Different Senses (15 page)

“Harinakshi Tapti Sohan, but I
will not be your client. Is there somewhere we could talk
discreetly?”

“Right here, Sri Sohan.”

The chai house was half-empty
and no one ever paid me any attention, except to take my order. It
was why I kept coming back. Privacy, network access, drinkable
chai—all I asked for anywhere. I shut down the media report I’d
been reading on the booth screen. “But you realise my fee starts at
five hundred a day, on top of expenses, and I charge a finder’s fee
if I’m looking for an object or a person.”

Sohan bowed his head. “Expense
is no problem. Discretion is. And forgive me, this is too sensitive
to discuss where we can be overhead.”

“We could go for a walk, but
that might get you more attention than you want.”

“You don’t have an office?”

“Not as such, and if you knew
to look for me here, you already knew that. So cut the crap and
tell me what you want.” I hadn’t had a client in nearly a month,
but I wasn’t hurting for money. This guy had already crossed two
lines with me. A third and he wasn’t hiring me if he offered me
majority shares in Pledeke Corp itself.

He was still pissed off, but I
sensed desperation too. He didn’t want to fail. Weird, because I
wasn’t the only detective in Hegal by a long way. “Talk, Sri Sohan.
The first half hour is free, and then there’s a hundred dolar fee
per hour.”

“Money is very important to
you, isn’t it?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s
my job. If you want someone to listen to you for free, you need a
priest, not me. Now tell me about the client.”

He was on the verge of
walking, which wouldn’t make me cry, but the fact he sat there,
still seething, intrigued me. “Is it true you are
matos
? You
say, ‘empath’?”

“A little louder, the cook
might not have heard you. I’m not allowed to advertise any
‘special’ talents in gaining employment.”

“But I asked you.”

“Why does it matter?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Then same goes for me. What’s
the job? Surveillance? Retrieval?”

“Retrieval. Of a very precious
and very sensitive kind.”

“
They’re all precious and
sensitive, Sri Sohan, which is why I can charge what I do. If your
interest in whether I’m
matos
is to find out if I mind
taking on an indigenous client, you don’t need to worry. I don’t
have a problem with your people.”

“
I already know that, Sri
Ythen. You acted for my
fojor
a few months ago. She was
satisfied with your professionalism, though she didn’t mention
your....”

“
Charm? What’s a
fojor
?”

“Sorry. You would say my
father’s step-sister’s niece.”

I shook my head.
The
banis
had words for things the Kelons didn’t even know needed
one. “Sushri Hiranya? Jyoti Hiranya?”

“
Yes. She said you were
discreet and efficient, and different from other
chuma
.
Now, do you want the job or not?”

I held up my hands. “What job?
Look, I need more information. I don’t work blind, and I don’t
accept cases I don’t think I have a reasonable chance of cracking.
It’s not fair on the client.”

The annoyance rolled off him.
“I can’t tell you about it unless you agree to work for us.”

“And I’m agreeing to nothing
before you tell me. So maybe you need another detective, Sri
Sohan.” I picked up my mug, and glanced pointedly at the door.
“Good day.”

He stood up, pissed
as
fury, and stalked over to the door,
wrenching it open so hard I felt the wall move.

I shrugged. I was sorry
not to know what was so flaming important, but I had chai to drink
and reports to read. Clients came and went, and the
Nihan
weren’t my
target demographic. Not enough money to throw around.

“We will pay twice your usual
fee, two days in advance, if you will take on the task.”

When the hell had Sohan come
back in? I blinked up at his irritated face. “Two thousand in
advance? You don’t look like you have that kind of money.”

He pulled out his wallet,
extracted a paycard, and inserted it into the booth reader, logging
in without asking my permission. He jabbed his finger at the
screen. “I have ten thousand dolar available right now. Ten days’
hire. You can have it all now, if you come.”

