“Another man might seize upon the opportunity to point out the dangers of choosing constables from such in-breeders,” Calder observed mildly, peered sideways at Dallin, looking for reaction.
Dallin didn’t give him one. He shrugged. “And your accent isn’t right. Oh, it’s very good, understand, but it’s off around the edges. Too flat on the vowels, and not enough roll in the hard consonants.”
A moment of quiet as Calder looked down, flushed a little then shifted a steady look back up at Dallin. “Perhaps I am a bastard, a shameful get on my poor mother by a black-haired brigand, and so we were forced to move about. Never staying in one place very long, for fear we’d be harried, possibly even stoned for witches by ignorant, in-bred villagers.”
A smile played at Dallin’s mouth with the bold diversion and he mentally conceded the point. Very clever. And not a little bit twisty. Thinks on his feet, this one.
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “And perhaps you are not who you say you are, and these papers are forgeries.”
Calder didn’t answer, instead asked, “Would you take these off, please?” He held up his hands, turned them over inside the wide metal bracelets. “You see I pose no threat.”
The manacles all too obviously bothered him, even more than being questioned about complicity in a murder, even more than being here alone, for all intents and purposes locked in a room with a man twice his size, despite his controlled panic when he’d practically begged Payton to stay. Dallin indeed saw no threat from this man, but the advantage in keeping him on edge was becoming more and more apparent. Anyway, there was the matter of those containment spells, and considering what had happened when he’d arrived, Dallin didn’t mind admitting he’d just as soon leave them right where they were.
“You seemed to pose no threat when I walked in, until…” Dallin opened his hand, shrugged.
“A mistake.” Calder dipped his head, once again the picture of meek submission. “A foolish error. I thought… I apologize.”
A soft snort from Dallin, and he leaned back in his chair. “That rather stuck in your throat, didn’t it?” He tilted his head, kept the slight smile. “You thought what?”
Calder shrugged a little, peered up beneath thick, black lashes. “You are a very large man. You frightened me.” He answered Dallin’s smile with a small, tentative one of his own, dipping his head down again. Shrewd surrender, sweet and treacherous—like a bullet in the soft, pulpy belly of a berry.
All right, we’ve gone through anger and outrage, and now we’ve moved on to seduction. Resignation and weary surrender should be next.
It was slightly repulsive, watching this man work his way through the routine like an actor in a play, and Dallin wasn’t sure he knew why he was almost disappointed. Not as challenging as he’d thought, perhaps, or…
You were impressed for a little while there. You thought he was above it, somehow. Why would you think something like that? This man is neck-deep in lies, trying to use his eyes and clumsy wiles to dig himself out from beneath them, why do you hesitate to beat him at the game he chose?
No, not lies, not really—stopping just short of them, like it was some kind of morality code, but skirting truth with deflections, answering questions with questions and oblique accusations, righteous defenses. He hadn’t actually said he was from Lind, but let the papers speak the lie for him, and each denial of more unseemly implications had the ring of truth to Dallin’s ears. Dallin would wager that every word this man had spoken was a truth of some sort; it was breaking the code of those truths and maneuvering him into the things he was not saying that would be tricky.
Dallin sat back in his chair, relaxed his pose, let his fingers slip slowly over the identification papers, like a caress. “Are you easily frightened?” He made his voice soft, a potential paramour expressing concern.
Calder looked down, slipped one shoulder up in a small shrug; Dallin didn’t miss the sinuous shift of the collarbone beneath smooth skin revealed by the pull of the half-laced tunic—didn’t miss the fact that it had the appearance of calculated deliberation. The man’s hands came up with a tink of metal, and long fingers pushed black hair from eyes gone soft and distant.
“Only by those things over which I have no control.” Another shrug and a slight flush. “Some have begged for the opportunity to bind me; others have threatened it, even tried it, with no regard for my wants or fears. And now…”
Dallin tilted his head, encouraging. “Now?”
