Different Senses (5 page)

“Of course.”

“I mean it. He’s a suspect,
same as the others. If you tell him what’s going down, I’ll
walk.”

“I won’t say anything. Thank
you, Javen. I can never repay you for this.”

“You got that right.”

I hung up. I really,
really hoped Devi was the thief. It would make up for
so
much.

~~~~~~~~

Kirin’s lab was in the heart of
the legal district—a place I’d carefully avoided for months. I
tried not to wince as I saw uniformed officers—people I recognised,
though thankfully no one called to me. Man, I’d extract full price
from Kirin’s hide for this.

He met me at the front desk as
he’d done so many times before, but this time, it was as if we were
strangers. The clerk, who knew me well, looked down at his work,
avoiding both of us.

Kirin pointed to the door on
the left. “Um, this way.”

“I know the drill.”

He bit his lip again. He was
going to gnaw it through by the time this was done. “Come to my
office first.”

The route avoided the main
working areas, fortunately. A lot of his employees knew me, so as
soon as I appeared, they’d realise something was up. Like Devi did,
rushing up to Kirin and coming to a comically clumsy stop when he
spotted me.

“Hello, cockface,” I said
pleasantly.

“
Javen. Um.” He radiated
guilt and fear, and I smiled to myself.
Oh yeah, guilty as fuck.
“Kirin, I—”

“Not now, Devi. I’ve got
business to deal with.”

“Sure.” The little turd gave me
another hunted, suspicious look and scurried off.

“I don’t want you to insult him
to his face, or in front of me,” Kirin said a little petulantly,
but he wasn’t as pissed as I’d have been in his shoes.
Interesting.

“Too bloody bad. But now he
knows I’m around, we need to move fast. Come on.”

Behind the closed door of his
office, I told him, “Your boyfriend is good for this. He’s spewing
guilt all over the place.”

“You don’t know it’s over the
pendant. Please, Javen. Set aside your prejudice—”

“Hah.”

He flushed. “This is a
mistake,” he muttered.

“Yeah, it is. But I’m here now.
I need the exact sequence of events and the work records of all the
people who were in the building. Then I want to interview them all
separately. Here, preferably.”

“What about searching the
lab?”

“This happened when? A couple
of days ago? The thief’s had time to clean up and move anything
they want.”

“I sealed the workspace.”

“Fine. But I want to talk to
the people first. Tell me what happened.”

“All right. It was just before
noon. Jishnu Uin removed the evidence wallet from the secure
repository, and put it on his table. Before he could open it, Jyoti
called out for help so he rushed over to deal with the
problem.”

“Who’s Jyoti, and what was the
problem? Was it real?”

“Jyoti Hiranya, one of the
junior techs. She’s new, uh....”

“Since you fucked me over, yes.
And the problem?”

“A centrifuge began to emit
smoke. She shut it down, but it gave her a bit of a fright.”

“And what caused that?”

“Jishnu couldn’t tell. We sent
the machine to be serviced. He spent some time reassuring her and
helping her sort out recovering the tubes and so on. When he
returned to his worktable, the wallet was gone. He looked around
for it, and when he couldn’t find it, called me.”

“Elapsed time since he left his
desk?”

“Uh...at least half an hour.
Obviously he didn’t expect to be gone so long or he’d have locked
the wallet up again.”

“Obviously.”

Kirin glared. “You don’t have
to be so sarcastic.”

“One of your employees is a
thief. They’re lying to you. You sound like a gullible idiot. Don’t
expect me to agree with your assessments. I’m here to deal in
facts.”

“Like my lover being a thief
when you have no evidence.”

“My empathy tells me he’s
feeling extreme guilt. That’s a fact. Now can we move on?”

My suspicions immediately
centred on this Jishnu and the junior tech because an equipment
failure just at that moment was awfully convenient for our thief.
But the table wasn’t isolated and three other staff had access to
it. It might have been opportunistic, though if that were the case,
the thief had to have some way of knowing what was in the wallet,
or have enough time to look it over. “What searches did you do and
did you check everyone as they left the building?”

“At first we thought the thing
had been mislaid, so the staff all joined in to look under tables,
in drawers, checking files opened that morning and so on. It’s
quite a small wallet.”

“So the thief had more than
