Doctor Who: BBC Past Doctor Adventures [070] - Match of the Day by Chris Boucher

Author:Chris Boucher
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563486183
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 2004-12-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

They found him in a crapper on the Hakai OTS,’ he said.

‘Dollar to a dip he was a hauler who got himself spotted.’

Driftkiller Ronick was a crude, fat, sexist pig, Sita thought, but there were worse cops. He had a long memory for incidents and he made the links when they showed. She paid for the gutburgers and joined him on the bench by the lake.

‘How did you get hold of this?’ she asked, running the ID he had given her through the fast-reader.

Driftkiller spoke round a mouth stuffed with most of a burger. ‘Friends in low places.’

She shrugged to show her indifference. ‘If you don’t want to tell me…’

‘Turned up in a currency bounce. Counterfeit crew. Good gear. They were working from plates stolen to order on the Hakai.’

She stopped the reader: it was the same routine stuff she’d got from central registry and it merely confirmed what she already knew. Norbert Lung was not the man who blew through ‘Space Main security. ‘None of this detail matched him at all?’

‘All they had in common was your friend Norbert is dead and so was this one.’

‘How dead?’ she asked.

‘Pro hit to the spine, then a coup to the brain.’ Still chewing he pushed a chubby finger against the underside of his jaw.

‘Neat blade.’

A dovetailed plover landed on the grass in front of them and Driftkiller tossed it some crumbs.

‘Who was the dead man?’ Sita asked.

‘I asked that.’

‘And?’

‘They don’t scuffling know. The body, all the forensics, all the samples, all the details – all disposed of.’

‘How could that happen?’

‘I asked that.’

‘And?’

‘Computer glitch,’ he said dismissively. ‘That’s their story and they’re sticking with it.’

A chilly breeze swirled across the lake. Sita suddenly shivered. ‘You don’t buy that?’

He snorted. ‘Smells like Hakai public relations to me. Usual scam. No evidence, no investigation – no crime. Anybody asks: blame the computer. Killings are bad for the image, am I right?’

It sounded reasonable to Sita. So that was it then. Probably a courier: currency, drugs, biologicals, who knew? Serious hauler anyway. And they caught up with him in the low-rent public washrooms on the Hakai Orbital Transfer Station.

Someone caught up with him there. Someone heavy and professional. And he’s dead. Fitting sort of end for someone like him. End of trail. End of story. Did it sound reasonable?

It sounded reasonable. There were holes… Forget the holes, she thought. Be grateful to Driftblubber here for getting her off an increasingly sharp-feeling hook. ‘How did you make the connection?’

‘Routine booking check. Norbert arrived on the OTS but he didn’t leave. There was an unidentified corpse around that time.’

‘Two and two,’ Sita said.

Driftkiller nodded. ‘Elementary police work.’

It was elementary police work Sita had already done, only there’d been no mention of a corpse when she checked. How could that have happened? She shivered again. ‘And we’ve got nothing on the dead man at all?’

Driftkiller shrugged. ‘Witness statement has him as some kind of slope.’

Sita frowned. Some kind of slope?

Catching the reaction Driftkiller elaborated: ‘He looked like a dink seemingly; well what they said was: Western-zone features.

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