Free Different Senses by Ann Somerville Page A

fingering the etched
metal. “Worth four hundred dolar, do you think?”
    “Maybe not, but the license to
carry a weapon and access to official records is.” I took the badge
back and slipped it into the special wallet it came in. “I feel
like a pretend policeman.”
    “Different job. Cops protect
and serve, and you’ll....”
    “Snoop.”
    “Well, yes.” He laughed. “You
look disgusted.”
    “I’m not, not really.” I said
with a shrug. “Just not looking forward to finding clients.” I’d
looked at the advertising other investigators used, but the
boastful claims and services listed put me off using them as an
example. “Cops don’t need to go looking for people to help.”
    “Maybe you need to work on not
seeing yourself as a cop any more,” my brother said. He picked up
his case. “Anyway, I’m off to work, and we need you back by six for
the kids. That’s still okay, right?”
    “Sure. I already put it into my
packed schedule.”
    He grinned. “Thanks. See you
later.”
    I poured myself more chai and
contemplated my new career with no great enthusiasm. I’d let Kirin
and Yashi bully me into applying for the investigator’s license
because I knew they wanted the best for me and I had no better
ideas for how to spend my post-police life. Now it was a reality, I
wasn’t at all sure this was for me. The work, sure. I could do
that. But being a self-employed operator, hawking myself out....
Kirin had given me some contacts, and Yashi wanted me to exploit
the family connections, an idea I’d rejected immediately. The last
thing I wanted was to involve my parents and their political chums
in my work.
    I needed to do more research, I
decided, procrastinating like a champ. So I decided to walk into
town to visit the main library and do some browsing on the subject.
There. That would take up a whole day and I could put off the
problem of clients for that long.
    As I walked out into the humid
weather that heralded the wet season to come in a couple of weeks,
my phone went. “Javen Ythen.” I couldn’t make myself add ‘private
investigator’ to the end. Too cheesy.
    “Sri Ythen, it’s Jyoti Tejal
Hiranya. Do you remember me?”
    “Jyoti...oh yes! Kirin’s lab.
How are you?”
    “I’m well, sir. And you?”
    “Doing okay. What can I help
you with?”
    “Do you recall you, uh, offered
to do me a favour? Did you mean that?”
    “Sure. What do you need?”
    “It’s a very private matter,
Sri Ythen. Would it be possible to meet to talk about it? Perhaps
this evening?”
    “Not tonight. How about
lunch?”
    She agreed, and named a
time where she would meet me away from the laboratory. That meant
I’d need my auto, so I walked back to the house to collect it,
wondering what a quiet, respectable banis girl like Jyoti could want
with an ex-cop.
    She looked as lovely as I
remembered her, though sadder, with white ribbons instead of purple
woven into her red braids.
    “How’s work?” I asked as I
drove to my regular chai house.
    “Very good. I recently received
a pay rise. Sri Nel is very happy with me, he says.”
    “Excellent. So this isn’t about
work?”
    “Not at all, and I don’t want
them to know about it. It concerns my family. A very great
sorrow.”
    “I understand. Let’s talk while
we eat.”
    Most of the customers in the
chai house at this time of day were there only to collect orders
and lunchboxes left in the morning, so we found a table easily. I
ordered a vegetable dish for both of us, and then asked her to tell
me what was happening, in her own time.
    “My aunt and uncle live on the
Demultan Flats. They’re farmers, not wealthy people. Six weeks ago,
their only daughter hanged herself.”
    Ouch. “I’m sorry. That’s why you’re wearing white
ribbons?” White for mourning, same for Nihan and Kelon
alike.
    “Yes. Though we believe in
reincarnation, a life cut short in this way is still a great
sorrow. She had lost her first child at birth two months before,
and