Nettleblack, page 29
But he is. And if he is – what then? Henry’s definitely writing something, and it’s definitely against him. She didn’t write any of those letters, but there is something she ain’t telling me, and –
And what if I find it out, and it’s worse even than the letters, and it don’t change a thing of my feelings? What if she’s the most callous criminal the town’s ever known, and I’m still desperate to keep her in the Div – and teach her cycling – and touch her cheek?
I wouldn’t be. Not then. Not if it were that bad. Case in point – it’d be like Property. Did it before and I can do it again. Easy enough to switch to hate, when they don’t give you another choice.
“Figs!”
I skid about. It’s like Henry’s thrown the word round my neck, tugged it taut and the air out with it. Where the hell are we? How long’s it been? How’ve I lost track – again? –
The market square. It’s just the market square. We’re back. Late-morning – there’s the church chimes over my shoulder thwacking it out – and trade’s in full swing. Jellied eels ain’t selling today – it’s too cold for ’em. Frost on the awnings, greying the colours. All the bright colours of the vegetables shoved under hessian covers. Queues round the block for hot pies, the shop door the only warm spot in the square. Geese escaping, sacking wrapped round their webbed feet.
Lorrie’s corner’s empty, but for a heap of discarded wooden boxes.
What?
There’s a knot in my gullet. I dart my head about, as if looking’ll drag Lorrie back to his usual haunt, but my every twitch only tugs the knot tighter. I ain’t even the only one looking. That’s his boss twisting through the crowd, grabbing at elbows, frowning and asking.
But we haven’t – the Director promised me we wouldn’t. No one’s done anything about Property’s stupid claims. He ain’t a proper suspect for the Head-Hider, not really –
But – whatever Cassandra’s done, whatever she’s not telling us – what if it’s – what if she’s gone for him?
Plan, damn it! You’ve got time! Get to his flat. Henry won’t mind. Check on him. Could be anything else. Could be perfectly innocent. Some weird-timed meeting with his sweetheart, maybe. Or he’s just overslept –
What’s Henry playing at?
I’ve already started us three stabbing paces towards Lorrie’s, but she ain’t moved. She’s frozen as the puddles, her porcelain face fast fading the same greyish colour.
Lorrie – but I can’t leave her in this state. Follow her gaze instead. Ahead of it, there’s the Ballestas governess, that corpselike girl straight out of a ghost story. She’s loitering by the Div doors – there again? Don’t she eat? – watching us ’til her eerie green eyes just about gleam. But – no – it ain’t her Henry’s spotted. It’s the doors themselves. Still swinging, like someone’s just strode through ’em.
Mr. Adelstein. It has to be.
Keep Henry away from him, then. Go to Lorrie’s with her.
But if he’s come to try searching a second time – and he finds that journal – and he makes out more of it than I could –
“Time to go back,” I hear myself blurt. Then I’m shouldering headlong through the market, through geese and shawls and shivers. At my elbow, Henry’s sprinting to keep up.
Through the swinging doors, the Div’s a riot. All the commotion’s melted the frost. It’s hot now, unexpectedly so. Cassandra’s got the burner throbbing away, and left it open-doored to blaze while she holds the fort. When I stride in, she’s stood up behind the desk, fists balled tight on the wood, Gertie’s present-scarf still dangling from her neck, a giant stack of ledgers tottering beside her. Our ledgers, all the ones Mr. Adelstein borrowed. Adelstein himself’s in the middle of the room, standing stiff and stupefied as a wax doll. Nick’s by his shoulder, with a good twenty rats in his basket.
Henry’s at my side. Don’t have to look at her to know she’s on edge. Light at my ear, there’s the terrified gasp of her breath.
“I told you, and Mother’s told you – there’s no need to search the place again!” Cassandra’s snapping. She’s flushed under her freckles, and it ain’t just the wood-burner’s warmth. “You’ve already gone through our paperwork!”
