The Administration Series (23 page)

"He's nothing at all like her," Toreth said. "Exactly the opposite, in fact. Doesn't even want to hear about it. He's . . ."

Not a junkie. Not a typical submissive. Not anything Toreth could easily put his finger on, and all the more interesting for that.

His mind went back to the hotel room, to Warrick's shivering expectation and uncertainty, and then his wholehearted surrender. It made an intriguing contrast to the first dominating fuck in the sim, and to the untouchable confidence he'd shown during the interviews. Hard to believe that they were the same man. Toreth hadn't found the idea of a repeat fuck so appealing for a long time — if he ever had. Although, counting twice in the sim, he'd already had Warrick four times, which really ought to be enough for anyone.

He shook his head, dismissing the idea. "Anyway, he doesn't know where I live, so don't worry about it." He leaned back and patted his thigh. "Come here, and let me tell you about this SMS sim thing."

"Sara, could you come in here for a moment?"

"I'll just be a minute or two."

Toreth cut the connection and stared at the message on his screen. It said simply,
Lucas Marcus destroyed the security records
.

No name or address attached. Who had sent it? Warrick was his first suspect, although the tone of the note felt off for him. No guesswork required, no clever phrasing or possibility of misinterpretation.

Maybe Toreth's fantastic fucking technique on Saturday night had inspired Warrick to send the note later. Or maybe not.

Had Warrick seemed any different on Saturday? Toreth leaned back, considering. It had been an interesting evening. Very interesting. Topping was more fun than he'd remembered. He'd planned for half an hour or so after dinner, and they'd taken nearer two.

'Tell me what you want'.

An entertaining question to ask someone who had so much practice in analysing his own sexual responses and who could produce clear, descriptive requests. Or at least had started off able to do so. Maybe that was why it had taken so long — pushing Warrick past that into shuddering incoherence had been the most enjoyable part of all.

Kneeling, flushed and panting, cuffs pinning his arms. Everything distilled down into one desperate need.

'Please. Fuck me'.

Respectable corporate guy, indeed.

"Is this a private moment? I can come back later."

Sara stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised. Fuck. How long had she been there?

"Did you want me?" she asked.

"Um, yeah." He sat up and cleared his throat. "Where the hell did this message come from?"

"I don't know. It was on the system when I got in. Arrived yesterday, but because it was Sunday nobody looked at it. It's as anonymous as it can be. The systems people say there's no chance of tracing it back to wherever it came from."

"Okay, thanks. That's it."

She grinned and left, closing the door pointedly.

Since the security specialists hadn't been able to find anything incriminating in the SimTech security system on their first pass, Toreth doubted whether having an anonymous note would chivvy them into an inspired discovery. However, with a suspect to concentrate on, there were other approaches.

He pulled up the evidence analysis system's records for Marcus. Last positive sighting of him in the building was made by another engineer, who'd visited Marcus's office at eight-thirty and spoken to him in person. A security guard by the name of Alicia Dean remembered Marcus leaving, but couldn't swear to a time. A look at the duty roster showed that she was off duty, so he called her at home.

It took a while before she appeared on the screen, puffy-eyed and wearing a dressing gown. After a brief introduction, he asked, "Do you remember what time Lew Marcus left the building?"

The woman frowned. "I'm not sure — on my shift, I think. Didn't I say that before? It was later on. I said goodbye to him, and he didn't answer, just waved. I'm pretty sure that was that night."

No point in pressing someone who was honestly doing her best to remember. Perhaps it would be enough to use against Marcus. Briefly, he considered bringing Marcus in to I&I, but the director wasn't the kind of man who would intimidate easily. Better to go round to SimTech and ask him there, where he might feel secure enough to be a little off his guard.

In Marcus's office, Toreth didn't take the low seat offered. Instead, once he'd set the camera up, he remained standing in front of the desk, forcing the man to look up at him.

"What time did you leave SimTech on the night of Kelly Jarvis's death?" Toreth asked.

From Marcus's wariness, Toreth knew he'd found something. Marcus gazed round his office, as if seeking inspiration from the carefully shelved hardware. "I still don't remember, I'm afraid," he said eventually. "Didn't I give you a guess? Half past nine or later, I think."

"Well, do you remember noticing who was on duty in reception when you left? Because they remember you leaving."

Marcus licked his thin lips. "I, ah . . . no."

"Alicia Dean. I asked her what time you left."

"I — well, there you are, then." He was looking everywhere but at Toreth. Finally, he forced his gaze back. "Ah . . . what time was it?"

Toreth smiled. "I'm going to ask again if you remember. Before you answer, I'd like to remind you who you're talking to, and why. Impeding the conduct of an investigation is in itself a minimum category two offence — higher if the seriousness of the case merits it."

It was a reminder he'd often found useful, and it worked in this case. Marcus's eyes narrowed, resentment at the show of authority temporarily displacing his unease, and then he said, "Quarter to nine."

Setting the time back to an hour and a quarter before the murder — no good. "Try again," Toreth said coldly.

"It's true!" Open fear showed on his face now. "I'm telling the truth. It was eight-forty-five. I looked at my watch as I was waiting for a taxi."

"And what time did you arrive home?"

"I don't — " He stopped, staring at the camera recording the interview, and Toreth watched as he ran through the lies, failing to find one that would stand up to pressure. Eventually, he looked down to where his hands were clasped together, resting on the edge of the desk. "It was about ten-fifteen, just as I told you before. I honestly don't remember exactly, so it could be ten minutes either way."

Too early to have been here killing Kelly Jarvis ten or even twenty minutes earlier. "That's a long time to get a taxi from here."