enough chance to cover their tracks.”

“Um, yes. When we didn’t find
it, I arranged for everyone to be searched on departure. The
wallets are tracked from room to room, but—”

“It’s probably not in the
wallet any more. Is it still showing on the system?”

“No. Uh, the tracking device
can be deactivated by someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“And that would be....”

“Everyone in the building,” he
confirmed miserably. “I trust people, you see.”

“Yeah. You might want to
unlearn that habit, same as I did.”

“Javen—”

I held up my hand. “Save it.
Right. Let’s talk to these people. Jishnu, then Jyoti, then they
need to be.... Damn.”

“What?”

“Your security people. They
were around at the time?”

“Yes.” His expression changed
as he worked it out. “Oh damn.”

“Exactly. Should have called
the police, Kirin.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Then this is what you end up
with. I need the people I talk to, to remain isolated from the
others and each other. Or at least somewhere they can’t compare
notes. Who can you trust completely, and who wasn’t in the building
at the time?”

“Payal. My manager. You
remember her?”

“Sure. Call her in.”

It was always possible that
Payal was working with a confederate, but Kirin’s stupidity had
compromised matters so much, no one was in the clear. None of this
was ideal and only reminded me of my unwanted civilian status. But
Payal, who I liked and trusted and who didn’t give off any
suspicious emotion, understood what we wanted without needing
elaborate explanation. She’d babysit those I interviewed until the
process was done. It was bound to cause comment and resentment, but
I didn’t have a lot of choice here.

Jishnu strode in, and did a
double-take when he saw me. “Javen. I thought...um, nice to see you
again.”

“You too,” I lied. I’d never
cared for him particularly. “Jishnu, Kirin asked me to help him
find this pendant, so I’ll be talking to everyone in the building
at the time. I’m no longer with the police, so you don’t have to
talk to me. But you probably realise how serious this is.” I kept
speaking in a smooth, reassuring voice, but inside, excitement rose
as I sensed the massive anxiety and fear coming off him. He had
something to hide. What?

“Yes, and I don’t mind
talking.” He shifted nervously. “I already told Kirin everything.
We looked everywhere. I mean, I knew I was the obvious
suspect.”

“You believe it’s been
stolen?”

“There’s just no way it could
be an accident.”

“Did you see anyone near your
table? Do you suspect anyone?”

“No. I was totally absorbed in
helping Jyoti. I told you,” he said to Kirin.

“What was wrong with the
equipment, exactly?”

“I don’t know. I smelled the
smoke she saw, but there was nothing obvious. I logged it and
called the maintenance contractor.”

“And that’s it?”

“Well, I unplugged it and
walked it down to Dispatch.”

“Right. Any background in
mechanics, Jishnu?”

The anxiety spiked. “A little.
A couple of units of electronics, very basic, at university. I
found it boring. What’s this to do with the pendant?”

“Nothing. Just curious. Okay,
that’s it for now.”

“Jishnu, could you go to
Payal’s office?” Kirin said. “We’re going to reassess security
measures and she wants to talk to you about it.”

“Sure.” Jishnu shot me a dark
look, and left. His relief just added to my suspicions. He thought
he’d put one over us.

“Well?” Kirin asked.

“He knows something, but it’s
too early to know. Call Jyoti in.”

I sat up in surprise as a
tall, pretty
banis
woman wearing a protective white coverall walked
in. I hadn’t realise Kirin employed any indigenous
staff.

“Hello, Jyoti,” he said.
“Please take a seat.”

She gave off a little
fear and anxiety but nothing like Jishnu—more what I’d expect from
someone in a new job facing an unexpected interview with the boss.
Strangely, she made my head tingle a bit. Maybe because she
was
banis
? I didn’t know.

I gave her my little speech
about helping Kirin and how she didn’t need to talk to me. “I have
nothing to hide, sir. But I didn’t see anything either.”

“Well, tell me what you did
see, and if you noticed anyone walking around while you were
talking to Jishnu. Start with the equipment. What happened?”

“I started the centrifuge and a
few seconds later, smoke came out of the base, near the motor. I
yelped a little, and Sri Uin came over to see what was wrong.”

“He said you called him over,”
