"Boss, I think I've found her."
Sikes and I walked round. The article was a piece from the Senkou news feed entitled Murder and Kidnapping from Burnt Orphanage. Becky scrolled down using her tablet. "It says here that sixteen children were abducted from Beakonsire Orphanage, and the matron was killed."
"So?" Sikes said.
Becky reversed her chair into him. "I obviously haven't got to the point yet, have I? It says that a finger was found in the burned rubble which belonged to a girl of six cycles who had osteochondroplasia."
"Was Laurie missing a finger?" I asked.
"I don't know. Not on her good hand, unless she'd had it replaced, but on the other she wore that black glove that kept her skin alive, so maybe on that one. And window security places Kenrey and Deson in Senkou as well."
"What's osteochondroplasia?" said Sikes.
"One of the diseases that could cause malformations like Colson's," Becky said.
"Does it say her real name?"
"Ruby Lemmiston."
Ruby? "Laurie had black hair."
"I'm not sure she did. Now I come to think of it, a couple of times I saw her roots were red. Dark red, like roses, difficult to distinguish from the black at a distance."
I had to shut my mouth before a pool of saliva flooded over the bank of my lip. That was her! It had to be. What would a mother name a child with such monstrous disfigurement and beautiful red hair other than Ruby? The orphanage had burned, and the black glove that Colson wore was known as plastic skin, designed for burn victims to protect damaged tissue when grafting and other measures failed.
Sikes was back at his own screen again. "Window security data suggests Kenrey went to Senkou loads of times. It could be coincidence."
I nodded. "And how many of those occasions were before the orphanage burnt down?"
Sikes tapped his tablet. "Nearly all of them."
The orphanage was a child brothel. Laurie – or Ruby – was most likely a victim of rape. Rake was right all along, it had nothing to do with Kenrey's status, personal gain, or fear. This tiny, deformed girl was a vigilante, killing a man who raped her as a child.
"It's exactly the same as what happened when Rake killed Welker," I said. "When something happens to compromise the safety of the operation, they move the girls and start over."
I was right about the connection between Ruby and Kenrey, but it was impossible to celebrate. Evil things happened in that building, and whatever Ruby had become, resulted from what they did to her.
Sikes ran his eyes over the article. "It says the owner of the finger was killed when the building collapsed."
"Presumed killed," Becky said. "I wonder why they left her behind."
It wasn't difficult to see why a girl with osteochondroplasia might be rejected by men with Kenrey's interests. I would never know what happened at that place, but something must have gone wrong that led to the place being burnt down with Ruby inside. They shot the matron, but they must have thought it more fun to leave the little child to burn.
Part of me recoiled against catching such a person. She was not so different to myself in that respect. We were both freaks and never treated kindly for it. I needed a break to think about what had to happen. For the first time since Sikes had shut the office door behind me, I put the aching pieces of me back together and went to the snack machine. I swayed a bit on my feet, almost crashing into a potted plant from lightheadedness.
I bought several items, only paying the slightest attention to what they were, and sat down at the little circular table provided for people to consume snacks without returning to their desks. There was a jaffee room further along with comfortable chairs that weren't connected to the table by metal poles like a roundabout. But most likely it would also contain people.
I always suspected Colson had been the subject of something horrible at the hands of Kenrey. Finding out I was right should have changed nothing, but it did. It was more personal, fouler somehow. Colson had been a victim, but what was she now? Did killing Kenrey make her a monster? Was I catching her for my own selfish needs? Kenrey raping her clouded everything. I had never doubted that catching her was right. Vigilantes were not justice. I said that to Rake at the start of all this and I believed it now. They were animated by hatred, intent on destruction. But at the same time, I could not blame her for what she felt.
I needed to take a walk.
Outside, a poisoned hue spread across the sky, the kind of greenish gray that meant the swamps were about to flood the cities. I walked down the steps to the sidewalk and thought about calling my slider when another one pulled up in front of me.
The door opened and in the same motion a tall black man was standing uncomfortably close. "Detective Nidess?"
I took a step back. "How do you know who I am?"
"If you would come with us, please?" He gestured to the open door with a muscular arm.
I didn't know what to say, but despite the obvious pointlessness of fighting, I was not willingly getting in that vehicle.
"Eric, will you stop frightening the man?" A voice rumbled with authority from inside the slider, instantly recognizable.
I'd spent hours listening to that dry inflexion; words scraping across the tongue. "Archbishon Liegon?"
"Detective, would you mind joining me for a minute? We will drop you off here after we've talked."
I eyed Eric, feeling slightly better about the situation. If there was anyone who benefited from me staying in one piece it was Liegon. And if Eric wanted me in that slider, then I would end up inside it one way or another. It seemed wiser to volunteer.
Liegon sat against the far wall as if her spine had fused to the seat behind, her thin face wedged between two sheets of hair that ran down either side. She extended an arm almost in salute to shake my hand. "Pleased to meet you, can I offer you a drink? Beer? Wine? Whiskey? Whoever stocked this vehicle clearly thinks I'm an alcoholic."
