Starship Winter (David Conway 03) by Eric Brown Page A

would have killed Dortmund, no matter how strong the provocation.
    Matt and Maddie stood by the window in murmured conversation. Hawk stood before a shelf of old-fashioned books, scanning the titles, while Kee sat cross-legged on the floor, head bowed, eyes closed.
    The Elan Ambassador sat on a chesterfield by the window, upright and silent.
    Hannah curled beside me on a lounger, holding my hand. “I don’t believe this,” I said. “I curse the day the bastard set foot on Chalcedony.” I laughed bitterly. “And to be honest, I don’t feel one iota of regret about his death.”
    She squeezed my fingers. “For what it’s worth, David, nor do I. Dortmund was a bastard.” She shook her head. “Anyway, for all the Elan’s protestations that his people don’t kill, I suspect that Fhen did it.”
    The door opened and the investigating officer showed his head. “Lieutenant van Harben?”
    She rose and left the room with the officer. She was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when she returned I had no time to ask about the interrogation. “Mr David Conway, if you’d care to come with me…”
    The interview was conducted in a sunlit front room, with three officers and a recording device present. This was the first time I’d been so much as spoken to by investigating officers, and I felt an odd sense of guilt – especially when it emerged that I was the last person among all the guests last night to see Darius Dortmund alive.
    “And did you or anyone else present have any reason to wish Mr Dortmund dead?”
    I stared at the array of monitoring devices aimed my way. The question was so crass that I could only assume it was intentionally so, in the hope that the monitors would pick up something incriminating in my response.
    I said, honestly, “None of my friends had any reason to kill Dortmund.”
    “And the alien, Fhen?”
    “What about him?”
    “Is it true that Dortmund and Fhen were seen arguing yesterday?”
    I nodded. “That’s right…”
    “Do you know what they were arguing about, Mr Conway?”
    I shook my head. “I’m sorry…”
    “When was the last time you saw the alien, Fhen?”
    “That would be when I left the lounge and Fhen showed me to my room, just after midnight.”
    The officer looked me in the eye and asked, “And was Dortmund alive when you left the room, Mr Conway?”
    I returned his stare. “He was.”
    The officer nodded, murmured something to a colleague, and I was escorted back to the library.
    For the next couple of hours, the police questioned each of us in turn. A sergeant brought refreshments into the room and we were allowed escorted toilet breaks. I felt like a suspect in a classic murder mystery.
    A second police flier landed on the lawn towards the end of the interrogation period, and the last of us to have been questioned, the Ambassador, was returned to the room. The investigating officer said, “Lieutenant, if you’ve a minute?”
    With a glance at me, Hannah slipped from the room.
    She was back five minutes later, accompanied by the officer. “Right,” he said. “That will be all, for now. You are free to leave. For the time being – that is, for the period of the next week – I’d be obliged if you would remain on Chalcedony and report to the Mackinley police HQ every other day. I advise that you all hire lawyers. Ambassador,” the officer went on, “I’d be obliged if you would come with me…”
    Hannah took my hand and we hurried from the villa.
    We gathered in the parking lot. I said, “What did they want with Heanor?”
    “That second flier,” Hannah said. “It was an officer sent to check at the Telemass station. Apparently, Fhen took the early morning transmission from Mackinley, bound for Proxima Centauri II – that’s a relay station for his homeworld, Epiphany.”
    “So…?” Hawk said.
    “It would look very much like Fhen, whatever the Elan proscription on killing, has gone and incriminated himself.”
    I looked around at my friends,