The Iron Swamp (19 page)

"Did you like Archbishon Kenrey?"

"He was a bad man."

"Because he liked little girls?"

Hobb said nothing, still staring at the ceiling,

"I agree, Jacob. He was a very bad man, and whoever killed him did everyone a favor. I would like to reward them."

"People like Kenrey are the ones gettin' rewards."

"Not by me."

He shook his head. "You want to put Kenrey's killer away. That means you're on Kenrey's side. You're a bad man too."

I smiled at him sadly, wondering how many people shared his simple philosophy. He was regurgitating someone else's opinion just like the little girl Kathryn. "Do you know who killed Kenrey, Jacob?"

"I don't know."

"Was it someone who worked here?"

"I don't know." His knees knocked together as if he'd lost control of them. "I know these people though," he said, his voice hoarse, "None of ʽem killers."

I felt dull nausea hearing him defend all the people ready to throw him in front of a slider. "But you said Kenrey was a bad man, so wouldn't killing him be a good thing?"

"Two wrongs don't make a right."

I nodded. I thought that way once. Life was a lot simpler when ethics arbitrarily precluded certain behaviors under any circumstance, but it was that philosophy that allowed people like Clazran into power. He murdered all the peaceful protesters and softer rivals unwilling to go to the same lengths. People like Clazran and Kenrey not only deserved to die but needed to, and that meant someone had to kill them. Though that did not mean I approved of Welker's or Kenrey's murder. These acts were not committed with the intent of making The Kaerosh a better place but through hate, and they did little good to anyone.

I was not getting as far as I wanted, but still I hesitated before I went further. Hobb might snap if I pushed too hard. For all his strength and beauty, he had a child's mind, and his discomfort was already apparent.

Motivated by the release of Sariah, I said, "Most of those people think you did it, or at least that's what they told me."

Hobb was silent, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "You're a bad man."

"I'm not, Jacob, I promise. I just want to know who killed Kenrey. I don't want to hurt them."

"You're a liar. I want to leave now."

"That's alright, we're nearly done. I just need you to give me a name. I know you know who the killer is."

"No!" He screamed the word at me, throwing himself out of the chair as he dissolved into floods of tears.

I was pinned to my seat by the force of his outburst, shocked even though I knew it was a possibility. I'd gone too far. "OK thank you, Jacob, you can go now." Suddenly I was worried what he might do to me if he felt trapped.

Hobb ran out as if I were chasing him. He knew who the killer was, which meant more than likely it was someone who worked in the compound. They had to be thin enough to climb through the window, which sadly ruled out Mrs. Jason, and strong enough to put Kenrey on the chair, which ruled out most of the girls Kenrey liked to employ.

The girl, Kathryn, had to be present the whole time and then lie to me about the sequence of events, but possibly she just did that out of gratitude to the murderer of her rapist. She sat quietly while he killed the guard, put Kenrey on a chair, and blew a hole in the wall. Notably, the explosion came from outside blowing the wall inward, but the bomb could have been dropped through the window to look like it was done to get in. Then the killer probably escaped through the hole. They could go back through the window, but they needed the hole in order to frame Peti, whose means of entrance as a three met long snake as thick as a tree trunk might otherwise be questioned. The beauty of the killer being a member of staff was that they could just return to their duties and wouldn't need to get back over the wall.

How did they hide their clothes? After all the stabbing and slicing they would be covered in blood, yet thirty to forty sweepers going over the entire compound found nothing.

There was no one else waiting to be interviewed, so I walked back to the guard station and found the new Guard Captain talking to a group of guards. He took one glance round as I entered and returned to his conversation. They sounded like kids discussing the latest craze, and from the few words I glimpsed, the topic was clearly Liegon's mech rights protest. Something bad must have happened to trigger such excited babble, sparking my own curiosity, but I didn't have time for that now. I thought for a moment Lesgech might ignore me, but as I approached he cut another man off mid-sentence, excusing himself as he walked over.

