by D. K. Fields
But the door was wrenched away from her hand. A tall man lunged at her. Cora took a step back, steadied herself, and reached for her knuckledusters. Then she noticed the man swaying on his feet, pitching as if on a barge himself. But this was no Casker. The man was wearing Seeder clothes that stuck to him with sweat. His pinched face was slick with it, and the smell of spirits leached from him. Cora steered him towards the stairs that led back to street level. But before he made them, he dropped to his knees and brought up all he’d eaten and drunk in the last few hours.
‘Best you get yourself home, friend,’ Cora said. ‘And lay off the hard stuff for a while.’
He was likely just another visitor to Fenest for the election, having too good a time between stories. The Oak was no safe house, but it was filled with such distracted folk it was safe enough to meet a friend here. A friend who should be waiting for her, if the note had found her – tucked into a pennysheet as it was, and delivered by a certain bawling girl named on Drunkard’s Day. Cora hoped Marcus had done what was needed.
The front bar was full, the benches and stools packed with people from across the Union, most of them looking as worse for wear as the sweating man heaving his guts up outside. Cora pushed her way through, nodding to the barman as she passed. He was an old hand. Half as wide as he was tall and with a large chunk missing from one ear. Sidney? Simmons? Quick with troublemakers, that was what mattered, and a sharp eye for people who came to the Oak for more than just bets and whores.
‘Evening,’ she called over.
‘Detective.’
She had a feeling she’d never lose that title here. Once with the police, always with them, far as the games houses were concerned. Didn’t matter she wasn’t on the payroll anymore. The way people treated her – the way she treated herself – she might as well still be in the police.
‘All well out the back?’ she said.
‘As well as it can be, after plague. Numbers still down.’
At the mention of Black Jefferey, which had only recently been contained, several of the drinkers near the bar spluttered into their glasses. Cora even caught one lad glancing at his friend’s wrists, as if looking for the telltale black marks. She hurried on towards the back room. It wouldn’t pay to stick around if drunks started accusing each other of being infected.
She thumped on the door that led to the betting ring and the whores. It opened wide enough for an eye to appear and take her in, and then she was inside. Tonight, the door was watched by a youngish woman whose all-but-bare chest, highly glossed cheeks and feathers in her hair spoke of a second job.
‘No ash beetles tonight, Detective. We’re back to rats.’
‘I’ll live.’ On another occasion that would be disappointing news, but tonight, she needed to concentrate, and rat fights were easy to ignore. Only fools bet on rats.
She gave her coat to another whore to keep safe, but not before she’d retrieved her bindle tin. This whore was a lad, one she didn’t know, but she liked the look of him as he walked away, his tight backside moving through the knots of people.
‘I’d stick to just looking, Detective, unless you’ve got a new job. A paying one.’
Cora turned to see the tiny figure of Dancing Beulah: chequers, ringmaster and owner of most of the games houses in Fenest. She was old as the Oak herself, and just as gnarly.
‘I’m not here to spend,’ Cora said.
‘Going to settle your debts instead?’ Beulah put her hands in the deep pockets of her red velvet housecoat, which trailed to the floor, and made a point of scrunching the many chequer slips she carried at all times. Cora didn’t want to think about how many had her name on.
‘I’m meeting someone.’
Beulah chuckled. ‘And I think I can guess who. Not seen her in here before. Looks startled as a gresta bird about to go in a Seeder pie.’
‘That sounds about right,’ Cora said, trying not to look in the direction of the ring where fresh sand was being raked, new boxes of rats standing ready. The warm air was already stale with old blood mingled with the spice and flowers of the whores’ perfume.
‘That one with her though – Brawler take me, she’ll empty my coin chest before the night’s out.’
‘What? I don’t—’
But Beulah was walking away, clearing a path through the whores and their customers, the chequers and theirs, despite her small size. Cora could only follow.
‘They’re over here,’ Beulah said. ‘You could take some lessons from the older one, though not in any of my houses, Detective.’
