Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(59)

“I don’t know. People.”

I put my hands to my temples and squeezed my eyes shut.

It was all too much. But Billy had died to bring me information. I owed it to him to follow whatever trail he had left me.

“Please,” I said, eyes still closed. “I’m in trouble, real trouble, and I don’t know what to do. Tell me about the Old Red Fort.”

“You really ought to read the whole paper,” she said, very dry, “not just the bits about you.”

I couldn’t manage a smile, but I opened my eyes.

She nodded at the newspaper article. “It’s part of a deal negotiated last year,” said Sarah. “The fort is being turned over to the Unassimilated Tribes, a goodwill gesture from the government.”

I thought of Mnenga again, his talk of land deals, and nodded, letting her talk in that strange way of hers, calling up what she had read and interspersing those fragments with her own editorial commentary.

“It was built out on the Sour Ridge Road during the occupation three hundred years ago and was the battalion headquarters for the so-called Glorious Third—the King’s Third Feldesland Infantry Regiment—stationed to guard the city from the Grappoli and the tribesmen to the west. It was besieged by Mahweni warriors several times but was always repaired and became a symbol of northern military power. It hasn’t been used as a serious military facility for several years, and it’s starting to fall into disrepair. Since they don’t want to pay for the upkeep anymore, the military—very magnanimously—agreed to turn it over to the Mahweni for use as a cultural center, museum, and tribal meeting venue. It’s a token, a gesture, but not everyone in the government is in favor, and some of the Mahweni think it will be more expensive to run than it’s worth.”

“A white elephant,” I said.

She grinned bleakly at that. “White is right,” she said. “That’s why the tower is coming down next week. It was used as a holding pen for prisoners of war. A lot of my people—well, kind of—died there. It has the regimental badge on it, and some military types thought it should be preserved for that alone, but the government voted to demolish the tower and hand over the rest of the structure intact. The plan is to leave it as rubble until it gets naturally overgrown; turning back into the land is the idea. Responsibility for the demolition went to—”

“The Seventh Street gang,” I guessed. I don’t know why, but somehow I sensed that was coming. Everything was connected.

“Under the direction of Mr. Morlak,” she added. “Yes. But you can’t be considering going out there now. You’re on the run. The police will find you.”

“Probably.”

“So why do I get the feeling you’re going to go anyway?” asked Sarah.

“I suppose you are just a naturally intuitive person,” I said.





CHAPTER

22

I RODE TWO STOPS on the underground to save time, head down so that no one would recognize me, getting off the train when I saw a policeman board at Wallend. I walked the rest of the way to the Drowning, and made my way down to the river, where the massive hippos wallowed and huddled, backs to the water. I loitered high on the bank, watching them uneasily till one of the girls saw me and alerted Rahvey.

My sister came up from the laundry, eyes flashing. “You’re late,” she said as soon as she was out of earshot of the other girls. “And I don’t have break for another hour.”

Word of the morning newspaper report clearly hadn’t reached the Drowning, and that was all to the good.

“I don’t have her,” I said.

“What?” said Rahvey, irritable.

“I gave her up,” I said, knowing I couldn’t speak more fully without losing control.

“What?” said Rahvey again.

I took a breath. “Pancaris,” I said. “I just couldn’t…”

Rahvey just looked at me, stunned, and the wrongness of what I had done coursed through me like cold, bright water. Then she was nodding woodenly, her face set, and turning quickly away. She said nothing as she walked, and I did not pursue her.

*

THE POLICE SEEMED TO be everywhere. It may have been because of the rallies and protests that were cropping up all over the city, or it might have been because of me. It was hard to believe that the death of Billy Jennings would generate such a manhunt, but it was clear that Billy, as well as Ansveld and Berrit, was part of something much larger, a tiny wheel in a great mechanism that, as Willinghouse had warned, was ticking toward disaster.

And now I am at its heart.

I traveled almost a quarter of a mile over rooftops and fire escapes and scaffolding—the best way to stay unseen, since ordinary people never look up—before dropping from a signal gantry into the yard behind the Great Orphan Street railway station. I bought a ticket on the western line, which arrowed its way right across the continent to Gronmar and the bronze coast: Grappoli territory. The local trains went nothing like so far, and the long-distance services had been suspended pending the resolution of the current diplomatic dispute.

The train I boarded was a Blesbok class locomotive with four coaches that served the farms, homesteads, and mines forming a narrow corridor of land bought or stolen in war from the Mahweni. I curled up under my coat, pulling it over my face and leaving the ticket sticking out of the pocket, so that the conductor wouldn’t feel the need to “wake” me.