Fly by Night (31 page)

‘Oh, that’ll be nothing but some bundles of honesty I hung to dry in the Chapel of Goodman Pulk the Tardy. They make quite a din when the seedheads pop.’

Sure enough, when the constable pushed open the kitchen door and cast a curious glance up and down the corridor there was no one to be seen, and no movement but the gentle swinging of a row of honesty bundles in an unfelt draught. He walked the length of the corridor and knocked on the door at the end. A voice answered in calm tones, and when he pushed the door ajar he found Clent alone. Clent was reposing in the window seat in a pose suggestive of poetic abstraction, a roll of paper curling across one knee, a quill delicately imprisoned between the tips of his thumb and forefinger, his gaze adrift above the city as if the clouds were sharing their secrets with him.

When his gaze fell upon the constable, he rose and offered a gracious bow, blinking slightly as if he needed to refocus his eyes in order to look upon ordinary, worldly things.

‘A welter of pardons, my good sir. I thought you were Bockerby’s girl servant with a dish of tea. Do take a seat.’

The constable sat himself down on the room’s only chair.

‘Your own girl’s not about?’

‘Ah, no, I sent her to buy ink.’

‘Too bad. It was the girl I particularly wanted to speak to. No matter. I can tell you now that we have discovered the name of the dead man found at Whickerback Point. Have you heard the name Halk Partridge?’

Clent raised his eyebrows, and seemed to consider for a few moments.

‘The name is faintly familiar, but the hook floats free and will not catch upon anything.’

‘The Watermen were worried that the poor cove we found in the nets might have been knifed by a spider boat working the quays, so they put out a description of the dead man to see if anyone recognized it and could put a name to him. The river water made this hard, since by the time they pulled him out he was tending to the blue and bilious, if you see my meaning, sir. But he had a little kink in his wrist, just here.’ The constable pulled back his cuff, and rubbed at the knob of his wrist bone. ‘A most particular kind of a kink, and one of the porters on the jetty remembered seeing a barge captain with just such a kink.’

Clent wore a patient and polite expression, as if the high matters of his poem were calling to him and he was trying not to hear them.

‘So we went down to Dragmen’s Arches,’ continued the constable, ‘and we found out that barge skipper had not been seen for about a week, and we heard his first mate was bowsing at the Wide-eyed Kipper. So we searched the mate out at the Kipper, and one of my men laid a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. And quick as you can blink, the fellow looked up, saw us in the Duke’s colours, and threw his stew at my head. He was a right dog for a fight, and it was only when we had three men sitting on his chest that we got any sense out of him.

‘He had it in his head we’d come to arrest him for smuggling, and swore his own soul black as a kettle, laying curses on the pair he thought had cackled on him. A pair of passengers the barge had taken up at Kempe Teetering, was how he put it. I think his exact words were, “a bloated viper with a lawyer’s pretty manners, and a ferrety-looking girl with unconvincing eyebrows”.’

Clent shifted uncomfortably at this unflattering description, and for an instant his eyes did have a furtive, viperish expression.

‘He also mentioned a goose.’ The constable looked meaningfully at the floor, which was strewn with tiny white feathers from Saracen’s grooming and the pale blots of his droppings.

‘Invaluable birds,’ Clent smiled brightly. ‘Far better for guarding one’s domicile than a mastiff.’

‘Mr Clent.’ The constable leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. ‘I hope you can understand my position. I have no wish to harass a gentleman in the pay of the Lady Tamarind, or to risk a scandal which might besmulch her name, but I cannot be in any doubt that you know this man Partridge, and know a good amount about his dealings. This whole business has become too serious to ignore.

‘And so, Mr Clent, I have to ask you a question, and I think you know what it is going to be.’ The constable sat back, folded his arms, and peered at Clent’s carefully blank expression with narrow dislike. ‘Who has been melting down gods to make gunshot?’

Clent’s poker face broke down at this unexpected question, and he simply boggled.

‘I entreat your pardon . . . perhaps you could elucidate . . . I find myself a little . . . What?’

