The Administration Series (70 page)

Fortunately, Warrick spoke before Kate could ask him to elaborate. "Rubbish." He didn't seem at all put out. "Come down and stay with me, Mother, why don't you? You always pretend you don't see enough of me. The sim will only take half an hour or so a day. You'll have plenty of time to do other things."

"Perhaps I will, darling, if you'd like me to." She smiled at Toreth, including him in the semi-question.

What the hell did it have to do with him? He returned the smile automatically. "It'd be a pleasure to see you again."

Tarin remained silent for most of the meal, but the rest of the family was more than capable of making up for him. Toreth found himself dividing most of his time between Kate and Warrick. Then, towards the end of the meal, while everyone else ate dessert and he nibbled cheese and biscuits, he happened to catch Jen's voice, calling up from the end of the table.

"I thought you were going to Europa in the New Year, Dillian? Didn't you have a contract?"

Dillian sighed. "Everything's on permanent hold. We were ready to go and then there was trouble with the Department of Development. Something to do with off-world investment regulations."

"The bureaucrats triumph again," Tarin said. "It wouldn't be such a problem if the Administration wasn't so chronically corrupt. The whole system needs reform."

Silence.

It wasn't that everyone looked at Toreth; it was that everyone didn't. He sighed silently. This was one of the reasons he didn't socialise much outside work. Even if he made a habit of reporting essentially harmless comments of that kind — which he didn't — he didn't do it when he was on bloody holiday. But since there was nothing he could say that wouldn't make the situation worse, he simply sat and sipped the remains of his wine until Kate gathered herself.

"Would anyone like coffee?" she asked.

The question generated an unwarranted amount of discussion, but at least the conversation started up again.

Kate started to rise, but Warrick beat her to it. "No, don't get up. I'll make it." After a minute or so, Tarin followed him out of the room and the atmosphere around the table eased noticeably.

Kate stood up again and started to gather plates. Toreth thought a show of willingness might be politic. "Let me."

She returned his smile. "Thank you, Val." Unnecessary name use. Her continued determination to make him welcome left him, again, uncomfortable. Taking the plates from her, he gathered the rest up quickly. He had a moment's worry that Valeria would follow him but her attention was fortunately engaged by a second helping of trifle.

He stopped outside the kitchen door, trying to open it without dropping the plates, when he heard the voices from within. Warrick and Tarin. He stood still, not letting the precariously balanced stack rattle.

"You've been avoiding me," Tarin said.

"Don't be ridiculous. I've been in the same house since yesterday."

"Avoiding speaking to me, then."

"Now, why would I want to do that?"

"You know perfectly well why.
Him
."

"That rather presupposes I care about your opinion of 'him'." Toreth could imagine the sneer which went with that tone of voice. It might have made even him think twice about pressing on with a conversation.

Tarin seemed to be immune, or oblivious. "Why did you bring him here?"

"He has a name, which, in case you had forgotten, is Toreth. Use it."

"Don't think that'll shut me up. Why did you bring
Toreth
here, then?"

Brief pause. "Mother suggested I might like to invite him."

"I don't believe you. She wouldn't."

"Well, if you don't believe me, there's very little point in your talking to me, is there? I would suggest that you go and ask her if it weren't for the fact that it is none of your concern. Not who I choose to be with, and not who gets invited to this house. Which, incidentally, is still Mother's house."

Warrick's anger rang through every syllable of his brittle, overarticulating voice. Tarin sounded exactly the same, to a degree that nearly made Toreth smile. The physical resemblance might not be there, but the temperament clearly was.

"The house may belong to her, but I live here, too.
If
she did invite him, you should have said no. I cannot believe you could do it — not even you. It's bad enough that you're, well . . ."

"Fucking him," Warrick supplied icily.

"Do you have to be so — yes, that's bad enough. But here? Did you hear what Val said yesterday?"

"Yes. That wasn't his fault."

"He told her what he does!" Tarin's tone was pure outrage now. "She's six years old, Keir, and he told her what he does for a living. My daughter."

