‘What is it?’ he asked, with some asperity, resenting the disruption of his concentration.
‘There’s someone here to see you, honoured Scribe,’ a pale-looking Archivist informed him, inserting just enough of his body across the cubicle’s threshold to become visible.
‘I’m busy. Tell them to wait.’ Linder returned to his collection of slates and hardprints, already dismissing the matter from his mind.
‘That won’t be convenient,’ I said, pushing past the Archivist, who promptly fled, his duty done. Linder turned back to the door, to find it clicking to, while I leaned casually against its inner surface. I extended a hand. ‘Wil Feris, Adeptus Arbites.’
‘Of course,’ Linder said, as though my uniform hadn’t already told him precisely what I was. Surprise was smeared across his face like a harlot’s lipstick, but his handshake was firm, and once he’d registered that I was real and wasn’t going away until I was good and ready, his expression became curious rather than alarmed. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You’ve been looking for Harl Sitrus,’ I said, resigning myself to leaning against the door for as long as the interview took. There was only one place to sit in the narrow room, and Linder showed no inclination to vacate it. ‘So have I.’
‘Do you know where he is?’ Linder asked, and I shook my head.
‘No,’ I admitted, ‘and that irks me. I’m not used to being hidden from. Not for this long, anyway.’
‘Why would he be hiding?’ Linder asked, an unmistakable frown appearing on his face. ‘Surely you can’t suspect him of anything?’
‘Everyone’s guilty of something,’ I said. That was the first thing I’d learned on joining the Arbites, and before you ask, of course I include myself in that. But there are degrees of guilt, and culpability, and sometimes things aren’t as clear cut as they seem.
‘Not Harl,’ Linder said, which surprised me; people usually react to that kind of insinuation by asserting their own innocence. ‘Not of anything that would justify your interest, anyway.’
‘I’m interested in a great deal,’ I told him. Which was true; law enforcement on Verghast was in as big a mess as any of its other institutions, and the Arbitrators brought in to sort it out had been forced to take on cases which would have been handed to the locals on more smoothly functioning worlds. ‘Including the falsification of records.’
‘Harl would never do something like that,’ Linder said, sounding genuinely angry. Most Administratum adepts would as soon profane the name of the Emperor as knowingly tamper with the data they were charged to protect.
‘Don’t you think it a little odd that so many records relating to him have disappeared?’’ I asked, refusing to raise my voice in return.
Linder looked thoughtful. ‘That might be the result of tampering,’ he conceded. ‘But you’ve got no proof that Harl’s responsible.’
‘Nothing definite,’ I agreed. ‘But innocent men seldom disappear into thin air. Unless foul play’s involved.’
Linder paled; clearly this possibility hadn’t occurred to him. ‘You think he’s been murdered?’ he asked at last.
‘It’s possible,’ I said evenly, ‘but I doubt it. I think he wiped his own records to cover his tracks, and hide whatever else he tampered with.’
‘Harl wouldn’t do a thing like that,’ Linder said again, glaring at me with unmistakable dislike. ‘And I’ll prove it.’
‘I’ll be delighted if you can,’ I told him. He clearly knew nothing of any use to me. ‘In the meantime, if he should get in touch, or you find some trace of him, be sure to let me know.’
‘You can count on it,’ Linder said, in tones which made it clear he regarded the interview as over.
How much of his interrupted chain of thought Linder was able to pick up after my departure I can only guess, but given his stubborn streak, I imagine he’d pretty much completed his task for the day by the time he left the scriptorium and headed uphive to meet Milena Dravere. He found his way with little trouble, consulting his data-slate from time to time, but generally moving through the shift-change bustle with a resolute determination which left the local operatives I’d assigned to watch him scurrying to keep up; no mean feat, given that most of them were Kannack born and bred. True to the picture I was beginning to form of him, he took little notice of the barrage of noise and spectacle most men would have found distracting, but remained obdurately fixed on his goal.
The only time he showed any visible sign of surprise was when he reached the Via Zoologica itself, and realised that the road broke through into the open air. He paused for a moment, looking down the long, sloping flank of the hive shining like a beached galaxy below, then strode on, his shadow flickering in and out of existence as it merged momentarily with the patches of deeper darkness between the waylights. As he neared his destination, skirting a crowded tavern from which jaunty zither music floated incongruously on the night air, he slowed his pace, paying greater attention to the address plates screwed to the smog-eaten bricks of the overhanging housefronts.
At length he came to his destination, and knocked, a little hesitantly. After a few moments a woman opened the carved wooden door a wary crack.
‘Milena?’ he asked, unsure of his reception. ‘It’s me, Zale.’
‘Then you’d better come in.’ The door opened wider, and he stepped inside, finding himself in an airy, well-lit entrance hall. His hostess was petite, dark-haired, and carried a small-calibre autopistol in her left hand. Linder had never seen a genuine weapon before, and was taken aback; but before he could protest, Milena had closed and bolted the door, and deposited the gun on a nearby occasional table. From the number of faint scratches in the marquetry surface, Linder surmised that the gun generally rested there, where it could be picked up easily whenever the woman answered the door.
She motioned him through one of the arches leading off the hall, and he found himself in a comfortably appointed living room roughly the size of his entire lodgings. He looked around curiously, noting the opulent decor, the artful scattering of antiques and objets d’art, utterly unlike the contents of any room he’d ever been in before.
‘You have a very elegant home,’ he said, hoping to break the awkward silence.
‘Thank you.’ Milena perched on the edge of a sofa, opposite the armchair Linder had selected as seeming least likely to swallow him whole. He was astonished at how comfortable it was; the furniture he was used to was generally selected for its utility, rather than comfort. Milena glanced round, as though lost in her own house. ‘Harl found it for me.’
‘He did?’ Linder prompted, hoping for more detail. He couldn’t imagine Sitrus combing the property vendors, even on a friend’s behalf. Perhaps his new department had something to do with accommodation allocation, and he’d found out about it that way.
‘He’s helped a lot of people,’ Milena said. Her face was drawn and tense. ‘He’s a good man. Whatever some people say about him.’
‘People like Feris?’ Linder asked, and the woman nodded, suddenly tense again.
‘How do you know Feris?’ she asked, her left hand clenching as though closing on the butt of her gun. Her eyes fixed on Linder’s, disturbing in their intensity. She shifted, almost imperceptibly, a few millimetres further away from where he sat.
‘I don’t,’ Linder assured her, ‘and I don’t want to. He came to the scriptorium, not long after I voxed you, and threw his weight around.’
Milena nodded. ‘I thought he was monitoring my vox calls. He’s probably hoping Harl gets in touch with me.’ A flash of panic illuminated her eyes. ‘If he does, they’ll be bound to catch him!’