“But you’re paying.”
“Oh yeah,” said Artur, snuggling himself down into the folds of Dan’s pocket. “Good luck with that.”
* * *
Dan trudged up the creaking staircase with Artur’s voice chattering from inside his pocket. It had been chattering from inside his pocket for some time now, and no matter how much effort he put into ignoring it, it kept finding its way to his ears.
“All I’m saying is ye could have warned me them lads were standing where they were standing before I dropped the car on them. I mean, it’s all very well ye sayin’ I should have looked, but sure, ye don’t think of these things in the heat of the moment, do ye? Ye gave me a job to do – get the car down – and I did it.”
“I wanted it down in one piece,” Dan said, turning at a landing before continuing on upwards.
“Well ye should’ve specified that,” Artur pointed out.
“I assumed it was implied.”
“Well clearly ye thought wrong,” Artur countered. “Which is your fault, not mine. Ye know what they say about assuming, Deadman?”
“No. What do they say?”
Artur shrugged. “Feck knows, but I’m sure it applies in this instance.”
After another landing and another staircase, Dan finally reached the top. The outer office door stood dead ahead, light shining through the frosted glass. At first, he thought he could hear Ollie talking to herself, then realized that while she was talking, it wasn’t to herself.
“Someone’s in there,” Dan whispered. It was late. Really late. Too late for clients. That left a few other options, none of them good.
His hand crept inside his coat, before he remembered Mindy was out of charge.
“Want me to go in and batter the shoite out of them?” Artur asked. From the way he said it, Dan knew he was itching to be given the go-ahead.
“Maybe,” Dan said. He held a hand over his pocket, stopping Artur before he could leap out. “But not yet. Let’s see who it is first.”
Artur wrinkled his nose. “Seems a bit wishy-washy, if ye ask me. Violence first, questions later, that’s my motto,” he said. He shrugged. “But, ye know, whatever ye think yerself.”
“Be ready,” said Dan, then he pushed open the door, stepped into the office, and came face to face with the most flawlessly beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
Even sitting, she was tall and slender, dressed from head to toe in a pristinely white and effortlessly expensive-looking outfit that probably cost more than the entire block. Dan had only met a handful of people from Up There, but he knew one when he saw one. The idea that this woman belonged anywhere Down Here was absurd. Yet Down Here she was, and specifically in his office.
To her credit, she didn’t faint, scream, or throw up in her mouth at the sight of Dan. Her only reaction was a subtle widening of the eyes and a flaring of the nostrils, and even they didn’t last.
“Mr Deadman, I presume?” the woman said in a voice that suggested several generations worth of good breeding. She rose in a fluidly elegant motion, presenting a flawless hand for Dan to… do what with? Kiss? Surely not. He regarded it for several seconds too long, before making a gesture that suggested his hands were full, despite the fact they patently weren’t. He offered her a curt but professional nod which she seemed both surprised and relieved by in roughly equal measures.
Artur’s head popped up from inside Dan’s coat pocket. He looked around the room, then let out a little whistle of surprise when he spotted the well-dressed woman.
“Well, would ye look at that?” he said. “Who’s this now?”
When the woman made no attempt to introduce herself, Dan looked expectantly across at Ollie. She was leaning against the inner office door in a way that was presumably supposed to make her look relaxed and at ease, but actually had completely the opposite effect.
To the untrained observer – and probably to many trained ones, too – Ollie looked more or less like any other young woman, albeit with pink, purple-patterned skin and an expression of either confusion, excitement or surprise, depending on what happened to be flitting through her head at the time.
In reality, though, she didn’t belong in this dimension. She was the daughter of a powerful and somewhat terrifying Malwhere Lord. Thanks to Dan’s inadvertent assistance, she had managed to escape the Hell-like dimension she’d been imprisoned in for years and now, somehow, Dan was stuck with her. He wasn’t quite sure how that had transpired, but transpired it had.
She’d only been living with him in the office for a couple of nights, but Dan was already starting to miss the peace and quiet.