"It's just a job," Warrick snapped, defensive.

Toreth held his breath through a long silence. "Please tell me you don't mean that," Tarin said eventually, so quietly that Toreth could barely hear him.

"No. No, I don't. And I didn't . . . to be honest it never occurred to me that he'd accept the invitation." Toreth could hear the wry smile in Warrick's voice. "I don't know which of us was more surprised."

"Don't try to get away from the point. You can do whatever the hell you like away from my house, however disgusting. I don't care and I don't want to know. But you had no right to bring him here."

"For the very last time, it's none of your fucking business." Warrick sounded furious now, struggling not to raise his voice.

Then Jen's voice right beside him said, "Val?"

This time the plates almost went, but she caught the stack as it started to slide.

From inside the kitchen, he heard Tarin's voice, on a rising note of fury. "I will not tolerate being unable to express my opinions in my own house without having to take into account the presence of some psychopathic Administration torturer who —"

Jen reached past Toreth and pushed open the door. Tarin's voice cut off in mid-sentence.

"After you, Val," she said clearly.

When he stepped into the kitchen the two of them broke off their confrontation to look at him, Warrick hiding the anger almost straight away, Tarin taking a moment longer. Jen followed him in.

"Is the coffee ready yet?" she asked as Toreth set the heavy plates down, glad to be rid of the weight. His hands shook slightly from the strain of holding them still.

"Yes, nearly," Warrick said in a voice so calm as to be disconcerting. "I was looking for the cups. You've reorganised all the cupboards."

"They're over here," Jen said.

Tarin turned and walked out without a word. Warrick and his aunt exchanged looks, making Toreth feel suddenly excluded.

"Sorry," Warrick said.

She smiled. "No blood on the floor this time. That's a good start."

Jen turned to Toreth. "Kate tells me that we got through more wine than she expected last night. I volunteered to hunt down some more. Would you like to come with me?"

Technically it was a request, but the tone made it more of an order. Toreth didn't particularly fancy the idea, but it seemed preferable to where he was right now. Warrick's expression suggested he wanted to say something — probably to ask what he'd heard — and Toreth wasn't in the mood.

Not looking at Warrick, Toreth said, "Of course."

They took the SimTech car, and they travelled in silence for a minute or so before Jen spoke.

"I feel I ought to apologise for Tarin. I'm sorry you had to hear that. I only caught the end, but I can't imagine whatever went before was any better."

"It's my own fault for listening," Toreth said in his blandest talking-to-management voice.

She smiled slightly. "Well, I suppose you've got a point there, but I'm still sorry."

"Please, there's nothing for you to apologise about. You didn't say it." He spread his hands. "I assure you that I've heard a lot worse."

Her expression frosted slightly. "No doubt."

"I'm sorry if I've caused difficulties by coming here." He wanted to say that Warrick hadn't warned him, which was perfectly true, but even an appearance of trying to shift the blame in that direction would antagonise her further. He smiled apologetically. "Kate ought not to have to spend New Year keeping the peace."

That brought a thaw.

"There'd be plenty of peacekeeping whether you were here or not, I'm afraid." She hesitated for a moment, poised on a question, and then asked, "I wondered if Warrick had . . . said anything to you? About Tarin."

He went for the only practical response, which was honesty. "He's never even mentioned his name."

Jen sighed. "No surprise there. Tarin was never very close to Keir or Dilly. Just before Keir went to university things grew a lot worse, and I've never really understood why. Would you be interested in hearing a bit of family history?"

Toreth thought the odds were quite low, particularly if Tarin was heavily involved. "If you'd like to tell me."

"Not
like
, no, but . . . I thought it might help. I'll try to give you the short version at least." She fell silent for a few moments, obviously organising her account. "Kate married quite young to Marriot, Tarin's father. They had Tarin and then they simply drifted apart. He had, ah, political interests, and Kate was never interested in that sort of thing. And then, when Tarin was six — no, seven, I think — his father died. A car accident."

