The Administration Series (24 page)

Toreth leaned back in his chair, considering that idea more carefully. More bodies . . . maybe he could do something about that, and at the same time test the theory that the deaths were an attack on SimTech. A little provocation might bring him the evidence he badly needed.

At coffee time, he caught up with Sara and said, "I'd like something dropped into the admin network, please."

She grinned. "Sure. What?"

"The sim didn't kill our corpses — it's just a very odd coincidence. Two cases of natural causes. We're sitting on our hands for a while to annoy Justice, and then closing the whole thing down."

Now she looked disappointed. "It's going to be hard to float that one. It's not exactly gripping, is it?"

"It doesn't need to get very far — just round the section." Any corporate sabs big enough to tangle with LiveCorp would have friends at I&I to pick it up from there.

"Warrick?"

Startled, Warrick looked up from his screen. He hadn't heard the office door open, but Lew Marcus stood there, hands behind his back, stance suggesting he'd been there for some time. He looked worried and harassed — he had since Kelly's death, now Warrick thought about it, but who amongst the senior staff hadn't?

Warrick checked his watch — half past nine. "You're here late."

Lew didn't answer. He closed the door behind him, then stood by it, hands by his sides now, opening and closing nervously. Warrick waited, wondering.

Finally, Lew crossed the room with rapid, jerky strides, and sat down. "Warrick, I'm afraid I've done something stupid. Very probably unforgivably stupid. Do — oh, God." He squared his shoulders. "Do you remember the trouble six years back? The girl?"

"Your amateur blackmailer?" He tried to keep his tone light, although dealing with the incident had been one of his less enjoyable lessons in corporate management.

"Yes. I did . . ." He looked down at his hands, long fingers clasped together, knuckles white. "I've been doing it again."

Oh, hell. Lew's predilections weren't a subject Warrick had any wish to discuss, even when there was a legitimate concern as to how they impacted on SimTech. On the other hand, Warrick had spent a fair portion of Saturday night kneeling on the floor of a hotel room in front of the para-investigator in charge of the case, discovering how good it felt to have to beg for every touch. He was hardly in a position to take the moral high ground over sexual practices occasioning threats to SimTech's image.

Absently, he rubbed the faint cuff-mark on his right wrist. "You should talk to Marian about it," he suggested, trying to sound sympathetic. Now was the worst possible time for a repetition of old problems.

"I already have. That's not it. Rather, it is, but — " He took a deep breath. "I was with a girl on the night Jarvis died. "He looked up." I thought she was over legal age, Warrick, I swear. She had ID."

Warrick nodded, keeping the distaste locked inside. "How much does she want?"

Lew shook his head, his expression grim. "It's worse than that, I'm afraid. I was the one who wiped the security tapes."

A pity that he couldn't have misheard that. All sympathy was blasted away by the sudden magnification of the threat to SimTech.

"I —" Lew shook his head. "After the last time, Lotte said she'd leave me if I did it again, that I'd never see the boys. God knows I suppose I couldn't blame her, but . . ."

"So you wiped the tapes, so no one would find out when you left the building? Oh, you damn . . ." Perhaps it wasn't too late to tell Toreth and sort something out.

"I knew they'd check with Lotte to confirm the time I got home." His mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. "And I was right, so far as it went."

"Lew, you have to explain this to I&I, right away."

"That's what Marian said. And I'd been thinking about it, trying to work out how. But it's too late — the para-investigator already found out, somehow. He was here today."

Better and better. "What did he say?"

Lew's expression soured even further. "He made a lot of unpleasant threats and thoroughly enjoyed himself, as far as I could tell. The man's revolting — I'd always heard that that place employed sadists, but I didn't believe it until now."

'Keep still, or I'll break your fucking neck'.

Ghost words distracted him with a remembered thrill. Warrick forced his attention back to the problem. "But did he believe that you had nothing to do with Kelly's death? That's the important thing."

"Oh, yes." Lew waved the question aside. "Or he will. I gave the backups to the I&I people this afternoon."

"You kept backups?"

"Yes." A hint of a smile lightened his expression. "Old habits, eh? And even when I wiped the records, I knew deep down that it was an idiotic thing to do."

"Yes, it was." Anger hardened his voice. "I don't need to tell you what this could do to the finance renegotiations."

Lew returned his gaze, all traces of humour gone. "I know. That's why I had to tell you what I'd done. In case — " He sat up straighter, his shoulders stiff. "In case you wanted to invoke the founders' clause to remove me from the board. I think you could legitimately consider me a fatal liability to the corporation at this point. I won't fight it, if you do, and I'll give up my shares right away."

Warrick nodded. It was something they'd all agreed to when SimTech was founded — an instrument to cut the corporation quickly and cleanly free of a disgraced director. This was certainly the closest they'd ever come to a qualifying situation. Tempting to say yes — to tell Lew to get the hell out of the building right now. Wiping the tapes had been beyond stupid.

However, Warrick knew that threats to SimTech tended to set off a disproportionate defensive response in him. His sister, and Asher, had often teased him about it, over less serious issues. Anger still tightened his throat, but he tried to keep it under control. What was best for SimTech?

As the current dire situation made Lew's action so much worse, so it dictated the necessary response.

"Have you spoken to Asher?" Warrick asked.

"Not yet. If you want to wait to make a decision until you've talked to her, I understand."

"No. There's no need — I know what she'll say, so I can tell you now that we'll stand by you."

To his surprise, the pronouncement didn't seem to bring much relief. "Lew?" he asked.

