Match of the Day

by Chris Boucher

  ‘And who’d have thought it,’ Sita mocked. ‘I had you down as a fat, sexist pig and here you are going all philosophical and noble on me.’

  ‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that,’ he said.

  ‘We all make mistakes don’t we? Big mistakes. Some bigger than others. Some even big enough to get us...’ He waggled his thick wrists at her.

  Sita said, ‘Yeah, yeah, and somebody’s made a big fat fatal one right there. Trust me, when I get out of here, whoever they are, they’re going to pay for their mistake. One painful way or another they will pay for it.’

  ‘Fact remains when you’re heading for the skullcap,’ he said as though he had not been listening to her at all, ‘there is no chance that I can have people saying it was me fingered you. Unemployment and death: not on my schedule just yet.’

  The skullcap? The skullcap? For a second the thought inflated like a sudden bubble that was too big for her mind to contain. The skullcap. She had known it was a possibility, a theoretical possibility, technically a possibility. But not a possible possibility. Never a possible possibility. The skullcap.

  Until that moment she thought she had come to terms with the worst that could happen and was ready to tough it out. ‘I know my career’s finished,’ she said, frowning. ‘There’s a chance I might even do some hard time. We both know competent interrogation controllers can make anyone look guilty of something and nothing. But they can’t make you look guilty enough for that. Not if you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it. In the names of all the gods I didn’t do it.’

  For the first time since she had known him Sergeant Lars Driftkiller Ronick showed what looked to Sita like a genuinely spontaneous human emotion: it was pity. ‘You really believe that don’t you,’ he said. ‘Scuff me, where have you been living, girlie?’

  ‘Stop calling me girlie!’ Sita snapped.

  ‘Major Benovides,’ he said, ‘you are dead meat unless you run.’

  Sita fancied she felt the restraints tightening up again. She looked around for the boundary indicators: getting too close would also trigger the bands. ‘It’s been tried,’ she said.

  ‘Running becomes a problem when your hands and feet are chopped off.’ The prison border limits looked to be a reasonable distance away across a wide expanse of elegantly close-cropped lawn but she turned back anyway. Could that be why he was here: to get her to commit suicide? Killed while trying to escape: she wouldn’t be the first prisoner to have died that way...

  Ronick stood for a moment staring out beyond the tranquil grounds of the lock-up to the traffic-filled motorway that ran close by. ‘Smug arrogant bastards,’ she heard him say loudly but seemingly to no one in particular. When he caught up with her again he said, too loudly for comfort, ‘I could have wheels waiting for you on the shoulder of that motorway. You could be away before these scuffwits finish scratching their arses and fiddling with their zone focus.’

  ‘Thirty seconds after I cross that boundary,’ Sita muttered,

  ‘I have no hands and feet. I’d bleed to death before I dragged myself within screaming distance of whoever was waiting.’

  With ponderous irony Ronick said, ‘Well scuffle my old boots - I hadn’t thought of that,’ then added flatly, ‘And it would be me.’

  ‘What would be you?’

  ‘Waiting.’

  Sita stopped walking and turned abruptly to confront him.

  ‘Is that what they want me to do?’ she demanded, too tired to try to be subtle any longer. ‘Is that why you’re here? They want me to kill myself, is that it?’

  Ronick shook his head sadly. ‘You’ve been undercover too long, Benovides,’ he said. ‘You don’t recognise a helping hand when it’s offered.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be hard to spot,’ she said. ‘It’ll be the one that’s still attached: unlike mine.’

  Ronick almost laughed; almost, but not quite. It was a snort more than a laugh. ‘Beaten before you start.’ His smile was open-eyed and mirthless. ‘Girlie is as girlie does, girlie,’

  he said, stepping around her and starting to shamble slowly on towards the cell block.

  There was the briefest of pauses before the last ‘girlie’ had made the insult so infuriating that Sita’s anger flashed over to cold control. She followed him. ‘It’s impossible to get away from these places,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s a mistake to confuse girlie with stupid. You can tell your superiors that from me if you like.’