Bile rose up my throat, touching my teeth before I forced it back down. "No thank you, Archbishon." I was never drinking again.
Eric shut the door behind us, and the slider started moving.
"Call me Vera. I want us to be friends."
I nodded. "Vera."
"I'm sure you've heard of my predicament. The SP think I ordered Kenrey's death, and they've arrested Sol Benrick as my agent."
"I know you didn't do it," I said.
She smiled thinly. "That is why you are here detective. The SP agent in charge of the case, Reens, believes you have a different suspect, but he either doesn't know or refused to tell me who it was. I need a name and a reason. Otherwise Benrick will be dead by week's end."
"You care for Benrick?" I asked.
She smiled. "That was meant more of as an incentive for you than for me."
"Then why did you hire him? There must be so many other masters who could have fulfilled that role."
"Perhaps, but which of those knows Kenrey's most intimate secrets?" Her smile widened. "The little girls for example."
I paused, unsure why she would bring that up. She couldn't hope to blackmail me. Clazran would devour her if she threatened to spread Kenrey's secret. "I can't tell you the name," I said, "not even the pseudonym." If Liegon told anyone then the SP would be all over it. I needed to catch her. That was my ticket into the SP.
She stared at me, her blond hair still as armor, following the contours of her face. "There is no need for this to get ugly."
If it got ugly, she would be dead. I could easily swap my testimony and conclude Benrick was the murderer. "Don't threaten me, Vera. Our situations align perfectly for us to be friends, but it's you who needs my help, and it isn't to your benefit that I fear your intent."
Eric fidgeted in his seat. For an instant I thought he might reach over to me, but Liegon halted him with a look. "You're right, forgive me. Why, may I ask, won't you help me? You do have another suspect?"
She oscillated between pleasant and aggressive like a varyball on a spring. Eric's
function had been made abundantly clear, and she could dip that knife in sugar all she liked, it wouldn't hide the steel. Despite having all the power, until I got out of this slider I was completely at her mercy.
"If you allow me to do my job," I said, "I can apprehend my suspect within a week." It was a total lie. Months or cycles might pass before I found Colson, Ruby, but that would not sway Liegon. "Can you keep Benrick alive until then?"
She shot a glance at Eric, considering it the way an overseer might consider whipping a lazy slave. "It would be easier if you would give me a name. The evidence against him is damning."
I nodded. "My evidence will undo that. Benrick will be released, and every charge against you will be dropped. Keep Benrick alive, and I'll give Clazran his killer."
Liegon shook her head. "I am in no position to aid Benrick. Every action I take for him makes me look guiltier of conspiracy."
"Then do it through a proxy. If I find out you let Benrick die–"
"It's you who are letting him die, Mr. Nidess," she said through lips so tight they barely moved, "by not giving me the name that can save his life. I'll do what I can to slow Benrick's death, purely because, at terminus, he will implicate me to end his torment." She paused. "I am not guilty, it is simply because he knows it's what they want to hear, but let us not pretend that it is you who are his friend and I his enemy."
It was Ruby who framed Benrick, and his life was her responsibility. True, I had the power to save it, but the cost was too high. I felt guilt – I was no monster. Benrick wasn't likable, and he'd turned a blind eye to Kenrey's perversions, but both of those things could also be said of me. The Kaerosh did not allow moral character to flourish. We were forced to keep unpleasant secrets in order to survive. Perhaps Benrick reveled in the rape of innocence but perhaps not. Perhaps he did everything he could to assuage Kenrey's desires.
Ruby had condemned the man for crimes he may never have committed, and in doing so she condemned herself. Whatever reservations I had about catching her were gone. Revenge was one thing, but there had to be a line, and framing Benrick was beyond it.
I said none of this to Liegon. "I will hasten my investigation as much as possible to save both of you, but I cannot give you the name." She was right, but I wasn't responsible for Benrick's position. I needed to find Ruby myself, or I was just a mosquito buzzing around Clazran's head, better swatted. If Reens found Ruby then I lost my usefulness, and Pressen could publish his findings without fear of reprisal. I needed to get into the SP. It was the only way I could fight him.
Liegon's eyes drifted over to Eric, deciding whether she would take the information she had come for. Both of us knew that she would never have another chance once I was out the slider. She would be forced to trust me.
"I could take that name from you," she said finally.
I stared at her, refusing to flinch from the narrow eye slits that tried to freeze and burn me all in one. "You could," I agreed, "but it wouldn't help you. I would lose all inclination to fight your case and could just as easily claim it was all theory. The measures you used to extract the information would not make you look innocent. You are better placed to keep me as a friend and trust that I will complete what I have started."
"I cannot simply trust you. In a week Benrick will be dead, and my arrest will follow shortly after. I need to act. I will not be dragged to Cythuria so shortly after I reached the pinnacle of my career."
For a moment I said nothing. A sadness had crept into her voice that even her straight, expressionless mask couldn't hide.
I nodded. "The best thing you can do right now is to let me get back to work."
"Give me the name."
"No."