On the other side of the ring were the tiered booths where spectators spent their nights – those who didn’t need to grip the side of the ring and shout at the creatures carrying their fortunes. As they reached the first row of seats, Beulah took her leave. ‘And just in case you’d forgotten, your line of credit is—’
‘I know, I know.’
Cora climbed the tiers, heading for a familiar figure: tall, lean, and with more enthusiasm for her work than Cora had thought possible in a Fenestiran. The young woman was deep in conversation with an older companion who was clutching a sheaf of chequer slips and staring intently down at the ring. Neither seemed to notice Cora approaching.
‘You got my message then,’ she said.
The young woman turned and Cora was greeted with the huge grin of Constable Jenkins.
Five
‘Detective!’ Jenkins rushed to her feet and then stopped awkwardly.
For an uncertain moment, Cora feared the constable was going to throw her arms around her. That would be a new development, and not one she was keen on.
‘It’s just “Cora” now. Or plain old Gorderheim.’
‘I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that,’ Jenkins said.
‘You’ll have to try, won’t you?’ said the woman next to her. She reached across Jenkins to thrust her hand at Cora. ‘Donnata Jenkins, Willa’s mother.’
Willa? Cora realised she’d never known Jenkins’s first name. Never bothered to ask.
‘It’s good to meet you at last, Detec—Cora.’ Donnata smiled at her own slip, and Cora could see where the constable got her large teeth from. But there wasn’t much more of a family resemblance. Donnata’s hair was silvery white, long and tied in what looked to be a severe knot at the back of her head. She was one of those women who’d gone grey early, because she wasn’t the age of Cora’s parents’ generation – her skin was unlined and tight across her high cheekbones.
Cora sat down. ‘Jenkins here has told me about your old job as Director of Electoral Affairs. Senior role in the Commission. That must have kept you busy.’
‘It was just as awful as you can imagine. The election… Managing all those purple tunics, the story sites, the garbing pavilions, not to mention keeping the voting chests secure.’ Donnata spoke at a clip, her hands seeming to gallop in the air as fast as her words came tumbling. ‘And just when you think you’ve finished the business of one election and can have a rest, it’s time to start all…’
Donnata’s eye was straying to the large numbers board that hung over the ring. As soon as one chequers, clad in their signature black-and-white coats, rubbed out a line of numbers, another chequers chalked up the new odds in its place.
‘Jenkins never mentioned you were one for the chequers,’ Cora said. ‘First time in the Oak?’
Donnata’s mouth opened as if to answer, but no sound came out. Her gaze was now firmly on the numbers board and Cora could almost see the woman making her choices.
Jenkins gave Cora an embarrassed glance. ‘My mother tends to bet in the rings closer to home. She doesn’t come to this part of the city much.’
‘Glad you’ve made an exception.’
‘Delighted!’ Donnata said, all at once focused on the conversation again. ‘Once Willa said you’d asked to meet her here, well – I thought I’d come along, see what the Dancing Oak offered. One can be daring in retirement, and we don’t see many rat bouts in Derringate. But you’
ll have to excuse me. I just need to…’ And she was away to bend the ear of a chequers.
‘Not a habit that runs in the family then,’ Cora said, ‘unless you were keeping that quiet when we were at Bernswick?’
Jenkins gave a low laugh. ‘No. My mother says she got a taste for the chequers when she started at Electoral Affairs.’
Cora opened her bindletin.
‘I thought you were trying to give up,’ Jenkins said.
‘Decided it wasn’t the best time for that. Glad to see you remembered to leave your uniform at home. The Oak can spot a constable’s uniform at fifty paces.’
Jenkins looked down at her dark purple shirt and black wool trousers. ‘I know you’re trying to keep a low profile, now that…’
‘Now that I’ve been sacked? It’s all right, Jenkins. You can say it.’ Cora got a light from a passing whore and dragged deeply on her bindle. ‘So, Marcus delivered you my note.’
‘She did.’
‘And was she loud enough to let the whole of Bernswick station know your old boss wanted to see you?’
Jenkins laughed. ‘She managed to keep quiet about that. It was all in the pointing, like a story told without words.’