  ‘I have no superiors,’ Ronick said. ‘None that I know of.’

  ‘You’ve been promoted, Sergeant?’ Sita asked, allowing all the cold haughtiness of her rank and background into her voice. ‘Or do you think I’m really that stupid?’

  ‘I didn’t say there weren’t people in authority over me,’ he said. ‘Now do you want to get out of here or not, Major?’

  Sita was slightly taken aback. Driftkiller was full of surprises today. ‘It’s impossible,’ she repeated rather lamely,

  ‘to get away from these places.’

  ‘It’s a police lock-up,’ he said witheringly. ‘You need to know the right policeman is all.’

  ‘That would be you I assume?’

  He snorted. ‘No I can’t get you out. But I know a man who can. For a price.’

  ‘How big a price?’

  He smiled and his eyes disappeared into the folds of fat. ‘If you need to ask you can’t afford it. But I’ve looked into your circumstances and I don’t think you need to ask, do you?’

  Was that what this was? Sita wondered. Was it just a scam to get money from her. ‘You’ve been investigating my background?’ she asked coldly.

  He ignored the question. Tell me about your arrest,’ he said. ‘Everything you know about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Professional interest,’ he suggested.

  Sita was getting angry again. Don’t push me, Sergeant.’

  Ronick stopped walking and turned to look back out towards the motorway. ‘It’s no big trick to get you out of here,’ he said. ‘Keeping you out is another question. A whole bunch of other questions as it happens.’

  Chapter Twelve

  The Doctor had exhausted all the avenues of enquiry available to him from the office. He was uncomfortably aware that if he made too much of Leela’s absence he could put her at greater risk than she might already be in. There was, however, a limit to the number of ways you could ask about the disappearance of someone without actually saying that they had disappeared. There was also a limit to the effectiveness of the questions you could ask using any communications device, no matter how sophisticated it might be, rather than doing the questioning face to face. As a famous detective once remarked: you can’t tell they’re sweating if you can’t smell they’re sweating - which the Doctor thought of as a rather unappealing way of saying it’s mostly better to look people in the eye when you ask them questions. This might be something of a problem, the Doctor thought, for the overweight detective who had introduced himself as Sergeant Ronick and had sat himself down in one of the visitors’ chairs, since almost any change of expression on the man’s face seemed to hide his eyes within ample folds of flesh.

  Ronick had barged in as the Doctor was on his way out to begin a systematic search for Leela based on his best guesses about the route she might have taken to the places she might have gone. ‘I’m grateful to you for agreeing to see me,’ he had said, unaware or unconcerned that the Doctor had done no such thing. ‘Just a few questions, I shan’t keep you long.’ He had then sat smiling, silently staring at the Doctor through narrow fleshy slits. The Doctor smiled back but remained standing where he was by the door. He waited without speaking, knowing the detective was using the same technique on him that he himself had used on his duellists.

  The smiling silence stretched out until finally Ronick said, ‘If it’s a bad time I can come back?’

  ‘Is there ever a good time to be questioned by a policeman?’

  the Doctor said, still smiling, an
d strolled back and sat down in a chair beside Ronick. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Interesting choice of words,’ Ronick said. ‘I’m investigating a shooting.’

  The Doctor’s first thought was Leela. Was she involved?

  Had she been shot? But he dismissed that possibility immediately; he would have heard about it already. ‘An illegal shooting presumably.’

  Ronick nodded. ‘Criminal court jurisdiction,’ he said. ‘It was murder, no question about that.’

  The Doctor still found himself slightly surprised by the contradictory attitudes to killing in this world. As far as he could work out the only real difference between legal and illegal killing appeared to be the consent of the people involved. If everyone agreed then it was a duel and the Rules of Attack applied; if someone didn’t agree then it was murder and the police dealt with it. There was a certain logic about the whole arrangement, a sick, destructive logic but a logic nonetheless, and it worried him a little that he could recognise that to be the case. ‘So how can I help you?’

