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

and I knew I was not alone then in feeling a subtle weight lift from our collective shoulders, and not a little relief.
    Hannah took her car and returned to her apartment in Mackinley, arranging to meet me in Magenta later that day, and I drove back with Matt and Maddie.
    That day I appointed a lawyer and a couple of hours later I received a call from him. The news, I learned, was good; forensics had detected traces of Fhen’s DNA on the hilt of the hleth barb; however, the authorities on Elan had refused to begin extradition proceedings to have Fhen returned to Chalcedony. My lawyer said that the investigation was as good as over.
    I called Hannah, but received only a recorded message. Next I called Matt and Maddie, then Hawk and Kee: they’d been informed of the good news, and agreed we should meet in the Jackeral that night to celebrate.
    Later that afternoon Hannah called.
    I was sitting on the balcony of the Mantis , nursing my third beer, when my com chimed. “Hannah,” I said, staring at her face on the tiny screen. “My favourite person. Heard the good news?”
    “David,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “I need to see you. Can I come up right away?”
    “Of course,” I said, the words sticking in my throat. “What is it, Hannah?”
    Her expression remained neutral. “It’s about what Dortmund said, David.”
    “What he said?” I was aware of my pulse throbbing.
    “About what I was hiding,” she said. “I need to tell you the truth.”
    * * *
    I was on my fifth beer when Hannah’s two-seater drove off the road and braked beside the Mantis .
    The truth, she had said. Whatever the truth was, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. Between the end of the call and her arrival, I’d had plenty of time to worry myself sick at what she might have to tell me. How much of what she had told me so far was a lie, and was she about to admit that it was she who had, for whatever reasons, murdered Darius Dortmund? Worse, I feared that what we had shared together, what she said she felt for me, might be nothing more than a charade enacted as part of that duplicity.
    I left the balcony and took the elevator to the entrance hatch. The door slid aside. I had expected, for some reason, Hannah to be cold, distant, but to my immediate relief she stepped forward and held me tight, murmuring my name over and over.
    I squeezed her. “Hannah. Come on, let’s go upstairs. I’ll get you a drink.”
    We rode the elevator, Hannah gripping my hand.
    I fixed her a scotch, and one for myself, and led her onto the balcony.
    We sat side by side on the lounger, and I turned to look at her.
    “David,” she said, clutching her glass and looking into my eyes. “First of all, David, I want to tell you that I love you, that for the first time in years I’ve met someone I can trust.”
    I took her hand. “You can. So tell me…”
    “I want our relationship to continue. That’s more important to me than anything at the moment, my job, my life on Earth…”
    “Hannah,” I smiled, uneasy despite her reassurances, “you aren’t making much sense.”
    She laughed. “Okay. Okay—” She took a breath. “First of all, what I said about moving here from Rotterdam, joining the Mackinley police… that isn’t quite true. I was seconded to Chalcedony for six months, or for however long the case took to wrap up – after which time the plan was that I’d return to Earth and resume my old life there.”
    I nodded, taking it all in and feeling sick. “What case?” I asked.
    “The Dortmund case. I was sent by the European Police Agency to keep an undercover surveillance on Dortmund. I had a team of six officers with me who monitored his movements around the clock.”
    I looked at her. “Why? What had he done?”
    “Not what he had done, but what he was about to do.” She took a swallow of scotch then held up the glass. “Dortmund was an alcoholic, as you might have guessed. About three months ago a woman he