The Administration Series (45 page)

Not a good line of conversation. "It keeps things running smoothly. Saves a lot of messy, expensive trials and keeps a lot of nasty secrets. Like this one."

"Doesn't it seem wrong to you?" Warrick didn't wait for an answer before he shook his head again. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

"Not really." Toreth picked up one of the coffees. "Do you want sugar?" When Warrick declined, Toreth passed him the mug and had a sip from his own while he organised his thoughts. "Right, let's get on with it."

It took them an hour to go through every file, every change Warrick had made to the system, until Toreth was convinced there was nothing there that might cause Internal Investigations a moment's doubt. For one thing, he wanted to be sure there would be no need to ask Warrick to come back in. Although, oddly enough, he wasn't that worried — the panic had clearly passed, and Warrick was enough of a control freak not to let things slip again.

Nevertheless, as Warrick was leaving, Toreth stopped him at the door and put his hands on his shoulders, feeling Warrick tense.

"Everything's going to be fine. Say goodbye to Sara on the way past, walk out of here, and go home. If anyone asks what's wrong, remember it's fine to tell them that Marian died, as long as you don't say anything more than 'under interrogation'. That's reason enough to be upset. Everything's going to be okay. Okay?"

Warrick nodded.

"Good. Go on."

Then, as Warrick hesitated, hand on the door, Toreth added, "I'll be in touch."

Warrick opened the door without answering, and walked steadily away across the office.

First thing Monday morning, after an unexpectedly restful night, Toreth dropped a note to Tillotson explaining the weekend events and started the paperwork. Sara handled the negotiations with Justice while Toreth tidied up as many loose ends as he could, and prepared the case for submission to the Justice Department's evidence analysis system.

That computer system would proclaim the final guilt or innocence of the prisoner, although acquittals were rare enough that they counted as a black mark in the file of the para directing the case. Toreth was relieved — and almost surprised — that he found no fatal flaw in the case.

It was half past three when the call from Jenny finally came, summoning him to Tillotson's office. A long time for an important case. Toreth wondered whether Tillotson had spent the day talking to people, and if so, who.

Tillotson kept him waiting outside for almost ten minutes before he called him in. When Toreth walked into the office, the shock almost stopped him dead.

Tillotson sat behind his desk, with a pot of coffee and two cups on a tray. Behind him, back to the window, stood a man, his features made indistinct by the bright sunlight behind him. The one clear detail was his hair, a bright ginger. Toreth's stomach knotted — was it the same man he'd seen coming out of Tillotson's office on the first day of the investigation?

Fuck. If Internal Investigations was here . . . but if they'd been found out, surely he'd have been arrested — or worse — by now? They'd told Sara they were processing the prisoner's death. What the hell had gone wrong since yesterday?

He crossed the room to the section head's desk and stood with his hands behind him, as casual as he could manage to appear. The stranger said nothing, and Tillotson didn't introduce him. In fact, for all the attention Tillotson paid either of them, he might as well have been alone in his office.

While Tillotson read something on the screen in front of him, then read it through again, Toreth stood and tried not to fidget. He could glean nothing useful from Tillotson, who seemed absorbed by the screen, frowning slightly. An occasional glance towards the window — not being curious would be more suspicious — revealed nothing either.

Eventually the section head looked up. "Is this transcript accurate?" As an apparent afterthought he added, "Sit down."

Toreth took the indicated seat. "Of course it is — Sara checked it. It's authorised and ready to go to Justice, with your approval. Have a look at the session recording if you want to check."

Tillotson grimaced. "No, thank you."

"Is there a problem, sir?" Toreth glanced at the interloper.

"A problem?" Tillotson shook his head slowly. "Not insofar as it goes, no. But that isn't far enough. The motive is very thin and there are a lot of questions . . . I'm disappointed with this result, Toreth. The deaths were high profile. A solid result would have been good for the section, as well as for you."

"She did it. I'm absolutely convinced she did; the confession's good and all the evidence backs it. It has to be corporate — someone supplied her with the toxin and the interrogation resistance drugs. If you want my opinion, odds are it's tied into LiveCorp somehow. P-Leisure is the biggest sponsor of SimTech, and Teffera was the biggest corporate target. But it was all arranged through third parties and anonymous messaging, so she didn't know any names. I'd say get Justice to wrap it guilty, corporate sabotage. If it were up to me, that is."

Tillotson continued to stare at the screen, flicking his thumbnail against his front teeth.

"I can keep the case open, of course," Toreth added. "You never know — something might turn up to show who was behind her."

Finally, the man by the window moved, a single step into the room, which attracted attention although it didn't show much more of his face.

"I have some questions, if I may?" he said, in the same voice Toreth had heard in Tillotson's office before. The last thin thread of hope that he might not be in deep shit snapped.

Toreth looked at Tillotson. "Sir?" he asked softly.

"Go ahead."

"Who — "

"Just answer the damn questions, Toreth."

Fuck. He settled back in the seat, crossed his legs, and looked over at the stranger. "What do you want to know?"

He knew he must sound wary, but that was hardly grounds for suspicion — anyone would under these circumstances.

As far as he could tell against the light, the man smiled. "This confession is not quite what some people would have expected."

"If you've got some additional information, of course I'd be interested."

"I'm afraid that it isn't quite that simple. We have information, but not evidence. That information makes the details of the confession . . . surprising."

Now he ought to ask what the surprise was, and the conversation would grow more detailed and trickier until Toreth said something to give the whole game away. Not the way to play.

Instead, he sighed. "Okay, who the hell are you?"

There was a pause, and the man said, "I beg your pardon?"