  Ronick said, ‘The victim’s name was Nenron.’ He paused possibly waiting for a reaction, the Doctor thought, and when he got none he went on, ‘He drove runners for a living. At least that was what it said on his ID. In fact he was a minor criminal into anything that would turn a dishonest dollar. He was involved in the corruption a colleague of mine was investigating at Aerospace Main. Cargo-skimming, haulers of all kinds: cash, pharmaceuticals, biologicals; illegal off-world travel transfers. Usual stuff.’

  ‘Sounds like a thoroughly lawless sort of place,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘Not especially,’ Ronick said. ‘No more than you’d expect from a main interplanetary terminus.’ He shrugged with the professional’s dismissive cynicism. ‘You name it though and

  ‘Space Main’s probably got it. Except a criminal mastermind, which is what my colleague was supposed to be looking for.’

  ‘This man Nenron wasn’t a criminal mastermind then?’

  Ronick laughed mirthlessly. ‘He was a small-time player, big time enough to get himself dead it seems, but strictly small time.’

  The Doctor resisted the impulse to volunteer information.

  ‘You still haven’t said why you’ve come to see me?’

  Ronick’s eyes narrowed and more or less vanished. ‘Nenron was last seen in the company of your principal fighter.

  What’s her name: Leela is it?’

  ‘Ah,’ the Doctor said, and thought: how did he know that?

  ‘If it’s Leela you want to talk to I’m afraid you will have to come back. She isn’t here at the moment and there’s no way I can contact her.’

  ‘Because you have no idea where she is, I know,’ Ronick said. ‘It appears she has disappeared, yes?’

  Playing for time by being even more deliberately obtuse, the Doctor asked, ‘Are you suggesting there’s a connection of some kind?’

  ‘I’m suggesting there’s a number of connections of all kinds. My colleague saw you coming out of the State Security Minister’s office as she was going in to be arrested, for example.’

  Surprised the Doctor said, ‘Your colleague is Sita Benovides? I didn’t know she was a policeman.’

  ‘She isn’t. She’s a major in state security.’

  ‘Arrested for...?’

  Ronick ignored the question. ‘Now this is all circumstantial, you could even say it’s coincidental. But my feeling is coincidences only happen when someone makes them happen. And my question is, could that someone be you?’

  ‘No,’ the Doctor said emphatically, ‘it couldn’t.’

  ‘You would say that wouldn’t you,’ Ronick said cheerfully.

  ‘Yes I would,’ the Doctor agreed equally cheerfully. ‘Why don’t you believe in coincidences?’

  ‘I don’t believe in a lot of things,’ Ronick said. ‘I don’t believe in my colleague’s chances of getting out of this frame-up in one piece. Which would be a waste because I think one piece is a good look for her. I also don’t believe you’re telling me the truth.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ the Doctor said. ‘There is no such thing as coincidence. It’s the law of probability and pattern recognition, nothing more. And I never lie. Not deliberately anyway.’

  Ronick’s eyes narrowed again. ‘I don’t even believe you’re who you say you are.’

  ‘Have I said who I am?’ the Doctor asked, wondering if Ronick did that thing with his eyes deliberately.

  ‘This so-called school is a front. You’re not a genuine agent.

  Leela’s not a genuine duellist.’

  The Doctor strove to look outraged. ‘How can you say that to me?’ he demanded and produced his shiny new ID from the pocket of his coat. ‘I have this proof of identity.’ He offered it to Ronick with a triumphant flourish.

  Ronick did not bother looking at it. ‘ID. It doesn’t stand for idiot detective you know. I can get you a dozen of those things. Gods in a runner, a small-timer like Nenron could have got you a dozen of them. Not as good as I could get you, but they’d pass.’

  ‘I can assure you,’ the Doctor said in his most affronted manner, and once again not technically telling a lie, ‘that this is a genuine ID issued by the State Security Ministry.’ He leaned closer to Ronick and smiled his most vivid and wolfish smile. ‘But I do appreciate the offer.’

