The Iron Swamp

by J V Wordsworth

  "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 p
olice 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.

  "What do we do now, Boss?" Becky said.

  "I thought we might see the coroner." It should have been done weeks ago, before the bodies were taken away, but when they fired me it lost its importance.

  I pushed the button in the elevator for the only sub-basement floor, and we went down to the only place I hated more. Kenrey's body was bad enough, but when I was surrounded by dead people I started to get claustrophobic.

  The elevator opened into a small waiting room. Despite the complete absence of natural light, the foyer was full of pot plants. The front desk even had a creeping plant growing up it. Only by touching them would an observer realize they were made of plastic.

  "I'm here about Kenrey."

  The guy typed it in. "You got an appointment?"

  "Wasn't aware I needed one."

  He did some more typing, and my tablet flashed to show it was being accessed. "Dr. Signey is on his way out. Have a seat."

  Becky ran her finger along the stamen of a plastic ezepelis flower. "What's with all the plants?"

  "You prefer they decorated the place with people's innards?"

  She shrugged. "Dunno."

  I didn't ask how she could not know and took a seat. It was impossible to argue with those dark eyes.

  Signey poked his head through the barriers before walking through. "Wasn't sure if you'd still be here."

  I stood up. "Why wouldn't we?"

  "Didn't check the time of the message; thought you might have been here a while."

  "What have you got on Kenrey and the dead guard?"

  Signey waved a set of long fingers for us to follow him. He was a tall, slender man who could have looked attractive if his skin wasn't thin enough to see the vessels in his cheeks. He was recently shaved, but with such ineptitude that even in the low light patches of stubble were noticeably longer than others.

  "You want to see Kenrey I assume? The guard, Mr. Peliany, was released to his family and cremated, but Kenrey is still on ice.

  I raised an eyebrow. "It's against the law to keep the body for so long."

  Signey chuckled to himself. "The dead don't care about the law."

  "He has no family?"

  "None that want him. It's your job to know if he has any," Signey said. "Perhaps they don't want to interfere with the investigation and risk Clazran's displeasure. I tried to instill the same fear in Peliany's family once it was clear you were going to reopen the case, but by the end they were threatening to lock me in my own trays."

  "Thanks."

  He pushed open a door into the room I was dreading. Twenty or thirty tables like metal trays with legs stood in rows with naked corpses lying on top. "It wasn't strictly for you," he said timidly. "I didn't want President Clazran thinking I let the body go too easily." He shut the door behind us so gently that the bodies might have been sleeping. There were seven of them in all, and three of them showed signs of badens: carmine where the skin had rotted and darkening to black where the blood had congealed. Another medical examiner was poised with a knife above the corpse of an old man as we entered, his eyes meeting mine only for a moment before they retreated back to his work.

  "You will tell the President I did my best won't you?" Signey said.

  I glanced at Becky, unsure if it was a serious question. "Next time we dine together," I said. He could interpret that as he may.

  Signey nodded. He walked through the center of the trays to the body storage at the back, but my feet fastened to the floor as if I was standing in the life swallowers of the Gargantua. Every nerve in my body told me to leave. I remembered Mrs. Hollis, the dead woman who filled my nightmares since my mother walked me unsuspecting into her living room as a child.

  I wasn't a child now. This was my job, and I had to see Kenrey's body. I pretended to be checking my tablet as I made my way round the outside, not looking at the bodies. At the last click, I managed to avoid walking into a plastic fila tree.

  "I've spent a long time looking at this body," Signey said, flicking the switch with a long finger.

  "I bet he has," whispered Becky.

  I couldn't help but smile. There was no denying with his pale complexion and bent spine that Signey had been hunched over bodies for too long.

  The door hissed as the pressure equalized with the room. Signey rolled out the tray with Kenrey's body on it, perfectly preserved since his murder. The tray caved in the middle under his bulk, and Signey released the leg at the end, which extended to the ground, only necessary for the heavier bodies. In a moment, Kenrey stank as if the dormant fungi were making up for lost time. My throat clenched, and I coughed to expel the fouled air. If it weren't for Becky at my back, I might have walked out and come back after a glass of water, but I was not ready to show her such weakness.

  Signey pointed at the deep gash in Kenrey's neck, the crisp skin curling away from the exposed flesh like gone off chicken. "He died when the killer cut his throat with a blunted blade. Before that he was knocked over and received heavy bruising at his coccyx, which is to be expected from a man of his size."

  He lifted Kenrey's head and thumbed at a dark line above a reddish-brown stain at the base. "The head wound is consistent with him hitting the floor with some force. He may have been killed there, or gotten up again. It's hard to say as he was moved so much post-mortem, but seeing as there is no wounding consistent with a second fall, I would say it was more likely he was killed on his back."

  "No indication of what made him fall over," I asked, "if it wasn't the head wound or slashed throat?"

  "There are no defensive wounds anywhere on the body." Signey picked up one of Kenrey's hairy arms and waved it at me in a grotesque puppet show. "He might have been knocked unconscious by the fall, but I can't explain why he fell over."

  The fight was quick then, if there was one. Consistent with the attacker being strong.

  Signey picked up the other arm making Kenrey look as if he was reaching for something. "The marks on both wrists and his back suggest he was dragged along the floor by his arms." He dropped both arms with a crash. "The most interesting thing is the pooling of blood around the
stomach which I think was caused by a blunt object pushing against him after he died. Initially, I thought perhaps someone was standing on him, but the blood was most concentrated around the trauma, suggesting he was being pushed upward."

  "Why would someone do that?" I said.

  Signey rubbed his chin in way that made it impossible to believe he didn't know the unevenness of his facial hair. "That's not my job, but that's what happened."

  "And the force was prolonged?"

  "Several clicks at least."

  "So it couldn't have been debris from the explosion?"

  Signey considered this for a moment then shook his head.

  If someone spent several clicks pressing up against Kenrey's deceased body, it meant finally that it was impossible for the killer to have entered after the explosion. Kathryn was lying and was more than likely an accomplice.

  The greatest inconsistency was currently the idea of a person small and thin enough to fit through the window being strong enough to overpower Kenrey and an armed guard, seemingly without so much as a scratch. If Kathryn was not just a silent onlooker but actually took part in the murder, then that could help explain the killer's success.

  "Could Kenrey have been drugged?" I asked.

  Signey looked at his feet. "You could be on drugs right now, Mr. Nidess. If I'm not allowed to perform a drugs test, I don't know."

  "Do it," I said.

  "I'm not allowed–"

  "Don't make it official, just test for a bunch of things that might keep Kenrey still while he was killed. They need to be fast acting."

  Signey's eyes were trying to escape his skull. "That would be breaking the law, and you wouldn't be able to use the evidence anyway." He picked up the table leg and pushed Kenrey back into the tank. "I think you should go now."