Different Senses (28 page)

“Not today. Tomorrow.”

“See you at twelve.”

He closed the call. I stared at
my phone, amazed at how unsubtle my subconscious could be
sometimes.

Then I remembered why involving
Shardul in this was a bad, bad idea. He’d hit the roof about what
Mum was up to. On the other hand, if anyone knew the dirty tricks
and players in the artefacts trade, he did.

Only two people on Uterden knew
Mum had the bracelet in her possession on the day before it
supposedly left for Kelon—Mum herself, and the vendor, Timin
Veringe, fashionable artist and society pet. The only person who
could have organised the theft was someone who knew where it would
be that evening, so that meant it had to be Veringe or someone
working for him. But why would someone who moved at the level that
Veringe did, risk losing status and reputation over a Nihani
bracelet?

The ‘why’ would have to wait
until I worked out the ‘how’. Unfortunately, Mum had already asked
her staff about whether they knew of anything being removed from
her office, so I’d lost the element of surprise. The delay in
investigating matters meant surveillance video no longer existed
either. Still, there were only a limited number of people who’d had
access to Mum’s private office during the critical period. I needed
to question them and use my empathy to tell if any of them was
hiding something.

I called my mother and she told
me to come over to the residence straight away. If I had needed a
sign of just how important this was to her, the fact she cleared
her diary for me at no notice was more than enough. My father was
usually easier to get hold of than she was.

“Have you found out who it is?”
she asked before my backside hit the chair.

“No, Mum. It hasn’t been a day
since I heard about it. You’ll have to give me time.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just...I can’t
sleep for worrying about it.”

I bit back a snotty remark
about it being all she deserved. “I’m working on it, but it’ll take
a few days, minimum.”

“Days!”

“Yeah. Mum, I need to talk to
the people with keys to your office. The people who had access that
night.”

“But I already spoke to
them.”

“Yeah, but I’m an empath,
remember?”

Her nose wrinkled. “I try
very hard to forget. You want to use
that
here?”

Her revulsion shouldn’t have
offended me, not after so long. “I use it all the time. I’m using
it now.”

“I can’t subject my staff to
such an intrusive procedure. It’s obscene.”

I stood. “Fine. Good luck with
finding the thief without it. Talk to you later, Mum.”

“Wait! Javen, it’s
simply...so...well, invasive. I trust these people and they trust
me.”

“And if they have nothing to
hide, they’ll never know I was here.” I turned and saw a pretty
enamelled metal screen hiding the unused room heater. “I can sit
behind that. You talk to them, I’ll listen. No invasion, no
intrusion.”

“
But
I’ll
know.”

“Bit late for ethics now, don’t
you think?”

She flushed. “You’re a very
judgemental young man. I don’t know where you get that from.”

“
Insult me all you like,
but you need me and my judgement and my
obscene
talent. Yes or no,
because I’m busy.”

“Do you have to be so unkind,
Javen? I’m your mother.”

“You just called me....” I took
a breath. “Yes or no, Mum. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t
necessary.”

She bit her perfectly painted
lip. “Yes. But I don’t like it at all.”

“Objection noted. Are they all
around now?”

“There are only three people
with the key aside from me, and yes.”

“Security guards?”

“All the guards have access to
the central key store, of course, but they only patrol the outside
of the building at night. They’re not allowed inside the living
quarters. They have logs showing their patrol paths and none of
them came inside that night.”

“But none of the other three
people supposedly came inside either.”

“They don’t wear tags which
track their movements, Javen. Though I refuse to believe any of
them could have stolen from me.”

I didn’t comment on the obvious
illogic of that, knowing it was a waste of time. “Okay. Can you ask
them in, one by one? Keep it casual as you can, like it’s no big
deal.”

“They already know it’s
important.”

“That’s a shame. Do your best
then.”

