Chapter 13

XIII

Unlucky for Some

"They're getting a bail hearing tomorrow," Zee says.

"That must be a record. Scum always have the best lawyers," Zzrh answers.

"Yeah, but it's not like anyone made it too difficult for them. It's all community relations. We have to arrest the racists to appease the humans, but we have to be extra nice to them or we get accused of political correctness or suppressing freedom of speech."

The two of them are waiting on the sloped side of Hive Central, under the clouded evening sky. Winged apians and gyrocopters buzz overhead, but the ground is quiet and deserted. Zee is out of her body armour now, wearing just a white shirt and black trousers. She stamps her feet and rubs her arms as defence against the chill air.

"Say," Zzrh says, "do you still have that lighter on you?"

"Sure."

Zzrh sticks a cigarette in his mandibles and leans down to the flame that sparks in Zee's hand.

"Put the cigarette down," a morose voice announces.

"Zzg," Zzrh says. "So happy to see you."

She steps out of the hive entrance, wiping her feelers over the hard surface of her eyes. "Been having fun today?" she asks.

Zzrh spits the cigarette out. "You bet. You?"

"I always find interviewing thugs to be so very relaxing."

"Really?"

"What do you think?" she says bluntly. "You had fun, I'm sure."

Zee draws a breath through her mandibles and backs away. "I'll leave you two to settle your arguments by yourselves. See ya."

"Night, Zee. Zzg, fun? No, no. Boring research. Very boring."

"We do have a TV in the break room."

"Then, since you were hard at work, you wouldn't have seen me, would you?"

Zzg sighs. "I can't believe you got on TV. Who's doing all the work? The wingless detective, that's who. The one with wings is on TV."

"They just wanted me to make a statement, I had no idea I'd end up on the news."

"You're a narcissist. Any excuse to look like a scruffy sleuth in front of a crowd."

Zzrh's mobile goes and he takes the excuse to break the conversation. After a few terse words he turns and looks at Zzg. "Looks like we've finally found our Zruz."

*

"That's about as dead as they come," Zzrh says.

"I've seen deader," Zzg answers. "What did the fisher have to say?"

"She caught a smelly, river-ruined body in her net, traumatising her for life. That's as much as she can tell us."

"Are we sure it's really Zruz?"

Zzrh looks at the body lying on its back on the quayside: a winged apian staring up at the increasingly troubled sky. A few wingless apians in white coveralls are examining the fisher's decrepit motorboat. The dominant sound is of water sloshing around disobediently in the river.

Zzrh goes over to one of the forensic scientists and takes a clear plastic bag from her. Inside is a brown leather wallet. He fiddles around with it through the bag. "Pilot's license and DVD rental card, both his."

Zzg makes a face. "Pilot's license? Did his wings not work?"

"He worked for a hotel, remember, with mostly wingless guests."

"What about his pass card?"

"His what?"

"For getting in and out of the hotel."

Zzrh fiddles around some more. "Don't think it's in here."

"It wasn't in his apartment either," Zzg says, adding, "We got a warrant for the place while you were having fun."

"So, what do you think? Someone killed Zruz to get his pass card and get into the hotel to kill Ogive?"

Zzg pulls her overcoat around herself more tightly. "And it just happened to be the one with CPG connections? What if he killed himself to throw us off the scent? Or the others killed him for that reason - or over a dispute."

"Then why is his pass card missing?"

"To throw us off the scent, I said that already."

"Or maybe it was someone else," Zzrh reasserts. "Ignoring the fact that Zruz is CPG, we can say that anyone with a motive could have taken his card and murdered Ogive."

"Why should we ignore the fact that he's CPG?"

"Because he's dead. Do you think we could get a narrow enough time of death on him to exclude him as the murderer?"

Zzg looks at the forensic scientists as if divining answers from their movements. "I doubt we could from his body alone, but if he was alive on the night of the murder, he might show up on CCTV somewhere in the city. By the river, perhaps, assuming he was killed and not just dumped here."

"How did he die?" Zzrh asks.

"Do I look like a doctor to you? Look yourself."

"No chance, he's gone all mushy in his exoskeleton."

Zzg turns towards their car. "Where the hell do we start now?"

"Did your interviews with the thugs not turn up much?"

"Nothing conclusive. Nothing inoffensive either. I was told to go lock up all the humans. They seemed pretty adamant that humans must have done it."

"Maybe the Slinkists did do it, and they want us to think that the CPG tried to frame them for the murder."

"Oh, right," Zzg says. "So the Slinkists want us to think that the CPG want us to think that it was them, so that we'll think it was the CPG, when in fact it was them?"

"Yeah."

Zzg swats at Zzrh's feelers. He ducks too slowly and winces as her hand connects.

"Try coming up with an idea that's halfway sensible," she says.

Zzrh strokes his feelers tenderly. "Hardly my area of expertise."