‘I’d have liked to see that,’ Cora said. In the ring below them, the boxes were opened and the rats came streaming out.
‘Marcus saved her noise for news of the Rustan Hook opening tomorrow,’ Jenkins said. ‘’Sheets say it’s going to be a spectacle. The Fenestiran Times claims there might be actual flying!’ The constable was beaming, her levels of excitement about the election as high as ever.
‘Not sure how the Rustans will find so much as a breeze inside the Seat of the Commoner,’ Cora said drily.
Jenkins’s shoulders dipped. ‘Oh, that’s true…’
Cora was surprised to find that she felt a brief stab of guilt at disappointing Jenkins. ‘But if it’s in the pennysheets…’
‘It must be true!’ Jenkins said and grinned again. ‘But I’m guessing you won’t be able to go to the Hook, whatever it might be.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Will that be safe?’
‘I’m still a free citizen of the Union, Constable. Yes, I investigated a Chambers and accused her of two murders, but that’s not a crime. Not yet, anyway. So what’s to stop me joining a queue to see a Hook like anyone else?’
‘Nothing, I suppose. But you won’t be able to use your badge to jump that queue.’
Cora groaned. ‘You’re right. But it’s not the Hook I’m interested in, flying or otherwise. There’s someone there I need to see. Anyway – enough of the Rustans. Tell me, how are things at the station?’
Jenkins leaned back in her seat and sighed. ‘In some ways it’s the same. Sergeant Hearst is still on the roof feeding the birds more than he’s in the briefing room, trying to keep out of the chief inspector’s way.’
‘Bet that works for Sillian too.’
‘Us constables are doing double shifts,’ Jenkins continued, ‘what with the election.’
‘Surely things are a bit quieter with Black Jefferey gone?’
Jenkins nodded. ‘Thank the Stitcher for that.’
‘And how is the Bernswick stitcher?’
‘Oh, you know Pruett – still bemoaning the fact people die and end up in his cold room. The cells are leaking worse than ever, he says, the water getting into his boxes and salves.’
‘Sounds like the place is surviving without me.’ Cora tapped her bindle’s ash onto the floor. It glowed for a second, then it was just dirt. She ground it into the boards with her boot.
‘And yet it isn’t,’ Jenkins said. ‘It feels all wrong. The chief inspector hasn’t replaced you. There’s no detective at Bernswick now, and Sergeant Hearst can’t do that job.’
‘What with the birds.’
‘Sillian doesn’t want him to.’ Jenkins gave a huff of frustration – the closest the constable came to outright rage. But she kept her voice low, and Cora was confident that no one nearby would be able to hear their conversation – not with the cheering directed at the ring where the new rats were scrapping. Jenkins’s mother was the loudest of them all, waving her slips and hollering.
‘That’s why I asked to meet,’ Cora said. ‘I need to know if anything is being done about Morton’s involvement in the deaths of either Nicholas Ento or Finnuc Dawson.’
‘Well, that’s an easy answer,’ Jenkins said. ‘Nothing is being done. Nothing at all. Chief Inspector Sillian says the cases are closed, all the right paperwork filed in all the right places, and so I’m to stop asking questions. She even called me in to her office on the top floor to tell me that. I’m back to chasing cutpurses and checking Perlish cheese permits.’
‘Two jobs you’re very good at, Constable.’
‘But I don’t want to do them anymore! Not since working on the murder case, finding the scale of corruption.’ Jenkins turned to face Cora, and her expression was one of such frustration, Cora felt bad for plucking Jenkins from the ranks of constables to help her investigations. ‘I can’t go back to pretending everything is fine, that the Assembly is doing what it should. That it’s not the end of the world.’
Cora’s bindle was smoked out, but at the mention of the Tear, she felt like lighting another straight away. ‘I know. But you don’t have to go back to that.’
Jenkins’s eyes lit up. ‘Really?’
‘But you do have to keep pretending. I need you to pretend that you’re just a normal constable doing normal constable things.’
‘But?’
‘But, you’re going to watch someone for me. Tell Hearst. You’ll need his help for this.’
