The silence.
There should be dozens of people, at desks and going in and out of the senior paras' offices. The mess made it worse, a constant reminder of what had happened. She abandoned the letter and started round the office, tidying desks, throwing out everything that couldn't be salvaged.
People would appreciate it when they got back.
She'd been here when it had started — the alarms had rung and she'd tried to leave along with the others, only to find the way blocked by I&I security, frantically ordering people back to the offices. She'd heard the firing then, distant but closing quickly as she'd turned and tried to fight her way back against the flow, and her first assumption had been a breakout from the cells. The security doors should have taken care of that but she'd noticed, vaguely, that they weren't closing.
She'd tried another way out, along with some of the other admins. The security doors there had been locked when they shouldn't have been because it was a fire route. So they'd gone back to the section and waited. Everyone milling around, making suggestions as to what might be happening, lost and unsure. She couldn't remember exactly who had been there. Whom she had seen there for the last time. Nor did she know how long it had lasted. People had left, alone or in groups; some had returned, some hadn't. Maybe if she'd gone then, she might have found a way out.
However, it had seemed impossible — absolutely unthinkable — that whatever was going on wouldn't be brought under control. The idea hadn't even occurred to her until there was firing, suddenly, right outside the door and then, before anyone had had time to do more than scream, they'd been there.
It had been a relief, because she hadn't thought through the implications. All she had thought was that, thank God, it wasn't the prisoners after all. They'd been thorough, searching the offices and driving everyone into the main section office — this office. They'd been restrained then. Only sensible, in retrospect, when they were trying to control so many people with a relatively small force.
The resisters had ordered them to split up, and that too, oddly, had felt better — that there was someone in charge, someone giving orders. Some of the paras and investigators, quicker on the uptake than the others, had stayed with the admins. It hadn't helped in the end, when they'd . . .
Movement across the office caught her eye, thankfully distracting her from the memory, and she recognised the man immediately from Toreth's description. "Lieutentant Payne?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Also part of the description. "Call me Sara."
"Ah! You're Toreth's irreplaceable admin."
The familiar tone threw her slightly and she must have looked surprised, because he smiled. "Your name came up yesterday. About every ten minutes, when he was cursing that fact that you weren't here."
Whether Payne had any deliberate intent to flatter or not — and she thought not — Sara couldn't help smiling. "Serves him right. I did want to come in, but he wouldn't let me."
He nodded. "He said you were — "
Unfortunately, she didn't get to find out what she'd been, because Toreth's door opened.
"There you are, at last." He turned to Sara. "I'm going down to Medical. I'll be about an hour, I expect — I'll send a message if it's going to be longer. Sort out everything you can yourself, call me if it's absolutely urgent, but I'd rather you didn't. There's a list of things to do."
She nodded and they left. Normally she wouldn't even notice it, but the confidence he clearly had that she
would
be able to handle things up here cheered her. She knew he trusted her to make decisions for him, but just now the reminder was welcome.
In a more positive frame of mind, she turned back to the problem of how to reassure Toreth's mother, preferably while convincing her that she didn't have to reply.
Toreth shared the lift down to Medical with Payne, a couple of maintenance techs and several of the low, upholstered chairs from a coffee room. He wondered what they were for, but the question was answered as soon as the doors opened and the noise hit him. And then the smell.
The reception area was packed with people who had until recently been locked in cells with inadequate water and erratic sanitation. Apart from the region immediately by the lifts, the only visible floor was narrow corridors through the mass, kept clear by tape barriers and security guards. He moved out of the lift to let the techs unload, and stood by the wall, surveying the chaos.
To his relief, it became apparent that it wasn't quite chaos. There was clearly a triage system in operation, even if some of the assessors were people he knew for a fact had no medical qualifications beyond the most basic first aid. Screens partitioned sections of the area, and he guessed they were to give some privacy to the worst injured and the dying.
People dying, despite everything he could do.
