didn't find a gun. Even if it had gone in the river the detectors should have found it. On the positive side, it does help the corporate sabotage angle. Rather than the sim killing them, I mean. It was an awfully real bullet in that indig."

Tillotson frowned, clearly irritated by having his pet theory mocked. "Any one of the indigs could have killed both of them."

"Justice are holding them for a few days — I can interrogate if you like. But if they did it, why call Justice? Why not — " Toreth set the refilled cup on the section head's desk, because he hated to let anyone see his hands shaking. "Why not just drop both bodies in the river? Odds are they wouldn't be found for weeks, if ever. And they all saw
someone
, even if they can't agree on the details."

And two of them said red hair. He thought about asking Tillotson where
he
was last night, but refrained. Deliberately inducing apoplexy in a section head was probably a disciplinary offence.

"Indigs aren't what I would call quality witnesses," Tillotson grumbled.

"They were clear enough about the order of events, though. A splash, then they saw someone standing there."

"I see." Tillotson nodded slowly. "It certainly puts a new spin on the investigation."

Toreth had expected Tillotson to be overjoyed at the prospect of getting a return on the time and euros invested so far. Worrying that he wasn't. However, Toreth hadn't had enough sleep to manage the steps to the political dance. "Do you want this whole thing buried? If you do, don't f —" He caught himself. "Just tell me."

"No. If it's corporate, with the Legislator dead it needs wrapping up ASAP." After a moment, Tillotson added, "But don't forget to follow up other possibilities."

"Sir?"

"If the sim killed Nissim and the others, then this could be an attempt to divert attention from that. There's a lot of money at stake. The killer might hope that if you have one corpse definitely not killed by the sim, you'll assume all the deaths are corporate sabotage."

And without my wise guidance, you'd be falling for it.

Yeah, right. Toreth bit his tongue and considered the idea, trying to take it on merit. Possible, he supposed, but hardly the first thing that sprang to mind. Certainly not a plan he could imagine any of the SimTech directors devising.

"It's a theory, sir," he said politely.

"Hmm. In any case, keep the whole thing as quiet as you can — no one outside the division hears about it. If it's a cover-up or corporate, better not to let whoever's behind it know what the witnesses saw."

"Thanks for the suggestion, sir — I hadn't thought of that."

Tillotson looked at him sharply, but didn't pursue it. "Do you have any leads on the mystery figure?"

If he were less tired, he would've been able to come up with something vaguely positive. "Not really."

"Then why are you sitting around here?"

Back in his own office, Toreth called Mistry, whom he'd sent in search of the other redhead in the case.

From the grey and blue decor of the office behind her, Mistry was at SimTech. "Have you spoken to Tara Scrivin yet?" he asked. "Where the hell was she last night?"

"At home in bed, Para." Mistry sounded apologetic. "Building security confirms that she was in the building — it is a student building, though, and there are plenty of potential unofficial exits. However, she was sedated — she was still a little groggy when I spoke to her this morning."

"Who sedated her?"

"Dr Tanit. She went to see her yesterday evening at home, and she visited again this morning. She arrived while I was interviewing Tara. I've spoken to her too, Para — I thought you'd want me to."

He nodded.

"Tanit said —" She glanced down. "Scrivin was distressed and panicky as a result of the interrogation. Parsons upset her."

"It's his job. When was this relative to the time of the murder?"

"Dr Tanit left about twenty-thirty." A bare fifteen minutes before the indig disturbed a killer by the river. "She called a taxi at Tara's and went straight home — that's confirmed by the taxi record and the surveillance at Tanit's home. She offered to stay the night, but Tara apparently didn't want her to, so Dr Tanit put her to bed and left."

"How's Tara now?"

Mistry considered. "Badly upset by the news — she liked the victim. He volunteered for her trials, I think — I'm at SimTech to check that. She was virtually incoherent in places. It took me a long time to get the story out of her, and not because of the doping. When I left, Dr Tanit was talking to her about the hospital — the psych ward she was in before. Sounded to me like they'd discussed it last night as well. She was trying to talk the girl into a voluntary admission, and in my judgement, she'll probably manage it."

Funded by SimTech's generosity again, no doubt. "Thanks. Let me know if Tara goes anywhere."

Toreth cut the connection and went over to the window to think.

On the face of it, the idea was ridiculous — Yang wasn't a large man, but Tara was tiny. How could she have thrown him into the river? Still, if he'd been drunk . . .

A glass or two, Kirkby had said, which was probably not enough.

Then there was the indig. Difficult enough to imagine Tara killing Yang — calmly dealing with an unexpected interruption and killing Tracker seemed even more improbable. Where would she have got hold of the gun? Not a trivial thing, even with connections he couldn't see her having.

Fifteen minutes might be long enough to get from Tara's room to the river — he'd send an investigator to run it and check out cameras on the route. The alternative was that Tanit was covering for her. Would she do that?

Toreth called up everything he had on the two women. When he examined Marian Tanit's files, he found three he didn't recognise: one was a moderately impressive list of her published papers, the other two were both lists of the papers citing her work. Sara had found time to fulfil his citation search request in the midst of all the excitement. He flicked through them, then stopped and went back, comparing the duplicate citation documents more closely. Then he called Sara into his office.