Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(21)

The man’s lip twitched knowingly. I forced myself to stop looking at the scar, the way it produced that strange, slanted quality when he smiled. “Mr. Morlak,” he said.

“It’s possible.”

“And your mentioning his name has nothing to do with any personal hostility you may have toward the gentleman in question, of course.”

“Are we still talking about Morlak?” I asked, my face suddenly hot. “Only I don’t think I’ve ever heard his name in the same sentence as the word ‘gentleman.’”

He nodded so fractionally that his head barely moved, but he let the remark stand.

He watched me, saying nothing, and my next question emerged without thought, some of my former panic spiking and driving it out. “What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

“Well, I think you should have something to eat, don’t you?”

I blinked again, and as I did, the door behind the desk opened and one of the men from the street appeared, the one who had carried the truncheon, though he didn’t have it now. The young man craned his neck slightly and the other leaned down to hear his whisper before nodding and leaving as quietly as he had come in. It struck me once more as strange that someone who seemed to have so much wealth and authority should be so close to my own age.

“So,” said the young man as soon as we were alone again. “What can I tempt you with? The chef makes an excellent Rasnarian goat curry. I can have him tone it down a little if you don’t like it spicy, but I prefer to let the man follow his heart. There’s also a very fine sterrel and onion chutney.…”

This was all very strange.

“I’d like to go home,” I said.

I didn’t believe it was an option, but if I was going to be kept prisoner, I would prefer he were honest about it, rather than pretending I was a guest.

The young man sat back in his chair, regarding me with a thoughtful frown that softened his predatory intensity. “Home,” he intoned. “A warm, comforting word. But what does it really mean to you? The Drowning, where you are despised; or the weavers’ shed, where you have been a slave to the odious Mr. Morlak? I don’t think either of those places is terribly … secure,” he concluded. “I think you are better here with us.”

I swallowed, trying to gauge how close to a threat this was, but I floundered, thinking not just of Morlak and his gang, but also of Rahvey’s baby, who I had promised to take care of. “Who is us, exactly?” I asked.

He smiled again, that same thin smile, then tapped his fingertips on the desktop. “Let’s just say,” he said musingly, as if making an important decision on impulse, “that you can trust us.”

I made a scoffing noise without thinking. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t trust people who kidnap me.”

He chuckled. “Very well,” he said. “My name is Josiah Willinghouse, and I work for the government housed in the fair city of Bar-Selehm.”

“You are a civil servant?” I returned, not troubling to mask my skepticism.

“A politician,” he said. “Albeit a junior one.”

“This is not a government building,” I said. “It’s a town house. Your men drove me around for a while, but I’m guessing from the sound of the cobbles that we’re still east of Old Town, close to Ruetta Park.”

He smiled again. “Very good!” he exclaimed. “I like that you pay attention. That will prove most useful.”

“Useful?” I shot back, bridling at the sense of being patted on the head.

“Not all government work—good work,” he said delicately, “work for the benefit of the nation and its people—is done at official buildings where there are reporters and assessment committees and battles over public opinion. Some of it must be done more … quietly. In the shadows, as it were. Things are happening in Bar-Selehm, Miss Sutonga. Troubling things. Occurrences that must be stopped before the situation overwhelms us all.”

I said nothing, but he read my skepticism.

“If you are dissatisfied with this simple truth after you have begun work,” said the man who called himself Willinghouse, “you will be permitted to leave. No questions asked.”

“Work?” I echoed blankly.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, smiling once more. “I thought I had made that clear. I mean to hire you.”

I stared at him. “As a steeplejack?” I asked.

“Oh, dear me, no,” Willinghouse answered, beaming with genuine pleasure. “I want you to investigate the murder of Berrit Samar.”





CHAPTER

8

IT WAS, OF COURSE, absurd. I was to be a private detective? I couldn’t even say the words without smirking. Did such people really exist? If so, they were not stray Lani girls who spent their days dangling from chimneys in the hope of a decent meal.

And yet.…

All my life I had been told that anything significant was beyond me, that I was no more than a tool, an implement like a spade or a pick, useful to wealthier, more powerful people—useful, that is, until I fell and broke, when I would be replaced by another implement with a different face, as Papa had been replaced by another man with a pick. I was nothing—like Berrit, like all Lani street brats—except that I was less even in the eyes of my own people because I was the cursed third daughter.