Subtle Blood

by KJ Charles

  “There’s a difference between not guilty and innocent! If a man did it but the police can’t prove it—”

  “Then he doesn’t hang. That’s how it ought to be. Certainly better than the alternative.”

  Will gave him a look. “And he gets away with murder.”

  “Only if he did it. I don’t know if Chingford did it and nor do you.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  Kim held one palm up. “Yes, all right. But the accused is still entitled to a defence, isn’t he? That’s all I’m trying to do here: give him a defence. If I can’t scrape something plausible together, the law will take its course.”

  “Suppose.” Will scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Don’t do that, Kim. You know what I asked.”

  “Sorry. Yes.” Kim exhaled. “I wish I had a good answer. I don’t want to take his place, needless to say. And I don’t want another dead brother. If there is something I can do to prevent that outcome, I think I have to do it.”

  “For who? Your father?”

  “He doesn’t want my help. Let’s say, for myself.”

  “And does this make up for Henry?”

  “Henry is dead,” Kim said. “There’s no making up for that. But my father would prefer Chingford to live, and if I could achieve that...”

  He tailed off. Will would have liked to press on what the if led to. He’ll forgive me? I’ll forgive myself?

  He didn’t press, because he wasn’t sure Kim had an answer. Instead, he asked, “And you’re all right with this? Yes, blackmailers have it coming, but that was a sodding cold killing.”

  “One might say, ice cold. I know,” Kim said. “I have gathered you don’t approve. Noted.”

  “It’s not what I think, it’s what you think. It’s whether you can do this and still look yourself in the face. You’ve got enough to feel guilty about already and you could get hurt here. You could hurt yourself.”

  Kim looked round at that, with an almost-smile. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Will’s stomach twisted. “Kim—”

  “I understand your concerns, I truly do, but please believe I’m not acting lightly. I have to do something. I have to try, do you see?”

  “Not really. I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t blame you.” Kim rubbed his face. “I’ve got to go now. The flat’s been besieged by journalists all day. I left by the back way to see you but I don’t want to do that too often, or be spotted coming back in the morning.”

  “Fair,” Will said, though it wasn’t fair, none of it. “What next?”

  “I’ll talk to Rennick about this blackmail business. See if anything else has floated up about Fairfax while I’m there. And I need to try the Private Bureau again on whether any Zodiac remain unaccounted for, just in case. I called a couple of people today but nobody would speak to me. They’re a close-mouthed lot these days, or they live in fear of DS.”

  Will considered the formidable Private Bureau chief and decided he wouldn’t talk out of school either. “Want me to do anything?”

  “Just keep your head down with the Press. Down, and also level. Don’t punch any journalists, is what I mean.”

  “I didn’t,” Will said with a touch of pride. “I was nice as pie.”

  “Five quid says you weren’t.”

  “Well, I didn’t thump anyone. Did I say, one of them tried to bribe me? Or tip me, really. You know, like a doorman or some such. Slipping me a couple of quid to talk about you.”

  Kim stilled. “Oh Jesus. I’m so sorry. That’s a damned insult. Is it a consolation that if they think you’re my lackey, they don’t suspect you’re my lover?”

  “Not really. Because even if they did think we were fucking, they wouldn’t believe I was anything more than your bit of rough, would they?”

  “No,” Kim said. “That’s the daily drip of insult you can expect as things are now, which is why I don’t want them to get worse. Because you are everything more, and I resent to the bottom of my soul that you should feel any other way. Wait for me; I’ll call you. Be good.”

  He went on that, soundless as ever, leaving Will staring at the dark and empty doorway.

  Chapter Seven

  Will was still thinking about that—the night, the words, the way Kim had looked—next morning, with a whole lot of complicated thoughts and feelings that evaporated like spit on a stove when he went out to get the papers.

  ARREST IN SYMPOSIUM CASE: CHINGFORD CHARGED WITH MURDER

  LORD CHINGFORD UNDER ARREST

  CLUBLAND MURDER: MARQUESS’S HEIR CHARGED

  “Bugger,” Will said, and got back to the shop sharpish.

