Even with his extensive skill in attentive not-listening, it made for a tedious evening. He checked his watch surreptitiously, and did his best to encourage her to drink a little faster. Finally, before boredom forced him to make a pass at her, she reached a sufficient level of intoxication to put the next stage of the plan into operation.
As he set a fresh pair of drinks on the table, Toreth forestalled a resumption of the Life and Times of Nikki by laughing quietly. It was sufficiently unprompted that Nikoletta would have to ask.
"What's so funny?" she said as he sat down.
"Nothing."
"Go on, tell me."
"It's just that — Jesus, was I an idiot."
She raised her eyebrows. "What?"
"Well — and you're probably going to throw that drink over me in about thirty seconds — here you are, nice respectable woman, great family, good career, and when you turned up outside the office that first day, I thought you were there to . . . oh God." He smiled wryly. "I shouldn't have started this. Too much to drink. Forget I said anything."
"No, it's okay. You're right. I was supposed to be a — a distraction." She drank and put the glass down slightly too hard. "He told me to keep you happy — whatever it took. For the good of the section."
"Karteris told you to do it?"
She nodded, her olive skin flushing darker.
"Fucking — forgive me, but that is way out of order." Brief pause. "On his part, I meant."
She looked uncomfortable — as well she might, Toreth reflected, having just admitted to a man who'd told her he always kept his work relationships professional that she was willing to whore for her boss.
He patted her hand. "No need to look like that. Um, tell me if I'm overstepping the mark, but you and Karteris — is there something going on there?"
After a moment, she said, "Yes. And before you say anything, yes, I know he's married."
"Hey!" Toreth held his hand up. "That's between the two of you. Besides, he mentioned to me that he doesn't see much of her. Are they separated?"
"No. He wants to leave her, but he can't — his wife's family got him the job at I&I. I don't know what it's like in New London, but here you need a sponsor inside the Administration to get on. His wife's family are Administration and corporate. Everyone expects him to end up section head one day. Maybe local division head."
Now
there
was a frightening thought. Although to be fair, the man would be far more effective than the current morons in charge. "And that's why he's staying with her?"
"Yes. It's only until he's promoted. Then he's promised to leave her. Although sometimes I think . . . "
He nodded somberly. "I understand."
She sniffed. "No you don't."
"You'd be surprised." Now she looked openly sceptical. "Oh, that sort of thing happens to men too. Actually, okay, it happened to me. The difference is that men don't talk about it. Too embarrassing — not macho enough."
She smiled and poked his arm gently. "And you're not macho?"
He tried to summon a touch of colour to his cheeks. "Hey, I&I's a male culture, you know that. Virtually all of the interrogators are men, most of the paras, more than half of the investigators. If you don't play the game, you don't get any respect and you don't get on." Pause to convey a touch of anxiety. He'd said too much. "Look — ah, hell. You won't say anything about this to anyone else, will you?"
"Of
course
not." After a moment she said, "Tell me about her?"
So she expected it to be a woman. "Well . . . " He finished his drink and, automatically, her attention fixed on him, she did the same.
"Let me get you another one," Toreth said, standing up before she could protest.
He took his time at the bar, running over his story a couple of times to ensure a basic level of continuity. With what he had in mind, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Back at the table he made a show of getting ready to tell all, under her sympathetic gaze.
"Her name was Dilly. Actually, I knew her brother first. Met him through a case, but we ended up good friends. Then I saw him with her, at the theatre."
He paused, letting that collection of facts sink in. See, I go to the theatre. Cultured as well as sensitive.
"And?" Nikoletta prompted.
"God, she was gorgeous. Dark eyes you could drown in. Blue dress, all the way down to the floor. I fell for her right then and there. But — " He sighed. "She had a boyfriend. Which she told me right up front." Sensitive, cultured and fair.
"She said she wasn't interested?"