"If you're going to stand there and tell me I can't do my job, then I want to know what your job is."

Tillotson started to say something, but the man cut him off. "It's a fair question. My name is Alan Howes. I work in the Research Section of the Psychoprogramming Division."

A punch in the face couldn't have stunned him more.

The man offered an ID badge, and Toreth took it, seeing nothing beyond the picture. Ginger hair.

Once the first shock faded, he wondered how he could have missed it. Ginger hair — the one-line description he'd told Warrick was useless. Marian Tanit's Mindfuck contact.

He wasn't any less fucked, though. If Psychoprogramming had found another way of getting at SimTech and wanted his cooperation, that was almost as bad as being caught. Tanit's murder and the wiping of the files had tied him to Warrick, for good or bad, and Warrick wouldn't go down without a fight. Toreth would go down with him.

At least he'd had one piece of luck. He hadn't gone to Tillotson when Tanit had spilled the beans. If he had, he might be dead already.

He returned the ID, hoping that whatever reaction had shown on his face could be put down to reasonable surprise. "Mindfuck? What's your interest?"

The nickname was always a reliable irritant, and Howes frowned. "The reason for our involvement isn't relevant, although one part of it is that Marian Tanit trained at the forerunner to the PD."

"I know — someone had it wiped from her security file."

Silence.

"I understand why you had it scrubbed." The mindfucker tensed, then relaxed as Toreth continued. "Bit of an embarrassment to the division. But the odd one can always slip through psych screening. If it's a question of that not coming out, I could redo the Justice submissions to — "

"No," Howes interrupted. "Our concern lies in the process of investigation and particularly interrogation."

"I've got IIPs that tell you in long and tedious detail why I arrested Tanit in the first place. Everything that happened in that interrogation room is recorded."

"I'm aware of that."

"So you think I did . . . what? Tampered with the files somehow?"

The following silence was far too thoughtful for Toreth's liking, and in the end Howes didn't answer the question. "We are satisfied that her guilt is not in question. Only her motives."

"I did everything I could. I even brought Doctor Warrick in to review the transcripts. He couldn't find anything to suggest she knew who the backers were — it's all in the file. She had nothing left to give; I'd stake my career on that."

That drew a brief, cold smile from Howes. "No doubt. But the anomalies remain to be explained and we hoped that you might be able to do so."

"Then you'll have to tell me what those anomalies are, because I can't see them. It's a solid, legit result. If you don't like that, then I'm afraid it's way too late to change it."

Another thoughtful stare. "Yes, indeed it seems to be. From the point of view of discovering the truth, the death of the prisoner is unfortunate."

"She was annexed on a level eight waiver that
I
didn't even ask for. If that was a fuckup, it was Justice's, not mine." Toreth stood up. "I don't have anything else to tell you that isn't already in a file, except that I'm not carrying the can for someone else's cockup. If you promised some corporate a nice result, that's not my problem."

"Toreth, sit down and — " Tillotson began.

"I don't object to finding what I'm supposed to find, but
I'm
not a fucking mind-reader."

"Toreth, that is
enough
." Tillotson was crimson.

For once Tillotson was probably right, so Toreth sat, muttering, "Well, for Christ's sake."

Howes stood in silence for a moment, arms folded, fingers tapping, and then said, "Now, Senior, I'm going to ask you directly, once more. Do you know anything about Marian Tanit's motives that you haven't included in the investigation report?"

"Everything's in the files."

"And is there anything else about the conduct of the case that might show up unfavourably in an Internal Investigation enquiry?"

Toreth suppressed a snort. Raising the spectre of Internal Investigations didn't frighten him. They wouldn't dare bring them in, not when the pair of them had been responsible for Nissim's death. "No. Nothing at all."

"That is you final answer?"

"Yes." Toreth couldn't quite hide a smirk. They had nothing on him. He was home, free and clear.

"A pity. There is one more matter . . ." Howes took a step back, yielding the field to Tillotson. Playing slimy cop, weaselly cop.

Tillotson frowned at his screen. "There has been a suggestion of, ah, professional misconduct. That you have been personally involved with a witness — a suspect — without declaring it."

Ice water drenched his spine. Oh, fuck. Oh,
fuck
. After a moment he realised that his mouth was open.

Just as he managed to close it, Tillotson looked up. "Do you deny it?"

"Of course I fucking deny it!"

Tillotson shook his head. "I have evidence. A member of your team is willing to give a statement to the effect that he saw you having numerous personal conversations with the suspect in question. And witnessed at least one instance of intimate contact."

Belqola, no doubt, which explained the lack of a knock on his office door yesterday. The devious, spying little fuck.

"He's lying," Toreth said, without much hope.

Howes shrugged. "Immaterial. The evidence is sufficient for a charge of gross misconduct, to throw the evidence from the case into doubt, and also sufficient for Internal Investigation to obtain a damage waiver for your interrogation." He smiled for the first time. "After, that is, you have visited 'Mindfuck'."

Thank God he'd followed Tillotson's order and sat down. Howes was still speaking, but Toreth couldn't hear him, the words lost in a vision of the future. His future. It would be a whitewash. First he'd tell them the truth, give them Warrick and everything else, and then after that he'd say whatever they wanted him to say. Mindfuck could make sure of that. Then, finally, they'd annex him.

Tillotson looked round at Howes, who nodded and said, "Your section head has already asked me to give you one last chance to make a full confession, before you're formally arrested."

Toreth glanced at Tillotson, who coughed. "I don't want to have to do this to you, Toreth. Not just because of the embarrassment to the section and the division. We've worked together for a long time, and — " A tiny gesture from Howes, and he stopped.