Retribution

Lydia Marinus

Fifty-six years ago Lydia Marinus entered the world in my home city of Tryum, Detrata, born to an extremely wealthy family. When she was ten her father died suddenly and she moved to Koton with her mother. Her mother remarried quickly, linking the family company with the owner of a Kotonese salt mine. Their company grew and, thanks to the growing strength of the Vispasian Royal Union, trade flourished. They were able to make huge amounts of money in both Detrata and Koton, using old and new connections. Her mother died and, with no other siblings, the family business came to Lydia.

Tragedy struck again: when she was thirty Lydia’s husband was killed in a riding accident. She did not remarry and with no children was more interested in her work. She set about building the biggest corporate empire in Koton, and one of the largest in the Vispasian Royal Union. Unlike most people with such status, however, she was not one for social gatherings and tended to lock herself away in her country property. She paid her taxes to the state of Koton regularly, always early, and always more than was expected. ‘When someone makes as much money as I do,’ she was said to have once announced, ‘it all becomes rather abstract.’

And now her life had ended, Sulma Tan concluded, in the most brutal fashion. If there had been a family curse, it had been thorough.

Sulma Tan explained that Lydia’s will would have to be examined to see who would benefit from her business empire. It was not likely to be someone desperate for an inheritance. As she had been generous with her money while she was alive, it was probable that she wouldn’t have left anyone in the family in financial trouble.

Lydia Marinus’ body was laid out in the same chamber where we inspected the other two corpses. She had been prepared: her skin cleaned, her clothing removed, and left with only a thin sheet covering her body. The hundreds of lacerations were painfully obvious. A thick red wound curved across her neck where the knife had ended her life. She was tall, slender, with youthful looks for her age, and brown hair that showed only a few strands of grey.

Her arm slipped off the side of the slab as if of its own accord and hung down to one side at a shallow angle.

Sulma Tan gasped. Even my heart skipped a beat, but I walked over and placed her arm firmly back in position, noting the stiffness of death had long since set in.

‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ I reassured her.

Sulma Tan did not reply. Clearly convinced the body possessed strange properties in the same way as the bishop, she could not even make eye contact with me.

‘Where was her body found?’ I asked.

‘A street that leads away from the marketplace.’ Sulma Tan sighed and shook herself from dark thoughts. ‘As it happens very near Grendor’s house. It was in full view for everyone to see. Again without anyone actually seeing the body being brought there, which must have happened in the early hours of the morning.’

‘You interviewed neighbours?’

‘We disturbed every one of them from their slumber.’

‘Good,’ I replied. ‘Was there anything with the body?’

‘Only her clothes, and when we peeled them back we could see. . well, the same cruel acts had been carried out.’

Carlon hadn’t arrived yet, but Sulma Tan reminded me that the biggest difference between her death and Grendor’s was the fact that her throat was cut. With the bishop’s head being severed, it could not be said if that had been the act that killed him. She had suffered the same numerous cuts to her body as the others — hundreds of tiny wounds, including her eyes being stabbed. Her tongue had also been removed.

‘Again, it is all very ritualistic.’

‘Yes. The number of bruises present,’ Sulma Tan concluded, ‘suggest that she put up a fight.’

She looked at me for the first time with something resembling fear. Who could blame her? Three high-profile individuals had been killed in similar ways.

‘What did Carlon have to say about it?’ I asked.

‘He concludes the obvious really — we’re looking for the same killer, someone who has been tracking down individuals with one simple plan: to make them suffer immensely before killing them. Interestingly, he also theorizes that her mood was calm and relaxed — sanguine at the point of death. This is comfort, of a kind.’

‘I know little of medicine but I suspect that comfort suggests she might have known her killers?’

‘He has many theories,’ Sulma Tan said. ‘I don’t know how much we can invest in this one.’ There was a tiredness in her eyes now, raw compassion and humanity showing through her countenance.

Processing the sight before us, I could only agree with Carlon — it was even more likely we were dealing with the same murderer, though I never liked to commit to a conclusion.

‘Such incidents are rare across Vispasia,’ I ventured. ‘Those who strike more than once are usually paid killers, and like to make their kills cleanly and efficiently so as not to be caught. This is something different. The death is so inefficient, if you follow. The murderer had time.’

‘And knowledge of the movements of the wealthy,’ Sulma Tan added.

‘Our killer’s profile remains consistent at least,’ I suggested. ‘Access to higher circles. The luxury of time to commit atrocious acts. The care never to be seen by anyone nearby, which implies a rigorous plan in place. .’

‘A darker power at work, am I correct?’

I could only shrug.

REMEMBR, OFICER DRAKENFELD, the note had said. WE ARE INNOCENT.

Nambu stepped in beside Sulma Tan, looking over the body, her face catching the light of the nearby lanterns.

‘And what does the Princess Nambu Sorghatan have to say for herself?’ I asked, limping as I stepped alongside her.

‘I don’t know what to say.’ Nambu’s gaze drifted across the corpse. The expression on her face reminded me of when I was very young, looking at my mother’s body laid out in a temple. My father then had encouraged me to touch her beautiful, dead face. And I did. I most recall the surprise at how cold her skin had become. Now I had grown used to such things, but that initial sensation brought home the fragility of life.

‘Touch her skin,’ I said to Nambu, and the princess did.

She snatched her hand away. ‘It’s so cold. She doesn’t look real.’

‘It’s how we’ll all end up,’ I said. ‘Well, hopefully not quite in this state.’

‘How can you all talk about her so casually?’ Nambu asked. ‘She was a real person not so long ago.’

She had a point, though I didn’t believe we were being disrespectful. ‘In our business, one becomes familiar with the dead.’

‘I’ve never really thought about dying,’ Nambu muttered.

‘You don’t at such a young age, do you? The whole world extends before you — the options seem endless. Dying isn’t really much of a concern.’

‘I hope it comes quickly,’ she said.

‘You hope what does?’

‘Death,’ she replied. ‘I hope mine comes quickly. I would not want too long to think about it.’ Nambu stepped away — not out of fear, or upset, but because she had seen enough — and stood beside Leana, who remained as indifferent to the subject as always, in a way that I envied.

In the lingering silence, Sulma Tan took my arm and steered me into a corner of the room. ‘People are now truly worried, Officer Drakenfeld,’ she whispered.

‘Lucan.’

She nodded. ‘They’ve got a name for whoever did this. They’re calling him the Koton Cutter.’

‘They shouldn’t attach a name to this individual. It creates a myth around them. Whoever did this could well be fuelled by their own success. We’re dealing with a strange mind here, which doesn’t need any more encouragement.’

‘Well, you try persuading the masses then. They are uncontrollable.’

And I had few doubts that they had tried to do so. . ‘I appreciate that wouldn’t exactly be easy. Crowds behave differently in such situations. They have a mind of their own.’

‘That is why the prefecture has now been locked down,’ she said. ‘The gates are sealed and there are regular — and I mean almost all the time — military patrols.’

‘What?’

‘What else can the queen do?’ she continued. ‘She must be seen to act. This is about stilling the populace. Calming them.’

A pause, and she looked directly at me. ‘Do you think there will be more victims, despite these measures?’

I eyed the corpse again. ‘Without a doubt. To know such wealthy people, to then remove them from their premises or place of work, I’d say the killer’s well and truly inside the prefecture.’

‘Then we had better go to my offices,’ Sulma Tan replied. ‘I have procured for you the map you required and now we have another body to plot on it.’