“Hi!” Ollie said, catching Dan’s look and bouncing it right back to him as a smile. She shot the comm-device on the desk a puzzled look, but chose not to ask how they’d managed to get out. “Good night? Catch the guys with the thing?”
“I did,” Dan said. His eyes crept sideways and he tilted his head in the finely-dressed woman’s direction. “Are you going to introduce us?”
Ollie seemed to take a while to make her mind up about this. “No,” she finally decided.
Dan sighed wearily. He tried to smile, but everyone conspired to turn it into a grimace. “No?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“I mean, yes. I mean, no. I mean… I would, but she won’t tell me her name,” Ollie said.
Dan frowned, and turned his attention back to the stranger. She stiffened, just slightly, and drew in a slow breath through her nose. Considering the pungency of Dan’s body odor, this was a bold move, and the tears that formed at the corners of the woman’s eyes suggested it was one she wouldn’t be making again.
“I wasn’t certain I could trust her,” she said, anticipating Dan’s question before it came.
“You can,” said Dan. “She wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t.”
Ollie’s eyes widened in surprise. “Whoa. Really? Thanks!” she chirped.
“Don’t mention it.”
“I mean… I didn’t think you trusted me at all! You keep saying you don’t…”
Dan shot her a look he hoped would shut her up. It didn’t. Fortunately, the door pulling open behind her did, and her words came out as a sudden yelp before she toppled backwards into the inner office. Dan, Artur and the woman in white all watched as a wrinkled gray figure in a hard hat and luminous yellow vest leaned through the doorway.
“Alright?” the mole-like old builder said, his stubby nose twitching anxiously.
“Wait. You’re still here?” said Dan. “You were supposed to be done hours ago.”
“It’s a tricky job,” the builder wheezed.
“You’re fixing one fecking window,” Artur pointed out.
“And a bit of wall,” the builder countered. “These things take time.”
Ollie sprang to her feet. “I’m up! I’m OK! No harm done! Totally didn’t even hurt. Thanks for asking.”
The builder licked his cracked and dry lips. “Quick question. You definitely want the window, yeah?”
Dan’s eyebrows met in the middle. “What?”
“The window. That’s a definite, is it? Or is it?”
“Yes. Yes, I want the window,” Dan told him. “That’s literally the only reason you’re here.”
“Right. Yeah. Right. Gotcha. That’s what I thought,” the builder said. He nodded, then retreated back into the other room, muttering: “Yeah. He wants the window.”
From the inner office, a younger voice replied.
“Fonk, seriously?” he groaned, and then the door closed, and the conversation became a series of unhappy mumbles.
“I think perhaps I’ve come at a bad time,” said the woman. There was a note of impatience to her voice that suggested this was everyone else’s fault but hers. If it was an apology she was looking for, she’d come to the wrong place.
“Yes, you have. Office hours are listed on the door,” Dan said.
“Are they?” asked Ollie, craning to look. Dan continued before she could point out th
at no, they weren’t.
“But you’re here now, so how about you tell me what I can do for you?”
The woman’s nostrils flared again. Her eyes grew cold as she peered down her long straight nose at Dan, Ollie, and the office in general. Dan waited for the cutting insult he could practically see forming itself behind those thin, perfectly symmetrical lips.
To his surprise, she didn’t make any disparaging remarks. Instead, she sort of folded down onto Dan’s best chair, her slender shoulders shaking as her body was wracked by silent sobs.
“Oh shoite,” said Artur, watching tears glisten on the woman’s impeccably smooth cheeks. “This is way beyond me realm of expertise. If ye’ll excuse me, I think I’ll turn in for the night.”
Dan fished the little man from his pocket and carried him over to the wall safe he locked him in most nights. This was partly for Artur’s own safety, but mostly for everyone else’s.
“Goodnight,” said Ollie.
“Night, peaches,” Artur said, then he stepped back from the door as Dan closed and locked it. He took a framed picture from the top of the filing cabinet and hung it from a hook above the safe, hiding it from view.
