The Pearl Crucible - A Dardana Fenek Mystery - RASKOV (Part 3)

(Chapter 15, Part Three)

This is not to say that she knew the ensign-captain: she did not seem to. But she knew what three stars in a silver laurel wreath meant at his neck, and she could not square that with her low opinion of me.

Having snapped at him, she recoiled slightly, a shabby bird in brown compared to his sharp blues or even my turmeric yellow chiton and madder-red shawl.

He smiled at her, opened his mouth—

“That’s her,” I murmured to him,

—and he said, “Miss Raskov, I’m Ensign-Captain Mardonios of the Night-Market Commissariat.”

“A little outside your jurisdiction, aren’t you?” she said, flustered. She had her tablet in hand, and fiddled with it as if she needed to do something.

“It’s the Fortunato case,” he said.

She looked at me and even spared an instant for Barsina behind me. “This Miss,” she said, gesturing at me, “asked questions of Sub-Director Azzopardo already yesterday.”

“Today we’d like to ask questions of you,” he said genially.

I felt several centimeters taller after the we.

“I have nothing to offer on this subject,” she said warily.

“I’d think I can better judge that. Where can we talk? Do you have an office?”

“I don’t rate an office.” She looked around and then shrugged. “In the exhibit will be fine.”

She led us inside.

Barsina stood at the side, her notebook and stylus out, while I studied the nervous Raskov, who put her tablet in her girdle and smoothed her garment. Mardonios hadn’t seen the as-yet-unopened exhibit, so he walked about examining the alien work while Miss Raskov fiddled with her chiton sleeves; despite the academic color, she had fine beads hanging from the ends of them that clicked gently with her movements. He paused for a long time in front of Meisje while the woman stared at his back, then he turned around.

“What do you know about Petro Forunato’s relationship with Nunzia Azzpardo?”

Her nostrils flared. “She had no relationship with him,” she said angrily. “He was a rapist, and he raped her.” She looked at me. “I understand you were informed of this.”

“I was, Miss Raskov.”

“Then why—”

“Do you consider this a motivation for murder?” the ensign-captain said. “Would a woman wish to murder such a man?”

“You try to trip me with words,” she said coldly. “Miss Azzopardo didn’t murder him and couldn’t have murdered him. Her location is documented clearly, and when and where he died is, I hear, also exactly known.”

“How about you?”

“I?” she said, her voice rising in pitch. “I? He did not rape me, sir.”

“Is Miss Azzopardo a friend of yours?”

“She is my superior.”

“Is she your friend?”

“We are on good terms,” she said carefully. “I would not consider her a close friend.”

“You wouldn’t think,” I spoke up, “that as a fellow woman, you should avenge her if she wasn’t willing to do it for herself? If someone raped an acquaintance of mine, I’d be pretty angry about it.”

Arethne Raskov looked contemptuously at me. “What are you, a doleman?” she said angrily. “Your acquaintances are probably used to such treatment. Are you even married?” Before I could answer in the negative, she snorted. “Of course you’re not. Who’d marry you? So this creature,” she flicked her fingers at Barsina, “is your bedgirl, isn’t she?—Aren’t you, girl? Answer!”

I bridled and opened my mouth.

“Miss, I serve my Miss as she requires,” Barsina said calmly. “I do not question her. I’ve not the right. And I would not wish to.” She smiled at me. “But Miss Azzopardo had the right to reject him, he had no right to touch her, and you have the right to be angry with him, and a magistrate might see that you had motive, Miss.”

Raskov’s mouth dropped open wide, and her hand raised as if to slap. Barsina waited calmly, turning her cheek to accept it, knowing it was deserved, but I prepared to catch the woman’s hand.

“She’s right,” Mardonios intervened. “It is a potential motive.”

She dropped her hand. “I was nowhere near his palaco on that evening.”

“Where were you?”

“I was at my flat,” she said defiantly.

“You have witnesses?”

“My girl.”

I took a breath and winced. Another servant going to be put to the question. Miss Raskov sensed that instantly as soon as she said it, and flushed.

The ensign-major shook his head. “And?”

“The housekeeper,” she said hastily. “She’s a citizen, not a freedwoman. She would have known if I left because she has the key to the building and would have to let me back in. She served me supper after eighteen o’clock, and I did not leave. I had,” she said with an air of triumph, “no opportunity.”

“You didn’t strike him over the head with a statuette, killing him?”

“Would I admit it now had I done?”

She was right about that, and I looked at him. Was this all? It seemed the limit.

He nodded. “Your father is Hasan Raskov,” he said.

Her face crinkled in confusion. “Yes, that’s well-known.”

“The owner of Raskova Radiotekniko-Fabriko L.R. of Helioshad.”

“And?”

“Amongst other products, Raskova builds processing cores and designs their differoscripts.”

“I fail to see the connection,” she said uncertainly.

Mardonios placed his hand on my arm. “But I see that Miss Fenek does.”

If he wasn’t touching my arm, I could have seen it faster and clearer, but it came, it came, and I told her:

“Mist’ Fortunato was almost killed in a ground-car accident four nights ago. The processing core got a malicious differoscript update.”

( … This way to Chapter Fifteen part 2 … ) ( … This way to Chapter Sixteen part 1 … )

… ( … This way to Chapter One part 1 … ) …