Becky's carefree face was transformed into something older and infinitely more serious. She whirled the red rum in her glass and refused to meet my eyes. "Boss, you've been good to me. You got me out of that place, and despite the lies and mistrust, I think you're a pretty good person. So if you need to catch Laurie then that's fine. I'll help you, but let's not pretend that we are the good guys."
I opened my mouth to protest but thought better of it. I didn't see myself that way at all. I was a policeman catching a murderer, but perhaps that was delusion. Perhaps it was the good people who threw their lives away pointlessly trying to prevent things that couldn't be stopped. That would explain why everywhere was such dis. But I didn't believe that. They were fools, good certainly, but that wasn't the only kind of good. I fought the system where I could and when I had to, but not for assassins and vigilantes who were little better than their victims.
"So what's the plan?" she asked.
"Catch Colson."
We finished our meals and the barman refused to accept payment for them. I transferred ten cosians to his tablet as a tip and we left. "Unfortunately," I continued, "she doesn't exist. Outside the compound, there is no record of a Laurie Colson of the same age and profile anywhere."
Becky followed me out the door donning her scarf over her mouth to protect herself from the icy wind. "So what do we do?"
I called for my slider and stood waiting for it to arrive. "You don't have her contact details do you?"
"Sorry."
I shrugged. I couldn't know whether she was being honest, but I was not about to push it. "We have two possibilities: Either Colson was paid by Vera Liegon to commit the murder or she wasn't. If she was then our best hope is that Colson is an assassin with a criminal record."
I doubted it. If she was an assassin then her age alone suggested she hadn't been doing it long. It was more likely Benrick recruited her for the task. That was how he fit into the puzzle and why Liegon had hired him after Kenrey's death.
I had dismissed his involvement because he was too big to get through the window, but he was the perfect person to come up with the plan. And that meant Colson could be anyone, just some poor nobody hungry enough to do a terrible thing for a bit of money. It also meant that Benrick had probably disposed of her after the deed was done. However, why Benrick would have kept her alive long enough to go back to the compound months after Kenrey's death, I couldn't see. It made more sense to disappear her immediately after the crime in case anything went wrong. But perhaps he needed her to control Hobb, maybe even kill him and make it look like a suicide.
It occurred to me I was doing this the wrong way. I was trying to solve a murder by following the suspects around after the deed, but it was before I needed to be looking at.
If I could find out who Colson was, then I might be able to link her to Benrick, and linking Liegon with Benrick might prove even easier. Once I had that, I could press Benrick into giving up Colson and Liegon, and the case would be complete.
As I stood waiting for my slider, the wind chill was so complete it felt as if I was swimming beneath a frozen lake. My cheeks about to crack, I started walking up the street. Even so, I flushed with excitement. The prospect of solving the case and having Becky back made crossing the Gargantua seem possible.
Chapter 19
26/10/2256 FC
Colson had no criminal record. Neither was she in any other database which identified assassins. There were select few disorders that could produce Colson's degree of disfigurement, and all of them were as rare as winning lottery tickets. The databases revealed a few freaks capable of testing the strength of a camera lens, but no one who could possibly have been Colson.
My search for a link between Liegon and Benrick had met with about as much success. There were so many opportunities at the countless meetings and functions the Felycian church offered its members, that even if I could find witnesses attesting that they were in discussion at one of them, it would almost have been more suspicious if they weren't.
I had put off telling Hayson about Colson for almost a week, but now Sikes and I had been summoned to his office, I had a feeling it might be the end of my excuses. He paced towards the door as I entered, a scruffiness about him that didn't normally occupy his person. "If you don't tell me right now what both of you have found, then I'm gonna pick you up and throw you out that window."
I turned to Sikes who had shrunk into one of the chairs facing the desk as if Hayson had pulled out his ribcage.
"Don't look at him, look at me," Hayson said. "What have you found?"
I stood uncomfortably in the doorway, still not far enough into the room to shut the door behind me. "How about we sit down and discuss this properly?"
Hayson was unappeased. "You think we are going to discuss this do you? If I find out you've been sitting on the information I just received, then..." he stopped. Over my head every face in the surrounding offices had turned to peer in at the shouting.
He closed his eyes. "Shut the door and sit down before I change my mind."
I moved past him to sit next to Sikes before he could turn around, but Hayson didn't follow us to his desk. He moved over to the set of weights no one had ever seen him lift. "Do you know why I lift these?"
"Exercise," I suggested.
His hand glided over the metal disk, polishing it with his fingers. "Strength. Everything is about strength. This job, this nation, this life. With the exception of Wayland here, my family have always had a good physique. We are tall and muscular, and that bestows upon us a power that helps keep us alive.
"You're not such a physically imposing creature, and in an earlier time or a poorer nation they might have bashed your baby head against a rock, deeming you too weak to survive. As such, your power has to come from a demonstration of strength different to my own." He spun the disk so hard that the other end of the dumbbell came off its stand and sent the weights crashing to the floor with a thud that must have echoed across the whole building. "Your power comes from your alliance with me. I'm the one that keeps the vulture lizards from feasting on your sweet meats. All I have to do is throw you back in the basement, and the men who want to do you harm will see the light flash from red to green before their eyes."
