Chapter 3
Chapter three
Once inside her room, door closed, Hallie sat on the cushioned stool in front of the enormous dressing table and, ignoring the three images of herself that were being reflected in the gold-framed mirror, took out her phone and re-read the most recent message with a mixture of anticipation and unease.
Anticipation because, if Manju’s information was correct and Findo had operated mostly in Daydawn, then someone brokering fake IDs was exactly the sort of person that Findo would have had contact with.
The forger could be a more helpful lead than Manju had been so far.
The name Rosalia had sent through was Zurine Halinburn, a name that Hallie had never come across before, which suggested that the forger was very discreet, likely a huge advantage in her chosen profession.
This Zurine might even be able to give Hallie and Girard any alternate identities that she’d set up for Findo.
That kind of knowledge would bring them closer to getting Findo Trask back into custody.
And unease because the source of the information was Rosalia - Hallie’s roommate and best friend.
And such knowledge was dangerous. The Daydawn forger that Rosalia had named didn’t just provide the necessary false paperwork, but also a way to counter-act the electronic ID that was recorded onto microchips that all karlen and veondken in the city were required to have embedded under their skin.
Even the elite in Daydawn were not exempt from the requirement to have the microchip ID.
Some quality of hochlen physiology meant that embedding the chips under their skin didn’t work, so the elite wore metal bracelets to carry their ID chips.
After the attack a decade before which had nearly killed Hallie, and unknown to her at that time changed her from human to hochlen, her own body had rejected a chip, so she’d been fitted with a plain, steel bracelet that she still wore.
Anyone who possessed the correct scanner would be able to read the information on the chip and verify her identity.
Hallie had never relied on the ID chips to verify a fugitive’s identity.
She knew of other forgers in low city who would be able to falsify documents, but she’d only heard rumours about someone capable of concealing the information on a person’s chip and providing them with a duplicate chip with false information, so that a scanner would read the fake ID as genuine.
Hallie hadn’t really believed it - hochlen controlled the ID chip technology and it had seemed unlikely that any karlen would have been able to get around it.
Or, indeed, would have been willing to take the risk.
Creating, or even attempting to create, one was subject to severe punishment up to and including execution.
Hochlen might not care much if karlen or veondken killed each other on the streets of low city, but they did care, very much, that karlen and veondken should obey the laws that the elite had put in place.
Rosalia had mentioned that the fake ID - which she had obtained through a broker in low city, very much like Manju Nayak - had been astonishingly expensive, which made sense.
And also explained why this Zurine Halinburn might take the risk in making the forgeries.
There wasn’t much work in low city generally, and nothing that would pay as well as that kind of criminal enterprise.
Hallie didn’t care about Zurine’s safety.
She’d made her choices, and doubtless knew the risks.
Hallie did care, very much, that Rosalia could be in trouble with the Conclave if anyone connected her to the forger.
Barely a few months before, Rosalia had been in an arrangement with one of the elite.
Kept by him in a luxurious apartment, provided with a generous financial allowance.
The arrangement had soured, with the man in question turning violent and Rosalia had been making plans to flee.
Plans which had involved obtaining a fake ID.
Hallie had nothing but sympathy for the position her friend had been in.
The man she’d been connected with had resources enough that there was nowhere in the world that Rosalia - in her own identity - would have been safe, if she’d simply left him and he’d chosen to pursue her.
In any event, someone else had killed him, so Rosalia hadn’t needed her escape plan but had agreed to see if she could get the contact information for the forger to assist Hallie.
And now Rosalia had sent Hallie the information she’d gathered.
Rosalia had done so from her own phone, so her name was attached to the message.
The device in Hallie’s hands was her own, not one provided by the Conclave Investigators, but a chill ran through her as she wondered if they would ever ask for her phone or just seize it.
She was part of their team now, after all, and gathering information for their investigations.
They had procedures in place for gathering and recording evidence.
All things that Hallie had never had to worry about when she’d been a skip tracer.
The low city police hadn’t cared too much about how the fugitives got caught, as long as the criminal was in custody.
And Hallie’s employer - also her aunt - had taken the same approach.
Gin had never once, in the ten years Hallie had worked for her, asked to see what was on Hallie’s phone.
But Hallie couldn’t be sure the same would apply to the investigators.
She was certain that even if she deleted the message, one of the forensic techs would be able to retrieve it.
She’d heard of things like that happening.
She could destroy the phone, but it was full of things she didn’t want to lose, and backed up to secure net storage as well - a precaution taken a long time ago after a fight with a skip had smashed Hallie’s phone.
If she’d only had Girard to consider, Hallie knew she wouldn’t be worried.
If she asked Girard to keep her source a secret, he would.
But he reported to Peredur Roth and while Hallie had a great deal of respect for the director, she didn’t trust him in the same way as Girard.
So she hadn’t told Girard who her source was, not wanting to put him in the position of having to lie or conceal more information from the director.
Hallie’s mouth twisted as she wondered if she was over-thinking this, or making too much of the information that Rosalia had sent her.
Perhaps the Conclave Investigators wouldn’t care how Hallie had got hold of the details.
They would care - very much - about the information itself. Of that Hallie was quite sure.
She copied the contents from Rosalia’s message into a note on her phone so she had it as a neutral piece of writing to share if needed, and sent a thank you reply to her roommate, still wondering if she should delete the text.
While she had her phone open, another message appeared on screen that had her frowning, a different sort of unease creeping over her.
The message began with Your attendance is required, then went on to list a date, time and place in low city.
There was no name or sign-off, but Hallie knew the place.
It was her mother’s workshop in low city.
The message was almost certainly from her mother, Wilona Talbot, Magravine of the Talbot family vine, summoning Hallie as she might any member of the vine.
But Hallie was no longer a member of the family vine.
She had been severed, the repudiation recorded in a brief, formal legal document that was safely stowed in a bank vault in low city.
The legal document and the fact that she had signed the severance hadn’t stopped Wilona from trying to get Hallie back into the family vine not long ago - shortly before she and Girard had been sent after Findo Trask.
Wilona had turned up at Hallie’s house in low city with another legal document, demanding Hallie’s return to the vine.
A chill ran over Hallie’s skin at the memory.
She hadn’t given in to her mother’s demands.
Instead, she’d called her ancestor, Lady Cotovatre, one of the most prominent and ancient of the hochlen.
Cotovatre had been the one to negotiate Hallie’s severance from the Talbot family vine and the lady had not been pleased that Wilona was trying to break their agreement.
The lady had put matters into the hands of her lawyers, and from what Hallie knew, the Talbot lawyers and Cotovatre’s lawyers had been exchanging correspondence for the past two weeks but not getting far.
Or, perhaps more likely, the Talbot lawyers hadn’t been able to convince their client to back down.
Cotovatre was absolutely confident that Wilona’s change of heart would not stand.
Hallie stared at the blunt words on the screen, wishing Cotovatre was there.
Hallie knew her mother. Knew how stubborn Wilona was.
The fact she was messaging Hallie demanding her attendance meant she was not giving up.
And although Hallie would back Cotovatre against Wilona, she needed her ancestor’s confidence right now.
Her finger hovered over the call button, wondering if the lady might be available.
Then she caught sight of the time on her phone screen and realised she’d been sitting, thinking and worrying, for too long and she needed to move if she was going to make it to dinner on time.
So she forwarded the message to Cotovatre, with a cover note: Sorry to bother you.
I just received this. I think it’s from Wilona - the address is her workshop in low city. Any progress with the lawyers?
That would have to do for now. And she had a suspect to question, so she needed to focus on that and not the family drama playing in the background.