“Well.” The smile turned gently-ironic. “Now, you don’t have to beg, do you?”
The insult was clear and not wholly unexpected; nonetheless, Dallin’s jaw tightened. “A slattern’s trick. You will not find me so easily gamed.”
The soft acquiescence fled beneath a hot spark of anger. “I tell you, I am no—”
“Then stop playing at one!”
“You ask questions, I answer them—isn’t that how this game is supposed to go? And now I am maligned, again, because I play by your rules! If I’ve misunderstood them, do tell, so I can make sure my next step is well within your strategy.”
Edging on anger now, Dallin clenched his teeth. “What did you say to those men?”
A soft groan, weary frustration. “I said, No, and Leave me alone, and was given a solid blow to the head for my trouble. Will there be charges for assault, as well as murder? Or is the Constabulary indifferent to crimes against someone like me?” Calder’s tone was challenging, like he already knew the answers and was only asking the questions by rote to prove his point.
“Someone like you.” Dallin leaned in. “Tell me first what you are so I can decide the proper course.”
“You don’t even know what you are, why would you believe anything I would tell you?”
That one gave Dallin pause. “What does that mean?”
Calder sighed, shook his head. “Nothing. I’m… upset. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
Dallin’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe that one for a second. Every word that came out of this man’s mouth was calculated. “You’ve not answered my question.”
Calder was silent for a long moment, staring at his hands as his fingers picked at each other. Slowly, he looked up, peering straight at Dallin, his expression fatigued but bold. “You would make me a depraved conjurer because you want to think me a depraved conjurer. You think I look the part so you’ll fit me into it, no matter what I say.” He dropped his eyes, furthered softly, “Only remember that I could make of you a monster by the same logic.”
Enough. The man didn’t seem to know what a straight answer was. Dallin snatched up the identification papers, waved them under Calder’s nose. “Who are you, really?”
Calder shifted an anxious glance to the papers. “They are legal and in order.”
Another not-lie/not-truth. Dallin allowed his voice to rise in volume, deepen in timbre, threatening. “Where did you get them? How much did you pay for them and who sold them to you?”
“I’ve done no wrong!” Calder cried, all pretence at calm regard or soft compliance gone. Fear stitched itself to the hectic gaze, and umbrage bloomed beneath it. “I suffered attentions I did not want and find myself accused because of it! I had nothing to do with those two men—”
“Those two men tried to beat each other to death in order to give you those attentions—one succeeded. Now you evade my questions and play at seduction! Who are you and how did you drive sane men to murder?”
“How d’you know they even were sane?”
“Did you try to play them against each other?”
“No! I never even—”
“Cast a spell, then?”
“I am not a witch, I wouldn’t even know how to—”
“Did you spurn one in favor of the other?”
“I was trying to spurn both, I didn’t—”
“Did you look at them the way you looked at me before?”
“I wasn’t—” Calder clenched his teeth, fisted his hands. “You see seduction bec
ause you want to see it, because you think you merit it! You assume I caused men to attack one another for the same reason you assume I’d even want you, when all you’ve done is try to bully and intimidate me, and then you look at me like you just found me on the bottom of your boot and call me things no man would suffer without a call to duel! You do these things because you can, because your size and your authority permit it, but I’d love to hear the questions you’d ask if I were your size and you were mine!”
His anger was contagious; Dallin found his blood rising and his heart tripping up in rhythm. “Where did you get the papers?”
“From the same place all citizens of Lind get theirs!”
Dallin growled, pounded his fist to the table, tried not to feel too much satisfaction when it made Calder jump and some of the color fade from his cheeks. “Why do you keep this up, when you know I’ve twigged? They’re forgeries—you’re as much from Lind as I am a third nipple on the Mother’s left tit.”