"Yes. Or rather — no, she didn't. She was interested, or at least bored. Her boyfriend was a structural engineer. Project management. He spent a lot of time off world. When I met her that first time, he'd left for Mars a week earlier. After she told me that, I offered to take her out for dinner. I could lie and tell you I didn't have any dishonourable intentions, but . . . "
He grinned, and Nikoletta laughed.
"Actually, I didn't have much except dishonourable intentions. And Dilly didn't exactly fight me off."
Good time for a pause, staring into his drink, rattling the ice. Clearly, the painful part was coming up now. As he expected, her voice softened.
"What happened?"
"He was away for a year, and we had a lot of fun. I thought at the time there might be more to it, but — " He shrugged. "I kidded myself for months that the only reason she didn't tell the boyfriend that it was over was because she didn't want to hurt him when he was so far away. And then he came back."
She watched him intently, caught up in the story. "She didn't really want to leave him?"
"Not for a minute. Her family were old corporate money — they'd never have approved of her marrying me. It was never in the cards, not outside of my imagination. I was just something to pass the time. That's what she said to me in the end." He looked across the bar. "'There was never anything more between us than the physical'," he said quietly, as if quoting.
"What an awful thing for her to do to you." Her voice had hardened. "If it'd been me, I'd have . . . well, I'd have done something."
It
is
you, you stupid bitch.
"I nearly did." He looked down at the table, took a mouthful of his drink. Building himself up to the confession. "God. I went round to her flat, when I knew he was there. I was going to tell him everything — what she'd been doing for that year she'd been calling him on Mars twice a week. I got all the way to the front door, rang the comm, but when he opened it, I bottled out. I said I'd got the wrong flat."
She put her hand on his, squeezing for emphasis. "Maybe it was for the best."
"Maybe." Pause, look away, look back. "But, well, sometimes I really wish I'd had the guts to do it. D'you think it's wrong of me, to think that?"
"No, no. I understand." That had a pleasingly thoughtful ring to it. Silence before Nikoletta shook herself slightly and asked, "So what happened?"
He deliberately misunderstood the question. "I went out, got drunk and woke up in the street the next morning."
She laughed a little. "No, with her."
"They married a few months after he came back. They've got kids now. He's a junior partner in her family's corporation. I still see her brother, he tells me how she's doing." He looked down into his drink, softening his voice. "She needed the kind of life I couldn't have given her."
He wondered if he was overdoing the sugar, but when he looked up again, Nikoletta's eyes were shining. "I think she was an idiot to let you go." Pause. "Has there been anyone else since?"
The touch of eagerness in the question sounded promising, at least from the point of view of getting her into bed.
"Well, I mean there have been women, but no one else . . . no one else like her." Poor damaged me, waiting for the love of a good woman to heal my broken heart. "I mean, when someone means that much to you, you can't cut it off. You can't stop loving someone just because . . . "
Her hand tightened. "You'll find someone, I know you will."
God, this was too easy, and the urge to move in for the kill, to take her back to the hotel, was becoming unbearable. With this amount of sympathy created, she'd be willing to do more or less anything — certainly any number of things she'd thoroughly regret in the morning.
However, he was losing sight of his objectives, distracted down the well-trodden path of seduction.
She was looking at him, obviously expecting a response.
"Maybe. I suppose — " He sighed. "I suppose that, in the end, I loved her a lot more than she loved me. I believed what I wanted to believe."
She nodded. No light bulb over her head, though.
"Actually, I was just thinking that you're right." Make it her idea, disguising the non sequitur. "If you love someone — if you
really
love someone — then you do whatever it takes to make them happy. It shouldn't matter if you have to give things up. You do it."
Exactly like fucking Karteris doesn't. Can't you take a hint?
For a moment, he thought the point had missed her again, but then she frowned. "Yes. If you really loved someone you wouldn't worry about what your family thought, would you? I mean, you
loved
her."
He looked down into his drink, freeing her to talk without the pressure of his eyes on her. "God, yes, I did."
"And she just used you."