When he turned back to the woman she had made a valiant attempt to pull herself together, but hadn’t quite managed it. Dan gestured to Ollie, then to the stranger. “Tissues,” he whispered. When she just stared back at him, he motioned to his eyes and nose.
“Oh!” said Ollie. “Right.”
She tore a page from the business directory and held it towards the snuffling woman. Dan grabbed it before she could notice, shot Ollie an annoyed look, then quickly tossed the paper onto the floor.
“You OK?” he asked, lowering himself into a sitting position on the edge of the table.
“Hmm? Oh. Yes. Yes, of course,” the woman said, her voice croaking through her tightening throat. She forcibly cleared the blockage with a series of short coughs, then smoothed down her already immaculately smooth white hat. “Kooriashian.”
Dan frowned. “Uh… Kooriashian?”
“My name. It is Kooriashian. I would like to employ your services, Mr Deadman.”
“Figured it wasn’t a personal call,” Dan said.
Kooriashian’s brow developed a single flaw as she frowned. “I’m sorry?”
“Nothing. Please,” said Dan, motioning for her to continue.
Kooriashian smiled. It was the kind of smile a visitor to another country might make when they couldn’t work out if the fast-talking little foreign chaps were making fun of them or not.
“Yes. Yes, quite. It’s…” She lowered her head, took a moment to compose herself, then continued. “It’s my husband. Tressingham. I think… I rather fear he’s been…”
“Screwing around?” Dan guessed.
Kooriashian flinched as if she’d been physically struck.
“Conducting extra-marital activities of an untoward nature,” she said, managing to put emphasis on each and every word. “Yes. Quite so.”
“And you want me to catch him in the act,” said Dan. “I’ll be honest, it’s not what I usually do. See, I’m a little more… specialized.”
“I appreciate that, Mr Deadman, but I have spent a lot of time considering the options, and you are my preferred vendor for this matter.”
“Any detective Down Here could do what you’re looking for,” Dan said. “I could give you a list.” He gestured to the business directory. “Well, maybe not a complete list, but enough to get you started.”
“You are not listening, Mr Deadman,” Kooriashian said, in the same tone she almost certainly used to reprimand her staff with. “I carefully considered my options. I elected to choose you for this… case or mission or job, or whatever you wish to call it. My mind is made up. It’s simply made up.”
Dan crossed his arms and shook his head. “Like I say, not my kind of case.”
“I can pay you five thousand credits now, another ten thousand once you’ve completed the assignment.”
A voice came from behind the painting, muffled by several inches of hardened steel. “Holy fecking father! Take the case, ye daft big shoite!”
A thought occurred to Kooriashian. Dan watched it flit across her face. “You do use credits down here, yes? You don’t have your own…” She waved a hand vaguely. “…currency?”
“We do,” Dan confirmed. “Use credits, I mean.”
“Super. Then it’s decided.”
“Is that a lot?” Ollie wondered.
“Which of us are you asking?” said Kooriashian.
Ollie hesitated, then pointed to Dan. The woman in white looked him up and down. “Ah. Then yes. It is rather.”
Dan thought about saying no. He really did. A beautiful yet mysterious woman turning up at the office of a private detective with an offer that sounded too good to be true? After dark? His every instinct told him to palm her off somewhere else, make her someone else’s problem.
And he would have, had the sound of a power tool not chosen that moment to reverberate from within the inner office. The new window was expensive. A replacement for the Exodus wouldn’t be cheap. Nothing Down Here ever was, with the exception of talk, life and certain street foods of dubious origins.
Still, he thought about it. Much later, once the screaming had stopped, the chaos had been contained, and everything had blown over, he’d console himself with that. He thought about it. He at least came close to making a different decision even if, ultimately, he didn’t.
“Sure, why not?” Dan said, removing his hat and coat and hanging them on a hook behind the door. He rolled up his shirt sleeves, enjoying the woman’s growing discomfort as his mismatched forearms were unveiled. “Now, tell me what’s been happening, and take it from the top.”