  There wasn’t much to be gleaned from any of the reports since the papers had to be chary what they said now. There was, however, a background piece in the Daily Mail by the journalist who’d come to his shop, calling Will ‘a taciturn, hard-faced man’, with details of his military career that concentrated a lot more on the killings than the medals. They used that damn photograph from the inquest again, and included a story of his time in the Yoxall Raiders that baffled Will until he realised that one of his old comrades had run his mouth to a journalist, probably for money.

  He bloody hated this. He wouldn’t call himself a sensitive man, but to have people put him in the newspapers without a by-your-leave, as though his life was theirs to write and publish, for gawpers to discuss him over the dinner-table and come to conclusions about him and talk like he was public property...

  Kim would have had it so much worse, and feel it so much more. Will had no idea how he had borne it. No wonder he was desperate to make this go away.

  He wondered about calling, or even going round, and decided against it. The Press would be there in force and Kim had said to wait.

  Will could do that, and he did, albeit with very little grace. He was polite to the first reporter in an impressive act of self-control; he told the third to piss off out of his shop or be kicked out; and he didn’t even look up when, after lunch, someone walked up to his desk and said, “May I have a word, Mr. Darling?”

  “Not one you can print.”

  “I’m afraid I need to talk to you.”

  “Sod off, sunshine. I’ve nothing to say.”

  “I think you do.”

  Will looked up then, to see a vaguely familiar man in his late forties or so. “Who are you?”

  “Bill Merton. We met briefly in March, if you recall.”

  Will did now. This man worked for the Private Bureau, and he’d been one of those at Etchil after Lord Waring’s death. He sprang up. “Right, yes, hello. All right, we’re closing,” he added to the shop at large and ushered out a couple of protesting customers. “Sorry about that. There’s been a lot of journalists.”

  “Tiresome for you. What are you up to, Mr. Darling?”

  “Me? Nothing.”

  Merton folded his arms. “‘You’ was a plural. First Kim Secretan’s brother put paid to this man Fairfax, then you turned up interrogating George Yoxall about him. Please don’t ask me to believe those things are unrelated.”

  Will folded his own arms, since two could play at that game, and leaned against a bookcase for good measure. “Why are you asking me and not Kim?”

  “Because from what I hear, you are the more reasonable of the pair. Although that’s not saying much.”

  “I don’t know. I have my moments.”

  “I’ve also heard that. Could we sit?” He waited for Will to wave him to a chair, then went on in a friendlier tone. “I’m not here to cause trouble, Mr. Darling. Aside from anything else, Jimmy Yoxall would have my hide; he remembers you with affection. I just want to know what’s going on.”

  “Is this an official visit?”

  Merton rocked a hand. “Call it personal. Young George is an honorary nephew of whom I’m extremely fond, and since chaos tends to follow in your and Secretan’s wake, I’d like a friendly chat before
anything catches up with us.”

  “I could do that,” Will said slowly, because his mind was racing. “If you’ll tell me something too.”

  “I don’t buy pigs in pokes. If you’re reasonable with me, I’ll speak to you within reason.”

  That was probably as good as he’d get. “All right. I wanted to talk to Mr. Yoxall because he told the police Fairfax had been blackmailing him.”

  “He did tell them that. I wasn’t aware they were taking him seriously.”

  “Doesn’t sound like they are. I don’t know why not.” He probably did, though, having briefly worked in the same shop as Maisie. There had been a floor manager who hadn’t wanted to hear anything she said, no matter how useful, because to do so would have acknowledged her value. “It’s a pretty obvious motive for the murder. But it’s not only a motive for Lord Chingford.”

  Merton’s jaw hardened. “If you’re looking to point the finger at George—”

  Will held up both hands. “I’m not. His business doesn’t sound like anything to kill over, and I wouldn’t say he’s the murdering sort.”

