Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(64)

*

AS THE SUN BEGAN its slow drop into the horizon over the city, I returned to the walls I had scaled only a few hours before. Sitting opposite Andrews in the police carriage, I said nothing.

Tanish had returned to Seventh Street, insisting that the gang was still his home and that it was better he returned of his own volition than be found by Fevel and the others, having turned his back on them. They might even respect him for it, and in the end, he said, their fight was with me. I had expected the gang’s attempt on my life to jar Tanish out of the belligerence he had shown me before I went into the tower, but it had only increased his confusion and resentment. When I asked him to keep me informed as to anything unusual happening at the weaving shed, he gave a noncommittal grunt.

“Not betraying my friends, Ang,” he said. “I’ll help to keep you safe if I can, and I already told you about the box Morlak’s going to trade, but I’m not turning on my own kind.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that or what he meant by “kind.” Lani, I supposed, though not all the gang were. Poor? Bound to work in danger with only the fear of Morlak’s cruelty to keep them going? What kind of identity was that to cling to?

But they did. I had done it myself, making pride and honor out of shared misery and deprivation. It was how you lived with yourself, how you survived.

“I’m just trying to find out what happened to Berrit,” I said.

“This has nothing to do with Berrit,” Tanish said. “This stuff at the fort. You want it to be about Berrit because you want it to be about Morlak, but it’s not.”

I had nothing to say to that, so I just nodded and told him that if he ever wanted to get word to me, to speak to the newspaper girl on Winckley Street and I’d come find him.

“Bye, Ang,” he said. It felt sad. Final. But I didn’t know what else to say, so I let him go.

Andrews and I entered the fort through the main gate, which was surmounted by what I took to be the regimental crest: the head of a one-horn inside a laurel wreath. Two other vehicles were already there: a horse-drawn ambulance and another wagon from which two men got down with sleek, tan-colored dogs on leashes, their noses low to the ground. It took them no more than a few minutes to start barking at a particular area of the tower’s shattered remains, but it was almost an hour before the policemen had painstakingly picked the rubble clean.

“There is indeed a body,” said Officer Andrews, returning to me.

“I know,” I said. “I told you.”

“But you don’t know who he is?” Andrews asked.

“You’ve asked me this twice,” I said. I wanted to crawl into a real bed and lie very still for a long time. “No. I don’t know who he was.”

“An elderly Mahweni tribesman, by the looks of things. Unassimilated. He has been dead several days.”

“Yes,” I said. I turned at the sound of another carriage arriving at speed. The crest on the door was all too familiar. Willinghouse and Von Strahden clambered out and strode over, demanding to know what was going on. The detective moved to greet the two politicians, and I got a second to compose myself.

But only a second.

“You’re hurt,” remarked Von Strahden, striding toward me and turning my face into the light.

“A little bruising is all,” I said, embarrassed, avoiding Willinghouse’s unreadable gaze.

“We should take you to the hospital,” said Von Strahden.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Really.”

That was, apparently, enough for Willinghouse. He turned to Andrews, all business, and I felt a prickle of annoyance.

“The officers at the gate said you’d found a body?” he said.

“Damaged in the tower’s collapse,” said Andrews delicately. “Yes. Broken and burned.”

“Burned?” I said. “No. That’s not possible. The smoke came up the tower, but the fire stayed at the bottom.”

“The corpse shows signs of burning, particularly on the hands and chest,” said Andrews.

“Then he was tortured,” said Willinghouse.

Andrews’s brows contracted, but he did not dispute the point.

“By whom?” asked Von Strahden. “The garrison hasn’t been occupied for months.”

“That,” said Andrews, “is the good news.”

“Why?”

“Because the last thing the city wants is a scandal involving the Glorious Third,” said Willinghouse.

I gave Andrews a quizzical look.

“The King’s Third Feldesland Infantry Regiment,” he said, “is the oldest and most storied outfit in the region. Instrumental in the initial conquest and the prime defense force over the next two hundred years, a breeding ground for diplomats, civil servants, and politicians, including a few prime ministers. Benjamin Tavestock himself was a junior officer for the regiment during the Mahweni rebellion. The Glorious Third are an institution in Bar-Selehm, and their roots go long and deep. Why do you think the Red Fort was demolished on the quiet like this? A lot of people didn’t want to see it come down at all: powerful people, some of them. We’re going to need to keep this business with the body quiet until we have a clearer sense of what happened here. The boys in the demolition gang didn’t know it was there?”