  ‘All part of the service,’ Ronick said, not smiling.

  The Doctor said, ‘As a matter of interest, that police ID you flashed when you forced your way in here; how do I know that’s genuine?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Ronick said. ‘But then what are you going to do: call a policeman?’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ the Doctor said. ‘Can you recommend one?’

  Ronick shook his head. ‘We’re mostly crooks, or stupid, or both.’

  ‘Which are you?’

  ‘That’s for you to decide.’

  Despite some misgivings, the Doctor found he was beginning to warm to this fat detective. ‘Perhaps we could help each other,’ he suggested.

  ‘What did you have in mind exactly?’

  The truth was the Doctor didn’t have anything in mind exactly. He was pretty much playing for time while he tried to decide whether to confide in the man. ‘You are investigating the murder of Nenron because you want to help Sita Benovides,’ he said.

  ‘I’m investigating the murder of Nenron because, like it says on my ID, I’m a law officer.’

  Ronick’s eyes were wide open now and the Doctor was surprised to see how warm and kindly they seemed. Who was it that said the eyes were the windows on the soul? He couldn’t remember but they were so spectacularly wrong it was probably better that they were forgotten. ‘You mean this is actually an official investigation?’

  The detective still did not smile. He shrugged slightly, it was a surprisingly subtle gesture for such a large man. ‘I’m actually an official,’ he said. ‘Question is what are you actually?’

  Should he tell him, the Doctor wondered. He let the silence stretch tight while he decided and then he broke it abruptly.

  ‘You’re right. I’m not from here. In fact I’m not from this planet at all. Neither, as it happens, is Leela. She’s from a different planet too.’

  Ronick heaved himself up out of the chair. ‘I knew it,’ he declared. ‘I scuffling well knew it. I knew you were fakes as soon as I laid eyes on you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly say we were fakes,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘We’re just not what everyone assumed we were.’

  Ronick said, ‘You’re state security aren’t you.’ It was a statement of obvious fact rather than any sort of question.

  ‘State security?’ The Doctor was so genuinely taken aback he almost laughed out loud. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘Those bastards never have just one agent operating.

  Benovides is so up her own arse it never occurred to her that there was someone else in play.’ Ronick shook his head. ‘I didn’t bother suggesting it to her, sh
e wouldn’t have believed me.’ He sniffed, a small derisive sound. ‘So in fact there are two others in play. Gods in a runner, they really must have trusted her, mustn’t they. Or maybe it was you they didn’t trust?’

  ‘If that’s what you think,’ the Doctor said, falling back on his standard response to the unanswerable.

  ‘You people,’ Ronick snorted. ‘You spend most of your time watching each other, as far as I can see, and you still think you’re slicker than driftslime on a skin-scraper don’t you?’

  The Doctor said, ‘Do we?’ falling back on his standard response to the unintelligible.

  ‘You think the rest of us don’t know how you work. You think ordinary cops like me can’t spot you because you’re off-worlders brought in and given an elaborate cover story. A really elaborate cover story in your case.’

  ‘If I told you that I had nothing to do with state security at all; that the truth is much less believable: would you believe me?’

  ‘No,’ Ronick said flatly. ‘And don’t try my patience. I’m not a patient man and I can blow your cover.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Like that.’

  ‘I don’t imagine you’d want to get on the wrong side of state security,’ the Doctor said and smiled. ‘My feeling is they are probably not the best possible enemies to have?’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ Ronick asked threateningly.

  From the aggressive response, the Doctor could see that Ronick was nervous of state security just like everyone else seemed to be. Not even tough, cynical policemen were immune apparently. ‘If I suggested that we work together, confidentially, off the record or whatever you want to call it, what would you say?’

  Ronick frowned. ‘Are you asking for my help?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Doctor said. He stood up and offered Ronick his hand. The gesture clearly puzzled the detective. ‘On some of the more civilised planets they signify agreement by clasping hands,’ he explained.

  Ronick hesitated. ‘What do I get in return for helping you?’