“
No. Seriously no. Are
you crazy? I don’t care what you’ve lost, that kind of money smells
illegal, and I don’t do that,
beto
. I’m an ex-cop because of
injury, not because I broke the law. Scram.”

He leaned on the table, his
black eyes boring into me. “Please. For the sake of justice. There
is no illegality, I swear by the Spirit.”

It was a toss-up which I felt
more—crankiness or curiosity. Curiosity won by a hair. “Okay. I’ll
talk. I don’t need the money, and if I don’t like what I hear, I
walk. No contract up front, no obligation. Take it or leave it. No
arguing.”

“I take it. Please come now.”
He actually plucked at my jacket sleeve.

“Hold your damn horses. I’m
coming.”

“Horses?”

“
Kolija
.”

“
But I own no
kolija
.”

This was going to be
a
very
long meeting.

~~~~~~~~

We took a taxi instead of
my own vehicle, since taking a private auto into the
banis
neighbourhood of old Hegal would be like walking in banging
drums and playing sirens. Being Kelon was conspicuous enough, even
though there were plenty of mixed-race people around who looked
Kelon. Until I found out what was so damn urgent about this case,
attention was the last thing I wanted.

A lot of Kelons referred
to
Nihani
housing as burrows, which wasn’t polite but not completely
inaccurate either. The long rows of houses interconnected at
various point, allowing extended families a free run down half a
dozen homes without ever needing to come onto the street.
Most
banis
flat out refused to live in individual Kelon houses, even
when provided free. Too isolated, they said. Privacy wasn’t much
valued in
banis
society, so far as I could tell.

I’d lived in Hegal all my life,
spent ten years as a cop walking the streets and enforcing the law,
and yet I had never been down this road. I knew I wouldn’t be
welcome there. Kelon cops tended to steer clear of old Hegal unless
they were on a call, leaving community relations to the indigenous
cops. There weren’t that many mixed-race officers on the force. The
ones who were, were inevitably stuck doing liaison work.

We were in the jewellery
making district, one of the few lucrative indigenous
industries.
Banis
craftsmen lived above their workshops, and I
wasn’t surprised when the taxi pulled up outside a large,
moderately prosperous-looking business selling enamelwork and
glassware. Sohan paid the driver, and led me to the entrance to the
upstairs residences. We met no one, but I sensed other people
hidden away behind the dark wooden walls. The corridor was rather
gloomy, so I blinked when he opened a door and led me into an airy,
sunlit room.

Then I blinked again,
this time from the impact of distinctly different emotions coming
from two individuals. Hostility verging on hate, stabbing into my
head like a skewer, and intense relief and...curiosity. While I
tried to orientate myself, Sohan went down on one knee.
“
Muor
, I have brought the man you wished to speak
to.”

I shielded my eyes and found
myself looking at a short, elderly woman dressed in flowing purple
and umber, holding her hand out to me. I felt the tingle in my
skull that told me I was in the presence of another empath. “Hello,
Shrimati...sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“
I am Roshni Deela
Yatin,” she said in a lilting voice. I accepted her hand, but then
jerked a little in shock as I noticed her eyes.
Banis
eyes are usually
blue or green, though those of mixed-race people were often hazel
or even brown. Hers were completely milky white. “Yes, I’m blind,
Sri Ythen. And
matos
, as you are. Please sit.
Let me introduce one of my nephews, my legal advisor, Shardul Hema
Rishabh.”

The source of the hostility—and
someone I’d heard of. Someone to avoid, I’d been told. An
indigenous lawyer with a fierce reputation and fiercer hatred of
Kelons.

“
Sri Rishabh,” I said
politely.
Arsehole
, I thought. He knew what
he was doing to me, projecting those emotions. But he was pretty
enough, with hundreds of fiery braids spilling around his elegant
features, framing his intense eyes.