  Merton relaxed a little. “Not that one can always tell, but no, he’s not.”

  “All I meant was, blackmailers don’t just blackmail one person, do they? If he tried it on with Mr. Yoxall, who’s to say he didn’t have other victims in the Symposium?”

  “Such as Chingford.”

  “And maybe more,” Will said. “I keep hearing how this place is all chums together, chatting away in their safe private space. Sounds like a breeding ground for blackmail if you ask me. Everyone seems happy to agree Chingford did it and not look at who else might have wanted to. You can’t blame Kim for not accepting that.”

  “Is he attempting to prove Chingford’s innocence?”

  “He’s looking into what happened,” Will temporised. “Who Fairfax really was. And that’s what I’ve got a question about.”

  “Fairfax? I can’t help you there.”

  “No. What I want to know is—” He took a deep breath. “Did you pick up all the Zodiac inner circle? Are they all accounted for?”

  Merton’s brows rose. “That seems something of a non sequitur, Mr. Darling.”

  He knew that one; it meant it doesn’t follow. He’d also become familiar with the many ways in which Kim didn’t answer questions, enough to recognise one in the wild. He crossed his fingers behind his back for luck. “Then tell me this: have you got Virgo yet?”

  Merton looked at him, blinked once, and said, crisply, “Speak to me.”

  “You speak to me first,” Will said. “I know how you lot operate. I’ll play fair, don’t worry. We’re on the same side.”

  Merton thought about that for an unflatteringly long time. Finally he said, “No. No, since you ask, we have not picked them all up, or anything like. We managed to identify three from Waring’s papers, but the rest are still out there.”

  “Three?” Will demanded. “Is that all? What the blazes—”

  “—do you pay your taxes for?” Merton completed. “You may well ask. DS isn’t any more impressed than you, if that’s any consolation. But Waring was a cautious man, and particularly with his more valuable colleagues—the ones who made money, rather than the ones who had a mission. The latter were fairly easy to collect, as fanatics usually are. The useful ones, including the well-born and high-placed gentlemen, not so much.”

  Will had spent a few days as the prisoner of one of Zodiac’s fanatical members, a man who’d believed in the organisation’s stated mission to tear down the structures of power. He didn’t remember the period fondly, but at least Libra had had principles. “So you arrested the ones who wanted to change the world, but the ones who were just in it to get rich have got away clean,” he said. “Sounds about right. What about Virgo?”

  “Virgo is one of those who got away,” Merton said. “What do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything for sure, but Fairfax had a wrist tattoo. Kim saw it.”

  Merton’s brows rose. “I would have expected word of that to reach us.”

  “It was a mermaid, and nothing like a Zodiac one, if that’s what you had people looking for. Bigger, Kim said, with thick lines. But Fairfax wasn’t in the Navy, he was a fifty-year-old retired banker, so why did he have a mermaid on his wrist?”

  Merton got there quick. “To cover up a smaller image of a woman, you mean?”

  “I can’t swear to it. Maybe we’re wrong. But he was a blackmailer, and someone killed him in a pretty nasty way, and—you know, Lord Waring and John Cheveley were Symposium members, just like Fairfax. It doesn’t prove he was Zodiac, but—”

  “Straws in the wind. Secretan has rather a knack for catching at those. Why did he not bring this to us at once?”

  “Because you sacked him,” Will said. “And it could be nothing. The Met have searched Fairfax’s house and not found anything suspicious.”

  “No, they wouldn’t. Thank you very much, Mr. Darling. If you should come across anything that might be of interest to the Bureau in the course of your investigation—”

  “That’s up to Kim.”

  “I’d hope both you and he would see your duty clear.”

  “If you want duty off people, don’t sack them.”

  “That’s all very well.” Merton hesitated. “Oh, curse it. There’s something you should probably know. They’re regrouping.”