"I hear you have been making the staff cry," he said. "You're arresting two of them and stealing a third to work for you." He smiled. "I think Mrs. Jason made a mistake when she said you were weak."

I had no response to that. "Were the staff checked the night of the murder for weapons or blood on their clothes?"

"There was nothing."

"How thoroughly?"

He paused with the slow consideration of a man tired of repeating himself. "Not up their ass holes, but pretty much everywhere else." He turned to receive a few forced laughs from the men.

"And you checked their clothes for traces of blood?"

"We did detective, and there was nothing."

"What about the guards?"

His neck tightened, surfacing a huge blue vein that ran straight up. "No, but I can assure you that none of them would do a thing like this. They are professionals to the last."

I sighed. If people would stop assuming they knew what they were doing, my job would be so much easier. "I need a full list of staff
and guards
, showing whether or not they were present the day of the murder and the previous day." I might even get lucky and find that someone's DNA was in the room who was absent on both days.

He gestured me to follow him outside. The multitude of colors and varieties of plants had not gone stale. There was something inspiring about Kenrey's garden even in the cold, gray air so thick it was almost fog. As we walked past a bright pink bush with reddish bark and cream roots, I found myself hoping that the new owner would not let it die.

"So you think it was someone in the compound?" he said, once we were a paranoid person's distance from the guard station.

"I am pursuing other lines of inquiry, but it is a possibility."

"And you don't think it's the retard?"

So he was behind the attempt to frame Hobb. "No, it wasn't Jacob. Do you agree that no one from the outside would have made it over the walls and back?"

"Not a chance. We've been over every last click of footage which covers nearly the entire stretch. What limited areas remain are in plain view. Someone would have seen him leave after the alarm if not before."

"And you don't think it strange that we never found the murder weapon, if the murderer didn't escape with it?"

He shook his head. "This place has more hiding places than a smuggler's depot."

"Thank you, Captain. I would be grateful if you sent me the staff lists shortly." I considered completing the rest of the interviews, but I could trust little of what they said now; it was too late. They had all been prepped with lies. My conversations with Flias, Jason, and Hobb had left me exhausted, and my questions would be better informed once I had considered my new outlook properly. "I'll take the girls I'm arresting now, and the one who wants to come."

"You know," he said, "I could insist that she complete a period of notice." He paused, holding my gaze as if we were in contest. "But I think you aren't a man I want to get on the wrong side of."

I nodded. Most people found it easier to ignore me completely. "On that subject, I don't want to see any more staff blaming each other, especially ganging up on a single member. I will decide who the murderer is, not anyone around here. I've already proved my commitment to honesty, but if I get another whiff of conspiracy, no one here will like the consequences."

He nodded sternly, and our meeting was over.

By the time I reached the front gate the three women were already there waiting for me. Nadine and the other one were both puffy eyed, looking at me as if I were about to pounce on them and rip them to pieces. Becky was smiling.

I shouldn't have offered her a job. That was obvious. I barely knew her. She could be useless, and I wouldn't be able to fire her because I made her quit the kitchens. For all I knew, she could be the killer. She was there on the day, she could fit through the window, and she might be able to lift Kenrey. She was one of the few people who fit the profile entirely!

I would have to put off hiring her officially until after I solved the case, which meant that until then I would be paying her myself. Worse, I would have to watch exactly what evidence she was exposed to. She could hear nothing that would allow her to correct any mistakes or remove evidence of her guilt.

Professionally, the decision was my worst nightmare, but still I couldn't help but be glad she accepted the post.

I checked my messages as the girls got in the back. The press were unrelenting. Lelia Hoskin had continued to contact me from several new unblocked accounts, and several other names had adopted a similar zeal. Of those, my eyes flicked to a single message.

I know what you did for Sariah Keeson.

Chapter 12

There were only a few people who knew what I did for Sariah, and despite his claim, Wesley Pressen was not one of them. In school, he wasn't one of the kids that used to pick on me, at least no more than anyone else, but neither was he a friend. Of all the memories I had of him there was one occasion that suggested he was not a man I wanted knowing my secrets. It was a maths class when Mr. Cole confiscated his lunch after turning just in time to see him fire a pea through a spit gun. Pressen's solution to going hungry was to wait until recess, break into the classroom, and instead of taking back the lunch box, he smeared bits of sandwich and chocolate bar all over the walls until the place looked like an asylum.