‘Once we had the first mate in darbies, we tracked down the rest of the crew. Most of them stayed mum, but the youngest got leaky, and told us they’d dropped off their smuggled cargo at a potter’s on the waterside. We turned the place over, and found nigh on a hundred and forty god statues under the floorboards. As you know, most god likenesses have a core of lead in them, so they won’t get blown over in their shrines. They’re about the only source of lead that wasn’t melted down during the war to make shot. And there under the floorboards, sure enough, was a set of bullet moulds and smelting gear. It is no secret that our noble Duke is seeking the ringleaders in a Diabolical Radical Plot against the Twin Queens . . . and we suspect that these bullet-makers may be part of the plot.’

‘Good sir, I can assure you that I know no more about this than the greenest pea fresh-popped from its pod. It is true that my secretary and I did travel from Kempe Teetering by barge for a time, and if you say the captain’s name was Halk Partridge I will not gainsay you, but if the first mate fancied that we were aware of his dark doings I can only tell you that he was deluded . . .’

The constable gave a slow nod, but not as if he was satisfied.

‘Very well, Mr Clent.’ He stood to leave. ‘You may realize that you remember more about our friend Partridge, and when you do I hope you will tell me about it. And when your secretary comes back, I’d thank you to bring her to the watch house to answer some questions. You see, she was seen climbing aboard Partridge’s boat the day after he disappeared, and talking to one of his crew.’

Clent remained motionless as the constable left the room, and he stayed so until the front door slammed. Then with tiptoe haste made absurd by his bulk, he tripped silently to the window to peer into the street. Only when he was satisfied that the constable really had left the marriage house did he tweak his coat off his bed, revealing the crouched form of Mosca, who had been listening to the interview with some confusion, and watching through a buttonhole.

Clent’s eyes were very bright. There was a vague smile on his face, and Mosca feared that he had gone insane under the pressure and might try to murder her at any moment.

‘Do you see it?’ he asked, holding up one finger.

Mosca looked at his finger then back at his face. She glanced up at the ceiling, to which the finger seemed to point, then back at Clent.

‘It is a glimmer of light. It is the faintest promise of escape from the dark caverns we have been walking. It is, I think, a Way Out. Give me a moment of absolute silence, and I shall find it.’ He closed his eyes, and his hand moved slightly, just as if he was really feeling along a rocky wall for a crack or a hole.

Mosca bulged her cheeks full of air and held her breath, not daring to move in case her skirts rustled.

‘I have it.’ Clent’s eyes flicked open again. His expression was wild but jubilant. ‘The fissure is narrow, but I believe that with will and courage we can squeeze through it. We shall feel the sun on our faces again. Listen – a week ago you saw Hopewood Pertellis polluting the minds of children with his treasonous teachings, yes? Afterwards, being a good and loyal child of your nation, you followed the villain to see where he went, and you saw him enter conversation with our friend Partridge, give him a purse of money, and walk away with him.’

‘But he didn’t . . .’

‘How do you know? Something like that may have happened – it probably did. If Partridge was not selling the leaden bullets to Pertellis himself, then he was probably selling them to one of Pertellis’s confederates. Have faith – this story is perfect, it ties up everything for the best. Let us say Partridge was murdered by radicals when he tried to blackmail them. The constable can preen himself on uncovering a radical plot and solving a murder at once, and we will be safe.’

‘But Mr Pertellis—’

‘Is a radical. He probably spends his nights dreaming of roasting baby princesses like chestnuts.’

It did not seem likely somehow. Mosca thought back to Pertellis’s baffled, spring-blue gaze, and tried to find the words to explain her doubts.

‘He tries to put squashed snails back together,’ was all she could say.

‘Then he is clearly insane,’ Clent answered confidently. ‘Anyway, what does it matter? The man is due to be hanged for high treason – one little murder will not make his situation any worse. Our position is too precarious to be nice about such things.’

Clent’s words did have a ghastly sort of logic. Mosca was lost for an answer, and offered no protest as Clent put on his coat and steadied his periwig.

