Glasshouse - Charles Stross [141]
“Father, I, I wonder if I can have a word with you?” I ask hesitantly.
“Of course.” He glances at a police zombie. “Go to the vestry, fetch a mop and bucket and cleaning materials, and begin cleaning up the floor of the bell tower.”
“It’s about . . .” I trail off. My conscience really is pricking me, but I’m not sure how to continue. I feel eyes on me from across the yard, curious eyes wondering what I’m saying.
“Do you know who did it?” Fiore demands.
“No, I wanted to talk to you about Janis, she’s been very strange lately—”
“Do you think Janis killed him?” Bushy elevated eyebrows frame dark eyes that stare down his patrician nose at me, a nose that doesn’t belong to the same face as those wattles of fatty tissue around his throat. “Do you?”
“Uh, no—”
“Some other time, then,” he says, and before I realize I’m dismissed, he’s calling out to another police zombie, “You! You, I say! Go to the undertaker depot and bring a coffin to the bell tower—” And a moment later he’s walking away from me, cassock flapping around his boots.
“Come on,” says Sam. “Let’s go home right now.” He takes me by the arm.
I screw up my eyes to keep from crying. “Let’s.”
He leads me across the car park toward the waiting queue of taxis. “What did you try to tell Fiore?” he asks quietly.
“Nothing.” If he wants to know so badly, he can talk to me the rest of the time, when I’m lonely.
“I don’t believe you.” He’s silent for a minute as we get into a taxi.
“Then don’t believe me.” The taxi pulls away from the curb without asking us where we want to go. The zombies know us all by sight.
“Reeve.” I look at him. He stares at me, his expression serious.
“What?”
“Please don’t make me hate you.”
“Too late,” I say bitterly. And right then, for exactly that moment, it’s true.
17
Mission
IT’S raining when I wake up the day after the murder. And it rains—gently, lightly, but persistently—every day for the rest of the week, mirroring my mood to perfection.
I’ve got the run of the house and doctor’s orders to take things easy—no need to go in to work in the library—so I should be happy. I made up my mind to be happy here, didn’t I? But I seem to have messed things up with Sam, and there are dark, frightening undercurrents at work around me—people who’ve made the opposite choice and who’ll pounce on me in an instant if I don’t tread a careful line. Now that I have time to think things through, I’m profoundly glad that Fiore wasn’t paying attention when I tried to tell him about Janis. Life is getting cheaper by the week, and there are no free resurrections here—no home assemblers to back up on daily.
Am I really that worried?
Yes.
I manage to make it through to Thursday morning before I crack. I wake up with the dawn light (I’m not sleeping well at present), and I hear Sam puttering around the bathroom. I look out the window at the raindrops that steadily fall like a translucent curtain before the vegetation, and I realize that I can’t stand this any more. I don’t want another day on my own in the house. I know Dr. Hanta said to take the whole week off to recover, but I feel fine, and at least if I go in to work, there’ll be something to do, won’t there? Someone to talk to. A friend, of sorts, even if she’s behaving weirdly these days. And even if I feel uncomfortable about what I’ll say when I see her.
I dress for work, then head downstairs and call a taxi, as usual. I’m half-tempted to walk, but it’s raining, and I’ve neglected to buy any waterproof gear. Rain aboard a starship, who’d have imagined it? I wait just inside the front porch until the taxi pulls up, then rush over to it and pile in on the backseat. “Take me to the library,” I gasp.
“Sure thing, ma’am.” The driver pulls away, with a bit more acceleration than I’m used to. “Wonder when this weather will stop?”
Huh? I shake myself. “What did you say?”
“I heard from Jimmy at the public works department that they’re doing it because they discovered a problem with the drainage system—need to flush out the storm sewers. I’m Ike,