There was a brief pause, which he filled by saying, "I'm sorry."

"So was I, which rather surprised me at the time. I'd never really liked him, to be perfectly honest. But then, very soon afterwards, Kate met Leo — Keir and Dillian's father." She shook her head. "It was one of those things. Kate would tell you he asked her to marry him the first day they met, which isn't quite true, because it took a week. But I won't bore you with the details. Keir was born, and then Dilly only a year later. I moved into the house with them, to help with the children." She smiled. "There are some photographs I must show you, when Keir isn't around to stop me."

Toreth had difficulty imagining anything less appealing than baby pictures of someone he was fucking. The thought must have escaped onto his face, because her smile grew slightly wider, with a hint of mischief. She wasn't at all bad-looking.

"I hope I'm not boring you," was all she said.

"No. Not at all."

She shook her head, serious again. "Other people's families are never as interesting as they think they are."

"Please, carry on." He had to admit he was more interested than he'd expected to be. Some things you could never find out from security files, and he felt a professional curiosity to find out what, in this case, they would be.

"I knew Leo better than anyone did, except Kate. He was a wonderful man, kind and generous. Accepting. Tarin adored him." She looked away, out of the window, back into the past. He read a lot more in her half-averted face than she probably thought she was showing him. Either she'd fucked Leo, or she was wishing now that she'd done it.

"What happened?" he prompted.

She sighed. "There were some old friends of the family. Friends of Marriot's, originally. They were . . . idealists."

She looked at him, and he nodded, keeping his expression neutral. 'Idealist' was the term anti-Administration political criminals used when they wanted to pretend they weren't doing something dangerously illegal.

"I don't know all the details, obviously, but they were arrested, quite suddenly. And Leo was arrested with them. There were never any charges against him, ever. It was
just
an association, nothing more. He hadn't done anything."

Toreth nodded again, colluding passively in what was almost certainly an old, well-worn lie. He suspected where the story was headed.

"Not long after the arrest, he . . . died." She paused. "Under interrogation. An accident, Kate was told. They were married for almost exactly three years."

He'd guessed right. Fucking hell. Explanations clicked into place.

The only thing he didn't understand was why she was telling this to him at all. It wasn't necessary. She'd seen him outside the kitchen, so she must know he was unlikely to give in to any urges to hit Tarin in the next couple of days . . . and then he realised.

She knew it would all be in I&I records. He could look it up, once he got back to work, and probably would, given Tarin's behaviour. She was giving him her version first, before he could see the cold, official accounts. Or maybe she hoped that it would stop him reading the files at all. Was she trying to protect Tarin, or Warrick?

He couldn't tell — she ran an impressive game. Now she was watching him, clearly expecting a response.

Toreth asked the first question that came to his mind."Does Warrick know?" It hadn't been in Warrick's file, because some things he was quite certain he would have remembered.

"I . . . well, to be perfectly honest, I don't know. You would have to ask Kate. It was the one thing she forbade me to talk to the children about. I imagine he may know some of it, as may Dillian. Perhaps not the exact circumstances, but then none of us do."

Not as well as you might, her expression said clearly, resenting him for something he hadn't done yet.

"Tarin — well, he was old enough at the time to know something about what was happening." She looked at him measuringly. "I don't know if you can appreciate it, but it was hard for Tar. Losing two fathers in such a short space of time."

"And for Kate. And for you."

She nodded. "Yes. It was." She glanced out of the window as the car drew to a halt outside a small collection of expensive-looking shops.

He thought she had finished, but she didn't open the door. Instead she spoke again, looking at him directly. "Val, Kate is not political. She never has been and she's tried to bring her children up to be good citizens. How well she's succeeded. . . . But I hope you can understand that you — that your job — presents something of a difficulty for Tarin."

Hence implying that he was supposed to let Tarin's anti-Administration sentiments pass without report. Or possibly she was simply asking him to put up with his rudeness without punching him. Neither interpretation was worth commenting on. "What about you?" he asked instead.