Penumbra (40 page)

Singh shook his head. ‘I can only assume that you were mistaken, Lieutenant. The alternative, that you are deliberately lying, is too offensive to contemplate. Ezekiel Klien happens to be an acquaintance of mine of long standing. Your bizarre claims have caused me severe embarrassment.’

He nodded at Vishwanath, who touched Rana’s hand, almost apologetically, before rising and opening the door for his superior.

Rana lay back and stared at the ceiling, tears of rage and betrayal tracking down her cheeks. She had considered telling him that Klien had demanded to know the whereabouts of her softscreen, but they were determined to disbelieve her anyway. What difference would it make to their assessment of the case if she told them?

By keeping the knowledge to herself, she had her first lead in her case against Klien. He wanted her softscreen, and she had it; therefore she was in a position of power.

Over the period of the next two weeks she made a steady recovery, and just six weeks after the shooting she walked from the hospital. For reasons of security she was relocated to a police apartment in the city centre, a short walk from police headquarters, and a twenty-four-hour armed guard was posted on her door.

Rana was told by Vishwanath to take a holiday and not to return to work for a month. She decided to stay in the city. She visited Vandita and the other kids, but said nothing about the shooting. ‘But you haven’t visited us for so long!’ they complained. She smiled and made excuses, told them stories of car chases and shoot-outs. She wanted to hold them all, as night drew in, as if to protect them from the city and all the evil out there. The thought of Klien and his crimes filled her with a black depression. She considered taking a weapon herself and shooting him dead. The thought, if nothing else, was a catharsis.

After just one week of her month’s leave, she contacted Vishwanath and begged to be allowed back to work. She told him she was fit and healthy and could work at her com-screen as well as the next officer. Vishwanath relented, allowed her to start work, but only at her com-screen; on no account was she to go out on a case. She wondered if this stricture was in view of her health, or on the orders of Commissioner Singh.

Varma gave her a great hug on her first day back, and a card from Naz stood on her desk among the others; it asked if she was free for a meal that evening. Smiling, she caught his eye across the room, tore the card in two and dropped it into the litter bin. It was back to business as usual on the eighth floor.

Rana was taken off the crucifix killings and given the files of other cases to analyse. Occasionally her curiosity got the better of her and she accessed the files on the crucifix case. She read through other officers’ reports concerning Klien and his alibis, and sure enough on the date of every killing his whereabouts were accounted for by trustworthy witnesses. But the very fact that he had an alibi for every murder struck Rana as suspicious. He had friends who were willing to lie for him, or people whom he had bribed. She thought of Commissioner

Singh, who actually knew Klien, and she knew that the task of proving Klien guilty would be almost impossible.

One morning, as she was going through the files of the case yet again, it came to her that Commissioner Singh might actually be aware that Klien was the crucifix killer, that Singh was in fact protecting his friend. It made sense. Klien was, after all, ridding the city of criminal elements, saving Singh the work of investigating these criminals himself. She wondered if there was any shred of truth in her suspicion, or if she was merely taking out her resentment on Singh because he had refused to believe her. But, she asked herself, how else had Klien managed to produce so many alibis, convince so many investigating officers of his innocence?

The thought plunged Rana into depression.

Then, a few days later, something happened which put all thought of Singh’s possible corruption from her mind.

Before she began work one morning, she stopped by the second floor and found the security sergeant in his office. He was apologetic. ‘I still have your softscreen in my desk, Lieutenant. Unfortunately I’ve had no time to examine it.’

‘Oh ... I was hoping you could tell me something about the homing device, Sergeant. I want to know if the screen, or the device, is valuable or special in some way. Is there any reason that anyone might . . .’ She was about to say ‘kill’ for it, but checked herself. ‘That anyone might wish to steal it?’

‘Ah-cha. I’ll have a look at the first opportunity, Lieutenant. I’ll be in touch.’

That day on the eighth floor, Rana worked halfheartedly on the cases given to her by Vishwanath, and hated every minute of it. She was depressed by the thought of Klien’s freedom, mocking her. She wondered how many other criminals were walking the streets thanks to the corruption of those in power.

She entertained the fantasy of running away, of dropping the persona of Rana Rao, police officer, forgetting Klien and the terrible injustice of his liberty and starting a new life somewhere. But where, she asked herself? She knew only about life in Calcutta. She had run away once, but it had seemed so easy then - there had been the whole city to run to. Her gaze strayed unbidden to the travel article on her com-screen, advertising life on the colony worlds.

Someone approached her desk, startling her - the sergeant from security.

‘Lieutenant Rao,’ he said. ‘There’s been a development regarding the softscreen.’

She looked at him. ‘There has?’

‘A gentleman has come to my office in search of the screen,’ he said. ‘He is a Westerner, I think perhaps American.’

Rana felt her mouth go dry. Klien, she thought. But how had he traced the screen to security?

‘Describe him.’

The sergeant blinked. ‘He is tall. Perhaps thirty-five. Long-haired, down to here’ - he touched his shoulder - ’and he is wearing the flight-suit of a space pilot.’

It didn’t sound like Klien, unless he had disguised himself again.