"There might be charges." Words dragged reluctantly out of him. "Obstruction, anything he can come up with about the girl. I want to be sure you know that. If you need to change your mind later, I'll understand."

"No. If I&I charges you, with anything, you'll get the best lawyers SimTech can find you."

Clear relief washed over Marcus, and he sagged slightly in the chair. "Thanks. You have no idea what that means to me. And Warrick — I am sorry."

Not sorry enough that you couldn't stay away from the girl in the first place. Warrick bit back the retort. Personal feelings had no place here — SimTech must come first, as always.

"We have to stick together," Warrick said. "If someone is trying to kill SimTech, the last thing we need is for the directors to fall apart. That would be the last straw for our chances with the sponsors." He closed the screen down and stood. "Come on, I'll give you a lift home."

"I can get —" Then Lew stopped. For a moment, Warrick thought he would protest the unsubtle escort, then he nodded. "Of course. Thanks."

Sitting at his desk, Toreth stared at a screenful of analysis of the financial reports on SimTech, which told him nothing that he didn't know already — time was slowly running out for the fledgling corporation. More fool Warrick if he were looking to Toreth to solve the problem.

The next week promised to be as dull as the past two. Eleven days had passed since Toreth had dropped his bait into the gossip pool and the less-likely-by-the-day murderer hadn't responded.

The list of disappointed investors supplied by Asher Linton was generating its own mountain of files, none of which had so far produced a substantial lead. Carey had interviewed the Tefferas and extracted no more from them than Toreth had managed. She seemed as disappointed and frustrated by the lack of progress as Toreth, although she professed herself to be impressed by SimTech's number of potential corporate enemies.

Toreth had filled his time with specialists' reports, technical details and security files, out of which the evidential analysis systems had pulled nothing. On the Monday of the second week, Toreth had asked Tillotson to let him take back personal charge of the interrogations for his old cases. There wasn't much left to do, but level D would make a change from his office. Tillotson had told him curtly that he could have them back when he closed the SimTech case.

By yesterday morning — Thursday — Toreth had been so bored and frustrated that he'd called Warrick to take him up on his virtual offer. A sim session that evening had been a welcome distraction — fucking that he could charge as overtime, which cheered him slightly.

The whole case, he decided, was an evidential black hole, rapidly sucking his career in past its event horizon. He should've dumped the whole fucking thing when he had the chance — Justice would never touch it now. At least it was the end of the week again. With a sigh, Toreth closed the reports on his screen and went for a coffee.

In the quiet of a Friday afternoon coffee room, he found Chevril, sitting alone. That brightened his day — a chance for revenge for all the times he'd sat through Chevril's bloody irritating whinging.

He went through the case in grim and depressing detail, and by the time he'd finished, he discovered he'd managed to make himself feel worse. Chevril's expression revealed no hint of sympathy.

"So, no skeletons in the closet at SimTech?" he asked.

"If there are, I can't get the fuckers to rattle." Toreth sighed. "Like I said, one of the directors likes teenage girls and that's it. Turned out in the end that she was legal age after all. She hit fifteen
two days
before he fucked her, so the best I've got there is obstruction, and I can't be bothered processing that. I let the bastard sweat it out for a few days, then I told him I was dropping it."

That had been a necessary preliminary to yesterday's sim-fuck — otherwise he was certain Warrick would only have used the opportunity to bore him about his fellow director.

"Other than that," Toreth said, "It's a respectable minor corporation full of respectable minor corporates and respectable, well-published academics."

"But are they well cited?"

"Huh?"

"Well cited." Chevril waved vaguely. "It's something Elena's editor friends say at dinner parties. One of them says, 'so-and-so's very well published', and then someone else says, 'yes, but are they well cited'? and then they all laugh a lot and open another bottle. Alcoholics, the lot of 'em. Anyway, it means, does anyone actually read the stuff they churn out?"

Toreth blinked. "You have dinner parties?"

"Uh . . . yes." Chevril shifted in his chair. "Or at least Elena does. People from work."

"How come I never get invited?"

"
You
?" Chevril laughed derisively. "Well, let me think about it. Would it be good for Ellie's career if you seduced the wives of half her colleagues, causing broken hearts and messy divorces? Um . . . no."

"I wouldn't necessarily."

"You —"

"It could be their husbands."

"Oh, God." Chevril grimaced in disgust. "You always have to, don't you?" He drained his mug and stood up. "And that is exactly why you don't get asked to dinner."

That, Toreth thought, and the fact that Chevril had a notoriously attractive wife.

Back in the office, Sara had gone home early — ridiculously early, even for a Friday and even given their recent long hours. Toreth left her a note asking her to find him complete publication and citation records for SimTech staff past and present, and all the university staff who had ever been associated with the AERC. There might be some useful titbit in them somewhere, and it might teach her not to be absent when he was handing out work.

The thought of her expression when she found it on Monday morning gave him his first smile of the day.

Warrick was late for the Friday afternoon session. Marian knew why, of course — showing his irritation both that she had interrupted his schedule and that she had the power to do so. In this matter, she had the authority of The Sponsors on her side.

She had last spoken to Warrick officially nearly eight weeks ago and he'd kicked up a fuss about her demand for a session today. However, she had the ultimate threat — she could stop him working in the sim. She could, and she would. As she'd told the para-investigator, she took her responsibilities very seriously. Here, in her office, she put all other concerns and worries aside and focused only on her job, as difficult as that had become to achieve lately.

Eventually Warrick walked in without knocking, making no comment or apology, and took a seat.

"Well?" he asked, before she could even say hello.

"Well, what?"