The Iron Swamp (27 page)

It didn't change anything. Trust had never been a part of my relationships, because I never trusted the only person who had ever been close to me. Whatever assurances my mother offered me, I knew that one day she would abandon me as Sam had done. When, at 16 cycles, she proved me right the few childish truths I held about Cos were gone. Something in me had broken, and Becky was too like my mother to allow it to fix.

With my mother, her dishonesty was intrinsic to her promise; the certainty that despite what she said, she would eventually betray me, disappearing from my life without saying goodbye. With Becky, it was different. I knew that it was my deficiencies prohibiting trust. I did not truly believe she could be Kenrey's killer, but I had been betrayed before, and it hurt less when I was expecting it.

When it was clear I had no response for her, she took a long look at the gray swirl filling the sky like a polluted tornado. "I think you might be the cleverest man I've ever met, but you have such comfortableness with lies and disdain for trust that I never know where I stand with you." She met my gaze again. "You need me in this plan of yours?"

I shook my head. The plan I could do without her. I couldn't say it, but it was what came after that I needed her for. "You could inform Hayson that it was Sikes on the other end of the call and not Pollo, but I'm not sure it would do any good."

Becky nudged a big piece of gravel with her foot then kicked it in my direction. "Why would I do that?" Her tone was so full of hurt that only the certainty she could never want me persuaded me it was not the product of deeper feelings than friendship.

"Hayson will be told the call was a fake, but there are two reasons why I might make such an obviously fake call. Hayson will assume I know he is listening to my conversations, so Sikes' awful Pollo impression could either be an attempt to convince him that I do have Clazran on my side that went badly wrong, or an attempt to convince him that I don't have Clazran on my side that went right."

"You want Hayson to think you deliberately made the call look fake?"

"I want Hayson to think that I've set a trap for him to bring the full force of the monsters on the hill crashing down on him if he sides with Fache."

She nodded. "I'll do this one thing for you, but after that I need to look for employment elsewhere." Her voice that had earlier been wrought with emotion was now full of grudging acceptance that cut me deeper than I thought possible.

"I don't want you to go," I said, before I could stop myself, clamping my jaw shut on the rest of my feelings.

Vulnerability was death. She didn't know how I felt about her, and if there was a right time to say it, this wasn't it.

The wind bit into my neck, passing through me into Becky until she seemed to shrink into her layers. "Do you still think I might have killed Kenrey?"

She knew!

"I don't. I ruled you out."

Becky looked away. "You're lying again, Boss. If I thought that was the only reason you didn't trust me then perhaps I'd stay, but you'll never trust anyone."

The idea of losing her was worse than the thought of Hayson having me strangled. She was my only friend, and having someone who stood with me against Cos had been a life jacket in the open sea. The idea of going back to being alone was like being ripped apart.

She turned just as a taxi pulled into the driveway. "I'm sorry. I'll make Hayson think Clazran is walking around with a tattoo of your face in a love heart, but then we're done."

I tried to find the words to make her stay, but they all seemed like manipulation. The only honest thing in my head, those three words I could never say, I buried deep and said nothing. Vulnerability was death.

I walked up the stairs to my apartment, all 200 billion of them. What would normally exhaust a marathon runner, I barely noticed. A part of me wanted to order a new crate of booze to wash down the remnants of the igueenie pasta, but another part of me wanted to fight.

I sat down to write my greatest bluff. The more arrogant the report, the more likely Hayson would believe I was a threat to him. By the time I finished, Kaymon was going down. The sky had the green hue of twilight, with Kiril little more than a large yellow circle in the blackness. I deleted the more ridiculous assertions of my own brilliant investigative skills, but it was still more of a biography than a case report. Crucially, I left out all mention of Clazran and Pollo to give the appearance of quiet confidence.

I submitted just before the deadline and sat down with Lola on my lap. It took less than ten minutes to get the message instructing me to attend the morning closure hearing over which Hayson would be residing.

