The Iron Swamp (33 page)

Caring about their jobs was something that people without splitting headaches and sliders full of puke did. I was in no state to argue. "We got a major break last night, Commissioner–"

Hayson interrupted. "Sikes has already told me about your
big break
. So you found another pedophile who knew Kenrey; what of it?"

"The–"

"I see no link between your big break and our little monstrosity," he continued. "We aren't trying to solve the case of the child rapists are we, Nidess? Because if I find out you're playing me just to show up the President then you won't live long enough to learn your own stupidity."

I nodded, pressing the pain out of my temples. "You have my assurances I'm not that stupid. The best way to find this girl without a widespread search that would tip off the SP is to find out who she is. I could search all the databases of malformed children matching ones to the security images, but even if she's in there, that could take a while. It will be faster to cross-reference events involving mutant girls with Kenrey's locations, and the most obvious link between Colson and Kenrey is the pedophilia."

Hayson cleared his throat. "You don't think she'll be in our databases?" He didn't suggest using the security cameras. It did not benefit the police to plaster The Kaerosh in CCTV because the activities of the nation's law enforcement were often more nefarious than those of its criminals. We could still access the cameras owned by private companies and individuals, and perhaps stood a reasonable chance of finding her, but not without informing the SP. This had to be done quietly, through our own materials or not at all.

"If she's in them," I said, "then the picture will be at least a decade distant, and with a face like that, who knows how much it's changed? Also she deleted her file at the compound, so the only images we have to go on are the grainy ones from the security footage."

Hayson's tongue pushed against the front of his mouth as if he were a bull cat about to run me down. "Then we'll never find her. We should just tell Clazran we know the killer before the SP convince him it's Benrick."

Even with the herd of animals stampeding across my brain, I had to object. "If we let the SP know who we are looking for then they will usurp the case and take all the glory. Benrick isn't responsible, and Liegon carries enough weight to slow their investigation until I've found the girl. And what we found yesterday will be immeasurably helpful to that end. We not only have a man at Kenrey's funeral who orders the same girls that Kenrey did, but by going through window security channels I found out that Kenrey and this guy, Deson, used to travel together. Looking for incidents involving deformed girls in every city, town, and village over the last 20 cycles of Kenrey's life could still take a while, but now I can look more closely at the times he is co-localized with Deson, considerably reducing the search time."

"And if Deson was not around at the event that links Kenrey and Colson, what is our next move then?"

Yesterday I had multiple answers to this question, but now all of them evaded me. "I'm still cross-referencing Kenrey with girls of the right age by location, and we are using the network security system to check for her current location. Hopefully, her distinctive features will allow us to track her. Also, I'm looking for other men who repeatedly associate with Kenrey and Deson so I can use them in the same way as Deson." I had already found a group of suspicious names who repeatedly used to travel with Kenrey and Deson, but Hayson was not in the mood to hear it. "The key to this case is refining the search algorithm until it gives us Colson's true identity."

Hayson paused as dreams of presenting Colson to Clazran battled in his mind with the torment of the SP charging Benrick and leaving us with nothing. "You have one month, and if I can't put my boot on her face by then, I'm going to do it to you instead."

It wasn't about glory or reward for me. The PI I employed to investigate Pressen had found nothing, and I hadn't heard anything from Eschea since she was in my apartment. It had been a long time since Pressen waited for me outside Elvedeer, and for all I knew he had everything he needed to walk me up Blay Square. Finding Colson was my ticket into the SP where I would be safer. Only the most foolish journalists went against the SP.

Momentarily, I considered asking Hayson for help. A police commissioner might be able to frighten Pressen into silence. But Hayson was not a trustworthy ally. He was as likely to help Pressen acquire the stolen evidence as stop him. No one could be trusted with the information Pressen held.

Sikes shut the door behind us. "In a month he'll be giving us another month. He's desperate to be the one who catches her, and the SP are on totally the wrong track."

"Let's hope we won't need it," I said as we walked back across the open offices to our door. "Did you look into these guys who've been traveling with our pair of pedophiles?"

"Deson and a few others are pretty important. A couple of them own big businesses with thousands of employees, but just as many of them are nobodies."

Sinking into my chair, I rubbed my forehead in a doomed attempt to stop the pain. By lunchtime standing was still too much effort, so I skipped food, instead flicking through file after file of atrocities befalling severely deformed girls that occurred close to Kenrey's location. I only searched the mainstream news sites where the articles were well classified and the sources reliable, but there were still hundreds of them. When I set the machine away the night before, I reasoned there couldn't be many people with faces like mountain ranges, but while this might not have been wrong, it meant a high proportion of them were mistreated. Not one of them fit the profile though, and with the exception of a few young ones who might have changed a lot as they grew up, many of them could be discarded from the accompanying pictures.

Other than to go to the toilet, Sikes was the only one to leave the room all day. He came back in at R:10 and unloaded an armful of snacks onto the table, the sound of them hitting the wood like rain on parched earth. I grabbed a packet of crispies, too hungry to even express gratitude. Becky had not looked away from her network screen once since we'd divvied up the news articles, so I expected to have to race her for the greasier foods, but her eyes were glued to what she was reading.

"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."