‘And now I want to hear the story from you,’ Henry said. ‘To see how your version tallies with your wife’s. If they do, we’ll let you get on with your lives. Such as they are. If not, we’ll let the police know about those two poor holy women. And when your bosses find out you’ve been talking to the police…’
‘It’s nothing,’ Gert Baines said.
‘It means something to your bosses,’ Henry said. ‘That’s why the kid ran away from this place, isn’t it? And why he ran off again, when my friend Chloe found out about his pictures. So, and this is the last time I’ll ask nicely, what does he have that your bosses want?’
‘Don’t say anything,’ Baines told his wife.
‘I already tell them,’ she said. ‘I tell them it is nothing. A worthless little trinket.’
‘What kind of trinket?’ Chloe said.
‘Why don’t you tell her, Jack?’ Henry said.
‘What’s the point, if you already know?’
‘The point is, I’ll know if you and your wife are telling the truth.’
‘It’s just this little bead,’ Baines said. ‘Okay?’
‘Where did she get this bead? And don’t lie, because I’ll know.’
‘Her father sent it to her.’
‘From Mangala.’
Baines nodded, a tight jerk of his head.
‘What kind of bead? Describe it.’
‘Small,’ Baines said, holding this thumb and forefinger less than a centimetre apart. ‘Sort of like green glass.’
‘I’ve seen it,’ Chloe said, remembering with a quick spark of excitement Rana Chauhan’s bracelet.
Henry looked over at her, asked if she thought it could be the source of Fahad’s inspiration.
‘There are plenty of Elder Culture artefacts that look a little like stones or beads. Tesserae from tombs in the City of the Dead on First Foot and elsewhere. Sea glass from the factories on Yanos. Fragments of the shadow mosaics on Tian or Syurga…’
Chloe was remembering the red string and its green bead, remembering the little girl mentioning what might have been an imaginary friend or a favourite toy, might have been something else. Ugly Chicken says she’s nice.
‘And it might contain one of your alien ghosts.’
‘An eidolon. Yes, why not?’
Henry thought about that for a moment, then turned back to Gert and Jack Baines and asked them how Sahar had managed to smuggle it back to Earth. Gert said that Sahar had bribed one of his fellow employees to post letters and presents to his son and daughter.
‘So Sahar sent this Elder Culture bead,’ Henry said. ‘The kid, Fahad, started painting these pictures…What then?’
‘You think you know everything,’ Jack Baines said.
‘I need you to tell me what happened.’
‘Fuck you.’
Sandra said, ‘You were looking after Fahad and Rana. Keeping them here.’
‘So?’
‘Be patient with me, Mr Baines. I’m trying to understand the situation.’
Gert Baines said, ‘They couldn’t go with their father. Too expensive. And anyway, the little girl, she was far too young.’
‘Because no one under sixteen is allowed to go up and out,’ Sandra said. ‘But didn’t they have family? Uncles, aunts, grandparents?’
‘We were told to look after them,’ Gert Baines said. ‘Make sure they don’t talk to people. So that’s what we do.’
Henry said, ‘They were kept as hostages.’
‘We treat them good.’
‘Too good,’ Jack Baines said.
‘Because they escaped,’ Henry said. ‘A couple of kids got the better of you.’
Baines shrugged.
Chloe said, ‘You let the kids keep stuff that Sahar sent, didn’t you? Letters and little presents and so on.’
Gert Baines said, ‘Why not? We are not monsters. We do the right thing by these kids.’
Chloe said, ‘And you didn’t tell your bosses about it.’
Jack Baines said, ‘Like Gert said, we did the right thing by them. Let them keep in contact with their old man.’
Henry, catching on, said, ‘Out of the goodness of your heart? Bullshit. Sahar bribed someone to send this stuff, and he bribed you, too.’
‘Sahar was my friend,’ Baines said, looking offended. ‘So I helped him out a little.’
Chloe said, ‘He sent this bead. What else?’
Baines shrugged. ‘Scraps, mostly. A pebble. Shards of some kind of plastic stuff. Something that looked a bit like a feather.’
Henry said, ‘Is any of this stuff still around?’
‘The kids took it all.’
‘Or you sold it,’ Henry said.
‘Think what you like.’
‘So why, if you were so nice to the kids, did they run off?’
‘If you find them, you can ask them.’
Sandra said, ‘We found the video clip, Mr Baines. We know what your bosses did to Sahar Chauhan.’
‘Them up there aren’t my bosses.’
‘But they sent the clip to show you what happened to people who stepped out of line,’ Henry said. ‘Am I right? How did Sahar step out of line? Why was he killed?’
‘Maybe you should ask his bosses.’
‘Maybe I should tell the police about those two nuns,’ Henry said.
Baines looked at his wife, who gave a fractional nod.
‘Sahar was a good cook,’ Baines said. ‘The best. But there was a problem up there. His boss was put away on some bullshit charge. And meanwhile, Sahar was involved with these other people, smuggling things out. The stuff he sent the kids was only half the story. I think he was trying to earn enough to buy a ticket home. I don’t know the details. But the guy that was sent up to sort things out found out about it. And yeah, I saw what happened to him, afterwards. I saw it and I deleted it.’
‘You put it in your browser’s recycling bin,’ Sandra said. ‘Not quite the same thing.’
Chloe felt something cold grip her from head to foot. She said, ‘What did they do to him? To Sahar?’
Sandra hesitated. Henry said, ‘They crucified him, basically. They nailed him to a wall and they shot him in the head. And they videoed it.’
Chloe looked at Jack and Gert Baines. ‘When was Fahad’s father killed?’
‘About three months ago,’ Sandra said. ‘That’s the date of the video, although it could have been altered. We can check it out more thoroughly when we get back.’
Chloe said, ‘Fahad saw it. He saw it, and he realised that he might be in danger too, and he took off with his sister.’
Gert Baines said, ‘The computer we have here, it is a piece of shit. The boy knows something about these things, and my husband is cheap, won’t pay anyone to fix it. So he lets the boy. I told him, no. But he doesn’t listen. And now look what happens. They steal our money and run away, and bring all this trouble on our heads.’
‘I fucking deleted it,’ her husband said.
Henry said, ‘Dragging it to the recycling bin doesn’t delete it. Even I know that. The kid found out about his father, didn’t he, and he ran away. Him and his little sister. Because they were scared they might be next.’
‘We wouldn’t have done anything,’ Jack Baines said.
‘Like you didn’t do anything to those two nuns,’ Henry said.
‘We didn’t tell anyone when they died, that’s all. And fuck you for thinking otherwise.’
Baines’s anger seemed genuine.
Henry said, ‘Are your bosses looking for Fahad and Rana?’
‘Why should they? Sahar’s dead, they don’t give a shit about two kids.’
‘And they don’t know about the Elder Culture stuff and Fahad’s pictures because you didn’t tell them. Because if you did, they’d know you’d been taking backhanders for delivering the mail.’
‘You try to be nice,’ Baines said. ‘And look what it gets you.’
‘Your idea of “nice” being to keep two kids prisoner,’ Henry said.