The Administration Series (12 page)

Warrick looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending, before a flash of emotion passed across his face. Before Toreth could decipher it, a stony mask replaced it.

"You think the sim killed her?" Warrick asked.

"It's a possibility."

"No, it isn't." If certainty were euros, Warrick could have underwritten the Central Bank with those three words.

"You might have wondered why I&I is here, investigating the death of a girl like Jarvis," Toreth said.

"Not worthy of your attention, you mean?" The corner of Warrick's mouth lifted." The thought had occurred."

Toreth didn't miss the sour edge, but he ignored it. "We're here because of a possible connection to the death of Jon Teffera."

Warrick sat up. "
Jon
? What on earth does — ah. "He leaned back slowly. "I see."

"Jon Teffera — "

"Also died in his sim couch. Yes. I heard the details. In fact, I attended his funeral, as a representative of SimTech and as a personal friend." Warrick leaned forwards, speaking slowly and clearly. "Para-investigator, the sim had nothing to do with either death."

Toreth looked at him curiously, trying to see even the faintest tinge of doubt on his face, and found nothing.

"Thank you for your opinion," Toreth said. "However, I'm going to need access to data about the sim, to records of use by both Teffera and Jarvis. All the safety trials, and so on."

For a moment, he thought Warrick would repeat his denial of the possibility. In the end, he merely nodded. "Of course. Anything you require, naturally. If you want the very oldest pre-SimTech data, you'll have to apply to the appropriate Administration research division. However, you'll be wasting your time — you won't find anything."

"I'm afraid I'll have to look anyway. And I must ask you not to discuss the details of this conversation with anyone else, inside or outside SimTech, until the initial interviews are finished — particularly the circumstances of Jarvis's death."

Warrick nodded, although a wry smile suggested he had been thinking about that very thing. "You have my word."

"One more thing I'd like to know. Where were you on the evening of the twenty-seventh of September?

"Let me check." Warrick consulted his screen, and then nodded. "At what time?"

"The whole evening, please."

"Very well. I left here around half past six and went home. Then about a quarter to eight — a little after, I think — I set off for Asher Linton's flat. I must've arrived about half an hour later. I used one of the SimTech cars, so the records will be able to give you the exact times. I had dinner with Asher and her husband, and I left about twelve. Lew was there, too — Lew Marcus."

Teffera had died at nine-thirty, making a nice, tight alibi for all of the SimTech directors. It made him automatically suspicious, although senior corporates rarely did their own dirty work. Still, people planning a killing might prefer to have it occur when they themselves were definitely elsewhere. "Do you have dinner together often?"

"Yes. The last Friday of every month, at least, and twice or three times a month in addition to that isn't uncommon. We've managed to remain friends, despite working together."

"Do you remember anything unusual from the evening?"

"Nothing particularly." Warrick considered a moment. "We talked about the current refinancing, primarily. We're due for a new round of sponsorship talks. Routine." Warrick looked down at his hands, palms stroking meditatively across each other again. "Or it was then. With Jon's death, and now Kelly's, I suppose it will no longer be the case."

Toreth nodded. "If the sim turns out to be responsible for — "

"The sim didn't kill them." The confidence in his voice was still absolute.

"Then what did?"

"You're the para-investigator — you find out." Warrick smiled, perhaps an attempt to take the sharpness from the words. "And if you do, please let me know."

On that unpromising note, Toreth decided to leave it for the time being.

He found the second SimTech director also in his office, and in no better a mood than Warrick had been at his arrival. The first words he uttered were, "What the hell's going on?"

Toreth didn't reply at once, instead studying the man before him — older than Warrick, with short brown hair, thinning on top and receding at the temples. Thin, and, even when seated, obviously tall. He had a narrow, serious face, with deep-grooved lines and a beak of a nose that put Warrick's in the metaphorical shade. Probably literal, too, with sufficiently strong side lighting. Toreth kept up his scrutiny until the man looked briefly away.

"Lucas Marcus?" Toreth asked.

He nodded. "Lew Marcus. You are?" The sneer in his voice matched the curl of his thin lips.