I set up a chair behind the
screen, and waited. One by one, my mother’s staff came in, and she
spoke to them in a gentle friendly voice—tones I hardly ever heard
her use towards me any more. Each woman projected mild anxiety and
concern, but not one of them radiated guilt or anything more than
I’d expect from someone talking to their boss.

When she finished and the
room was clear, I came around from behind the screen and shook my
head. Her smile was as relieved as the emotions I sensed from her.
“I
knew
none of them did it.”

“That’s good, but it leaves us
with a mystery. I’m going to speak to the security staff. Do you
know why surveillance footage is only kept for a week?”

“No, dear. But why would we
keep it normally? If there’s a problem, we’d know almost
immediately. At least...we would usually.”

“Yeah. Convenient for your
thief. Tell me why you didn’t take the bracelet to TransPlanet that
afternoon?”

She tsked. “Oh, that was so
annoying. Timin was nearly an hour late. Said there was some
‘drama’, as he put it, with one of his clients. His art clients, I
mean. He did call to let me know and apologised profusely when he
arrived but by the time we finished the transaction, it was too
late to send the bracelet. I had to come back here.”

That was convenient
for
someone
. “And you met...?”

“
At
Kerteze
’s. Have you
been there? It’s one of the loveliest places for afternoon
refreshment.”

“Not really my thing, Mum.”
More and more I thought that there could only be one suspect here,
but how had he managed to remove the bracelet from a securely
guarded building?

Now my mother had
finished with me, I had to deal with the treacly slow bureaucracy
of the residence administration before I could get permission to
interview the security staff. My father had given me permission,
but that wasn’t enough, apparently. I had to be documented multiple
times, my official investigator’s badge scanned twice, and my
father called to give verbal confirmation
again
. By the time I was
chewed up and spat out, it was nearly twelve. I’d wasted half a day
on this nonsense, and I hadn’t achieved a damn thing.

Which put me in a snarly mood,
for sure, but I needed to be on my best behaviour with the security
officers. It had been made clear to me that should I offend or
accuse any individual without their legal representative being
present, my arse would be sued back to Kelon no matter who my daddy
was.

So it was a huge relief when I
turned up at the security chief’s office, and the middle-aged,
straight-backed man at the desk rose, grinned, and held out his
hand. “Lieutenant Damen, Sergeant Ythen. Retired, like you. Nice to
meet you.”

I shook his hand dazedly,
trying to remember where I’d heard the name. “Lieutenant
Damen...Wescom Street. The siege.”

Five years ago. A house full of
hostages, women and children, and a gun-waving bastard out of his
mind on drugs and mental illness threatening to explode a bomb and
blow the lot of them to hell. Damen had been the lead negotiator,
and exchanged himself for the hostages. Eventually got out alive,
with the gunman, but at the cost of a severe leg injury. The force
still used the case to train new officers on best practice in siege
handling.

“That’s me. I still limp
because of it, and the medal doesn’t stop the ache, but you know
how these things are.”

“I do. It’s an honour to meet
you, sir.”

“Now, none of that, sergeant. I
understand you’re looking into this spot of bother for Shrimati
Ythen. Makes us look bad, I’ll be honest, but I’m damned if I can
work out how anyone got in or out of the building.”

“My mother said something about
tags?”

He pushed up his sleeve,
revealing a black wristband. “That’s attached and activated at the
start of the shift, and can only be removed by the same machine. We
can force it off but then alarms fire up all over the residence.
While we’re wearing them, they track our movements throughout the
entire estate.”

“Could you show me that for the
night in question?”

As well as a sequential log
showing the guards moving past checkpoints, a graphical display
showed their path on a map. “As you can see, none of them entered
the building after six, per Governor Ythen’s orders. Your mother
says she put the item in her desk at half six.”

“And no one came in or
out?”

“Not a soul. There were no
functions that night, the day staff had gone, and residential staff
don’t have access to the office.”

“There’s no alarm if the office
door is opened?”

“There is if it’s forced. Same
for all the doors and windows. If it was opened, it was with a
key.”

