Daig shrugged. ‘Actually, it might take people’s minds off the bigger issues. Nothing like a killer of men on the loose in your own backyard to keep you focussed.’
‘That all depends on how large your backyard is, don’t you think?’
‘Good point.’ Yosef’s cohort paged through the panes of data installed on the slate with solemn slowness. He paused on one slab of dense text, his eyes narrowing. ‘Hello. This is interesting.’ He handed the device over. ‘Look-see.’
‘Blood work,’ noted Yosef. It was the analysis reports from the site of the Latigue murder, multiple testing on samples that confirmed, yes, the fluids all over the walls of the gondola had once been contained inside the unfortunate clerk. At least, almost all of them. There was a rogue trace right in the middle of the scan reports, something picked up by chance from one of the medicae servitors. A single blood trace that did not match the others.
Yosef felt a slight thrill as he absorbed this piece of information, but he stamped down on it immediately. He didn’t dare jinx the chance that Daig might have just pointed out something that could be their first important break.
‘It doesn’t tally with any of the previous deaders, either,’ said the other reeve. He reached for the intercom horn. ‘I’ll comm the precinct, get them to run this up to the citizen database…’
But just as quickly as it had lit, Yosef’s brief spark of excitement guttered out and died as he read a notation appended to the bottom of the information pane. ‘Don’t waste your time. Tisely got her people to do that already.’
‘Ah,’ Daig’s expression remained neutral. ‘Should have expected that. She’s efficient that way. No joy, then?’
Yosef shook his head. The notification for a citizen ident read Not Found. That meant that the killer was unregistered, which was a rare occurrence on Iesta Veracrux, or else they were from somewhere else entirely. He chewed on that thought for a moment. ‘He’s an off-worlder.’
‘What?’
‘Our cutter. Not an Iestan.’
Daig eyed him. ‘That’s a bit of a leap.’
‘Is it? It explains why his blood’s not in the database. It explains how he’s doing this and leaving no traces.’
‘Off-world technology?’
Yosef nodded. ‘I admit it’s thin, but it’s a direction. And with Telemach breathing down our necks, we need to be seen to be proactive. It’s that or sit around waiting for a fresh kill.’
‘We could just hold off,’ suggested the other man. ‘I mean, if Eurotas has his own operatives inbound… Why not let them come in and take a pass over it? They’re bound to have better resources than we do.’
He gave his cohort an acid look. ‘Remember that engraving on your warrant rod that talks about “to serve and protect”? We’re called investigators for a reason.’
‘Just a thought,’ said Daig.
Yosef sensed something unsaid in his cohort’s words and studied him. To anyone else, Segan’s dour expression would have seemed no different from any of the other dour expressions he wore day in and day out; but the other reeve had been partnered with him for a long time, and he could read moods in the man that others missed completely. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Daig?’ he asked. ‘Something about this case has been gnawing at you since we had it dropped on us.’ Yosef leaned closer. ‘You didn’t do it, did you?’
Daig made a brief spluttering sound that was the closest he ever came to a laugh, but then he sobered almost instantly. After a moment of silence he looked away. ‘We’ve seen some things, you and I,’ he said. ‘This is different, though. It feels different. Don’t ask me to be objective about it, because I can’t. I think there’s more here than just… human madness.’
Yosef made a face. ‘Are you talking about xenos? There’s not an alien alive in this entire sector.’
Daig shook his head. ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘I’m not sure what I’m talking about. But… After Horus…’
Once more, the reeve felt the sudden tension that the name brought with it. ‘If I’m sure of anything, I’m damned sure that he didn’t do it.’
‘There are stories, though,’ Daig went on. ‘People talk about worlds that have declared for the Warmaster, worlds that go silent soon after. Those who make it out before the silence comes down, they’ve said things. Talked about what happened on those planets.’ He tapped a sheaf of crime scene picts. ‘Things like this. I know you’ve heard the same.’
‘It’s just stories. Just scared people.’ Yosef wondered if he sounded convincing. He took a breath. ‘And it has no bearing on what we’re doing here.’
‘We’ll see,’ Daig said darkly.
A thought occurred to Yosef and he reached for the intercom horn. ‘Yes, we will.’ He pressed the stud that would allow him to talk to the coleopter’s pilot. ‘Change of plans,’ he said briskly, ‘we’re not going back to the precinct house. Take us to the Eurotas compound.’
The pilot acknowledged the command and the flyer pivoted into a banking turn, the pitch of the rotors deepening.
Daig gave him a confused look. ‘The trader’s men won’t be here for another couple of days yet. What are you doing?’
‘Everyone wants to keep Eurotas happy, so it seems,’ Yosef told him. ‘I think we should use that to our advantage.’
They landed on a tree-lined transit pad just within the walls of the Consortium’s compound. In a definite attempt to stand out from the more typical Iestan architectural styles of the other great manses in the area, the Eurotas house was modelled on the Cygnus school of design, reminiscent of many reunification-era colony palaces from the early decades of the Great Crusade. It was an open, summery building, full of courtyards and cupolas, with fountains and small pocket gardens that were at odds with the cool pre-winter chill of the day.
The two reeves were barely to the foot of the coleopter’s drop-ramp when they were met by a narrow woman in the bottle-green and silver of the rogue trader’s livery. Standing behind her at a discreet distance were two men in the same garb, but both of them were twice her body mass with faces hidden behind the blank glares of info-visors. Yosef saw no weapons visible on them, but he knew they had to be carrying. One of the many tenets of the Consortium’s corporate sovereignty throughout the Taebian Sector allowed Eurotas to ignore planetside laws the Void Baron considered to be detrimental to his business, and that included Iestan weapon statutes.
The woman spoke before Yosef could open his mouth, firmly determined to set the rules of the impromptu visit immediately. ‘My name is Bellah Gorospe, I’m a Consortium liaison executive. We’ll need to make this quick,’ she told him, with a fake smile. ‘I’m afraid I have an important meeting to attend very shortly.’ The woman had the kind of silken Ultima accent that automatically categorised her as non-native.
‘Of course,’ Yosef said smoothly. ‘This won’t take long. The Sentine require access to the Consortium’s database of passenger and crew manifests for incoming starships to Iesta Veracrux.’
Gorospe blinked. She was actually startled by the directness of his demand, and didn’t say no straight away. ‘Which ship?’
‘All of them,’ Daig added, following his lead.