Daisy let me in without argument and even switched the screen she was using to Hold.
“Find a perch.”
I propped myself on the usual corner. Looked hard at her. She seemed calmer. “How’s it going?”
She moved a hand in a see-saw motion. “Better. Nothing’s gone wrong in three days and I’ve managed to make up a week of lost time and save fifty credits on a shipment. It may not last but it’s an improvement.”
A long earring dangled, clicking softly as its bright beaded tassels swung against each other. This was the Daisy I was used to.
“And the body?”
She grimaced. “Him. He left yesterday evening. The Company agreed to cough for the cremation.”
It wasn’t what I’d meant and she knew it, though I was unreasonably annoyed to find I’d lost the chance to say a decent goodbye to Jon. I didn’t like my last memory of him to be of vomiting on the floor beside his body.
“What about the investigation?”
Her answer had the cynical edge which working for a Company can produce even in someone as straight as her.
“What investigation? Byron went over it with me and we decided that he could as easily have fallen in upriver as on Company property, which means it’s not our problem any more. Even the peeps have agreed to file it as an accident. Unless someone files a complaint.”
Now they had an ID they must have been able to discover he had no kin. It seemed no one else cared either. He was a problem only if someone wanted him to be and no one here did.
“That’s it? You don’t want to know who stripped him and smashed his head in and threw him into the river?”
She shifted but didn’t look away. “Perhaps he hit his head when he fell in.”
“After having taken off his clothes?”
“He might have been going for a swim.” She looked aside as she said it. The message was clear enough.
“You mean you don’t mind what happened as long as you’re not going to be blamed?”
She didn’t avoid my eyes this time. She knew what she was doing and accepted what she heard in my voice.
“I know how it sounds, and if I could see anything useful I could do I would do it. But right now I’m concerned with keeping this job and making sure there are no other ‘accidents’ to prevent this development going through. It’s due to open in two months and at this rate we might, just might, bring it in on schedule.”
I knew the pressures she was under, especially with Sheba pregnant. I couldn’t argue with them. And if she and Byron were working together – although he’d taken care to give me precisely the opposite impression – then I had to be pleased she was more secure. It took an effort, but I smiled.
“I’m sorry. And I’m glad things seem to have turned round for you.”
She relaxed, leaning back in her chair, relieved I was being sensible. “So’s Sheba. She says I’ve been impossible lately.”
“How’s the pregnancy coming on?”
I’d never seen her face soften quite like that, as though she were thinking of something she’d dreamed of but never believed would happen. Her voice was softer, too, sort of blurred.
“It’s great. There’s another scan next week and after that we just have to sit back and wait.”
“Some things even technology hasn’t speeded up.”
She laughed. Herself again. “Why don’t you come over for a meal? Tomorrow? Sheba would like to see you.”
I wasn’t convinced of that, but it wasn’t an invitation she offered lightly and I couldn’t find it in me to refuse. I accepted and then left her so that she could turn back to the waiting screen.
Then I walked back to the Pig swearing under my breath all the way. Was I the only one left who was angry that a man had been killed and thrown out with as much ceremony as a dead cat?