  “Re— What, Zodiac?” Will said, the hairs prickling on his neck. “They’re starting up again? Are you serious?” He’d assumed the organisation had collapsed after Waring’s death. Mind you, he’d assumed someone had arrested the bastards, which would have helped. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing tangible. Not yet. But a few weeks ago we had an approach from the man we suspected to be Pisces. He came to us hinting darkly that one of Waring’s inner circle has appointed himself the new master, with a mission to revive the organisation. It’s Leo, he said, not that that gets us further forward since we haven’t a clue who that is. He said Leo had plans he couldn’t stomach, and he wanted to get out.”

  “What the hell is a plan one of Zodiac couldn’t stomach? Considering the things they did—”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it any more than you do,” Merton said. “Pisces offered all the information we needed, but demanded full immunity, protection, and a substantial payment in exchange. DS sent him off with a flea in his ear to consider his position. He was dead the next day.”

  “Jesus. How?”

  “Fell under a train. You might recall that Zodiac had a knack for making their enemies fall under trains.”

  “I remember,” Will said, and then, “Wait a minute. Train, a few weeks ago? Didn’t a Member of Parliament—”

  “My point is,” Merton said over him, “one of Waring’s lieutenants has appointed himself general in a fairly ruthless manner, has plans that are putting the wind up his old colleagues, and isn’t wearing kid gloves. We don’t know much more than that yet. Of course, if you’re wrong and Fairfax wasn’t Virgo, none of this is relevant to you. But if he was—well, I felt you should know before Secretan walks you both into a minefield.”

  “Thank you,” Will said wholeheartedly. “Thank you very much.”

  “My pleasure. Anything else? In that case, since we’ve now concluded business, Jimmy asked me to pass on that he will drop in when he’s next in London, and find out if you’re still wielding your Jerry pig-sticker. That’s a direct quote, by the way.”

  It was also clearly a question, so Will opened the desk drawer and produced the Messer, his beloved trench knife with its eight-inch blade.

  “Good Lord, what a thing,” Merton said. “I see why that would be effective. Did you carve the handle yourself?”

  Will shook his head. “Beyond me. The bloke who did this was an artist.”

  “May I?” Merton balanced the Messer in his palm. “Lovely piece. Odd how we make tools of death into beautiful things. My sister has strong words on that—she’s a sho
t, and likes her guns severely plain. She says the gunsmith’s art should be about efficiency, not ornament.”

  “I’m with her, mostly. I picked this up for the blade. The German knives were far better than anything we got.”

  “I recall Jimmy’s complaints about supplies.”

  The British army had never issued a proper trench knife; soldiers had been forced to make or buy their own. Will had held strong views on being expected to pay his own way to Jerry’s trenches. “Captain Yoxall bought us knuckleduster knives with his own money, did you know? Flaming unwieldy things, and not much use really, but it was a nice thought. Or you’d be sent over with a sharpened stake, or a push dagger you’d banged out of a broken bayonet. I felt a lot happier once I had a real knife in my hand.” He took the Messer back: he didn’t much like other people holding it. “But I like the carving too. It makes it personal.”

  If he’d been talking to Kim, he might have said more about that. About how every time he used the Messer, the carving reminded him of the artist who’d died at his hands. About why you ought to treat a killing weapon as special and important, because what it did changed the world irreversibly. Kim would listen to that, understand it was complicated, and probably have a quotation at the ready to crystallise Will’s feelings into thoughts. Will wouldn’t fear how he’d sound if he talked about this with Kim.

  But Merton wasn’t Kim. So Will told him a story about Captain Yoxall instead, and Merton asked a couple of questions about another story which Will could assure him wasn’t exaggerated. They spoke for a few minutes longer, and parted on excellent terms, considering how the conversation had started.

  Will went to the door with him as a courtesy, and also so he could lock up after. There was a man lurking outside with a soft hat pulled down over his face, and he had no desire to deal with any more journalists.

  Chapter Eight

  His first order of business was to phone Kim, and pray he answered. He got Peacock, who put him through after a brief delay.

  “Will?” Kim demanded. “Great minds again, I was just about to call.”