Tomorrow, the Killing

26

I spent the rest of the day looking after various aspects of my business that had gone to seed while I’d been sprinting about the city like some addled knight errant. It was a slow month, uncomfortably so. The weather had sapped the recreational instincts of my clients, and the bartenders and short dealers who copped from me were mostly still flush. Something about hundred-degree heat made people less interested in hopping themselves up on breath. Most of my top-end trade, the Kor’s Heights boys and budding merchant princes, were spending high summer on their country plantations, so that avenue had dried up as well. It was an unprofitable afternoon, and it left me in something of a mood.

The messenger came by while I was eating my way through the mutton stew Adeline had made for dinner. It was too fucking hot to be eating mutton stew, and frankly I was happy for the interruption.

I have urgent information, urgent and valuable. I repeat, urgent and valuable. Find yourself at my domicile with all conceivable haste, and bring along twenty ochre as a down payment.

Signed,

Iomhair Gilchrist, Factor

Beneath that, as if suspecting that his promise alone would be insufficient to move me, he had written:

I know who killed Rhaine Montgomery.

As it happened, so did I. All the same, I figured seeing what Iomhair had to tell me was worth the walk. I finished off my mutton, smoked a cigarette, and went upstairs to get twenty ochre. Actually giving it to him was, of course, a last resort, and not one I imagined I’d need. Most likely I’d lie or beat out whatever Gilchrist had or thought he had, but on the off-chance the man had grown a spine since last we spoke, I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a back-up.

The evening was the rare balmy dollop, still sticky as ball sweat but a fair improvement over the afternoon. I glided through streets empty of traffic, enjoying the constitutional and trying not to fixate on the destination. Iomhair’s house was as unprepossessing as ever. Someone had scratched ‘cunt’ across his run of new paint, presumably the same wag responsible for the original, though I imagined it was a popular sentiment.

Habit being what it was I didn’t bother to knock, but for once the door was locked. ‘Gilchrist,’ I yelled. ‘Open the fuck up.’

No answer – nothing spoken, at least. But from inside I heard a bustle of motion, and muted mutterings, and I wondered if perhaps Gilchrist hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d demanded my haste.

I sprinted around the side of the building in time to see a man climbing out of Iomhair’s side window. There wasn’t enough light to make out any detail, but I figured he was unlikely to be a clandestine lover so I upped my speed and launched myself at him. He still had one leg hanging from the frame, an awkward position to be in when someone sets their shoulder into your chest. I heard something pop on the way down, probably his ankle, but it didn’t slow him. We tumbled through the dust, nothing pretty or skillful about it. He got his hands around my throat but I broke free, reared up and hammered his chin into the dirt. A few more of those and he went limp, and I pulled him to his feet and set him up against the wall.

In the pause I recognized him, the white-haired mope I’d seen hanging around the last time I’d gone to visit Pretories. It took his mind a long moment to square itself from the beating he’d taken, then his eyes fixed on my face and gleamed with recognition. ‘What are you doing here?’

I hesitated in answering, trying to think up something smart. It’s a good thing I’m not all that clever because the silence was interrupted by a noise from the alley behind me, and I grabbed my man and swung him around. It was instinct – I can’t pretend I knew what the sound was, but on some dim level I realized it was better to have my captive between me and it.

There was another sound then, one I did recognize – the thwack of a released bowstring. Concurrent with this, or nearly so, was the grunt of my human shield, and the sight of a quarrel head poking out from his chest.

At that distance there was a fair chance the bolt would have passed through its target with enough force to do me as well. I didn’t take time to enjoy my luck. Leaving the mug to drop where he was I dove back through the window, an awkward motion, desperate and ungainly, my shin banging against the frame. Once inside I ducked down below the window, taking care not to present a target. A taper on the desk provided the only light, and I searched for something to knock it over with. My hands settled on a heavy ledger, and I sent it spinning at the candle. Given the debris there was a better than average chance the falling spark would set the place off like a tinderbox.

But it didn’t, and I stayed crouched down in the dark, my trench blade in one hand, a throwing knife in the other. If whoever was out there decided to rush me I figured they’d do it then, and I’d be set to meet them. If it was just the one guy it might end in my favor. It probably wasn’t just the one guy, I conceded.

Five minutes passed. If they were waiting me out, they were doing a good job. Another five. Nobody’s that patient, not after killing a man. Whoever had fired that bolt was gone. I waited ten more to be sure, then sheathed my weapons, closed the window and started searching for the candle.

It was a while before I found it, rolled beneath a pile of half-decade-old broadsheets. I lit it with a match from my belt and surveyed the room. It was still a cluttered mess, uneaten food on the bookshelves and rotting paperwork on the floor. It was chaos when I’d been there last – it was chaos now. Whatever struggles had taken place in the last half hour had left little enough mark on the terrain. Little enough except the body on the floor, of course.

To be absolutely honest, I would not have bet my stake of the Earl on the continued vitality of Iomhair Gilchrist – still, I’d been hoping he’d stick around a little longer, for purely mercenary reasons.

Wish in one hand and shit in the other, as they say. The corpse at my feet seemed definitive proof as to which was the more effective means of filling a palm. Iron Stomach had been no great beauty in life, and death hadn’t done him any favors. His fat face was swelled like an over-ripe melon, his mustache a thin line of silver amidst the bloated red. He’d swallowed most of the rag they’d stuffed into his mouth to keep him quiet, and two wide handprints were bruised into his neck. Had they been made by the same pair that had done Rhaine? Somehow I didn’t doubt it.

Not that I’d needed confirmation, but I had it. Joachim Pretories had killed Rhaine’s adviser, just as he’d killed Rhaine herself. I left the corpse where it was, undid the front door and slipped out into the night. On principle, I didn’t like leaving the body there to rot, but I couldn’t very well call attention to my presence by contacting the authorities. Besides, the way things were going, he’d have plenty of company.