The Iron Swamp (4 page)

I nodded. Delay had been a mistake.

A fresh gust blew in the fluffy white seeds of an absalia tree across the stones, some coming to rest in the desiccating puddle soaking up the red like buds of cotton wool. "There's probably more pollen in here now than blood," Rake said. "Why didn't they tell us it was an outdoor crime scene?"

"
Murdered in his bedroom
was misleading," I agreed. For all I knew it was deliberate; the result of some private rivalry between Vins and the Commissioner. "Ok then, Philip, what do we think happened here?"

He shrugged. "Someone sneaks in through the gardens, blows a hole in the wall, murders him, and sneaks back out the same way."

"And the note? And the chair?"

"What of them?"

I walked around Kenrey, examining him from all angles. "The instant that explosion happens, all the guards would be rushing in here with their fingers jittering on their triggers."

"So?"

"Would you take the time to sit him on a chair and pin a note to him?"

Rake squatted in front of Kenrey as if the answer lay in his dead eyes. "Depends how much I hated him."

It was possible, but it made no sense. Jamming a pre-written note on his back where he fell could be explained by hatred, but then why sit him on a chair? It seemed more likely that the explosion was used to get out after the murder, allowing the killer to sit Kenrey on the chair and pin the note to him in relative safety. Otherwise, they would never have gotten past the guards.

The debris was inside the room, but if the windows opened the bomb could have been dropped through. They could also have used them to get in, but they were high and narrow, not large enough for a full grown man. Also, if someone could use the windows to get in, they could also use them to get out, making the hole unnecessary.

"Assuming it was a human," I said, "More likely to be a man. Few women would manage hoisting him up like that."

Rake prodded at Kenrey's open throat with a glass rod. "Unless it was one of those butch lezzers from the bus."

I made no comment, hoping it was a joke. Otherwise, he had warped those girls in his head to a degree inconsistent with mental health.

"Perhaps we should get statements from the staff," he said, "and leave this place to the hoovers."

There were two exits before someone had exploded the outer wall. According to my map, the left one went straight to the church. The snug fit of the windowless metal slab gave the impression of a bank vault, with locks running from floor to ceiling and no handle. A less accessible door did not exist outside Cythuria itself, so it seemed unlikely that the killer came that way.

We left using the other door opposite the hole. Rake stopped suddenly in front of me, and I bashed into his leg, my face coming discomfortingly close to bouncing off his buttock cheek. In front of us was another body that no one – not Vins, nor Benrick, not even the transcript of the emergency call I read on the journey – had even mentioned.

Chapter 3

"Something else Vins forgot to tell us," Rake said, staring at the guard a few mets down the corridor. Like Kenrey, his throat was cut with little sign of resistance. The only blood was on his hands where he'd clutched his throat as he died.

The book he was reading was thrown on the floor, presumably in his rush to get to Kenrey. The question was how the killer managed to kill a man wielding a gun by using only a knife.

I knelt over the body examining it more closely. "He's not close enough to the door."

"Let the fracker die wherever he wants," Rake said.

"I mean if the killer came through that door, then why from his current position didn't the guard have time to shoot him?"

He shrugged. Rake had mastered expressing indifference in the basement listening to old men talk about their house conversions and fishing trips. Much to the dismay of many, fishing was the Kaeroshi national pastime. We had network shows, national competitions, leagues, even hard copy magazines. "Probably staggered back a bit once the guy cut his throat," he said finally.

It was possible, but there was no blood on the floor near the door, and his gun lay close to his body, meaning that if he did stagger, he was still holding his gun for most of it, and his blood should have dripped to the floor.

"Perhaps we should ask if there are any other dead men about the place," I said.

Round the corner was the guard station. Other than the hole in the wall, the windows, and the locked entry from the church, this appeared to be the only way in. A small room, no larger than a myuki's living quarters, it was as if someone was trying to break a record for the number of heavily armed individuals in a confined space. The stench of body odor was so strong it was like an entirely new smell. There were about 30 guards in this room alone, all protecting a single man, and somehow someone had managed to blow a hole in the wall, kill him, and escape.