Placing what was left of my three week binge onto the table, I analyzed the bottles, ready to let Hayson's excrement fall where it may. All I had was dregs and a single bottle of Kononber I bought by mistake. As far as I could see, the only explanation for the invention of Kononber was from a marooned sailor so acclimatised to his own piss that upon return to dry land he sought to emulate its taste. This still didn't explain why anyone else drank it though.

Absent any other beers, I solved this mystery as well, bashing off the lid with the end of the table and taking a swig. Cold carbonated urine.

Chapter 17

19/10/2256 FC

The hearing was scheduled for J:30, and as the time approached I could feel sweat start to accumulate around my collar. I'd put so much deodorant on that my underarms were incapable of producing liquid – probably for the rest of my life – though it did little to keep me dry. The rest of my pores had sprung into compensatory action, producing water from places I had previously thought impossible.

I waited until J:29 before I made my way down to the conference room, wishing to avoid prolonged exposure to Fache's face.

The room itself was tiny, with barely enough floor to walk around the table that filled it. Hayson sat against the far wall in the middle of four supposedly impartial judges squeezed arm to arm down the length of a table that was only just big enough to accommodate them. Fache was at one end, and I assumed I was supposed to sit at the other.

"You're late," Hayson said.

"Apologies, Commissioner." I recognized none of the other faces around the table, but that came from spending cycles in the basement.

Hayson looked at the others around him. "Now everyone is here, we can begin." His lips tightened as his eyes crept over to me. "Since the last debacle where the very same detective's report was dismissed, we have decided to introduce these hearings whenever two reports conflict about whether or not a case should remain open. We are here to discuss the conclusion of case 654371L as put forward by Dr. Fache, which is contested by the principle investigator, Mr. Nidess." All five of their faces turned to me.

"The main evidence for the closure of the case is the confession of the deceased man, Jacob Hobb, who is declared by Dr. Fache to have had opportunity and motive to commit the crime. However, Mr. Nidess claims it was impossible for Hobb to commit the murder on which we received an extensive report late last night."

"No more extensive than my last one," I said.

Fache's eyes narrowed, but his smile was jovial. "That sounded almost like a threat."

"Certainly not," I said. "I was testifying to the quality of my reports."

Fache's whole body tightened. "Your last report was based on my evidence–"

"Don't be ridiculous," I said, steadying my voice. "Your evidence was a small fraction of my report, as it is this time, but unfortunately for you this time your tiny segment happens to contradict the rest of the case in its entirety."

Fache tapped his fist on the table with a cold thud. "No one cares for your incompressible gibberish about timings and windows."

I laughed, reverberating my derision around the room. Every nerve in my body was telling me to shake and run, but on the outside I looked as if I was at a child's tea party. "Tell me, Fache," I said, "what percentage of suicides with paper notes have been proved to be murders?"

"42%. Less than half, which still means it's more likely that I'm right."

"And of those who use their tablets, it is 0.1%. People don't use paper notes to write their last thoughts, because it is known universally that they are regarded with suspicion. Paper is used by killers who don't know the code to access someone else's tablet–"

"But he didn't have his tablet on him," Fache interrupted. "So surely that is reason enough to use a different medium to convey his message."

"Only if you're a complete idiot," I said, "and you ignore that it is far more likely the person who wrote the note took his tablet because it contained the real suicide note."

"Quiet!" Hayson said, leaning forward to place himself between us. "We have read both of your reports, and neither of you are adding anything new. Is there anything you would like to add that we haven't already read?"

Fache shook his head.

My heart beating like a reverberating rubber band, I backed my chair into the wall as if ready to leave. "Let's get this over with so I can go to lunch."

Hayson stared at me uncomprehendingly. "Very well." His paunch seemed to inflate to almost double the size as he breathed deeply, his eyes narrowing but never closing. "From the evidence put forward in your reports, this committee deems that it would be imprudent to close the case at this time. We do not believe that it is impossible that Hobb was the killer, but nor do we believe that the evidence is conclusive enough to dismiss other possibilities." He stood up, and the four judges rose after him like rocks thrust upward during tectonic shift. "Thank you for your input gentlemen," Hayson said, shaking each of them by the hand.

