My head was thick next morning and the cards still made no sense. Nor did Daisy’s problem. I couldn’t even think of a good reason to involve myself since she clearly expected nothing from me. But I had found the body. And I was curious.
Be not curious in unnecessary matters. My mother would have said it with a frown. Grandmother would laugh and answer my question if she could, or tell me a story which was usually better than an answer. It was years before I realised the stories often were the answer. I wished I could ask her now, but she’d been gone for a dozen years and anyway I knew where she’d tell me to start.
The beginning. The body’s ID.
Because my stomach didn’t fancy another conversation with the overweight tekkie on the door to the Port offices, I stayed where I was and put in a personal call to Daisy. I was half-surprised when she took it.
“Humility? What’s up now?”
She probably felt as rough as me so I didn’t take offence at her tone. It was my fault.
“I was just wondering if they’d ID’d the body yet.”
Her face shut down. Blank. I half-expected her to say, What body? “Why?”
“Curiosity.”
“Sure.” She hesitated, realising I would find out anyway or would keep on pestering her. “Come over.”
Something in her voice stopped the obvious questions. I made my way to the main building wondering just what she was up to, not liking any of my answers.
The man on the gate was another stranger. He didn’t even look at me as he passed me through. Daisy came out to meet me.
“Come on. This way.”
I’d never been through this part of the building, out the back and down a covered walkway to a long hut. I stopped when I saw the red cross on the door.
Daisy nodded. “Medical facility. Still curious?”
No. Never that curious. Was this Daisy’s way of getting even for my interference? I could have turned back. Should have done. Instead, I took the step which made the door cycle open for me and walked through. “Let’s get it over with.”
It was cold in there. Not the cold which went with the drizzle outside but something far deeper, tasting of death. Never mind that this was a place where people came for cures: I knew what was behind the door where Daisy had stopped.
She must have signalled our arrival. The door swung open and a man in a white coverall stepped aside for us.
“He’s in there.”
It was a small empty room. The air in it was stale. Perhaps because the only other person in there had no need of air any more.
“Go on.” Daisy’s voice was hard, the anger barely suppressed. I couldn’t tell if it was meant for me or for whatever I was going to see if I lifted the cloth over the shape on the table.
I don’t handle death well. I prefer not to deal with it at all but that isn’t always possible. What I’d done yesterday had led me directly here and I couldn’t step back from it. If my hand was unsteady, trying to snatch itself back from what I was making it do, then that was between it and me.
Then I looked at what I had uncovered.
We were outside the too-clean building before either of us said anything. I had left it to the man in white to clean up the mess I’d made over his scrubbed floor and he hadn’t protested.
“You knew him.”
It wasn’t a question. I nodded, still dealing with the knowledge that the thing I’d seen dangling from the dredge had been someone I’d known and liked. It took me three attempts to find my voice, and then it wasn’t one I recognised.
“Jon. Used to work for you. In security. But you knew that, didn’t you?”
That was making me angry. She hadn’t needed to put me through this, hadn’t even known I’d recognise him. Just because she was pissed with everyone else didn’t give her the right to do that to anyone. Especially not to someone who’d thought she was a friend.
“No.”
“No? You said they’d salvage his ID.”
She was shaking her head. “I’d assumed they would. The chips are buried deep enough…” She must have seen me change colour because she stopped and began again more carefully. “You saw the damage. The important bit was missing.”
I’d not looked closely. Only close enough to see that swollen face: lead-white, with the stains of corruption just showing. Close enough to know him and to wonder how it was possible to know anyone who looked like that. Close enough to see that the shape of the back of the skull was wrong.
“Did you guess I’d recognise him?”
She shook her head. Breathed out heavily in exasperation at herself and me as she pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
“Not really. I didn’t recognise him, though you say he was staff. I just thought there was a chance, if he came from round here, you might know him. You’re better at faces than most people.”
Most people look at screens, not faces.
“Then why?” My anger was beginning to show now.
“I guess I wanted you to share the trouble you started. I was sick when I saw it, too.”
I hadn’t expected that. Daisy was too efficient for me to think of her stomach being turned by any part of her job. It was an apology of a kind. Suddenly I was too tired to stay angry. Too tired to deal with problems.
“OK. Now I’ve ID’d the corpse do you mind if I go? I’ve still got a hangover to sort out.”
“Go.”