Some sat alone cleaning their weapons or staring into the sea of navy uniforms, while others huddled in groups chatting loudly. No one even seemed to notice we were there. Shrill voices and rapid facial movement suggested fraught nerves. Loud, awkward laughter would erupt from pockets of the navy sea like saucepans bubbling over. Kenrey was dead, and they could do nothing but pray that Clazran's wroth fell on someone else.

Too short to assess the layout of the room over all the people, I walked around with Rake in tow. Each corner of the room contained an armored security camera rotating back and forth so that not a single cim was unobserved at any one time. A long red rug ran from door to door, with guard posts on either side like a series of toll booths. The gun turret positioned at the far wall looked fit to bring down an army of degodiles. It seemed impossible that anyone could have got through here without being reduced to steaming flesh.

Some while back, two von yus quilla avoided pressure alarms on the floor of a branch of the Bank of Gys using anti-grav suits to slither along the ceiling. These were the tiny cousins of the three met long mainland variety atop Kenrey's gate, inhabiting the barren outcrops to the north of Vas Bes. Dwarf quilla they were sometimes called, kindred to myself in that respect, but even they would surely have been observed coming through the doorway in full view of all the guards.

"Who do you want to talk to first?" Rake said.

"Cythuria knows. That one." I pointed at a man sitting alone polishing his assault rifle with what looked like a handkerchief. As we approached, I smiled at him with as much friendliness as I could muster. "I didn't know people still used those."

"What?" He stuck the rag through one of the metal rings on the top of his gun.

"Your handkerchief, why do you carry one?"

My attempt at light conversation failed. The man sat up straight so we were eye to eye. "Who wants to know?"

Rake stepped between us, forcing him to lean away. "We do, and your lack of cooperation is being noted."

I patted Rake on the side, still looking at the guard. "I apologize if I offended you. I only meant that since we eliminated the cold viruses, I wasn't sure why you needed it. If it's alright with you, we would like to ask you a few less personal questions?"

His eyes stuck to Rake as he answered. "My mother gave it me. I just use it for cleaning things is all."

I nodded. "And can you tell us what happened here last night?"

"Not really." His tone passed from belligerence to uncertainty, as if he didn't understand the question. "No one knows. One minute it's just the same old boring everyday stuff, and then there are alarms and explosions going off all over the place, and everyone is running around like we're at war. Huxley got shot. Tiresh and Gosler were both knocked unconscious. I've never seen anything like it."

"Are they alive?" I asked.

He nodded. "Huxley's not doing well."

I didn't have time to console him, and Rake wouldn't allow it if I did. "And what about before the alarms and the explosions, walk me through the boring stuff. Were you in the station the whole time?"

His head fell forward. "No one came through here, not unless they were invisible."

"So what did happen?" Rake said.

The guard's posture stiffened, daring us to push him further. "I'm not authorized to share that information with you."

I put a hand on Rake's arm to stop the outburst of abuse that was moments away. "I know you're tired. We're all tired, but right now you're obstructing justice. Someone else around here is going to tell us what happened, and that leaves you one nil down and unable to recover."

"Nothing happened last night," he said again.

I ushered Rake to remain silent. "We don't want a fight. I'm sure you did everything you were instructed last night. Whoever planned this knew what they were doing. But Clazran won't see it like that. As far as he's concerned, you failed to protect a Guardian, and that doesn't bode well for anyone." I offered him a sympathetic smile. "You have a family, soldier?"

"A wife."

I nodded sympathetically. "If we don't find the killer soon, you'll find yourself relocated to some backwater station in the Gargantua or the Drys where she wouldn't want to follow you if she could."