Service personnel were still thin on the ground down here, and he wondered whether he should have left Payne behind. Better safe than sorry, though, for the time being. The first time he lost a confrontation with Service people was the time he'd lose whatever reputation he was accruing, beyond being Carnac's pet. However, just now he needed to talk to I&I people alone.
He turned to Payne, who was standing quietly beside him. "Could you, um — " And he couldn't call up an excuse. There were no immediately visible Service officers for him to talk to. Maybe sending him back upstairs would be easier.
"Piss off while you're talking to the grown-ups?" Payne enquired, deadpan.
Toreth blinked. "Actually, yes."
Payne turned obediently to go, and Toreth stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Listen, I'm sorry about that. I meant to apologise yesterday, but it slipped my mind. It was nothing personal."
"Don't worry about it, sir. Para." He smiled slightly. "I understand that you needed to show Bevan who was in charge. I'll hang around and look busy until you want me."
Toreth watched him go. Definitely a sense of humour under there somewhere.
He picked his way gingerly through the injured, glancing at people as he passed, assessing. Broken bones and infected wounds were popular, as was dehydration. There were also a lot of unpleasant-looking bruises — all at least two or three days old, which meant that the Service people and resisters were behaving themselves.
He was oddly surprised to find how many of the injured he recognised. He ought to, of course. Even given the size of I&I, he'd worked there for fifteen years and had worked his way around before settling in General Criminal. He made mental lists, of jobs rather than names. Lots of investigators and guards, fewer paras, even fewer interrogators. The number of investigators puzzled him until he made the connection — they also wore black uniforms. Probably the mob hadn't been that selective.
Halfway through the crowd he heard a voice he knew at once. "Para!"
Mistry ducked under a barrier and hurried over. She looked tired but uninjured.
"Para," she said again, then stopped, suddenly awkward.
Taking care to keep her away from his injured ribs, he put his arm round her shoulders and hugged her briefly. It felt like the right thing to do, and it obviously was because when he released her she was smiling.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I heard you were in charge, and I meant to come up to the section. But when they opened the cells they asked anyone with any medical training to report here first. They haven't let go of me since."
"That's fine. Are you okay?"
"Yes. I was locked up and mostly ignored." She gestured to herself, short and slender in her investigator's uniform. "I'm lucky I don't look like an interrogator."
Neither had Sedanioni, and it hadn't done her much good. On the other hand, Mistry would have had the sense to keep her mouth shut.
Mistry smoothed her hair back — it had lost its usual gloss, suffering more than the rest of her from the days of confinement. "I've seen Andy — Andy Morehen," she said suddenly. "He's the only one from the team, except you."
"Is he okay?"
She grimaced. "He's not dead. They brought him in yesterday evening. One of his legs was — " She waved her hand helplessly. "Smashed. I mean, just really . . . And there's an infection in the bone, so the medic said there wasn't a chance they'd save all of it. He'll need a graft. I spoke to him for a couple of minutes, but he wasn't making any kind of sense. He came out of a cell full of PC interrogators, though, so I think someone must've recognised him from back when he worked in Political. How about you? Is there news of anyone else from the team? Or the section?"
"Not a lot. Parson's dead, Sed — " Suddenly he couldn't be bothered to go on. "Listen, I'm in a hurry. Sara can give you the news when you get up there. Other than that, keep working down here until things straighten out. I don't think we'll get many Investigations In Progress filed soon."
"Yes, Para." Then she startled him by taking his hand in both of hers — a brief squeeze and release. "It's good to see you, Para."
Feeling surprisingly buoyed by the encounter, he left her to get back to her work.
Reception was mobbed, despite the efforts of security guards to keep people back. He'd need to send more people down here to ensure order. The place was loud but the atmosphere was calm enough at the moment. He knew that could easily change — pain didn't improve people's tempers.
Showing his ID to the guards, he worked his way through to the right-hand end of the reception desk, where the crowd was slightly thinner. He collected sufficient elbows in his tender ribs that, when he reached the desk, he had to pause to catch his breath.
