Different Senses (26 page)

Every private investigator
except us, maybe. The meeting I was headed for was with our biggest
client, and the reason I had three indigenous colleagues. The
Institute of Indigenous Medele Culture employed me as their
security consultant—the only non-Nihani consultant they had on
board. But there were good reasons for that exception.

Roshni-ji insisted that I had
to come up to Tanmay Kly’s old estate by bus. The trustees had
fought hard to have a route come right to the estate itself. The
city council hadn’t been the problem—the wealthy residents of this
neighbourhood had. Buses were for people who didn’t have autos.
People without autos were poor, and also most likely to be
indigenous. Not the kind of people our richer citizens wanted
walking past their well-groomed gardens. But the trustees had
prevailed, and now Roshni-ji wanted anyone visiting the Institute
to use the service, to prove its viability.

A pain in the arse, but she had
a point, so I used the journey to answer messages and make notes
about cases I wanted to follow up later. The stares and suspicion
of the Nihani passengers no longer bothered me. My skin had
thickened up thanks to repeated contact with Shardul, the
Institute’s legal adviser and one of the trustees. If I could cope
with Shardul’s sarcasm, a little understandable wariness about the
eccentric rich Kelon riding poor man’s transport wouldn’t kill
me.

Another client enquiry in my
messages, another divorce case. I hated them, but they were good
training for Prachi and Vik, teaching them basic research and
observation. Madan was serious about them learning the right and
ethical way to do things—exactly my own attitude. They were also
receiving an education in evidence handling and processing from
Kirin, in exchange for Kirin’s lab getting all our pathology
work—not that there was a lot of it right now. Kirin was still
exorcising a huge load of guilt over me, and even though I’d told
him it wasn’t necessary, he’d put himself out over and over to help
me establish myself as an investigator. Never was a guy to make a
bad job of anything except love affairs, my ex.

I forwarded the query to Madan
to make the initial contact. Madan had a patient, kindly manner
about him, and being older than me, with a dashing white streak in
his dark hair, he got on well with our female clients. Whether
they’d be so charmed if they realised he was mixed-race, I didn’t
like to say, but Madan’s ability to move easily between both halves
of our divided society was a positive asset to the firm. Prachi was
the same—mixed, passed for Kelon. Vik looked Nihani, which limited
his use in certain cases, but gave him an advantage in others. I
didn’t want everyone in the business chasing cheating spouses. I
had a vision of what I wanted to achieve in this new life of mine,
and divorce cases didn’t figure in it at all. But for now, at least
they paid the office rent.

My phone went just as I
stepped off the bus and waved to Shardul, waiting at the entrance
to the estate so we could walk up together. “Javen Ythen,” I said
into the phone.
“Give me a
second,”
I mouthed at Shardul as I came
to his side. We started to walk up the long lane to Tanmay Kly’s
former home.

“Javen, it’s your father.”

“Hello, Dad,” I said, making a
face at my companion. “How’s things?”

“I have a small problem, son,
and I’d like to talk to you about it. Could you come to dinner at
the residence tonight?”

“
Tonight?” I waved
frantically at Shardul.
“Help
me get out of it!”

“
Sorry,”
he mouthed back.
“You’re on your own.”

“
Bastard.”
“Sure, Dad. Say hello
to Mum for me.”

He closed the call and I
growled at Shardul. “Wait until you need a favour from me.”

“
I’ll never need to get
out of a meal with my parents, so your threat is meaningless. What
does our esteemed governor want with his
derda wass
?”

‘
Derda
wass
’, I’d learned, was a Nihani term
that translated as “the unknown child of an unsuspected mistress
who turns up at his father’s funeral”.

“He has a problem he wants help
with. Since my father has over fifty highly trained personal staff
who can help with all manner of things, it’s safe to say the
problem will need discretion and my police background, and will be
a total cluster fuck, which I will do my level best to involve you
in.”