The blood retreated from his skin. For a moment longer he was silent, but as he swallowed, a melon sunk down his throat. "Kenrey liked little girls," he said, as if he was forcing the words past a barrier. "There was one with him last night when he was killed. He orders them from somewhere, and they come through here all dressed up in hoods and cloaks so that they look like piles of laundry.

He looked suddenly on the verge of tears, as if a chronic wound had finally healed. "Because we're not supposed to know how young they are. Some of the younger ones come in wearing high heels, but they're all blind as burrow lizards so you can always tell if they've been made to look bigger because they stumble all over the place." His voice was a low whisper, and his eyes darted from guard to guard. "This was one of those. She's upstairs now, little tiny thing, probably hasn't stopped crying since it happened."

Rake looked as if someone had shown him a picture of his own corpse. Before I could exhale, his fists wrapped around the guard's neck as if controlled independently from his body. "You're telling me you let that steaming pile of–"

"Philip!" I shouted over his confessions of hatred, wrestling his hands away before he said or did something that not even his father could save him from. It took all my weight before he loosened his grip, but even then I would have failed if his senses had not returned to him.

The guard stood, squaring up to Rake as the room went quiet, all eyes turning our way. "Why don't you finish that sentence?" he said, a tired smile conquering his fear.

"Detectives Nidess and Rake, I presume?"

I turned to see two men covered head to toe in black, averting my eyes from the hooded faces of the special police. Both men wore mist goggles, covering their eyes with dark circles despite being inside. The saber-tooth silhouette above the heart and black gloves that molded perfectly over their hands like liquid plastic made them look like something out of one of my comic books, but these shadows were real and could kill with impunity.

"Would you come with us?"

We followed the two men in silence back out into the gardens, the odor of sweat and fear evaporating like a bad dream as we walked back around Kenrey's room into the church at the center of the compound. Two towers at each end of a long arched roof, it had the same uniqueness as all places of worship, and none of the repulsive gargoyles that decorated the outer gates.

Like Kenrey's room, it was unexpectedly humble. There were no gold statues or huge paintings. The dais was made of white stone instead of marble, and the rows of seats were old plastic covered in scratches. They led us down the aisle like a couple of monks silently worshiping a malevolent deity, and ushered us into a room at one side. Both men removed their hoods, though it made little difference to me as my stature allowed me to see them clearly already. The taller man had dark hair and a thick layer of stubble on the cusp of beard length, while the other man was clean shaved, blond and tidy looking.

"I'm agent Reens, this is agent Sina," said the dark haired man, "take a seat."

We sat down on old benches positioned at right angles, leaning against the far walls. "What did the guard tell you?" asked Reens.

Rake answered through gritted teeth, before I could claim ignorance. "He said Kenrey likes little girls, and there was one with him when he died."

Sina nodded. "We were just discussing whether you needed to know, but I suppose that is irrelevant now."

Reens looked at his partner. "We had decided they didn't."

"If we are going to be any use at all," I said, "there is not a single thing we don't need to know."

Sina nodded again, as if humoring a child. "Would you like to talk to the girl?"

"At some point, but if you could fill us in on anything else we might have trouble extracting from the guards, that would be useful."

Sina was about to reply when Reens interrupted, "Your presence here is merely a jurisdictional formality. This case will be solved by the SP, not the Las Hek PD, but as that idiot has already told you about the girls, you'll have to sign an official secrets document. Once you have done that you might as well see the security footage. Other than Kenrey's bedroom and the little passage leading to the guard station, this whole place is under constant surveillance. The answer is probably in there somewhere."

The idea of official documents protecting pedophiles was not a happy one, but neither was it surprising. To me, the revelation was equivalent to someone turning on a desk lamp in a solarium, but Rake was a different matter. He didn't have a short man's practice at internalizing his emotions and was on the edge of a second outburst.

"We'll sign whatever you want," I said, "and we must see the recordings, but first we should speak to the girl."

Reens tapped his tablet until both mine and Rake's bleeped. "Sign these," he said. "And if you tell anyone about the girls you'll suffer the same fate as the one who told you."