‘Now, that is a solemn face to be wearing when our salvation is within reach. Child, I quite understand your reservations, but trust me – no one will be able to disprove your story, and I doubt they will even try. Come now. If we tarry, that will look like conspiracy.’

Mosca followed Clent through the streets like a sleepwalker. After all, would it be such a big lie? And besides, what choice did she have? If Clent hanged, he would see to it that she hanged beside him. Suddenly Mosca wished that she had told Kohlrabi everything after all.

‘Look at that,’ Clent murmured under his breath, gesturing with his cane at a ballad-seller near the bridge. ‘I write one ballad on Captain Blythe, and now every penny-a-page scribbler has a song about him. If they are to be believed, our poor friend Blythe spends his every working hour defending young maidens from unwanted advances, and giving money to starving beggars, and helping unfortunate farmers to escape from the beadles who would drag them to debtors’ prison. And apparently all the while he is a perfect picture of a gentleman with gallantries for every lady – I wonder where he finds the time to groom his horse and practise his gavotte.’

Clent’s mood seemed to have recovered miraculously.

‘Mosca, you must remind me to pick up some fresh quills on the way back. I have a mind to compose that letter you requested, recommending you to Lady Tamarind’s employ. Would you prefer to be painted as a loyal character with a soul as pure and true as diamond, or an able-witted, adaptable, quicksilver sort of animal? No matter, I am sure I can contrive a union of the two. You know, it is the most curious thing, but . . . I believe I shall actually miss you, Mosca.’

By a potter’s brick kiln, a waif-faced boy with a knuckle-shaped coal-smudge on his cheekbone paused to watch Mosca go past, a glowing pot gripped forgotten in his long tongs. His face was narrow and unforgiving.

‘It is strange to admit it now,’ Clent continued, ‘but there was a time when I felt that your companionship would be something of a burden to me. I was entirely mistaken, I confess it – you have proved a worth far beyond your years and the limits of your education. If your mind were not so set upon working for Lady Tamarind . . . ah, but I know that in that lofty castle dwells your dearest dream.’

The grey Eastern Spire rose in the distance like a finger admonishing silence. In the dark doorway of a wigmakers’ a young girl in a bent yellow bonnet imitated the gesture, bidding her younger brother be quiet with a finger to her lips, and then pointing across the street at Mosca and whispering.

‘As for myself, I feel a yearning to see the Capital again. It is all very well to be such a notable figure and so sought after, but sometimes it is more relaxing to be just one minnow in a great iridescent school. And when you are well established with Her Ladyship, as I have no doubt you shall be, you must persuade her to take you with her to the Capital to see the Crystalcourt. Every one of its million windows is thinner than your finger, and filled with a shard of glass cut cunningly so as to throw tiaras of rainbow colour upon the floor. Some of the ladies have trains so long that whole legends of days past can be embroidered scene by scene along their lengths. And when your mistress can spare you, I shall show you the Dizzyfeather Club, where one may sit beneath a green-fringed canopy and sip wine as dark as blackberry juice from glasses narrow as thorns. And there is no sight to equal the gilded barges along the Pettygall . . .’

There was no sight to equal the grim swing of the gibbet as rooks nipped at its links. Or the old watch house, round and battered-brown as a peaked pie, with the high walls of the jail behind it. In front of the watch house the red-headed constable shared his pipe tobacco with a tall man in Watermen’s colours, but when he saw Clent and Mosca his eye darkened, and he muttered a farewell to his smoking companion.

‘You found her then?’ he called out.

‘Fairly found, safe and sound, and filled with a tale which will gladden your heart, I think, sir,’ Clent called back cheerfully. ‘Might we step inside?’

‘You might.’ The constable was clearly somewhat perplexed by Clent’s change of mood.

They followed him in through a heavy oaken door into a poorly lit room where a tousled deerhound lay upon the stone flags, its flanks twitching in sleep. The room smelt of cold suppers and boredom. Mosca had never realized before that boredom smelt so much like egg custard. The constable ruffled the hound’s belly with his booted toe, and leaned back against the wall, his pipe bowl cradled in his palm.