“Certainly. For a hundred an
hour, I’ll work for almost anyone. Walk faster, Javen, my aunt is
waiting.”

~~~~~~~~

Roshni-ji smiled up at us as
Shardul announced our presence to her. “Good morning, Javen,
Shardul. We’re just waiting for Induma.”

Shardul sat next to his aunt,
and I sat next to him. I nodded to Hemang, the trustee’s
accountant, at Doctor Bhanu, and finally at Rupa. “Where’s young
Kamal?” She’d bought her new first-born to every meeting we’d had
since his birth, placidly breast-feeding while she discussed plans
for the cultural museum.

“With his father. Speaking of
whom—Shardul, he wanted to know when you’d be free to come to
supper.”

Shardul pulled out his
organiser. “Sixteenth of next month is the earliest.”

Rupa made a face. I felt her
disappointment. “Then book us in. Javen, you’d be welcome too.”

“Uh, thanks, Rupa,” I said
hastily as Shardul bristled. “But with my job I never know when
I’ll be free in the evenings. Not that far in advance, anyway. If
you remind me a little closer to the time?” Of course I’d make sure
I wasn’t available. Shardul didn’t appreciate me mixing socially
with his family, even though Rupa liked me, and I loved her little
boy. She didn’t seem to notice that Shardul minded—or perhaps did
it anyway, knowing her. She was a very independent woman.

Induma, the widow Kly, came in,
and smiled gravely at us all. A little sick to say it, but
widowhood suited her. Tanmay Kly had finally done the right thing,
marrying her a mere month before he died, and leaving her enough
money to set her up for life in luxury. He also specifically named
her as one of three trustees for his massive estate—Roshni-ji and
Shardul being the other two.

“Good morning, everyone.”
Induma sat gracefully at the head of the table and folded her
hands. “Shall we begin? Shardul? I believe you have a report on the
charitable status.”

“Yes. As Hemang suspected, we
can’t operate the profit-making arm as a charity if we restrict any
grants to our own people. At least at this time—as you know, there
are cases before the Medele High Court now which may alter that, if
the need to provide remedy for systemic prejudice against the
original residents of Medele is proven. Which I hope it will be
because I am heartily sick of discrimination masquerading as
equality.” He shot me a look as he said that last bit.

“Hey, no disagreement here. But
what does that mean for the museum and workshops?”

Hemang cleared his throat. “I
propose we split the business into two streams—one with income
provided by and in turn fed back to the museum and ancillary
activities, and the larger part being run at maximum profit for the
disposition of grants, political funding and so on. We can accept
donations to the charitable arm, which will mitigate the
unfortunate tax penalty on the non-charitable side. But we can
write off donations from one to the other, of course.”

“It’s as good as we can hope
for now,” Shardul said. “I will certainly monitor the legal
position. With Gopan elected to the regional council, we can push
somewhat for a more relaxed approach to pro-indigenous activities,
but we need more representatives.”

“We need more Kelons on our
side too,” I said.

“People like your father?” he
said sweetly.

“
Dad’s a lost cause, but
he’s only a regional governor, even if Hegal
is
the most populous
region. There are at least thirty national representatives with
indigenous relatives, and they should be lobbied. And others who
don’t have any obvious ties can be educated.”

“
I propose that exercise
should not occupy our time or funds. Education can be at
Kelon
expense.”

“Shardul,” Roshni-ji murmured.
“For the moment, yes, we have to concentrate on the key activities
we identified. But once we secure better representation of our
people at governmental level, we will need to back that up.”

“Agreed,” Doctor Bhanu said. “I
would like to hear from Javen about the cost of the night security
systems.”

The meeting went for two hours,
but there wasn’t a lot of padding. Everyone there was a busy person
who wanted to get away as quickly as possible. We finished with me
reporting on the progress of our two trainees, and saying that we
could take a couple of work experience students at the close of the
current term, if the school agreed. “Kirin Nel is eager to
participate in that as well,” I said.

“Such a saintly person,”
