Deverau jumped sideways as a delivery van exited the logistics depot and nearly ran him over. He stopped to watch it enter the service road that lay around the edge of Deimos City. An MSS guard stationed outside watched him intently, but lost interest again as he showed her his credentials.
Reports that a similar depot in Noctis City was distributing food had led to a mob unleashing its anger on the facility. The fact that the van they raided only contained supplies for the sewage processing plant hadn’t lessened the possibility that another hub might become the victim of an attack. Hence the extra security and the need to spread MSS resources even thinner than they already were.
Inside, a fleet of vehicles waited their turn to emerge from the depot. One of the members of staff attending to them, an Earth-born woman in casual and grubby work clothes, observed Deverau with a suspicious eye.
“Inspector Deverau of the MSS,” he introduced himself. “I’m looking for Isaac Erdan.”
Her suspicion turned to curiosity.
“Isaac works in the offices,” she said with a strong Earth accent which Deverau recognized as American. “I suppose you want me to show you where his office is.”
“That would be kind of you.”
She sighed, like it was a great imposition, and escorted him to the back of the building where a staircase led up to a glass-fronted corridor. He paused to look out across the five lines of vehicles below, moving in unison like a segmented snake to take the place of the van that had departed the front of the queue and nearly run him over. A backstage glimpse of the supply network that kept Mars running and which most people had been completely unaware of until the food shortage began to bite.
“It’s this way,” said the woman impatiently. He turned away from the glass and followed her to the first of a series of office doors set into an opaque wall. The woman knocked and, without waiting for an answer, let herself in.
A pale man with tired eyes sitting behind a desk – who Deverau hoped was Isaac Erdan – looked up at the interruption.
“The cops are here,” stated the woman.
Isaac immediately stood and Deverau once again found himself looking up at a Mars-born man.
“Have you found my wife?” he blurted out, confirming that he was Mel’s husband.
“No,” said Deverau. “I’m afraid not.”
Isaac sagged in disappointment. “Then what are you doing here? You should be out there looking for her.”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m Inspector Deverau.”
His name must have resonated with Isaac because his expression hardened. “You’re the incompetent one who took Mel on a train that was attacked by terrorists and then lost her.”
Deverau ignored the insult. “Strictly speaking, she escaped lawful custody.”
“And what did you do after that? Absolutely nothing as far as I can figure out. I kept fearing the MSS would tell me her body had been found. But I heard nothing and it turned out you’d called off the search team.”
“Because we believe she came back to Deimos City,” said Deverau. “You’ve not heard from her?”
“Of course I’ve not heard from her, for goodness sake! Do you think I’d be going out of my mind with worry if I’d heard from her?”
In the following disquiet, the woman shifted uncomfortably in the doorway. “If you don’t mind, Isaac, I’m going to go back down.”
“No!” he yelled. “I want you to stay here and witness the continued ineptitude of the MSS. Who, let’s face it, are too busy running around arresting the wrong people to actually do their job properly.”
Deverau took a moment and hoped it would allow the atmosphere to calm down, but it only served to emphasize the tension around him.
“I will not deny that resources at the MSS are stretched in the current situation,” he said, diplomatically. “But I can honestly tell you I am making it my personal mission to find your wife. She ran away from that train deliberately, so it is my belief that she is very much alive. I need you to think, is there anywhere she might have gone?”
“If there is, what makes you think I would tell you?”
“Let me get this straight: you are upset with me for not finding your wife, but you are not prepared to help me find her?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Isaac, folding his arms across his chest to show he was resolute.
“You do realize that obstructing the course of justice is a crime?”
“What about selling out your wife to a bumbling security service that are so desperate to pretend they’re doing something, they accuse innocent scientists? That’s a greater moral crime in my view.”
Deverau stood and waited, staring across the desk at Isaac with a patient expression that suggested he would stand in his office all day if he had to. Sometimes, it was the silence and the other person’s instinct to fill it that worked best in drawing information out of a suspect, or a reluctant witness.
“I spoke to everyone I could think of,” said Isaac. “No one’s seen her, no one’s heard from her.”
“I would still like a list of those people,” said Deverau.
“Sure! Waste your time speaking to people with no information. Why should I care?”
“She hasn’t contacted you in any way? She hasn’t been to your home? She hasn’t been here? A logistics depot would be useful if she wanted to go somewhere without using public transport or attempting to hire a rover.”
Isaac scoffed at the very idea. “Don’t be ridiculous. This place is full of people. She would have been seen.”
“Well…” said the woman at the doorway.
Isaac whipped round to glare at her. In the fraction of a second it took Deverau to follow his move, she turned red with embarrassment.
“Well?” questioned Deverau.
The woman glanced at Isaac to get permission to speak. He merely returned her stare.
“Do you remember what I said about obstructing the course of justice?” said Deverau.
She swallowed. “Well, there was that woman the other day.”
“What woman?” demanded Isaac before Deverau had a chance to ask the same question.
“A couple of people saw her on the main floor and thought she was a member of staff come in on one of the vehicles.”
Isaac folded his arms even tighter. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“You were already stressed with… well, with everything… so we thought it was better not to bother you. It’s not like she caused any trouble or stole anything.”
The possibility of a breakthrough tempted him with excitement. But Deverau pulled back from the temptation, knowing from experience that promising leads could sometimes take him nowhere. “Do you have a description of this person?”
“She was dressed strangely,” said the woman. “There should still be a surveillance image on the system.”
Isaac, apparently too furious to speak, stood aside and indicated that the woman should use the screen on his desk.
At that moment, Deverau’s WristTab buzzed. He wanted to ignore it, but the display told him it was Jones on an urgent call.
“What’s up?” he answered. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“Sorry, Dev. We’ve got a bit of a situation.”
He frowned at the image of his sergeant. “Define ‘situation’.”
“We’re getting reports that one of the members of the Terraforming Committee was attacked near Central Plaza.”
“Which one?”
“The name hasn’t come through yet, but it looks like it was someone important enough to be a target, but not important enough to have a security detail.”
“Typical.” Deverau pulled up some strength from an inner well which was in danger of running dry. “You go ahead, I’ll meet you there.”
He hung up the call and walked around to the other side of the desk where Isaac and the woman were looking at the screen. On it was a clear image of what appeared to be a woman in a baggy shirt with her head turned towards the camera so most of her face was hidden by the brown beret she was wearing.
“Is that your wife?” asked Deverau.
“How can I tell? I can’t see her face.”
But from the way Isaac was staring at the image, it was obvious he was lying.
“I want a copy of that image and the manifest of every vehicle that left the depot after she was seen, with full details of where it was going,” said Deverau. “I am, as you can tell, quite busy, so if I don’t receive the information by the end of the day, I am happy to come back and arrest everyone in this building until I get some cooperation. Understand?”
Neither of them said anything, but from the frightened expression on the woman’s face and the defiant look Isaac was giving him, he was certain his point had been made.