Calder’s glower was scathing; if he could kill with it, Dallin would be dead where he sat. Calder sat forward, jaw twitching. “Prove it,” he snarled. “You have legal verification of my identity and I have given my statement as witness, fulfilled my obligation as a citizen of the Commonwealth. Unless you can prove those papers a forgery, you cannot keep me here.” He pushed his hands at Dallin. “Let me go.”
“What did you call me, when I walked in?”
Calder glared, teeth grinding. Then he took a long breath, swallowed, and looked away. “I don’t remember.” His voice had softened again, gone timid.
A blatant lie this time, the first one, Dallin was fairly certain, since he’d come into the room. Dallin noted the change in demeanor—from anger and defense to quiet anxiety—and silently congratulated himself on hitting another mark. He’d throw himself a party when he figured out exactly what it was.
“You called me by a name, like you thought you knew me.”
“Nonsense muttering,” Calder murmured, subdued. “I was frightened.”
“Of my size.” Dallin lifted an eyebrow. “It sounded like the North Tongue.”
A small twitch. It appeared there were marks all over the place. Perhaps if Dallin kept stumbling blind, he’d hit the right one.
“How would I know the North Tongue?” Calder wanted to know.
“You see my point,” Dallin retorted.
“I see that you have bound me and held me against my will when you have no cause for either—I was very nearly a victim, would you have been so dedicated in your questioning of those two gentlemen if it were me lying on a slab?” He flopped his hands on the table again. “Please.” Real entreaty this time, quiet and near-desperate. “I’ve done no harm to anyone, and I want to leave now.”
The pattern, now that Dallin had twigged to it, was predictable, and so therefore useable. He smiled inwardly.
“How long have you been in the province? Why have I never seen you before?”
Calder sighed, slumped back. “Perhaps you don’t get out much,” he muttered. “I expect that’ll be my fault soon, as well.”
“How long—”
“Three weeks!”
“And where were you before that?”
“I don’t…” He leaned his elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands. “I’ve done no wrong. Why are you doing this?”
“Tell me who you are.”
“You have my papers. Please.” Calder rubbed his hands over his face, peered at Dallin with a look of raw appeal. “You said I was not a prisoner. I have answered your questions. I have told you everything I can tell you.” Once again, he held his hands out. “Please. Either arrest me or let me go. I don’t even care which anymore.”
Of all the faces he’d seen this man don this morning, Dallin thought perhaps this was the true one: exhausted and miserable, saw-toothed terror blurring about the periphery. Pity rose, softened the hard edges of suspicion. He didn’t believe for a moment that this man was Wilfred Calder from Lind. But he also didn’t believe the man had enchanted anyone into murder.
So, what was he hiding, what was he hiding from, and why was he so afraid?
Dallin was only slightly moved, pity tucked back behind duty and then hidden beneath the hard set of his face. Almost everyone brought behind these doors was pitiable in some form, whether hard-bitten villain or truly innocent victim, and long experience had taught him that most people hovered somewhere in between the two. Treating one like the other and alternating his approach—sympathizing then victimizing—served to unbalance and confuse. Useful, and so, therefore, useable.
This man was not confused. Unbalanced, certainly, and agitated beyond the point many others had fallen into tearful confession, but no sobbing declarations hovered at his tongue, no indignant justifications. Instead, he all but obsessed over those manacles, begging not for his life or forgiveness or anything so trite and unseemly as reprieve—he begged instead for release from the cold metal about his wrists, so fixedly that Dallin began to wonder if the discomfort they achieved had not somehow balanced out against his favor, rather than in it.
Now, he peered at the shackles, at the pink, knobby scar on the left wrist, revealed when Calder raised his hands to hold his head and the bracelets had slid down to rope-muscled forearms. New-ish and thick, and reaching halfway about the blue-veined wrist, with the uneven healing marks of botched care and badly-treated infection. Dallin could almost see the slick-pus-red of the wound beneath the ghost it had left behind, could almost watch the struggle against the confinement, the animal instinct pull-tug-tear, as though the prospect of being free of the restraint was more important than the loss of the hand.