Shardul muttered. I kicked him under the table as Rupa frowned at
him.

“The development of a strong
professional class is crucial to improving indigenous political
clout,” Doctor Bhanu said. “I will ask my Kelon colleagues if any
of them will take our students.”

“I as well,” Hemang said.
“Shardul?”

“
Yes, yes. You need to
ask
me
?”

I suggested we rode the
bus back to town together. To my surprise, he agreed, though he
continued to radiate general ill humour as we walked up to the
estate exit. “You’re giving off more bad vibes than a
tus
with
toothache,” I said when we reached the bus stop. “Did a Kelon piss
you off specifically this morning, or is it just your usual sunny
manner?”

He snarled at me but didn’t
answer, staring pointedly off in the direction the bus would come
from. But then his shoulders sagged a little. “Lona didn’t get the
scholarship. I really thought she had a chance.”

“Damn.” Lona was a kid he’d
been grooming for the law since the girl was thirteen. If any
Nihani could win a law scholarship to the University, she should
have. “Did they give a reason?”

“
Oversupply of qualified
applicants. As usual. So we still have yet to have one of our
people get into University at government expense.
This
is
why we need the law changed,” he snapped. “Your laws pretend we’re
all equal, with equal chances. But the indigenous start from behind
in everything, and always will do until this farcical situation is
changed.”

“You don’t need to convince me,
Shardul, and they’re not my laws any more than they’re yours. I’ll
vote for anyone who offers to change them. Right now, that’s only
Representative Gopan, and I can’t even vote for him.”

“You could push your
father.”

“
Yeah, sure. My
father
doesn’t even have any indigenous staff. Says he can’t find
anyone qualified, which I don’t believe. You know I come from a
family of racists.”

“You’re a racist too. Just one
aware of his racism.”

I learned not to rise to
Shardul’s jabs, and particularly not that one. “That’s something,
at least. Dad’s not going to change. But he won’t be governor
forever, at least I hope not. I’m serious about cultivating the
representatives.”

“We have no entrée to their
world. Those who do, like you, refuse to exploit it.”

“I’m as welcome as you are in
those circles. Yashi would have a better chance but he’s not
interested in politics. Neither am I, to be honest. But I’ll do
everything I can to help.”

“Empty words.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry about
Lona. If you’re collecting for a fund to send her, you can put me
down for a thousand dolar.”

That startled him, and earned
me an almost friendly look from those piercing blue eyes. “Thank
you. Yes, we are. I refuse to let her be lost. She has an extremely
able mind, exactly what is needed in the law.”

“Then we’ll get her to
University. Her failure gives more weight to the court cases,
right?”

“The only virtue, yes. It’s
such blatant discrimination the court can’t fail to accept it.
Whether they’ll accept the wider principle, I don’t know, and the
government will appeal if we lose.”

“Yeah. Bastards.”

“
Kelon
bastards.”

“No argument there.”

The bus arrived and he changed
the subject to Rupa’s ambitious plans to write a series of history
books for Kelon children about indigenous history and culture, and
to arrange for quality translations of the most important textual
sources from their own collection. The plan had my full support,
though I warned that there’d be a lot of resistance from the
schools. “You need to give the kids an incentive to explore the
subject. Prizes, that kind of thing.”

“Give to those who already have
more than their fair share?”

I sighed. “There’s just no
talking to you today, is there? My stop’s next. Let me know where
and when you want the money for Lona.”

He muttered something in
agreement and I left the bus. I watched it drive off, Shardul’s
grumpy face at the window. Normally he didn’t let things get to
him, but he spent every day fighting injustices and on behalf of
his people. Even Shardul grew tired sometimes.

~~~~~~~~

“You look fine,” Yashi said
without lifting his head.

“I didn’t ask, but look at me
when you say it.”

He did so, and grinned. “You
look fine.”

“Wanker.”

“Javen, don’t use words like
that in the house,” Tara said, chasing through the living room
after Harshul, trying to avoid his bath as usual. We knew better
than to interfere.