“Hmmm.” A guard could come and
go without setting off the alarms, but their movements would show
up on the log. “Access to the key store is controlled, of
course.”

“Yes it is.” He walked me over
to the small room to the side of his office. “It can only be opened
with a guard’s key card. During the day, there’s always someone
around to issue cards, passes and replacements, that kind of thing,
but at night, it’s not opened except in an emergency. Never been
cause for that in the entire time I’ve worked here.”

He was telling the truth, but
then I’d never have doubted that. “I’d like to speak to the
officers on duty that night at some point. Can that be
arranged?”

“Certainly. Do you want their
names?”

I noted the names of the eight
guards on roster, and quizzed Damen about their reliability,
honesty and so on. He had not a bad word to say about any of them,
though he did say the night chief knew them somewhat better. “I’ll
make an appointment for you to meet him and talk to the guards
themselves. He’s never complained to me about them though. All our
employees go through rigorous checking.”

“I’m sure they do. I really
appreciate your cooperation. I’ll make sure to mention that to my
father.”

He smiled. “Well, that kind of
recommendation never hurts, does it? How do you find Civvy Street?
This private detective lark suit you?”

“On and off. Not like the real
thing, is it?”

His smile drooped. “No, it’s
not. Ah well. We could be worse off, you and I.”

“That we could. Good day,
lieutenant, and thank you.”

I scratched my head as I stood
by my auto, looking back at the residence, trying to think like a
thief. How would I get in and circumvent that impressive security
system?

No idea. I had until Kirin came
back to me with his test results before I needed to find an answer.
In the meantime, I needed to investigate Timin Veringe, and I also
had a business to run. My parents weren’t my only clients.

~~~~~~~~

My too infrequent lunches with
Shardul followed an unvarying pattern. I drove to his office, he
made me wait until precisely the time arranged, and then we walked
together to a little diner owned by one of his endless supply of
cousins. There he would test my nerve by ordering entirely in
Nihani, and daring me to balk at what turned up. I hadn’t failed
that test yet, mainly because ten years in the police force had
taught me to eat just about anything, in any place, at any time. It
was a wonder my stomach hadn’t rotted out from all the lousy meals
I’d consumed on the beat.

Another thing that never
changed was that he insisted on eating at least half a plate of
food before talking. Early in his career, he’d skipped so many
meals trying to do too much, he’d made himself seriously ill. So
now he made time to eat, and the only way he could ensure he
consumed enough food was not to talk. Today, I knew what I had to
tell him would rob him of his appetite. I was in no hurry to do
that.

He finished his food, picked up
his chai cup, and looked me in the eyes. “This is the first time in
our acquaintance you’ve been silent for more than twenty
consecutive minutes. Ergo, you have something unpleasant to impart.
Would you like to do so before I die of curiosity?”

“My mother’s trading indigenous
artefacts off world. One of them was stolen in transit—that’s why
they need my help.”

He hissed in a breath, his
anger striking that sensitive bit of my brain over my right eyebrow
with Shardul’s name on it. “By the Spirit. How dare she? And you
didn’t know?”

“If I did, do you think I’d
have stayed silent? I’m as angry as you are.”

“Oh, I doubt it.”

“No, really. I’m pissed as hell
with both of them. Mum doesn’t need the money. This is just a rich
woman’s hobby. The seller is Timin Veringe.”

Shardul’s lip curled. “That
reptile.”

“You know him?”

“Obviously.”

I waited but he said nothing
more. “Well?”

“Well what? You don’t seriously
expect me to help you, do you? You’re on your own, Ythen.”

“Don’t get mad, Shardul. I
can’t walk away from my own damn mother.”

“
She’s not
my
mother.
Your turn for the bill. Don’t get up.” He stood, nodded to the
waiter, and walked out.

Damn
it.
But then I remembered I had a
question I needed Shardul to answer. I shoved my paycard at the
waiter. “Be back in a couple of minutes to settle,” I said, and
dashed out after my irritated friend.