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. His lips pursed, then he shrugged. The rest looks fine.I ll approve them andsend them on. Toreth blinked, caught off guard by the sudden curtailment of their annualcombat. Right.Thanks. Just go away, and get on with finding out whatever s behind the mess atSimTech. He sat back, still frowning. Is there any progress with that? Halfway out of his chair, Toreth sighed silently and sat down again.So muchfor a quick escape. It s all in the IIPs. I m catching it from all directions Legislator Nissim called personallyyesterday.Twice.And people are questioning the use of resources when wedon t even have a definite crime something I have wondered about myself.Do you think there s really an I&I case there? I still think murder is the most likely possibility. Tillotson s nose twitched at the disagreement. Is there any evidence it s notthis sim itself? Untested technology? That s not an I&I matter. Why the hell did he bother filing IIPs at all? There s the wiping of the securityrecords at SimTech.Systems are eighty percent sure it was deliberate.There sno reason for that to have happened if a sim fault was to blame. Hmm. Another twitch. I ve had memos inquiring whether it wouldn t bebetter to take the case out of your hands. From who? Nissim? Departmental friends of the Tefferas? Suddenly cold,Toreth sat up straighter. I beg your pardon, sir? Tillotson smiled sourly at the unusual politeness. I told them you were mybest senior, and you have the best or at least the most expensive team.So Isuggest you get out there and start justifying this. He gestured irritably at the screen.Toreth stood up, his stomach still fluttering from the shock. Yes, sir. * * * * * God, this place is disgusting! Sara s voice came from the tiny kitchen of hisflat. There s stuff decomposing in the fridge that even the forensics labwouldn t touch. Toreth swept an assortment of clothes, weights and pizza boxes off the sofa,looked around, and dropped everything in a corner. It s only six months sinceyou cleaned it. You should let me do it again. I can t afford you.The night out after the last time cost enough to pay for amonthly cleaning service for the whole year. Sara reappeared, with two newly washed glasses and a handful of beer bottlesheld expertly by the necks. So get one, she said.Old, comfortable argument. I don t like having strangers messing around withmy things. How the hell could you tell? She put the beer down on the coffee table andfrowned at the room. I can t leave it like this. The food s getting cold. Five minutes. Toreth sat down, opened a couple of bottles, then leaned back to watch Saracleaning, or at least moving the mess around.It always mildly amused him,because her own flat was barely any tidier. The mess didn t matter anyway, since she was the only one who ever saw hisflat.He never brought fucks here, and it wasn t as if the place was large enoughto invite more than a couple of people round.In the living room, the sofa scene of his and Sara s one and only fuck and the coffee table were the onlyitems of furniture that had survived the gradual encroachment of Toreth scollection of exercise equipment.When Sara had satisfied her domestic urge, they sat together, ate takeawayThai and drank beer.Most of the meal passed in a thorough discussion ofTillotson s faults, personal and professional, which was always a reliable wayto pass the odd hour or so.Meal over, they moved on to more enjoyable topics.Sara lay on the sofa withher head in his lap, looking up at him while he recounted his first visit to thesim with Warrick edited to his advantage and then on to his evening withWarrick at the Renaissance Centre.Normally he d have passed the news alongover morning coffee, but coffee times had been short since the case started, andthe encounters were too good to rush through.The D&S made it a bit different from his usual fuck stories, so he found he hadan attentive audience
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