Fache looked as if he'd gone to bed with a beautiful woman and woken up with a bearded man. "That's it?" He lingered as the four judges exited.

Hayson grimaced at him. "I'll speak to you in a minute doctor, please wait for me outside my office. Nidess, I would like a private word with you."

Banished into the wilderness, Fache was drained of all the malice and sarcasm that had bubbled over last time we spoke. He wasn't expecting to lose. Hayson had told him nothing of his decision before the verdict.

"Shut the door," Hayson called, but Fache was either too far away or not listening and the door stayed open. "Would you, Nidess?"

I went to the door and peered round to see Fache shuffling down the corridor like a re-animated corpse. I shut it, unable to hide my smile.

I turned to fill my entire visual cortex with Hayson who was so close to me that the room darkened. "Listen to me you piece of dis! If you ever use my nephew like that again, I don't care if Clazran fracking adopts you, your corpse will be rotting at the bottom of the Gargantua by night fall."

I nodded as Hayson revealed he thought the call was a trap. The plan had worked. "I don't want to fight you," I said. "You chose that when you told those men you would let their daughters go in the knowledge it would undermine my authority in the station. I didn't want that then, and I don't want this now." I refused to yield a cim of floor space between our feet, feeling the heat of his breath as I continued. "I know you're a powerful enemy, and I'm at least smart enough to know those aren't the type of enemies I want. But I think you must also accept now that I am a powerful enemy, and it would be in both our interests if we were to become friends."

Silence hung in the air until it had an almost physical presence, like a weight attached to my chin, forcing my head down away from Hayson's gaze. I brushed past him, forcing him to follow. For the moment, I needed Hayson to relent. I was a dirt worm pretending to be a gargantuan worm, and if he dug hard and far enough, he would see the truth of it. I offered him a hand. "Think how much we could profit from each other as allies instead of enemies."

Hayson left my hand in the air. "Your sort of power isn't the type that lasts. And when it's gone, I'll come for you."

I shrugged, turning to face the wall as if I were examining a great piece of art that hung there. "You may be right. I could fall from favor this month or the next, and then I will be at your mercy, but what if you're wrong? What if I solve this case, and the President promotes me into the SP? I could be another contact for you, or I could join your league of enemies made by Vins and Figuel when they started their little internal war.

Hayson frowned. "Even if I agreed, we could never trust each other."

"We could," I said, "with a couple of gestures from both parties."

"What gestures?"

"I would need you to get rid of Fache. His intent against me will be malign from now until the day he dies, and I don't want him obstructing me from solving this case."

"I can't just fire him without a reason."

"Vins fired me without a reason when I submitted my last report."

Hayson laughed. "Fache isn't some slime that's been vegetating in the basement for the last five cycles. He's the head of our science division, and he has allies of his own. Two of those judges still wanted to go the other way on this despite the risk of upsetting Clazran."

"We both know you could do it if you wanted."

He thrust his paunch out, a dower expression on his face. "Say I could. What
gesture
do I get in return?"

"Name it."

Hayson nodded, considering for only the briefest of moments. "If you get into the SP, I want you to bring Sikes with you. The two of you will be my eyes and ears."

I extended my hand again. "Deal."

Hayson shook. "If you can't or won't keep your end of this deal, it'll be my hand that casts you to Cythuria."

*

Back at my new desk on the third floor, I was half hoping to see Sikes and judge his reaction, but he wasn't there. Likely, Hayson had told him I was up to no good when I asked for his help, and whatever relationship I had with him was damaged if not ruined.

I sat down with my list of exhausted suspects ready to refresh a few of them if it turned out that they had no alibi at any point before Hobb could have wheeled them out in that bin. Why they needed to go out in the bin when they could go in and out through the window was a mystery, but in truth I was desperate. If it was a dead end I was stuck again, and I'd spend the next four weeks looking into the minutiae of staff alibis. But if I was right, the key to solving the case might lie in understanding why the killer used the bin instead of the window to escape.