"Yes. I saw someone else on the way."

Toreth's heart sank — a month's salary said it was a lover. "You'll have to do better than that. I need a name."

Marcus shifted his gaze up, looking past Toreth.

"I was with a girl. A woman."

"A regular thing?" Who would hence make a bad alibi, and keep this lead alive.

Marcus shook his head, still not looking at him. "A prostitute."

Which made her an alibi with no interest in covering up for Marcus. "Was she registered?"

"I didn't — I don't remember."

"In other words, you didn't ask." Since money wasn't likely to be a concern, he considered briefly and picked a likely kink. "How old was she?"

From the flash of panic, he knew he was right. Marcus took a deep breath and said, "S — eighteen. She had ID."

"Of course she did. You checked her ID, but not her registration." He took a small step sideways, forcing Marcus to meet his gaze. "Listen. I don't care who you fucked. I don't care if she isn't registered. I don't care which side of legal she is. I
do
care that you're making my life difficult. Give me a name — if you can't give me a name, give me a place, a time, and a description of whoever the hell you bought her from. Then I can check it out and just
maybe
I won't have to go and explain all this to your wife."

Marcus actually flinched at the threat. "Jana. That's all I know. The place
is
registered. They . . . they'll remember me. They know me there. I'll give you the address, but — "

"Yes?"

"There's something else." He leaned his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Oh, God. All right." He looked up. "I was the one who trashed the security records."

"I know," Toreth said, enjoying the dismay on Marcus's face. "I'm afraid it's too late in the day for honesty to help."

"But I have the backup!"

Toreth blinked. "What?"

"I kept the backup." Colour flushed into his pale cheeks. "It's not been tampered with — your security people will be able to tell you that. I wasn't here when Kelly died."

The idea of Marcus keeping a copy of the records seemed improbable, to put it mildly — or at least it did if Marcus had wiped the surveillance to cover up the murder. But if he
hadn't
committed the murder, it was simply more evidence that the director's story was, infuriatingly, true.

"Fine," Toreth said. "The system specialists will take it."

He nodded. "What will happen?"

"To you? Well, as I said, what you've done is a category two offence. A fine rather than prison, but it's automatic revocation of corporate status. And a category four on top, maybe, if the girl comes in underage. The Justice system might issue a re-education order for that, for a non-corporate. If I asked for it, of course. Or I may not charge you with anything — it all depends on what kind of mood I'm in." He smiled coldly. "Not very good at the moment, I have to say."

Marcus simply stared at him, all arrogance gone.

Toreth picked up the camera, wringing what little satisfaction he could from the situation. "I promise I'll let you know when I make my mind up."

Back in his office, he passed on the details of Marcus's alibi to Lucia Wrenn and sent her to check it out, although Toreth was pretty sure the investigator would find it was solid. There might be enough minutes' leeway somewhere in the middle to squeeze in the murder, but he knew that was clutching at straws.

However, as he considered the situation further, he called up a picture of Kelly, looking at it in the light of the new information.

While obviously no longer a teenager, Kelly had a light build and short, boyish hair. Could she have been involved with Marcus? It depended on whether Marcus indulged his tastes at work, or whether he was happy to pay for it. Come to think of it, Tara would probably appeal more to someone like Marcus, and she was Kelly's friend. Blackmail of the respectable corporate by the two women was an outside possibility, but maybe worth considering.

Toreth could construct any number of scenarios which might lead to murder. If the security specialists came up with evidence of tampering on the backup recordings, he might be able to show that Marcus had the opportunity to kill Jarvis.

Superficially attractive as the conjecture was, he found it hard to get excited about. A liking for fucks of dubious legality didn't make a murderer and he'd have a hell of a job getting a damage waiver from Justice with that as his only evidence. Worse, it didn't provide Marcus with a motive to kill Teffera.

Proving that Marcus had killed Kelly would at least have eliminated one death from the enquiry. Leaving him with . . . what? Teffera's murder as an unrelated event that Marcus had exploited to distract attention from his own crime? Or maybe not even murder after all? Just an unlucky coincidence that had left him with two corpses to which the labs were infuriatingly unwilling to ascribe
any
cause of death. Tillotson wouldn't like to hear that.

For a moment, he envied Justice, investigating their unimportant, nobody crimes. Easy enough to get a witness interrogation waiver when the witnesses couldn't snap their fingers and call up a pack of corporate-trained lawyers. Not to mention that Warrick wouldn't appreciate having his fellow director interrogated.

Regretfully, he abandoned the idea of applying for a waiver unless any more evidence turned up. The way things were going with the enquiry, that was optimistic to say the least.

So what were the options?

Tillotson was right — he had nothing. Thanks to the anonymous tip-off, he had less than he'd had on Friday, as the possibility of murder had receded still further with the resolution of the lost security records. Proving the culpability of the sim seemed unlikely. The systems analysts were up to their necks in code and hardware, and muttering about timescales that Toreth refused to believe. Not that disbelief would make any difference, because Systems always took as long as they took.

Right now, finding someone else to pass the case to looked like an attractive option. He had no how, no why, no who. He didn't even have a definite murder. All he had was a coincidence. The timing of the deaths, this close to the reinvestment negotiations, looked so much like corporate sabotage. How long was he willing to plough on before he gave it up?

The investment deadline would at least put an end to the case, if not an optimistic one. Once the nervous sponsors pulled out and another corporation snapped up SimTech, the ever-more hypothetical killer would've achieved their aim. After that there would be no more fresh corpses. A pity, since another body or two could only help.