Nick flings her a feeble grin, fumbling in his basket for something. Some book, smaller than the ledgers, though he can’t get it out quick enough to flash its spine, not with half the rats of a mind to gnaw it. “Speaking of paperwork, actually – Cassandra – I’ve got your – I mean, I was wondering if you – ”
“Later, Nicholas!” Mr. Adelstein sets his teeth. “Cassandra, I do not require any more paperwork. I simply wish to search the dormitory. I assume permission has been obtained from its inhabitants?”
“No it ain’t!”
I’ve blurted it before I can think. Adelstein darts his head around like he’s caught a scent, and then he’s glowering me out. It’s impatient, exasperated, smacks of our conversation. Duty. I was meant to’ve spared him this.
“Septimus?”
I jerk my chin up. Defiant as I can get it. I never said I’d do anything for him.
“Mr. Adelstein. Can’t believe you’ve got us agreeing, but Cassandra’s right. No more searching the Div.”
Mr. Adelstein wrings out a sigh. This time, his glare’s almost petulant. He knows I’m stalling, he must do. Over his head, I grab Cassandra’s eyes, shove my whole plan into a frantic stare –
Do what we did earlier. Raise our voices. Draw out the Director.
“I’m afraid this is an urgent matter,” Adelstein snaps. “Surely the apprentices will understand.”
“The Division Sergeants don’t,” Cassandra retorts, lifting her voice to stage-pitch. “You haven’t even explained what you’re looking for.”
She’s right. He ain’t so much as looked at Henry. If he’d not told me he was after her – if she’d not told me, out of her journal – you’d be hard-pressed to guess it from his face.
“If you tell us,” Cassandra adds, all but a shout, “We can help! Or perhaps the Director – in fact, I’ll call her now – ”
He pinches me on another scowl. “There’s no need to call your mother, Cassandra. Division Sergeant Septimus is perfectly aware of my business, and doubtless more than happy to explain it to you.”
God’s sake! If he meant to divide and conquer us, he’s done it! ’Course saying that – that way round, and her rank left off – that’ll be the very thing to sling her straight back into hating me!
And she’s glowering across my face now. So much for an alliance. All our vague plan, all that unshouted shout for the Director, dripping discarded from her every word. “Oh. Well. If you really do know everything, do deign to enlighten me, Javert.”
I stiffen my shoulders. Voice – quick – steady it out. New plan.
Wait. That works!
“Mr. Adelstein asked me to search the dormitory yesterday. He wants suspicious writing – ”
“Anything written down, in fact,” Mr. Adelstein interrupts, “However innocuous it may seem. Or anything hidden, out of the ordinary – ”
“There isn’t any suspicious writing!” Cassandra bursts out furiously. “I told you, you’ve seen all the writing! There’s nothing else here!”
“Look – Mr. Adelstein – shall I just check now?” Before I end up wringing his neck, or before Cassandra ends up wringing mine. “You can wait here. I’ll do a once-over. Does that work?”
Cassandra’s got a mind to kill me with a glare. I can see her snarls from earlier smarting back onto her face. So perfectly perfect!
But Adelstein frowns. He’s got no clue what I’m thinking. Good.
Then – swift as anything – he pinches Nick a look, a nod. Nick blanches. It turns his skin grey as the windows.
“An admirable compromise,” Mr. Adelstein declares, clasping his hands together. “Mr. Fitzdegu and I shall remain here for as long as it takes – ”
Now, only now, he pretends to notice Henry. “And your assistant. She’ll wait, too. Hyssop, is it?”
They’re all looking at her, so I risk it too. She’s shivering, thin hands clinging to her elbows. The ink starts out on her fingertips. There’s anger in her face beside the fear, there in the sharp line of her mouth.
Don’t worry, I want to hiss at her. I’ll hide the journal. He won’t get you.
’Course I can’t say a thing.
“Quite,” she hurls back at him. Little dagger of a word.
Right.
I stalk past ’em all, slide the door open. The dormitory drapes are down, the candles out, the light stale and turgid. Not a problem. I can close the door behind me. Then it’s just me, and the journal, and getting it somewhere Adelstein can’t see it. But what if Henry’s moved it? What if he does something to Henry, when I’m in the dorm, and I ain’t there to stop him? What if the Director turns up while I’m flat-out disobeying her? What if Cassandra calls her in to spite me?