The receptionists looked harried, but in control. There were more pieces of paper and small squares of card piled on the desk than he had seen in his life. A long table had been set up behind, covered in more paper and cards filed in an eclectic assortment of small boxes.
He remembered a note saying that the systems were down in Medical, but he hadn't thought through the consequences of that.
He recognised the admin working closest to him from his first visit yesterday, when the place had been virtually deserted. He tapped the desk in front of her. "Excuse me," he said, loud enough to be heard over the bedlam.
"There is a queue," she said without looking up, and in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary.
"Not for me there isn't."
"I don't care —" Then she did look up, recognising him at once. She flushed slightly. "I'm sorry. What can I do for you, Para?"
"I'm looking for Don Chevril. Senior Para, General Criminal. Brought in yesterday afternoon about fourish. Dehydration, hypothermia, dislocated shoulder, probably a broken ankle, maybe broken ribs." About most of which Chevril would doubtless whinge for the rest of his life.
Toreth waited patiently while she sorted through cards. It took a surprisingly short time before she found the right one.
"Yes. Nothing life-threatening enough to warrant a bed. He's been returned to the cells . . . oh, except that Detention delayed taking everyone recommended as requiring surveillance."
She didn't sound at all happy about that. Something else to look into. "So where is he?"
"Let me check the list."
Eventually, she directed him to the high-waiver interrogation suites — the next section along from Medical — which looked to have been taken over by patients. He found Chevril in an interrogation room, dozing on a couple of coffee room chairs that had been pushed together into something too short to make a comfortable bed, even for Chevril. He had a moulded plastic cast on one ankle, so it looked as if he'd been right about the break.
At least he'd managed to get some clean clothes, even if it was only an interrogator's oversuit. That was something else for Toreth to add to the list — fresh clothing for the detained staff. It was a list that was growing with depressing speed. Well, at least he'd managed to complete one task on it.
Chevril had his arm over his eyes to block out the harsh lighting, and the marks from the cuffs still showed on his wrist. Toreth leaned on the back of the chair and shook Chevril's shoulder. "Wake up."
"Uh?" Chevril lifted his arm and blinked at him blearily. "Oh. You."
"Great to see you too. How are you?"
Chevril moved over to give him space to sit and grimaced as the chair shifted under Toreth's weight. "I'm better than I look, or so the medic said."
"How's the ankle?"
"Hurts like bloody hell. But a lot less than when they straightened the damn thing out."
"They're out of painkillers?"
"Unless you're making enough noise to be a nuisance. And I wouldn't
want
to have most of the things they're shoving into people to get them to shut up — the pharmacy's being very creative. They seem to be out of more or less everything. I got a half-strength dose of bone accelerant and told I should be bloody grateful to be alive at all. Which I am," he added.
Toreth grinned and Chevril rolled his eyes.
"Not
that
bloody grateful. Did you get through to Ellie?"
"Yes — that's what I came to tell you. When she got over the disappointment of missing out on the widow's pension, she said to tell you she's fine, and the flat's fine too. No torch-wielding mobs in your part of the city. I said that if you were up to it, I'd drop you off there tonight on the way to Warrick's."
As he finished speaking, he heard a scream from somewhere not too far away — someone, female at a guess, in a great deal of pain.
Chevril's leg twitched, and he winced. "Up to it? God, yes. I'll be glad to see the back of this place, I can tell you."
"I bet you will."
The scream came again, higher, more desperate. A familiar sound in these rooms, except that it was a colleague, not a prisoner. He made a mental note to chase up supplies in the pharmacy — he didn't imagine that whoever was responsible for that noise would be keen to get back to work soon, if ever.
"I'm putting you at the top of the list for the tribunals," he said to Chevril. "We're starting them today so I'll send someone down to fetch you when it's your turn. Once that's done you're free to crawl out of here as soon as you like, if you don't want to wait for a lift."