Jenkins’s breath seemed to be coming faster and colour had crept into her cheeks. ‘Who?’
‘A Wayward named Tannir.’
‘Why?’ Jenkins said.
‘It’s better if you don’t know. I want reports about where he goes and who he meets. If you can get close enough to hear what’s said in those meetings, I want that too. You should be able to pick up his trail at the Assembly building. Tannir spends a fair bit of time there.’
At the mention of the Assembly, the colour left Jenkins’s face and her large teeth disappeared from view – there were no smiles now.
‘You want me to go into the Assembly building? Where the Chambers are – the most powerful people in Fenest, one of whom has been ordering murders?’
‘Keep your voice down, Jenkins.’
‘Sorry. It’s just—’
‘I know. It’s dangerous. It’s what got me sacked.’ Cora drummed her fingers on her bindle tin. ‘But I’m not asking you to risk your job. It would be no help to me if Sillian cast you out, would it?’
‘I suppose not,’ Jenkins said.
‘And besides, I wouldn’t want to risk the wrath of your mother if you got sacked.’ Cora glanced to the top of the tiered seating where Donnata Jenkins was haranguing a chequers. The poor man was quailing beneath her jabbing finger and cries of shoddy accounting. Below them, ringside, several whores stood watching, some laughing, but within the knot of feathers and glossy cheeks was Beulah, watching grimly. It was time Cora was away.
‘How will I know this Tannir you want me to watch?’ Jenkins asked.
‘He’s a young man. Wears his hair short, almost as short as the Torn do, no braid. Likely wearing gloves too. Just keep an eye on him when he leaves the Assembly. Let me worry about the rest.’
‘And how will I get word to you?’
Cora stood up. ‘Seems like our arrangement for tonight worked well.’
Jenkins slumped in her seat. ‘Oh no, not her. Detect—I mean, Cora, there has to be another way. She’s so loud, and so angry.’
‘That she is. But Marcus likes you, Jenkins. All that time you spent in the archives together, looking for Tennworth.’
‘Don’t remind me.’
‘I’d say you’ve got a friend for life. Now, Sergeant Hearst is paying Marcus to keep the Bernswick briefing room supplied wit
h pennysheets. If you’ve got anything for me, hand it to Marcus when she does her delivery.’ Jenkins looked like she was about to argue, and really, Cora couldn’t blame her. ‘It’s safer this way, Jenkins. The less you know, the better. If Sillian questions you, you won’t know anything, will you?’
‘I suppose not. It was good to see you… Cora.’
‘You see – anything’s possible, Jenkins.’ She waved to Donnata, still hectoring the chequers, and made sure to avoid Beulah’s eye as she left the Oak.
Six
Cora spent the night at her lodging house rather than join Ruth at the next safe house on the list. She tried to tell herself it was because she needed to change her clothes – her shirt had the stink of birds in its weave, as well as coffee, bindle-smoke, pastry grease, the grime of gig journeys, pennysheet ink… When Cora thought about it, she couldn’t remember when she’d last changed her clothes. But if she were honest, she stayed at her lodging house because the thought of the distiller’s going up in smoke didn’t make for the most relaxing night’s sleep, and the Child knew, Cora needed a rest. Being on high alert to keep Ruth safe, it was exhausting.
It was exhausting too, dodging her landlord. Cora was always late with the rent – being a regular at the Dancing Oak meant her coin purse was light soon after pay day – but even by her standards, this month’s rent was very late. She couldn’t blame her landlord for lingering in the stairwell to catch her on the days she came back to her room.
But she was broke – there was no getting past that. Running a protection service for the Wayward hadn’t paid anything to date. They didn’t seem too interested in things like pennies and marks, or paying rent. All their minds were fixed on the election story, on keeping the Union together. ‘The bigger picture’, that was something Ruth said all the time. But being able to buy a decent breakfast was part of that picture, surely? Maybe it came from being Wayward. They slept under the stars and seemed happy to eat dried roots they found by the wayside. Cora had seen as much when she and Ruth had travelled south.