I glance back. I’d meant to look at Henry – though what I’d planned to do with my face I can’t say – but there’s something else to stare at. Mr. Adelstein – he’s nudging Nick hard in the ribs – and then the rats are plummeting out of his basket, squeaking as they scrabble to the floor. Nick starts forward – sweeps with his arms, like he’s planning to pick ’em up – but it only drives ’em forward, scurrying over my boots, ’til they’ve furzed into the dormitory like so many mothballs.
“I’ll get the rats!” Nick cries, staged as you like, and dives headlong past me. Slams the door at his back. Vanishes.
Bloody coward!
Henry gasps, but Cassandra’s quicker. “Adelstein! He can’t just – ”
Mr. Adelstein straightens his tie. It didn’t even need straightening.
“If you wish to go and assist him in collecting up those tempestuous rodents, you’re at perfect liberty to do so. I wouldn’t want any of his rats tearing holes in my clothes, but perhaps you think yourself and your uniform of a stronger constitution.”
“You landlord for the rats, don’t you?” Cassandra snarls. “You planned this! Haven’t you done enough already, with your searches and your ledger-snatching? Can’t you just out and say it – or leave me alone?”
“Cassandra!”
Damn it. It’s the Director, minutes too late to fit any plan. Her office door wallops shut behind her, and then she’s scowling us out. Freezing-stared. Enough to smother all the heat of the burner.
“That,” – and her voice’s as deadly as her gold eyes – “is hardly an acceptable tone to take with the Division’s detective.”
“He’s searching the dormitory!” Cassandra blurts. Fear’s clearly snuck up on her, but she’s not burnt through her fury yet. “After you told him not to!”
The Director flicks her gaze to Mr. Adelstein. He’s still watching the dormitory door, as slack and complacent as he’ll ever look, waiting. Waiting for Nick to find the journal.
“Matthew, what is the meaning of – ?”
Then there’s a shriek – and ain’t it a shriek to kill all shrieks!
It sets the dormitory door rattling, bursts out from under the frame like swept dust. We start – Adelstein and the Director and Cassandra and me – and skid about, as if the door’s about to give us an answer. Behind it – not just shrieks, but crashes – groans – the bedframes dragged about, scraping on the floorboards – weird little yowls – squeaks – and Nick’s voice atop the lot, yelling like a lunatic –
Henry. She’s the only one of us not to jump. She’s frozen in place. And she don’t look even slightly astonished, just – despairing.
“Sweet plums,” she whispers dazedly. “I – oh – not again – ”
The door thwacks the very plaster off the wall. It’s a volley – of Nick, bloodied and half-deranged, scooping up rats, stepping on rats, rats clinging to his shoulders and his shirtsleeves and his stripy trousers. Beyond Nick, there’s blood – more blood – splattered on the floor round Henry’s bed. One dead rat’s sprawled on the sheets. No. Not so much dead as torn limb from limb – it’s just bits of rat now, fur and tail and innards. Lording over its pieces, there’s – there it goes – leaping off the bedframe – one pale shivering sprint – out down the aisle – out towards us –
The little killer hurtles straight into Henry’s arms. It’s a ferret. A white ferret, bloody-furred, red at the eyes. Snarling. All teeth.
Henry blinks up at us helplessly.
This’d be Adelstein’s moment, if he wanted to take it. He could dash into the dormitory – he knows which bed it is now – while we’re distracted. He could snatch the journal and hide it in his greatcoat. He could be out before we noticed him go in.
He doesn’t. He clasps an arm round Nick’s shoulders, and he yells spitting blue murder up into the Director’s flabbergasted face.
“What the devil do you mean by keeping beasts like that in the Division, Ballestas? Nicholas could have been killed!”
She swallows. I’d defy even her to calm down this situation. “Well – ”
“Persimmons!” Henry cries. “I – you – there was quite no – he couldn’t have died! The ferret – he just – he doesn’t – he means well – he’s never – erm – he’s not done anything – well – anything worse to a human than biting off a finger!”