"Eric–"
"Wait!" I held up a hand to stop Eric from standing. "I understand that you cannot sit by and wait to be arrested, but this is not the answer. I'm the last friend you've got, and if you don't send this slider back to HQ right now, I will destroy you. No one will believe there even was another name."
Eric stood, poised to spring at me with the slightest prompt. Liegon made no signal to him, the words falling from her motionless face as if there was speaker hidden at the back of her mouth. "I could just kill you after I get the information."
My instincts pressed me to go for the door and jump out of the moving vehicle, but even if it wasn't locked, even if I landed in the softest patch of mud, the impact would be enough to kill me. The only other action I could think of was emptying my bladder, and if Eric took another step towards me there would be no decision about it. It was words that would bring my escape here not actions. "If that prime rib comes anywhere near me, I'll give him every name under the suns until you won't have a fracking clue which one is the right one."
Liegon shrugged. "We have truth serum, heliobaxa, the best there is. Perhaps you've heard of it?"
My mouth fell open. Heliobaxa was a living organism, like an amoeba but black as tar. When injected into the blood it quickly migrated to the human brain where it started to attack the neural network. Within five minutes the victim lost their vision, in the next five they became unable to lie, and shortly after that words began to disappear from their vocabulary, usually syllable by syllable until all that remained was the ability to grunt and hiss. Coma and death followed quickly.
"You need me," I said.
Eric pulled out the syringe of dark sludge, and my bladder felt as if it was about to rupture clean through my abdomen.
"Yes, I can give you a name, but the name alone avails you nothing. Without me there to fight the case and explain why this person is the killer no one will listen to your desperate rants. No one will believe the name from your mouth. No one will even believe it from Sikes or Hayson. The only person they will believe it from is the person who has twice, thrice if you include Benrick, disproved the involvement of the previous suspects. Me. You need me fighting your corner, because within the remit of this case, I am God, and only God can save you now." I forced a smile. "You know this as well as I do."
Liegon stared at me, making no move to either call Eric off or usher him on.
"You have a choice," I continued. "Either in a week's time you and Benrick walk away from this innocent of all wrongdoing, or you take your name, if there's anything in that needle but coke, and see who believes you." I glared at her, matching her eyes dead for dead. "Be careful before you threaten me again."
For a moment she stared back, her eyes burning as if she was cooking from the inside, then she broke away. "Alright. We'll trust each other."
"No doubt you have connections in the SP," I said. People didn't get to her position without them. "Use them to delay Benrick's interrogation. Make a noise to get him a proper trial if you can. Do everything you can to give me more time, and we'll both come out of this better than before."
She snorted. "My friends in the SP are drying up by the day, and the President won't talk to me. Even if I'm proved innocent tomorrow, these things can never be restored."
I smiled. "It wasn't long ago I mouldered in the basement thinking I would never do any real detective work again. Now I am a hero of The Kaerosh, I've met the President, and the Commissioner respects my opinion above all others. All things are reparable with time."
She gave me contact details for an untraceable number as she dropped me off. "One week," she said. But that was ridiculous. I was not dealing with some fool lowlife. Ruby was smart, probably the smartest person I knew, and I had no idea where she was. Likely, she hadn't used her real identity for cycles, and she wasn't going by Laurie Colson anymore either. It could be months before I found her, cycles even. But I'd escaped the slider with my limbs intact. I could have bent over and kissed the concrete, but first things first, I needed to find a bathroom.
Chapter 21
By the time I made my way back to the office my head was throbbing so intensely I almost forgot where I was. Becky looked up from her network screen as I entered. "Err...Boss, I think you need to see this. You know you asked yo
ur contact whether any of those other guys traveling with Kenrey also used the girls?"
Mrs. Jason had not been a willing accomplice, but she feared me more than she feared the SP – I wasn't about to correct her. As matron of Kenrey's household, she was trusted with all of his passwords, making her party to information too valuable to pass up. It had taken threats I would never repeat to force her to go through his files for the names on my lists, and she fought me with the energy of a cornered tank cat. But at terminus, I quashed the resistance in her just as I had the first time when Nadine and the other one had falsely implicated Hobb.
Her first act was to give me Deson. Kenrey's funeral was not a small affair, but of all the names I gave her, one pedophile had attended. After that we used window security data to find that Kenrey and Deson traveled with other men on multiple occasions, and I gave her those names to search as well.
"Well," Becky said, "your source says 23 out of the 30 of them have hired child prostitutes." She spoke with the insouciance of one too young to comprehend, but her statement hit me like a mallet to the skull.
"We've uncovered a fracking pedophile ring!"
Sikes sat down hard at his desk. "23 of them! We've gotta do something about this. Do you think Clazran knows?"
I tensed. This was dangerous talk; the kind of self-sacrifice that people didn't come back from. Clazran knew. He was the leader of the SP, and they were the ones protecting them.
Becky stood, her face leaning nervously over the top of her network screen. "That's not the worst. You're gonna be cross when I tell you."
"Worse than a ring of pedophiles protected by the President of The Kaerosh?"
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