Gary Gibson - The Thousand Emperors

‘Do we know for a fact that Falla killed himself ?’

Luc glanced up. De Almeida had directed her question at Cripps.

Cripps scripted back to her.

de Almeida sent back.

‘If you will, Bailey,’ Cheng commented.

Cripps looked like he’d eaten something sour. ‘ Clearly Falla killed himself,’ he said out loud. ‘He must have had a tip-off that SecInt were on their way here.’

Luc stepped across to the shattered window at the room’s far end and looked out. The ground was an unpleasantly long way down.

‘But a tip-off from who?’ asked Luc, stepping back from the window.

‘Black Lotus, of course,’ Cripps barked. ‘He decided to end his life rather than face punishment for his actions.’

‘Or possibly, someone connected to Black Lotus made that decision for him,’ suggested Cheng. ‘It would certainly make it harder to track down whomever was responsible for giving him his orders.’

‘It’s looking very open and shut to me,’ Cripps declared. ‘His connections with Black Lotus are extensively documented.’

‘Finding that device doesn’t prove he killed Vasili, let alone somehow found his way through the Hall of Gates!’ de Almeida protested.

‘No,’ said Cheng, ‘but that machine’s own internal records strongly suggest he did.’

‘Those records,’ she said through clenched teeth, ‘could have been faked.’

‘Oh no, Zelia,’ said Cripps, one corner of his mouth curling up. ‘On the contrary, I already checked the White Palace’s own security records. I found anomalies in them, corresponding to the times and dates inside Falla’s crude little toy.’

‘But why on Earth would Black Lotus want him to kill Vasili?’ she demanded.

Cripps regarded her with a pained expression, as if confronted by an imbecile. ‘ Surely , Zelia, that should be clear. This was a tit-for-tat move, a strike against the Council in return for Winchell Antonov’s death. As far as I’m concerned, you can stop playing detective now. We’ll arrange an immediate inquest and have a decision based on the evidence within the next few days. After that, we can concern ourselves with other questions – such as who might have helped Falla carry out his crime.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said de Almeida. ‘Are you telling me that you think Vasili was killed as revenge for our stopping Antonov? He hasn’t been at the heart of Council politics for more than a century. What would be the point? You , on the other hand,’ she said, practically spitting the words at Cripps, ‘would make a far more worthwhile target, especially since you spend so much of your time away from Vanaheim. Why, if Falla found it so easy to pass through the Hall of Gates, would he fly halfway around Vanaheim just to kill a minor and half-forgotten member of the Eighty-Five, when he could have stuck around Liebenau and killed someone a lot more important?’

Cripps shrugged. ‘You heard Joe: there’ll be an enquiry to figure out the hows and the whys. Right now the most appalling thing about all this is that it’s all so easily preventable.’ His voice began to rise. ‘That means someone hasn’t been doing their job, Zelia . If they had, Sevgeny might still be alive today.’

‘If it were to become publicly known that the architect of the Reunification was murdered in his own home,’ said Cheng, ‘it would be a major propaganda coup for Black Lotus and their supporters, and there are still plenty of those left. I’ve already made it clear that this is unacceptable. Instead of questioning Bailey’s hard work, Zelia, perhaps you should try and find out how it is your vaunted security systems failed to prevent a lone agent, acting with the minimum of support, from entering our sanctuary and killing one of our own like a dog. If it hadn’t been for Bailey’s swift and decisive action here, Falla might have lived to do much worse things than what he so very clearly did to poor Sevgeny.’

Luc watched de Almeida closely, noting the stricken look on her face. ‘I want to see the evidence for myself,’ she spat, but Luc could see she was shaken. ‘I have that right.’

‘You’ll see it,’ said Cripps, regarding her with a smile. ‘I’ll be happy to release the complete details of my investigation to you at the appropriate time.’

she shot back.

‘Mr Gabion.’

Luc started, and realized he was being addressed by Cheng.

‘By the looks of things,’ said Cheng, ‘your investigation has come to an end rather more swiftly than any of us might have hoped. I know it must have been difficult for you to be drawn into all of this at such short notice. You understand,’ he added, ‘that absolute discretion on your part continues to be both expected and necessary.’

‘I understand, Father,’ Luc replied. He felt unsure what to do next.

Cheng scripted.

She glanced at Luc. ‘You should go back down,’ she muttered, her tone curt. ‘Thank you for your help.’

she added.

‘Father.’ Luc nodded to Cheng, and left.

Luc waited on the street by the tower for nearly an hour. It started to rain – a thick, cold end-of-year drizzle that cascaded from the skies, painting the street with wet sheets that darkened the decaying shells of the apartment buildings around him. Police mechants came and went, still guarding Falla’s body while SecInt forensics teams carried out their work inside the tent hiding his body.

They eventually started letting the residents of the tower back in not long after forensics wrapped up their work. Shortly after, a SecInt ambulance that had arrived while Luc was inside the building took Falla’s remains away.

The police mechants followed the ambulance on its upwards trajectory, and soon the only company Luc had was a couple of civil-engineering mechants tasked with cleaning up whatever blood and tattered flesh hadn’t already been washed away. He retreated into a doorway to shelter from the worst of the rain still gusting down from on high, watching the skyline slowly brighten as morning drew nearer.

Zelia appeared from out of the building entrance and came towards him, her expression bleak.

‘You look cold,’ she said, stepping up beside him and into the comparative shelter of the doorway. Luc could see lines of fatigue around her eyes.

‘You look,’ he said, ‘like you’ve been given a hard time.’

Anger stiffened her face, and he wondered if he’d crossed a line. But then she nodded distractedly, as if acknowledging the point.

‘It doesn’t matter what Cheng thinks,’ she said in a monotone, staring toward the patch of pavement where Falla’s body had been. ‘He didn’t do it.’

‘Falla?’ Luc shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, either.’

She regarded him coolly. ‘Explain your reasoning.’

He shrugged. ‘I told you. I knew Falla. He’d be lucky to outsmart a paper bag. He’s no assassin.’

‘Not even if his hand had been forced?’ de Almeida suggested. ‘Desperate people do desperate things, under the right circumstances.’

‘Falla had no family after the Battle of Sunderland, and no real friends either – certainly no one who could be used as leverage to force him to do something like that. He was barely any use as an informant, and not much use for anything else.’ Luc shook his head. ‘Try as I might, I can’t picture him as some kind of stealthy killer, finding his way through the White Palace, then flying halfway across Vanaheim in order to slaughter a Councillor in his own home. It just doesn’t compute.’