Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(58)

*

I STUDIED THE NEWSPAPER cutting I had recovered from Billy’s body. It was stained with his blood, but still legible. The headline read, ICONIC RED FORT TOWER TO COME DOWN BEFORE HANDOFF. It meant nothing to me. I felt weary in ways that went far beyond my lack of sleep and food.

For the first time in months, I thought of going out to that bit of the Drowning where Papa had lived, as if there was a chance that he might be there, sitting on the porch, watching the sunrise. I could tell him about Kalla, about my doomed investigation, and it would all be better for saying it. I thought of how his face would light up when he saw me, and the pain was suddenly as sharp, as paralyzing as the day he died.

But Papa was gone and I was alone. I didn’t know what I was doing. A man had died because of me. That seemed unavoidable. Whether I had made any kind of progress, what he might have told me, and if I was any closer to bringing justice or clarity to what was going on in Bar-Selehm, I had no idea.

*

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW about the Old Red Fort?” I asked the newspaper girl on the corner of Winckley Street.

She looked amazed to see me. “You’re famous, you are,” she said. There was a wariness in her face I hadn’t seen before. “Made the paper and everything,” said the Mahweni girl. “And here you are, walking around, big as life.”

“What makes you think that’s me?” I said, bluffing badly. “There’s no picture.”

“‘Former Lani steeplejack of marriageable age, Anglet Sutonga—’” she read aloud.

“Yes, all right,” I interrupted. “It’s me. But if you read the whole thing, you’ll see I wasn’t charged. The police don’t think I stole anything.”

The girl tipped her head on one side, and her eyes narrowed. “Stole?” the girl said.

“At the opera house,” I replied.

She hesitated, watching me, her eyes narrow. “You don’t know, do you?” she said.

“Don’t know what?”

She flipped over the paper and pushed it across her crate toward me. “You’re wanted for murder,” she said.

I stared, first at the photograph of Billy Jennings’s lifeless face, then back at her. My mouth moved, but nothing came out.

“Practically the only headline in the paper that doesn’t include the words ‘Beacon,’ ‘Grappoli,’ or ‘Protest,’” she mused.

I continued to gape, and for a moment the world swam so that I took hold of the edge of her crate to steady myself.

She considered me and came to a decision. “You know the alley that connects the back of the Hunter’s Arms to Smithy Row?”

I nodded, mute.

“There’s a storage shed behind the bins. Meet me there in twenty minutes. And stay out of sight.”

*

I WALKED, UNSEEING, STARING straight ahead, moving as if in a dream. The shock muted everything but my own horrified thoughts. I pieced it together: the cop who had seen me near the Mahweni rally; Billy’s girlfriend, Bessie, who would have been interviewed as soon as they realized who he was, and who would have mentioned my visit to Macinnes’s shop.

Gods, Bessie.

I felt the two purses in my pocket. Somehow I would have to get them to her. The emptiness of the gesture, the stupid pointlessness of trying to make right what I had done, kicked in my chest like an orlek.

The alley behind the metal workers’ shops was heaped with coal ash and rusting iron. It smelled like blood. I paced, waiting, beside the shed.

“I told you to go inside,” said the newspaper girl when she arrived. “Stand around out here, and they’ll get you for sure.”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said.

“For the likes of us,” she said, pushing the shed door open and ushering me inside, “that’s not always relevant.”

“I have friends in the police,” I said, talking as much to calm my nerves as to convince her.

“What were you doing out there at that time?”

“Meeting him,” I said. “He had something to tell me. He was dead when I got there. There was another man there. Morlak, I thought. Or…”

Mnenga.

“Someone,” I continued. “He had a cane. Maybe some kind of blade too,” I added, managing not to say “spear,” though the word floated up in my mind like driftwood dislodged by an unseen crocodile. “That was what he used.…”

Billy. This was my fault. I hadn’t stabbed him myself, but if it wasn’t for me …

“And he told you nothing?”

“I told you. He was dead when I got there. He had this in his pocket,” I said, producing the newspaper clipping.

She considered me for a moment and then stuck out her hand. “Sarah,” she said. “That’s my street name anyway.”

I nodded vaguely, still stunned.

She shrugged like it didn’t really matter. “And you are Anglet,” she said.

“Ang. Why are you helping me?”

“Haven’t done anything yet.” She shrugged again.

“You have,” I said. “And you aren’t going to turn me in.”

It wasn’t a question.

“We have to stick together,” said Sarah.

“Who?”