The attitude, unprofessionally, irritated him. "Is that a registered name change?"

"It's a nickname. I don't like the one my parents saddled me with."

"Then we'll stick to a legal name, shall we?"

"If you like." While the exchange patently hadn't improved the man's temper, he did look at Toreth a little more carefully. "Sit down, please."

"My name is Para-investigator Toreth," he said as he took the indicated seat. Lower than the director's own chair, he noticed, and he marked the man down as someone who needed props to manage his interactions. "I'm investigating a death here at SimTech."

Marcus nodded. "Kelly Jarvis. Poor girl." He paused briefly, perhaps intending to convey distress, but actually making him look as if he were having trouble remembering who she was. "A loss to the corporation."

"How did you hear?"

"I found her." Still no emotion. "In a manner of speaking. I like to do a morning tour of the various sim rooms, to make sure that everything is in place and functional. A habit, although I have better things to do with my time these days. I opened the door and saw her on the couch. I assumed that she was using the sim, and I left again." He shook his head. "I even noticed that the sim was switched off — I thought she hadn't started yet. About half an hour later, around quarter to eight, I heard the fuss. One of the technicians had noticed she was dead. Anne Langford, I think."

"Wait — you saw Jarvis before anyone touched her?"

"Yes . . . I suppose so."

Another lucky break. "Was the mask in place? The straps?"

Marcus's eyes narrowed. "I think so. The visor certainly, or I would have known something was wrong. The straps I could miss, I suppose."

"What did you do when Langford found the body?"

"I went to see what the noise was about. The girl was clearly dead, so there seemed no point in calling an ambulance. I told everyone to clear out of the room and put a security guard on the door. Then I called Warrick and Linton."

A more typical corporate response. "Did you call Justice?"

Marcus shook his head.

"Do you know who did?" Toreth asked.

"No idea. Don't you know?"

The hint of contempt was back, and it made Toreth grit his teeth. "I'll have to check the records. Was it unusual for someone to be in the sim so early?"

"Not really. The sim is closed between midnight and six, except for emergency repairs. Then the next two hours are reserved for maintenance, systems testing and psych evaluations. Official work bookings start at eight, but people try to squeeze in whenever they can. Between eight and ten in the evening is supposed to be for more maintenance and testing but, once again, it's usually overrun with people fitting in extra sessions."

"What time did you leave the building last night?"

Marcus frowned. "I'm not sure. It'll be on the security system, though."

"Give me a rough time and I'll confirm it."

"I, er — " Marcus stared past him. "It must have been . . . half past nine? Quarter to ten?"

"You tell me."

"I'm afraid I don't know. It must have been around then. I think I made it home around ten o'clock or quarter past, but I'm not sure about that either."

Toreth marked the point for later attention. "Did you have any relationship with Kelly Jarvis, beyond a professional one?"

Unlike Warrick, Marcus caught his meaning at once. "No, I did not," he said firmly.

"Not even in the sim?"

Marcus shook his head. "I work on hardware, not software, so I don't need to go into the sim very often."

"How about trials?"

The slight smile did nothing to soften his face. "I'm a married man, Para-investigator. I can assure you that my wife would have something to say about that."

"Was your wife at the Lintons' with you on the twenty-seventh of September?"

Marcus frowned, caught off guard by the change of track. "Was . . . no, she wasn't."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. She rarely comes with me. It's shop talk, mostly, and the sim doesn't interest Lotte. Why the twenty-seventh?"

"That was the evening that Jon Teffera died."

"Jon Teffera?" For a moment, the name genuinely appeared to imply nothing to him, and then his face cleared. "Ah — that's why you're here, is it?" The knowing tone suggested that reality had resumed normal service. "I can't imagine the Investigation and Interrogation Division bestirring themselves for Kelly Jarvis."

Warrick had said more or less the same thing, but this time Toreth had to count to five before he could carry on calmly. "What time did you leave the Lintons'?"