Kirin said. I frowned at him for interrupting.

Her anxiety jumped a little.
“Uh, I can’t remember. I might have. I wasn’t really paying
attention to who else was around just then.”

“Go on,” I said. “He came
over....”

“I’d turned the machine off, of
course, and he lifted it up to look. By then the smoke had stopped.
He told me not to worry and that these things happened. He said it
was best to have it looked at and took it away.”

“Okay. So while you were
talking, did you notice anyone walking around the lab area?”

“I definitely saw Sri Terben.
He smiled at me.”

Devi would, the little creep.
“Anyone else?”

“I don’t remember anyone else.
The place was quiet because it was lunchtime.”

“I understand. Did you take
part in the search afterwards?”

“Yes. Everyone did.”

“Right. Jyoti, do you like Sri
Uin?”

Her head came up, and I felt a
flash of her anger. “Yes.”

“Everyone else here?”

“Yes, sir.”

She was lying. “Not many of
your people working in this field.”

“No, sir.”

“Okay. Well, that’s all for
now.”

Her nostrils flared as she left
the room. She was furious with me. Didn’t blame her, really.

Kirin tapped his pen against
his note pad impatiently, a habit that had always irritated me.
“What was all that about, Javen? You don’t mean to imply she took
the pendant out of resentment?”

“I was just curious. Trying to
get a sense of the dynamics. For what it’s worth, I think she’s not
the one.”

“Oh good. She’s a hard worker.
As you said, not many indigenous work in this area so I thought it
was a good thing to encourage it. You know, help raise their
standard of living.”

“I know how saintly you are,
Kirin. Let’s have the shithead next.”

“Javen, please.”

I ignored him, and after a
little bit, he called the weasel in.

Devi slipped into the room,
still radiating guilt. “Sit down,” I snapped, “and tell us where
you put the pendant.”

“Javen!”

“Stay out of it, Kirin. He’s
guilty as hell, and I want to know why.”

Devi sneered. “You’re not a cop
any more, Javen. Kirin, do I have to answer his questions?”

“No, but it would—”

“Then I’m not going to. If
either of you want to talk to me about this again, you can do it
through my lawyer.”

He flounced out, and I turned
to my ex, grinning evilly. “There’s your man.”

“All you proved is that you and
he are no longer friends and that you’re really ungracious
sometimes. Is that it? You’ll just lay it on him?”

“Not yet. But I’m telling you,
he’s hiding something. He was definitely at the scene at the right
time, which is more than we have for the last two on your list. And
you’re walking proof that living together doesn’t mean
commitment.”

He flushed. “You’re
obnoxious.”

“I’m pissed off. All right. If
you insist. Let’s have the other two.”

I’d met both Pritam and Waman
before, which made Pritam’s reaction all the more interesting
because he was even more guilty and anxious than Jishnu. Waman was
calm and took it in his stride, even helpfully suggesting how he
could look guilty if you squinted. I mentally crossed him off the
list, which still left three—Jishnu, Devi and Pritam. Working
together, or three separate reasons to be scared of me?

I kept my assessment to myself
as I dressed in protective overalls and hood since Kirin would
probably tell Devi everything. If he did, he was only screwing
himself, so what did I care?

Kirin led me to the laboratory
proper, explaining as we walked what the security protocols were to
protect the chain of custody. My real interest lay in the wallet’s
tracking tag which had mysteriously switched itself off during the
frantic search after Jishnu raised the alarm. “So how exactly do
you deactivate them?” I asked.

“Strong magnetism, or an
electric charge. It’s a tracking device, not an anti-theft
tool.”

“Might want to rethink
that.”

The work area was open, and
since my interviewees had returned to their desks, what I was doing
was no longer a secret. I asked Kirin to clear everyone away from
Jyoti’s table and everything between there and Jishnu’s
workstation. He and Jyoti watched me from a distance, their mixed
hostility giving me a headache I did my best to ignore. I told
Kirin to stand at Jishnu’s table, while I stood at Jyoti’s. That
gave me a clear line of sight, and a good view of anyone walking
between the two points. Pretty much the entire lab was visible to
anyone paying attention. Jishnu hadn’t mentioned Devi, but Jyoti
had. Significant? I didn’t know.