Pressen was both relentless and unforgiving. The message didn't state whether he was a journalist or just looking to blackmail me, but either way I was in trouble.

I tried to formulate a plan of action, but it was difficult to concentrate with the amount of crying coming from behind me. The two girls wailed about how Mrs. Jason forced them to say it, then a few minutes later their story changed, and they really did think Hobb was responsible, and then just as quickly it went back again.

I didn't have the time for Pressen's threats at the moment. The message was just a statement, so I put it out of my mind until it was accompanied by evidence or demands. It might just be an attempt to get an interview. Maybe he didn't know anything. I stopped the slider in front of the station, intent on putting him out of my mind.

No one in the history of walking has ever moved so slowly as Nadine and the other one entering the station. Each step brought them barely any closer than the previous one. At one point, they broke down and slumped on each other's shoulders in a small arch, spraying tears like a fountain. I left them to it, and Becky followed me through the rotating steel-glass doors of the station to the front desk.

"I've got two people behind me under arrest."

The guy was mid-fifties with thinning hair closer to white than gray. "Looks like just the one to me."

"Not her, the other two are coming. They're just moving slowly."

The man nodded. "Difficult ones, eh? Your partner having to calm ʽem down?"

I smiled at Becky. "No, they're just slow is all. I thought I'd get a start on the paperwork."

He narrowed an eye as he hit the keys on his network screen. "OK, you should have the form on your tablet now."

As I finished filling in Nadine's form, the two girls emerged through the rotating door. I gestured them over, and they began the second journey to the front desk. "What's the other one's name?" I asked Becky.

"Dunno."

I couldn't help but look incredulous. "How can you not know? You work with her."

"What's his name?" She pointed to the guy on the desk.

I was just about to accept her point when the man said his name was Bernard, allowing me to change my own answer to, "I was just about to say that."

"You see what's been happening at that protest?" Bernard said, with the interest of a man deprived of conversation.

"No."

"Several people injured already. One dead so I hear. In some of the poorer districts there have been riots, and the police have lost control. They're calling in the military."

They should have done that from the start, but doubtless the Commissioner in Volis wanted to show how tough and capable his police were.

"They reckon there are over three million mechs in Volis right now, many of them from outside The Kaerosh."

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that.
Three million
. "The city must be overflowing."

Bernard nodded. "It is. The faithful have been swamped. I watched a clip of a mech punching a man wearing a nose filter, forcing him to take several breaths of the gypsum fungus."

It was unbelievable that Liegon had not predicted this. It was more likely that this was her intention all along. She wanted the mechs to show their strength. She wanted Cos to fear them again as it had done in the wake of the Caraski Rebellion. If that were true, then the events of the day were a resounding success.

"What you arresting these two for anyway," Bernard said as the two girls approached the desk, "risk of flooding?" He chuckled at his own joke.

"Careful Bernard," I said, "these two are hardened criminals. Not ones to be underestimated." The accusation started a fresh round of tears and collapsing on each other until Bernard finished collecting their data from their tablets. They were both taken away while making longing looks towards the exit. Once they were out of ear shot, I added, "Don't put them in with anyone likely to do them any harm."

Bernard winked at me. "Gotcha."

I wasn't overly fussed what happened to them after meeting the man they said they believed committed the crime. It did not take a great deal of thought to see that Hobb wasn't capable of it. Not that he wasn't capable of killing someone. The way he jumped out of his chair and screamed at me suggested that it would not be difficult to push him into a murderous frenzy, but it would be an act of panic. Hobb would be found covered in blood, still holding the knife, and probably crying over Kenrey's body. It would not be the pre-meditated brain teaser that I was now trying to solve. Hobb was implicated because he was least able to defend himself, and I disdained that.