"Ah — " He frowned again. "Let me see. I remember I arrived home at around midnight or . . . half past. No later than one, certainly. So I must have left the Lintons' about eleven-thirty at the earliest. Somewhere around then."

Nothing interesting there, except that he was consistently bad with times. "Was there anything special about the couch Jarvis was found in?"

"No. Very unspecialised, in fact. That's the current prototype production model, the one used for the mandated safety trials."

That explained the relative simplicity of the design. "So, it would be very bad news if that particular version of the sim killed Jarvis?"

"Killed her?" Marcus stared at him, nonplussed. "Who says that it killed her?"

"It's one possibility."

"A rather remote one."

Not, interestingly, impossible. "Doctor Warrick said the same thing."

"And a lot more, I should think, if you suggested that to him. Good God." Now the possibility was sinking in. "But after Teffera . . . the sponsors won't like that at all. Corporate sabotage?"

"Another possibility."

"A damn sight more likely than the sim killing users, that's for sure."

His confidence in that had firmed up. "Did Jon Teffera own the same kind of sim that Kelly was found dead in?" Toreth asked.

"No. Teffera's sim was specially adapted for him — it's radically different to the basic design. He had serious spinal injuries — I assume you know about that?"

"Not in detail." Vague memories stirred. Toreth had absorbed the information at some point without consciously realising it — he'd seen the man on some media broadcast, perhaps. An awareness of major corporate figures like Teffera was part of life. "Wasn't he partially paralysed?"

"Quite seriously paralysed. The adaptations were expensive and time-consuming. Interesting, though — technically very challenging. Direct feeds into the brain mimicking lost nerve inputs, complete restructuring of the output analysis system and contact feedback." For the first time in the interview, Marcus became animated. "Ah, yes. It's a beautiful piece of equipment, if I do say so myself, although I don't know what we'll do with it when Justice finally return it. A pity there aren't enough people in his condition with his kind of money to justify devoting more energy to it."

Back to money again. "Can you imagine any commercial reason for a corporation targeting Jarvis individually?"

"No. Although I don't have a clear idea of what the girl was working on. She was something molecular, wasn't she?" He shrugged. "To be honest, the commercial side isn't my strong suit. Warrick and Linton handle it. I have some knowledge, obviously, but my main role is staff management and technical expertise — the sim hardware and the biological interfacing, primarily."

"So you trust your fellow directors to have your best interests at heart?"

The answer came without hesitation. "Yes, I do. They are two of the most trustworthy people I have met in my life."

Judging by the emphasis he put on it, two of the only trustworthy people.

"SimTech means a lot to me," Marcus continued. "I'm not going to pretend I have the same sort of — " He frowned, clearly looking for the right words. "I don't
believe
in it the way Warrick does, but it's as much my corporation as his or Linton's. And it's going to make me a rich man — I've always wanted to be rich."

"You think the sim will make money, then?"

Marcus smiled genuinely, for the first time, a stretching of his thin lips that didn't reveal his teeth. "A great deal of money, Para-investigator. SimTech will be very big news indeed, I've always known that."

"You've worked at SimTech since the beginning?" Toreth asked.

"Since before that, as it were. I worked with Warrick at the Human Sciences Research Centre."

"What was the original project?"

"It —" Marcus considered for a moment. "It was classified, medium security, but I suppose that doesn't apply here?" When Toreth nodded, he continued. "The Department of Security funded the research group within the Neuroscience Section. The project was called Indirect Neural Remodelling — the primary application Warrick and I worked on was the correction of neural defects by using stimuli sent through the patient's peripheral nervous system. It's probably easiest to think of it as very quick psychotherapy."

Toreth had a reasonable, if rather focused, understanding of psychology, particularly the practical applications. "Did it work?"

"Difficult question. The technology didn't do what the project wanted, no. Eventually, the project was closed down after an unfavourable internal audit report." Marcus waved vaguely, the gesture suggesting unpleasantness beneath his notice. "There was a lot of internal politics after the big Department of Security reorganisation — no one could agree who ought to pay for us. Or possibly someone in another department didn't like what we were doing. You know what it's like."