Kooriashian’s tale was pretty much what Dan had expected. Her husband, Tressingham, was an older man with an eye for younger women, who’d suddenly started working late most nights and paying his not-as-young-as-she-used-to-be wife less and less attention.
She spoke of the whispered calls he would cut off when she entered the room, his too-broad smiles when she’d walked in on him furtively tapping on his comm-pad, his insistence that of course he wasn’t up to anything, daaaahling, and his blatant attempts to make her doubt the evidence of her own eyes, not to mention her own instincts.
He had started traveling to Down Here (although Kooriashian called it ‘Down There’ with a particularly harsh emphasis on the ‘there’ part). She’d found out quite by chance, after accidentally paying a very discrete individual to hack into his travel records. Whenever he claimed to be ‘working late’ he was actually descending to the city below. He’d fabricated an entire business trip so he could spend three full days Down Here, and had never once mentioned it to his wife.
“Why don’t you leave him?” Ollie asked. Kooriashian looked utterly perplexed by this, so Dan answered for her.
“Because he’s the one with the money, right? You don’t want to just leave him without making sure you’re set up for life.”
“And why shouldn’t I?” Kooriashian asked. “Why should I walk away from what’s rightfully mine and leave him with everything?”
Her mouth opened briefly, as if there was more to be said, then quickly drew tight. It didn’t go unnoticed.
“What else?” Dan asked. “You were going to say something. What else?”
Kooriashian was a picture of perfect stillness for several seconds, as if she’d frozen solid. Dan stood up and gestured towards the door, but before he could suggest she left, her demeanor thawed.
“I don’t want to leave him. Well, no, of course I want to leave him, but I can’t. I daren’t.”
Dan sat down again, his chair creaking beneath him. “Why?” he asked, but a high-pitched grinding noise from the inner office drowned the question out. He waited for it to pass, realized it wasn’t going to happen any time soon, so raised his voice and tried again. “WHY?”
“Well, I mean… isn’t it obvious?” Koorias
hian said. She didn’t shout, but her voice had that confident boom that only comes from a very specific type of upbringing, and it carried well.
Ollie leaned closer to Dan. “Is it obvious?” she asked.
“Not to me,” Dan said.
Kooriashian appeared uncomfortable at having to spell the difficulties of the situation out. “Well, I mean… he’s clearly having an affair.”
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Dan agreed.
“He’s having an affair with someone… Down There.” Kooriashian shuddered. “Or Here, or… whatever you wish to call it.”
“So, you should leave him,” Ollie said.
“Are you mad?” Kooriashian snapped, her voice taking on a frosty edge. “I can’t have everyone finding out that my husband has betrayed me with a… with a…” She looked Ollie up and down, the gestured to the window. “Well, you know. I don’t want to say ‘commoner’ but… You know.”
She shifted in her chair and smoothed down her flawless outfit again. “I daren’t even confront him. I simply cannot risk anyone finding out. I’d be a laughing stock. An utter laughing stock.”
Dan clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. “And we can’t be having that.”
“Precisely! I’m so glad you understand,” said Kooriashian, brightening a little. “Hence me coming to you. I wanted somewhere utterly grim, you know? A real – what do you call it? A real dive. No-one Up Here – There – would ever think about setting foot in a place like this, or dealing with someone like you, so it minimizes the risk of you ever coming into contact with anyone who knows me.”
Dan blinked. He didn’t think the woman was going out of her way to be offensive. It was just the type of person she was – one who brusquely steamrollered through any social situation with no real regard for the feelings of those she considered beneath her. Which, Dan reckoned, was probably everyone.
“So why find her?” Dan asked. “Or him. Or it. Or whatever. If you aren’t going to leave your husband or confront him about it, why go to the expense of finding out who he’s banging?”
He relished the flicker of discomfort on the woman’s face that the directness of his phrasing had caused, although to her credit she recovered quickly.
Dead Inside_A Space Team Universe Novel Page 3