‘A while ago. Been upstairs, shouting at Daskeen Azul’s management. ’ Sevgi hauled herself up onto the cradle, propped herself against the fork next to him and slid her legs out in front of her. ‘So. Turns out you called it right, after all.’
‘Yeah. Thirteen paranoia.’
‘Don’t gloat, Marsalis. It’s not attractive.’
‘Well, I’m not looking to get laid.’
She shot him a sideways glance. ‘No, I guess you’ve probably had enough of that for one night.’
He shrugged again, didn’t look at her.
‘Daskeen Azul are denying any knowledge,’ she said. ‘As far as they’re concerned, Merrin, Ren and Osborne were all casual employees, automatically renewed contracts every month unless there’s a problem, and there never was. They’re lying in their teeth, but I don’t know if RimSec are going to be able to prove that.’
‘Osborne?’
‘The guy who jumped you with the machete. Scott Osborne, Jesusland fence-hopper. RimSec forensic reckon he was one of the Ward Biosupply employees who ran when Merrin showed up there. DNA match with genetic trace leavings from here and Ward’s place.’
He nodded. ‘And Ren?’
‘That’s a tougher one. There was no genetic trace for her at Ward’s place, so looks like she or someone else went over there and cleaned up after they left. But we’re working off witness description composites and yeah, looks like she was there too.’
‘What about gene trace here. Have they run that?’
‘Not yet.’ She looked at him again, curiously. ‘You don’t seem very happy about any of this.’
‘I’m not.’
She frowned. ‘Marsalis, it’s over. You get to go home now. You know, back to London and your smug European social comfort zone.’
He raised an eyebrow, stared out at the water. ‘Lucky me.’
Abruptly, there was a light tripping pulse in her throat. She tried for irony. ‘What, you going to miss me?’
He turned to look at her now.
‘This isn’t over, Sevgi.’
‘It isn’t?’ She felt a little crime scene macabre creep into her tone. ‘Well, you could have fooled me. I mean, you did just kill them all. Osborne and the other guy are all over the walls and floor up there. Merrin, you just brained. I’d say we’re pretty much done, wouldn’t you?’
‘And Ren?’
Sevgi gestured, throwaway. ‘Pick up her up, sooner or later.’
‘Yeah? Like you did after she split from Ward Biosupply?’
‘Marsalis, you’re fucking up the victory parade here. Ren’s aftermath, she’s a detail at most. Merrin’s dead, that’s what counts.’
‘Yeah. Suppose we should be celebrating, right?’
‘That’s right, we should.’
He nodded and reached into his inmate jacket. Produced a well-made blunt and held it up for her approval.
‘Want some?’
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t know. Someone gave it to me. In case I needed to celebrate.’ He put the blunt in his mouth and crunched the ember end to life. Drew in smoke, coughed a little. ‘Here, try. Not bad.’
She took it and drew her own toke. The smoke went down sweet and silty, enhanced dope and an edge of something else on it. She held it in, let it go. Felt the cool languor of the hit come stealing along her limbs. All sorts of knots seemed to loosen in her head. She drew again, let it up quicker this time, and handed the blunt back to him.
‘So tell me why you’re not happy,’ she said.
‘Because I don’t like being played, and this whole fucking thing was a set-up from the start.’ He smoked in gloomy quiet for a while, then held the blunt up and examined the burning end. ‘Fucking monster myths.’
‘Eh?’
‘Monsters,’ he said bitterly. ‘Super-terrorists, serial killers, criminal masterminds. It’s always the same fucking lie. Might as well be talking about werewolves and vampires, for all the difference it makes. We are the good, the civilised people. Huddled here in our cosy ring of firelight, our cities and our homes, and out there’ – a wide gesture, warming to his theme now – ‘out in the dark, the monster prowls. The Big Evil, the Threat to the Tribe. Kill the beast and all will be well. Never mind the—’
‘You going to smoke that, or not?’
He blinked. ‘Yeah, sorry. Here.’
‘So you don’t think we’ve killed the beast?’
‘Sure. We’ve killed it. So what? That doesn’t give us any answers. We still don’t know why Merrin came back from Mars, or what the point of all these deaths was.’
‘Should have asked him.’
‘Yeah, well. Slipped my mind at the time, you know.’
She stared at the toes of her boots. Frowned. ‘Look, maybe you’re right. Maybe we don’t have the answers yet. But the fact we don’t know what this was about doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be happy we’ve stopped it.’
‘We didn’t stop it. I already told you, this whole thing was set up.’
‘Oh, come on. Set up how? Rovayo says you took Daskeen Azul totally by surprise. They weren’t expecting this to happen.’
‘We were early.’
‘What?’
He took the blunt from her. ‘We were early. They didn’t expect me to push so hard, they were maybe going to let this play out some time next week.’
‘Let what play out next week?’ Exasperation slightly blurred by whatever they were smoking. ‘You think Merrin planned to let you kill him?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘He certainly didn’t fight as hard as I expected him to. I mean, I got lucky in the end, but the whole thing felt, I don’t know. Slack. Anyway, that’s not the main point. Ren could have come in at any point and tipped the balance. She wasn’t injured, all I did was knock her on her back.’
‘So? She just cut her losses, got out while she could.’
‘After partnering this guy for the last four months? I don’t think so. Ren was a pro, it was stamped right through her. The way she moved, the way she stood. The way she looked at you. Someone like that doesn’t panic. Doesn’t mistake one unarmed man for a RimSec invasion.’
‘Did you tell her you were a thirteen?’
He gave her a tired look.
‘Well? Did you?’
‘Yeah, I did but—’
‘There you are then.’ She bent one knee, eased round to face him more. ‘That’s what panicked her. Look, Marsalis, I’ve been around you when the fighting starts, and it scares me. And I know what a thirteen really is.’
‘So did she. She’d been caretaking one for the last four months, remember.’
‘That’s not the same as facing one in combat. She’d have a standard human response to that, a standard—’
‘Not this woman.’
‘Oh, you think you’re an expert on women, do you?’
‘I’m an expert on soldiers, Sevgi. And that’s what Ren was. She was someone’s soldier, the same someone who hired Merrin out of Mars. And whoever that someone was, for whatever reasons, they were getting ready to sell him out. Maybe because he’d served his purpose, maybe because we were getting too close to the truth down in Cuzco. Either way, this’ – he nodded back towards the CSI buzz on the slope above them – ‘All this was a planned outcome. COLIN with its boot on the corpse of the beast, big smiles for the camera, congratulations all round. Fade out to a happy ending.’
‘Doesn’t sound so bad to me,’ she muttered.
‘Really?’ He plumed smoke up at the nanofibre vault. ‘And there I was thinking you were a cop.’
‘Ex-cop. You’re confusing me with Rovayo. You really ought to try and keep the women you fuck separate in your head.’