Looked like someone who’d spent his life locked up in a dark room, Dallin had thought when he’d first seen the man; now he thought perhaps he’d been all too close to the mark.
His heart lumped a little in his chest, and Dallin turned the sympathetic rush away from compassion and toward reason instead. This man had been someone’s prisoner before. It was no wonder the restraints unnerved him so.
Useful, and so, therefore, useable.
“Where did you get that scar?”
Calder’s hands curled into loose fists, withdrew. A slack shrug was all Dallin got for an answer.
“Who thought you so dangerous as to bind you?” he pressed. “Have you been arrested before?”
Calder shook his head slowly, whispered, “No.”
“Then what did you do to merit shackling?”
A low chuckle, dark and bleak and maybe even a little bit crazed. “An offence almost as heinous as what I did this time,” Calder answered, looked up, fixed a defiant stare on Dallin, gave him the ruins of a desolate smile. “I had the audacity to exist.”
Rebellion and despair; obstinate mutiny and raw panic—too many things clawed for domination in that gaze, and Dallin would swear that every one of them was a cryptic truth in a language he didn’t know how to read. This wasn’t about what happened at the Kymberly last night. Whatever this was, it made the Kymberly’s events small and unremarkable.
“You,” Dallin said quietly, “are in very deep trouble.”
Calder snorted a little, pure bitter irony, rolled his eyes. “Nothing gets by you does it?”
Dallin ignored the insolence. “No, not from me, not even from the Constabulary, and it’s no small trouble, I judge.” He leaned in, let his expression speak his sincerity. “You’re hiding from something.” His eyes narrowed a little at Calder’s twitch. “No,” he said more slowly, “someone.” There—a slight wince and flinch. He’d hit the mark dead-on this time. Dallin lowered his voice, spilled salt into the wound: “And you’re terrified.”
A long moment of garroted silence, then: “If I were,” Calder answered, soft and resigned, “that would make you terribly cruel for tormenting a man already tormented.” He peered up at Dallin, tears glinting in the corners of eyes once again gone glittering liquid malachite in the sooty light of the lamps. “Are you a cruel man, Constable
Brayden?”
The tears were no ruse, and the question no idle inquiry. Dallin sat back, kept his eyes locked to Calder’s, gaze open and steady, absently pleased that the stare didn’t have its former effect. “It is possible,” he ventured slowly, “that I could help you, if you would but trust me.”
“Yes,” Calder agreed quietly, “perhaps you could if I did. But since we find ourselves, quite literally, on opposite sides of the table…” He stretched out his arms so his hands splayed on the table, palms-up, in front of Dallin. “Please. Let me go.”
***
Dallin didn’t; not at first, at any rate. It took another several hours before he admitted that whatever it was Calder was running from, the fear of it was much greater than any bluff of incarcerated horror Dallin could impose. He’d found out all he was going to, as far as Calder’s involvement with the grisly murder was concerned, and believed every definitive statement denying that involvement. Whatever secrets Calder kept, they had nothing to do with any guilt or complicity in the events at the Kymberly last night; of that, at least, Dallin was certain.
He propped the door open when he finally quit the room, and left the key to the manacles with Beldon; he was too tired to go through the mechanics of discharge, and for reasons he didn’t want to think about, he had no desire to be present and witness the relief when those shackles finally came off. One of the perks of rank and seniority was the right to delegate, and today Dallin used it.
“And tell him not to leave Putnam,” he told Beldon as he headed back upstairs.
He slow-stepped it to Jagger’s office, informed him of his conclusions and the release of the witness. Then he wrote his report, handed it off to Payton with a bit of scorn he couldn’t help, and an order to ink two copies. “Keep his papers,” Dallin instructed. “He’s not to leave Putnam anyway, so he won’t need them, and I want to send to Lind for verification before I release them.”
The Aisling Trilogy Page 3
