‘A lawyer, of all things.’ Albas showed him the Partheni packet runner parked up in expensive surroundings. ‘A dock rented by a Prosecutor Livvo Thrennikos, ex-Scintilla dropout. One of the standard sorts of leechfat in these parts.’
Havaer sat back. The same Partheni packet runner had left Lung-Crow, and according to his information, the Vulture’s crew had been on it. So was the whole thing a Parthenon operation? And if so, what did they know about the Architects? He tried to get a gut-sense of just how big this mess was, and failed. Everything was just ghosts in the mist.
‘I’ll need to get a packet ready, encrypted, for the next runner going anywhere.’
‘Facilities at your disposal,’ Albas confirmed. ‘And?’
‘Book me an appointment with this Thrennikos,’ Havaer said. He’d planned to go planetside in his mediotypist persona, but right now he reckoned there were better ways to crack the nut. ‘Tell the son of a bitch we want to talk about his tax returns.’
*
There were no local requirements to file returns. However, people in Thrennikos’s position did business off-world too, which gave Havaer a cover. He couldn’t say for sure that Prosecutor Livvo Thrennikos had some skeletons filed away inside his tax returns, but something definitely had the man on edge.
‘Nice view.’ Havaer had deliberately come dressed in Berlenhof-standard clothes printed at the Mordant local office. As always, they hadn’t been able to properly tailor for his odd shoulders and wrong-sized feet, so nothing quite fit. Thrennikos himself was dressed in a manner Havaer recognized as ‘Glittery Business Pimp’。 It made Havaer proud to be a little unkempt. Shows my Polyaspora roots. Stupid, but the thought gave him a little glow.
‘It’s better in the first few weeks of summer.’ Thrennikos cleared his throat, which sounded pleasingly dry. ‘There’s a, hm, migration, of some of the local wildlife.’
Havaer was supremely uninterested. ‘Prosecutor Thrennikos . . .’ he started, emphasizing the title with some irony. Sure as hell nobody on Tarekuma ever got prosecuted for anything.
‘You wanted to check something?’ Thrennikos had the fiction of his tax documents up on a virtual screen. He waved at them, nervously. ‘I’m aware that the entertainment expenses for my Amaryllis trip were somewhat high, but that’s just how they . . .’
‘Prosecutor, I’m not averse to twisting your arm over . . .’ Havaer consulted Albas’s notes, ‘what looks like nineteen solid hours of brothel time. I mean, I could refer it for investigation, recommend a fine, or I could just assume that Amaryllis is a fun place and your clients like being put at their ease. However, if you answer a few innocuous questions, we can pretend I never spotted your epic brothel-a-thon.’
Thrennikos was observing him, still very nervous but not the nerves of your typical tax evader or even someone with a weird fetish they didn’t want raked up. ‘Can you put into plain language what you mean, Officer Mundy?’
Havaer checked the surveillance readings on his slate and raised his interference field. He didn’t want this business recorded.
Thrennikos watched this, then said ‘Mordant House?’
Havaer nodded.
‘Thank god for that.’
‘That’s an unusually enlightened attitude to take, Prosecutor. Most people aren’t too happy to see us.’
Thrennikos finally dropped into his chair. ‘Better than actually having to go through the tax stuff.’ He was trying to be cool, now, but Havaer could still see the tension in him.
‘I need to talk to you about some visitors . . .’
‘Oh, I know exactly who you’re here about,’ Thrennikos told him. ‘And if I’d known just how much trouble they were going to be, I’d have said no. Just an introduction – that was all they wanted. Who knew it would end with space piracy? I assure you, Officer, I was acting entirely in good faith, a favour for an old friend, even, if you can believe that.’
Havaer found it within the bounds of credibility. ‘You met with . . .?’
‘Kerry Almier, plus some shabby spacer and a Hanni factor.’ Thrennikos glanced at the slate Havaer showed him, picked out the face of Rollo Rostand and the shell pattern of Kittering. ‘Like I say, all above board, just an introduction . . . You probably won’t believe this, Officer, but just about everything that goes through this office is sunny side up. When my clients come to me it’s for the legitimate side of things. They’ve got the crooked stuff covered.’