"Commissioner–" said Sikes.
But Hayson was having none of it. "Quiet Wayland. I'm disgusted with you as it is." He turned back to me, his eyes barely wide enough to show a full pupil. "Tell me what it is you've found, or you won't be heading back down in the elevator."
Someone started knocking at the door, probably checking that a JC hadn't flown through the window.
"Go away!" yelled Hayson, a grim fury on his face. "And if I find you've cost me a chance to give information to the President–"
"You'll cut off my head and give it to him as a bowl?" I said.
Hayson's eyes shriveled as he searched for a response that would adequately demonstrate his rage.
"I apologize that we didn't tell you sooner," I continued. "We just thought that if you told the President, then the SP would know, and we would lose our advantage in actually catching her."
"That's my decision to make, not yours. I'm the fracking Commissioner, not you." He was still shouting, but his voice quieted as his expression changed. "What do you mean her? You mean Liegon?"
I could have sighed with relief when he said that. It meant the SP, who were undoubtedly his other source, suspected a man. Probably Benrick. They had not uncovered Colson's involvement. "Not Liegon," I said. "We've found the actual killer, a girl we think she paid."
Hayson's face sagged with exhaustion, though the redness showed no sign of dissipating. "Are you sure of this? My sources are certain it's Benrick."
"Impossible," I said.
"So says Wayland." Hayson shot a glance at Sikes who melted further into his chair. "And then he let slip that the two of you had your own suspect, but when I asked him who it was, he wouldn't tell me."
I gave Sikes a wry smile, concealing it
from Hayson. "I told him not to, sir."
"So who is this woman then?"
I told him about Laurie Colson and everything I'd collected since I identified her as the killer, which wasn't much. Most of my time had been spent looking for a source who might tell me about Benrick and Liegon, but all I had to show for that was a bunch of crossed out names and some forms I'd filled in so we could tap her tablet. I hadn't even sent them.
Hayson looked almost pleased, as if he'd run a marathon but found out on the finish line he'd won a thousand cosians. "If this is true then we're still ahead of the SP, and they're going down the wrong track."
I nodded. "So we don't have to tell the President right away. We have time to catch her, and then take him a much bigger prize before the SP even know Colson is involved."
Hayson frowned. "So how come they found the murder weapon at Benrick's house?"
He stared at me as my mouth opened, shut, and opened again. "What?"
He repeated the same question word for word with an emphasis of irritation on every one of them.
I had no answer. Suddenly, my mind was a row boat with every oarsman paddling in a different direction. It didn't make any sense. Even if Colson had given him the knife, he would have destroyed it or buried it far away from his own dwelling. He'd had plenty of time.
I flushed as if all the blood vessels in my cheeks had burst. "I...don't know."
All sign of forgiveness left Hayson's face. He looked on the verge of running at me and carrying me through the window so that we both plummeted to our deaths together. "Are you saying you've made a mistake?"
I felt the rage swallowing me as it did him. "I'm saying I need a minute to think about it."
He took a step towards me. "Are you thinking that perhaps the presence of the murder weapon at his house trumps all your dis about chairs and windows and little mutant girls?"
"How did they find out he had it?" I asked.
Sikes answered. "They received an anonymous tip and searched his house."
It sounded like another language. "The SP must have put it there. They want to bring down Liegon so they can put an end to all the mech problems. It's probably not even the real murder weapon."
Hayson shook his head. "It's real. I would have got word if this was a set up. No one fraks with my investigations like that without telling me."
"What exactly was the tip?" I asked.
"Someone saw him from the street holding a knife covered in blood," said Sikes, "I asked the same question."
I turned away from Hayson. A few of the rowers had fallen in line again. "And where was the murder weapon? Was it well hidden?"
Hayson had begun to pace. "It wasn't in his display cabinet or hanging above the front door."
I winced. If I'd been the Commissioner I might have punched him then. "But was it well hidden or just hidden?"
"What the frak difference does it make? I don't know; they turned that whole place inside out I expect."
"The difference is that Benrick would be an absolute idiot to keep that knife and then play with it where any passer-by on the street could see him do it. Especially with Kenrey's blood still staining the side. I doubt dried blood on metal for this long even looks like blood. So we have to assume that the call was a fake."
"Maybe Benrick is a fool," Hayson said.
"No." I dismissed him as I might have done Lola pestering me for food. "The person who planned this murder was no fool. So if it wasn't the SP that set him up, then it must have been the murderer. No one else could have the knife."
Sikes smiled. "Colson isn't working for Liegon at all."
I nodded. "She knew how much Liegon benefited from Kenrey's death as does everyone, so when Benrick entered her employ, it made him the perfect scapegoat."
"The SP would have jumped at it," Sikes said.
"So you still think it's this girl?" said Hayson. "And instead of being some tool of Vera Liegon, one of the most powerful and ruthless people in The Kaerosh, you think she is framing her?"
