Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(23)

So he knows more of the Lani way than he has implied. How?

“That is not your business,” I said.

“No,” he agreed. “Nor do I want it to be. Your private life is of no interest to me, and I would prefer that you keep it to yourself. You may stay here,” said Willinghouse, “or I can have my coachman drop you—”

I raised a hand to silence him. “There is something I have to say,” I said, marshaling the words. “Whatever else might be going on, Berrit is the reason I am working for you, and his murder will be my primary focus. It may seem like a small thing to you, merely the tail of the lion. It’s not. Not to me.”

“I thought you didn’t know him,” said Willinghouse.

“I didn’t,” I said. “And that doesn’t matter. So if you attempt to redirect my investigations, our … understanding will come to an end. Clear?”

I am not sure why I felt the need to say it, or why—surrounded by such evidence of power and influence—I felt I could say it, but I did, and felt better—doubly so when he did not argue or smirk or express incredulity that some street girl should dictate terms to him. He nodded, and I felt some kind of hurdle had been cleared.

It was only later, as I climbed back into the darkness of his carriage, cradling a purse weighted with my “expenses” and surrounded by the hollow, uncertain noises of the night, that I wondered if my righteous bravado had not, in fact, played directly into his hands, committing me to perils I could not yet imagine.





CHAPTER

9

I SLIPPED FROM THE carriage as we rounded the first corner, dropping silently to the cobbles and sprinting off into the night without a word to the driver. It was an empty gesture, but it gave me a feeling of control, even though I didn’t know where I was going. I couldn’t go to Seventh Street, and I wouldn’t go to the Drowning. But one of the few advantages of spending most of your daylight hours hundreds of feet in the air is that you get to see the land laid out like a map, so I know Bar-Selehm as well as anybody.

Most of the streets were empty, enjoying a few hours of quiet before the morning shift dragged workers from their beds, but all along the industrial riverbanks, the factories and dockyards would still be humming with activity. In the insalubrious hinterlands, the pubs and gin houses and opium dens never slept, and I had no desire to stumble through there at this time of night.

I watched a sleek gray mongoose emerge from an alley and pad down the steps of the Flintwick underground station, then picked my way south, toward the Financial District, choosing a series of alleys that emerged into a flagged square surrounded by law offices. The center was dominated by three bashti trees and a bronze statue of some long-dead prime minister. At the east end of the square, atop a flight of broad stone steps, was the Martel Court, a grand structure with a colonnade, a domed hall, and a single clock tower surmounted by a figure of Justice. The statue was gilded and high enough that it provided an orientation point for the city east of the Factory District, almost as conspicuous as the Beacon. At night, it was lit by gas lamps, ignited by a watchman from the observation gallery forty feet below, and they reflected off the eyes of a bushbaby or genet up in one of the bashti trees.

Between the base of the statue and the clock below it was a maintenance room, abandoned since the building was constructed. I stumbled upon it one night last fall, when Morlak had beaten me for breaking one of his substandard hammers. I had fled, roaming the city till I could find somewhere safe from him and his informants. They caught me on the third day, when I went to steal food from the kitchen of the Windmill tavern on Cross Street, and I paid dearly for my truancy, but they never found my bolt-hole. So long as I was careful going up and down, and was quiet when the watchman came to light the lamps, I would be safe there.

I circled the building once and spotted the watchman sitting in a sentry box with an oil lamp, reading a newspaper and smoking a long-stemmed pipe. Awake, in other words, but only just. I made my way to the northeast side and climbed into an ornamental apse with a statue of some ancient judge, setting my boot on his knee and pulling myself up. It was windy out on the balcony beneath the great clock, a chill winter breeze that stirred the smog and made my hair fly. I climbed the ladder to where the globes of the gas lamps sat, then pushed the shutter up and hoisted myself into the space beyond.

I took stock of the room as I released my hair. The blanket I had used last time was still there, as were some of my old books. There was no sign that anyone had been up since. For a few hours, I was safe. I set the “habbit” toy beside me, lay down, and listened to the night, thinking of Berrit, and Morlak, and Willinghouse.

*

I DREAMED OF SCALING one of the iron foundry chimneys, the tallest in the city. I had a satchel of tools and replacement bricks over my shoulder, which got heavier and heavier with each rung of the ladder I climbed, but I kept going because I thought I would be able to see Papa from the top. When I got there, I opened the satchel, expecting it to contain a baby, but found myself blinded by the light of the Beacon, though I did not remember stealing it. Turning away, I realized that someone was up there with me: Willinghouse, but now he had a terrible gash in his chest that hissed impossibly when he tried to speak. I went to him, used my hand to stop the bleeding, but when I took it away, I was horrified to find that my fist was clutching the bloody spike with which I had stabbed Morlak.