“Sri Jav,” he replied. I didn’t
correct him about my name. An odd mistake for him to make.

“Please, everyone. Sit.
Harinakshi, there is chai in the kitchen. Sri Ythen, you’ll drink
our chai?”

“Yes, ma’am. But I’d rather
hear what you want me to do so desperately.”

Rishabh made a faintly
disgusted noise. Someone wasn’t thrilled to see me, for sure.

Shrimati Yatin ignored him. “A
week ago, my workshop below was broken into. I lost a number of
valuable commissioned pieces, but insurance will cover that, or
most of it. Unfortunately, the thieves also took a strong box, no
doubt thinking it contained something valuable. Its contents, no
insurance can replace.”

“And was it valuable,
ma’am?”

“
Not to anyone but
the
udawathei
. The intrinsic value,
barely a dolar. To our people, all the money in the universe will
not compensate us.”

“A cultural artefact then. You
reported it to the police?”

Rishabh snorted. “Of
course. And of course they said they would investigate. Which, for
the
chuma
, means poking around, disturbing evidence, asking inane
questions, and putting the case at the bottom of their list of
things to do. It would be a waste of time to try and explain
the
monuwel’s
importance.”

“
The
monuwel
—that’s the
artefact? What is it, and are you sure no one but a
banis
would want it?”

“It’s a wooden cup, Sri Ythen,”
Shrimati Yatin said. “Simply painted, very plain. Not even
particularly attractive.”

“
Then the thieves either
tossed it when they realised they’d picked up something useless, or
they might be smart enough to realise it was in a strong box for a
reason, and try and sell it to a collector.” I shrugged. “Either
way, I can’t see why you need me, or any detective. All you need to
do is search. I don’t do trash collections, and you’d know more
about
banis
artefact collectors than me. If it’s valuable to
your people, it’s almost certainly still with them. The thieves
were probably
indigenous.”

“
I told you the
guko
would
take that attitude,” Rishabh spat.

She held up her hand.
“Patience, Shardul. Sri Ythen, no one in our community would steal
from me.”

I raised my eyebrows, though
she couldn’t see them. She’d sense my scepticism, though. “I don’t
mean to be rude—”

“Then refrain.”

Shrimati Yatin sighed at her
nephew. “Shardul, please. Continue,” she said to me.

“I was a cop for ten years,
ma’am. No one has any special immunity from theft. Honour among
thieves is a myth.”

“
Not in this case. You’ll
have to take my word on that. The thieves are not
udawatha
.
We could, as you say, initiate a search, but the need for
discretion is paramount. We didn’t tell the police of the
monuwel’s
theft, and apart from us in this room, no one knows it’s
missing.”

“Then how do you expect the
police to look for something they don’t know is stolen, Shrimati
Yatin?”

“I don’t. I hoped they would
find the other material and identify the thieves so we could ask
them about the artefact, but nothing has happened.”

“Of course not,” Rishabh said
with a dismissive wave.

I turned to him. “If
you’re so clever, Sri Rishabh, why aren’t you looking for it? Oh,
that’s right, you need a
chuma
for it. Except you haven’t
told me why, and damned if I can work out why I should sit here
while you make snide remarks about my people.”

“Oh, so sorry. Am I oppressing
you, Sri Jav?”

“You’re being an arsehole.
Excuse my language, ma’am.”

Sohan set a cup of chai in
front of me, radiating anger. “You are very disrespectful, Sri
Ythen.”

“Maybe you should tell your pet
legal eagle to take a hike.”

The ‘eagle’ bristled. “You
won’t be speaking to my aunt without my presence, Sri Jav, and
that’s final.”

“
Then pull in your horns
or
I’m
taking a hike.”

“
Shardul, Sri Ythen,
please.” For a little woman, she could put a lot of authority into
her voice. “Sri Ythen, we need you because you are Kelon, and you
are also
matos
and can tell if someone is lying. With your
gift, we felt, since you have this tie to our people, you would be
sympathetic. My niece said you were very kind.”