Apprehensive, Rana told the sergeant that she would be down in five minutes. She closed the file she was working on, then made sure her holster was open and took the elevator down to the second floor.

Cautiously, she paused at the door and looked in. She released a relieved sigh. The man was sitting nervously in his chair, hunched forward. His flight-suit was scuffed, his long dark hair lank and unwashed.

Rana gestured to the sergeant, who joined her at the door. ‘If you’d allow me a few minutes alone with him . . .’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Ah-cha. I’ll be next door if you need anything.’

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. The American swivelled quickly in his seat, regarded her with dark eyes that seemed at once suspicious and afraid.

She rounded the desk and sat down. ‘I am Lieutenant Rao,’ she said.

‘Bennett,’ he said. ‘Josh Bennett.’

His face was unshaven and sallow, and there was a tiredness and grubbiness about the man that made her wonder what he had been through to get here. Also, there was a gentleness about his manner. He was a big man whose movements were slow and considered, as if conscious of forever trying to prevent himself from clumsiness.

Rana remained stern-faced. For all she knew, he wanted the softscreen for the same reasons that Klien did. She wondered, though it was hard to believe, if he would be as desperate as Klien to obtain the screen.

‘Can I ask you why you are here, Mr Bennett?’

‘I . . . I’m an employee of the Mackendrick Foundation, Lieutenant. A pilot—’

‘The Mackendrick Foundation?’

She stared at him. So Bennett worked for her father, and was here in search of the softscreen . . . But how did he know that the screen was here, in this office? She felt dizzy with confusion.

Bennett was nodding. ‘I work directly for Charles Mackendrick himself. Years ago an item of property belonging to Mackendrick was stolen from him. A softscreen. It’s vital that the screen is returned.’

‘You . . . you’re in contact with Mackendrick?’ She felt as she had when awakening in the hospital, removed from the reality around her, watching proceedings as if at a distance. ‘How do you know the softscreen is here?’

Bennett ran a big hand through his receding hair, beginning a combing motion on top of his head, finishing at the nape of his neck. His hand stayed there as he considered her questions.

‘I’m in contact with him. Well, technically I suppose I’m not - he’s light years away on a Rim planet. But I was in contact with him. I ... I was given a device, a receiver, that would locate the softscreen.’

Rana shook her head, totally confused. ‘But why didn’t he use the receiver to locate the screen when it was originally stolen?’

‘Because he didn’t have the receiver then. He’s only just found out about it. He sent me to Earth to find the screen and take it back to him. It’s vital that he gets it. Look, if you doubt who I am, contact the Mackendrick Foundation, here in Calcutta. They’ll confirm that I’m employed by Mackendrick, at least.’

‘I believe you, Mr Bennett. Tell me, how is Mackendrick?’

He blinked. ‘You know him?’

‘I . . . I met him when he was resident in Calcutta,’ Rana dissembled.

Bennett gestured. ‘To be honest he’s very ill. He has only months to live. I need to get the softscreen back to him.’

Rana closed her eyes. She recalled her father’s voice, his smile as he played with her on the lawn of the mansion when she was five years old. She tried to assess her reaction to the fact that her father was dying. Shock, she supposed, even though she had not seen him in years, even though she could not claim to feel any degree of love for him, in the accepted sense of the word.

But he was her father, and he was dying.

She opened her eyes suddenly and stared at the pilot. ‘Why does he want the screen?’

How many times had she watched the softscreen unfold the dramatic story of three explorers on some far-flung alien world, as they trekked through blizzards into a high mountain range? She had found it entertaining as a child on the streets, a window on to an unimaginably cold and hostile other world.

Bennett gave her a shy smile. ‘Lieutenant, it’s a long and improbable story. To be honest, I don’t think you’d believe a word of it.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The recording was made by a man called Quineau, on a planet settled by the survivors of a crashed starship way outside the Expansion. The softscreen was
... is...
the only means by which anyone could find the way back to where he claimed he’d discovered a race of aliens known as the Ancients. After returning from the expedition, Quineau left the planet to tell the Expansion of the colony’s existence. He was found by a Mackendrick salvage ship, which is how the softscreen came into Mackendrick’s possession. Quineau was followed from Penumbra by someone from the governing council who didn’t want the planet’s existence known to outsiders, an assassin called Klien, who killed Quineau in order to silence him—’

Bennett stopped as he noticed Rana’s expression. She stared into space, the pieces of the puzzle slowly falling into place.

‘Klien . . .’ she whispered to herself.

‘You know him?’

She smiled at Bennett. ‘We have met. He tried to get the softscreen from me.’

‘You mean, you had the screen?’ He looked confused. ‘But it was stolen years ago. How did it come into your possession?’

Rana sat back in her seat and stared at the ceiling. Then she looked at Bennett and smiled. ‘It’s my turn to tell you a story that you might find hard to believe,’ she said. ‘You see, thirteen years ago I stole the softscreen, and I’ve had it with me ever since.’

Bennett massaged his tired face with both hands, finally parting them like shutters and staring out at her. ‘This is crazy. I don’t understand. His safe was raided, his daughter kidnapped—’ He stopped, his eyes widening in sudden realisation. ‘You . . .’ he said at last.