“A finger?”
Mr. Adelstein’s livid – livider than the rat’s guts – shunting Nick behind him. “And you countenance this, Director?”
Quick as patter, the Director’s gaze whirls about to me. “Septimus?”
It’d be stage-perfect if I turned to Henry now, spluttered out Hyssop?
I can’t. There’s only one thing I can say, and even that sticks in my throat.
“I – I didn’t know!”
“I’m resigning,” Mr. Adelstein blurts. Is it Mr. Adelstein? This ain’t like him, this slick-haired changeling with Nick gasping in his arms. He ain’t impetuous. I’ve never known him make a snap decision. Never – never – seen him get angry. What the hell’s done this to him? “As of today. You can find your persecutor on your own – you can hunt down the Head-Hider on your own – all of it! I come here to help you – and I’m insulted, threatened, obstructed, whilst trying to complete an investigation expressly designed to protect this organisation – and now that stammering slattern’s familiar tries to slaughter my lodger and his rats!”
The Director’s jaw drops. Pure sympathy, my own goes with it.
“Matthew, I – I can assure you that no offence was meant, and – and – ” – she, Keturah Ballestas, she’s scrabbling – “ – and I must offer you my profound apologies for the – ”
“You can’t just quit!”
It’s Cassandra, sprinting round from the desk, leaping to the Director’s side. Fastest I’ve ever seen her move.
“Mother’s done everything for you! You were a country boy playing at Sherlock Holmes before she took you on! And this isn’t her fault – it isn’t anyone’s fault – so don’t you shout at her!”
“I would reflect on your own ingratitude before you snarl at mine, Cassandra,” Mr. Adelstein spits. “I presume you haven’t told your impeccable mother about your penchant for publishing sordid comic romances?”
It strikes Cassandra like a slap. The Director’s twisting about, dazed, staring – and her daughter’s all but slumping to the floor. “I – I – ”
He ignores her. “Nicholas, we must get you back to our house at once. You’re hurt – the blood – your hand – ”
Nick gasps a snivelling breath. “It’s nothing, Matty – Henry – ”
Henry starts. She thinks – fair enough – that he means her. But it ain’t that. Nick’s gazing back into the dormitory, back to where those bits of rat are strewn over her bed, with a look that’d keep a man in mourning for a decade.
The bloody rat!
Mr. Adelstein gives him a gentle nudge, and he sprints back in before any of us can stop him. He wraps up his rat in the top bedsheet – right nerve he’s got, to take it! – and drips out like a mute. Past us, too shaken to look at us, out into the cold. Adelstein fires back one last filthy look, and then he’s gone too.
“My office,” the Director snarls into the silence. “All of you. Now.”
No one starts. No one knows where to start, and I can’t stand it. Most times I’ve been in this room, glaring over this desk with my hands folded at my back, I’ve always known how to begin. Sometimes it’s a new plan for chasing something up. Sometimes it’s about the bicycle. Sometimes Mr. Adelstein’s sent a message, and I’m delivering it. Back before the last two months, it was congratulations, promotions, cycling proficiency, you name it. Don’t matter which. There’s always an opening. Even if I’m fighting a dressing-down, there’s always an opening.
But Mr. Adelstein’s gone. It’s like someone’s killed him. It don’t seem real.
And Henry’s still clutching that ferret, trembling at my side.
And Cassandra’s at my other shoulder, frozen stiff.
And the Director’s sat, steepled fingers, waiting.
There ain’t even a clock in here to tick out the silence. The Director keeps her room bare, but for the desk and the paperwork and her Bedford College certificate framed on the plaster above her head. It’s effective – you can never tell what she’s thinking from this blank-walled canvas. The only other thing of her she’s got here is a photograph of her husband and son, and that’s on the desk facing her.
No. That ain’t right. The only thing of her – the whole place is her. Her idea. Her innovation. Her plastered walls and sputtery gaslights, her converted rooms, her half-finished morgue, her Divisioners.