I shrugged. "There is no other way it could be. The call has to be a fake, which means Colson must have been working independently all along, unless she turned against Benrick and Liegon after the murder."
"Could be," Hayson said.
"Doesn't matter. It still means Colson is the murderer, not Benrick, and we can ask for her reasons for framing him when we catch her. Give me one month before you tell the President, and you can take him her real name and person both, instead of just some alias that doesn't exist."
"One month," said Hayson, "now get out."
The two of us walked towards the door. "And, Nidess," said Hayson, "I swear on Cythuria if you're late for another meeting with me, it won't even matter if you catch her. I'll cut off your head and give it to Clazran as a bowl."
Once the door was shut I put my hand on Sikes' arm. "I think I owe you an apology, Wally."
"About what, sir?" He looked genuinely confused.
"All that stuff with Fache. I haven't trusted you as I should have. You're a loyal friend and partner, and it took real guts not to surrender to Hayson there."
Sikes nodded. "Thank you, sir. That means a lot."
I still didn't trust him. Nothing could change him being Hayson's nephew, and if a bigger barrier to trust existed, I was yet to come across it. But I liked him. His naïve enthusiasm was occasionally irritating, and his urge to please had an element of falseness, but despite all the coaxing and bullying he must have suffered before I arrived, Sikes had waited for me to provide Colson's name. He might look like wayward child in a suit, but the strength it must have taken to remain silent could not be ignored.
*
In the next few days things went thick and fast. Benrick was arrested, and the press began to shift the storm of dis away from the mechs onto the Felycian church and whether Liegon had murdered the Archbishon to promote her agenda. She came under fire from every angle, and as the days turned into weeks, she looked more disheveled in every interview. By the time she was on Pro Chat, she looked as if someone had shaken her during makeup. There was no mistaking the caves around her eyes as tiredness conquered the resilience in her fierce features. Her cause was dead.
Some part of me wondered whether that was why Colson had framed Benrick. It must have been a risk to plant that knife and make that call. Perhaps she saw the devastation Liegon had reaped on The Kaerosh as a result of her actions, and this was her way of setting things right.
I could not rule out that Colson was paid by someone other than Liegon, but I no longer saw her as an assassin. The note on Kenrey's chest that God found him wanting was personal. Everything about the way he died was personal. I would look down the list of Kenrey's enemies again, but I had a new direction.
My greatest advantage, and Colson's greatest weakness, was her deformity. She stood out like a human in a quillan hunting party. In the weeks that followed, I used that to locate an event that linked her to Kenrey.
Somewhere in her past Kenrey did something to her, and if I found the event, I found the girl. The most obvious route was the pedophilia. She was a young girl, and Kenrey liked young girls. It was difficult to imagine that even the most perverted of Kenrey's desires might have involved a young Laurie Colson, but then Kathryn had been a part of the murder, which meant that Colson knew about his perversion and used it to kill him. If it was not Benrick who told her about it, then how did she know?
Chapter 20
19/11/2256 FC
Sikes lifted his head from the table as Wayward Myuki Bride blasted out of the speakers above his head. One eyelid took more persuasion to open than the other, and for a moment he appeared not to see us. He grinned, reaching for his pint as if he'd never passed out. "You guys thought I was dreeping, didn't you?" He took another sip, though it took him a few a bashes around the mouth before he lined it up.
Becky laughed. It had been almost a month since the meeting with Hayson, and we finally had something to celebrate. "What's dreeping?"
I was doing better than Sikes, though the room wasn't entirely level – or still. Often as not, standing felt like walking, and walking felt like running, and running would no doubt feel like the floor was rising up to smack me in the face. "I think it's a mixture of drunk and sleeping," I said.
"I wasn't sleeping." Sikes assessed me with a single open eye. "I was just looking at the table with all its weird..." He trailed off as his head sank back towards the holoscreen, his hands tracing the moving objects.
Molvinos was apparently an entirely different place at night. Other than the lights from the games, there were only a few dim bulbs in the ceiling that weren't flashing. The rest pulsed on and off like sirens or moved around the room like search lights in rhythm with the music.
"Who would have thought you, Boss, could outdrink Sikes? He's like twice your size!"
Sikes was lying on his hands and showed little sign of life.
"I can outdrink most people actually."
Becky jabbed me, falling forward slightly as she did so. "You couldn't outdrink me." She leaned away with her head resting in her palms, grinning in the same beautiful way she always did that demonstrated every last tooth.
What remained of my common sense was shouting at me that this way lay disaster, but I laughed in the face of common sense. "I could outdrink you with one hand behind my back."
I nodded to myself purposefully. It didn't exactly make sense, but the message was clear enough.
"You're on." She staggered over to the bar and got us another two Yttiri Blonds, guiding one across the table to me with the back of her hand.
"You know why they call them Yttiri Blonds?" I asked.
"Because they're blond beers brewed off the banks of the Yttiri?"
I opened my mouth to tell her why, but I'd forgotten. "To us," I said, raising the glass. "We found a pedophile who knows a bishon."
The Iron Swamp Page 24