"Well . . . " Pause, a touch of reluctance to place any blame on the love of his life. "I knew from the beginning what I was getting into. Maybe I just wanted it too much. Read things into it — into us — that weren't there. I wouldn't want to say that she lied to me, as such. Things — " He gestured helplessly. "Things get said in the heat of the moment."
"Rubbish." Getting angry on his behalf. Good. "I bet she knew exactly what she was doing."
Another sip of his drink, then Toreth decided to layer it on thick. He slid down in the chair a little. "I suppose the bottom line is that if she did use me, it's because I let her. That's the way the world works. People abuse you if you let them. You give them what they want, open your heart, and they despise you for it."
Long silence. Longer than he would have liked, but he let it develop. Play the fish carefully enough and you'll land it in the end.
"Toreth?"
"Yeah?"
"What do you think of Karteris?"
Now there was a loaded question. "I think he doesn't appreciate his admin enough."
She smiled. "Thanks. But I mean . . . would you be surprised if someone said he wasn't completely honest?"
And another one. "Well, maybe not. Someone suggested that he might be spending more than ought to be."
Silence, before she asked, "Who says?"
"I'm sorry, Nikki, but I really can't tell you that." But someone else has already shopped him, so it won't matter if you kick him while he's down.
She nodded slowly, chewing her bottom lip. Lipstick had smudged onto her top teeth and Toreth fought down the impulse to make it into an excuse to touch her mouth.
Finally she said, "He's doing something at work."
Toreth held his hand up. "If you tell me about something specific, I'll have to do something about it. I'm here to look into the section."
"Good. I want you to do something. I'm sick of him treating me like a — like I'll do anything he wants and be grateful for the chance to kiss his shoes. I don't want you to have him sacked, or anything like that. Just . . . "
"Give him a hard time over it?"
She smiled, grateful. "Yes." She folded her hands on the table and took a deep breath. "Right. He's stealing drugs."
Not as good as he'd hoped for. He frowned, "Well, a lot of people do that, Nikki."
"No, he's stealing a lot. I know because I've seen him faking the drug returns. He sells them on."
"That's it?"
"Yes," she said, unhesitating. "Isn't that enough?"
He could hardly say no, since if she knew nothing else it would deprive him of the one piece of usable leverage he'd found over Karteris so far.
"It's enough to scare him with, certainly." He needed to get her to do it now, before the cold and sober light of day brought her to her senses. "Listen, why don't you think about this? Sleep on it. Let me know in the morning if you're sure you want to, and then I'll see about finding some evidence."
"I
am
sure, and I've got all the evidence you'll need. I can give you the real drug returns. And I know the names of the dealers, too. They call him at home sometimes when — "
She stopped abruptly.
When you're fucking him there, while his rich, classy wife is somewhere else.
She stood up, finishing her drink. "Come on. I want to do it now. Before I see him again."
"Okay." He stood too. "If you're sure, Nikki."
Nikoletta's coffee was better than her filing, and Toreth sobered up with the thick sludge that passed for coffee around here while he read through the files.
The evidence was indeed comprehensive. So much so that Toreth wondered whether something like this had been in Nikoletta's mind for a while. There was no other reason why she should keep it all so neatly and conveniently at her own flat.
Karteris operated a simple enough system, variations of which went on all over the Administration. An interrogator signed out drugs, recorded them as being given to prisoners or discarded into the recycling systems, but then kept them for personal use or sold them. Toreth had done it himself from time to time, although he usually bought his supplies from Daedra because he was too lazy to fake his own paperwork.
Scale made a difference, though. As far as Toreth was concerned, petty pilfering of drugs was no different to stealing office supplies or using his free pass every time he took a taxi. It was expected, a perk of the job. Karteris had been a little more ambitious. He must be turning a healthy profit, if not a skilful one.
Unforgivably, the numbers didn't even add up. Paras ought to make competent thieves. This was frankly embarrassing.
The scam was not, however, enough to do much more than discomfit Karteris. And it would do Toreth's reputation no good at all to hand someone like Karteris over to Internal Investigations or, worse, Justice. A prime way to lose friends and credibility in I&I.