Swordplay

Part 14

Half an hour later, Druidus stopped in a no-parking zone in front of P&OS, the firm of Moira's father. Moira exited and looked up. The sky-scraper's front was covered in mirroring panes. As modern as they were, they made the building look forbidding to Moira. Like a mirror of my father. She followed Druidus into the entrance hall.

"Please take a seat for a short moment." The young receptionist pointed to a group of seats in the background of the hall and dispatched a message- nerl.

Druidus sat on a black sofa, but Moira paced up and down. She felt Druidus' gaze which made her even more nervous. To take her mind off the coming meeting, she stopped at a metal display rack with advertising brochures. On one title, five of the seven staff members had been made visible with magic retroactively. They were inhumanly pale. Vampires seemed to be favored as security personnel. Moira shivered at the thought of living in the same house as a blood-sucker. She had grown up in a vampire free village. Of course, she knew that none of the so-called nightactives was so barbaric these days as to hunt their own meal, still she felt uncomfortable near these pale and tired looking creatures. Hopefully she wouldn't have to interrogate one of them.

At this moment, a stocky fifty-something came toward them with outstretched arms.

"Welcome at P&OS. We awaited you. Please follow me." He ushered Druidus to the Nerlift, pretending he hadn't seen Moira. Druidus let Moira go first. Secretly grinning inside, not muscle moved in her face as she entered the nerlift. They sped upward to the top floor.

"You will surely understand that I cannot let you meet Monsieur Bellamie without sufficient reason." The man marched along the corridor in front of them with fast steps. He didn't turn while talking. Moira felt as if he tried to get rid of them. They passed a bureau with a small brass plate with her father's name beside the door. One look at the curly blonde secretary in the antechamber made clear that it wouldn't be easy to get past her should it prove necessary. For a moment, Moira was glad about having an excuse not to face her father. Then, she remembered that the only clue from Lif's murder incriminated him. She wouldn't get out of this easily.

Diagonally opposite her father's bureau, the round man opened a door to a bureau with a view on the sea and the city's haven. He sat in a comfy chair behind a chunky desk and pointed to a chair in front of it. "Please. Let us discuss your wishes."

Moira stopped at the door to keep the corridor in view where a young man delivered post from a dolly into the bureaus. Druidus passed her when he entered the room.

When he sat, the man stapled his fingers and leaned his elbows on the desktop. "Now, what can I do for you?"

The chair was deliberately low so Druidus had to look up at the man despite his stately size. "We have to talk to Lavant Bellamie personally."

"I assumed that much but as I said, a meeting on such a short notice is not feasible. Monsieur Bellamie is much in demand." The man bent forward and smiled jovially. "It has already been a hassle to free half an hour on my schedule. But it shows you that we're always cooperating with the Gendarmerie. Now, what do you have to talk about?"

"That's for Monsieur Bellamie's ears only."

Moira only half listened to the polite battle of wills. She watched her father's blonde secretary step from the bureau to flirt with the young man. Opportunity makes a thief, she thought although she had always hated this saying. She hurried over the corridor.

The stout man shouted after her.

"Stop!"

She slipped past the dumbfounded secretary into the antechamber of her father's office, but at the last moment, the young man managed to get hold of the seam of her jacket. The jerk nearly toppled her. She slipped from the sleeves but the delay was long enough for the secretary to gather her wits. With open arms, she stood in front of her employer's office door. Without getting rough, Moira wouldn't be able to pass her.