The three resolved into one and she lowered her gun. ‘Be on your way, sir.’
Alfred saluted her with his mechanical hand. ‘You know, I was an airship engineer. 1st class, Royal flagship.’
‘Is that so?’ She rolled her eyes as he stumbled through the gauntlet of tables, full backs, legs and bodies. He stopped and looked back at the woman. ‘Lovely wolf pelt you have there around your pretty uniform.’ Alfred fell out of the bar and waddled alone back into the night.
II
‘Do you mind, young lady?’ the innkeeper said while watching one of his best new customers leave. ‘He had at least another three drinks in him.’ Another young dollymop air captain convinced they carried the nation’s laws on their backs. ‘Get on with it, who you looking for now? You lot are always looking for some poor bastard that wronged ya, seem to be having a lot recently.’
She pulled out a stool, wiped it with a corner of her wolf pelt and sat. ‘Looking for a young pair of Moorlanders, seen any?’ She placed her pistol on the bar and twirled it around.
The innkeeper walked around the bar and picked up the glass the drunk had dropped. Hadn’t smashed – a first, he thought. ‘They left early this morning, heading for the city.’
‘Do you know where in the city they’re headed?’
The Innkeeper scratched his chin. ‘Well, my memory is a little shot these days, what with all this extra pollution Seagrave keeps pumping in the–’
A bag of coins landed on his bar.
‘Okay.’ He opened the bag and counted a few of the golden coffers gleaming back at him. ‘Should do it,’ he said, ‘the wife overheard ‘em both discussing going to visit, or catch up, with their father.’
‘Their father?’
‘Yeh,’ the innkeeper said, ‘siblings.’
Madeline huffed, grabbed the bag back off the innkeeper and threw it at him. It ruptured, spaying golden coins on the floor. ‘Enjoy your pounds. Good evening, sir.’
III
Outside, Port Staddiscombe looked every bit as filthy and as drab as the inn. Four miners blurted words from their typical slurry mouths. Madeline wrapped her pelt over her chest to cover the top part of it, but it was no use.
‘Well, well,’ said one of the miners, ‘look at this prize piece of city-arse, boys.’
Madeline ignored them and hurried past. The Moth hung in the sky above, its rope ladder dangling from the deck. A miner grabbed her buttocks, her body tensed, nerves shot off like rockets and without hesitation her torso rotated forty-five degrees at a rate too fast for any merry miner to contemplate. Her boot cut through the air, charting the steel toecap onto a headline collision with the miner’s jaw. The dislocation made a satisfying sound. The other miners stood in wide-eyed shock.
Madeline boarded the Moth and gave the order for take-off and for Shanks to command the bridge. Back in her quarters, Francis stood with one hand holding a cloth to his mouth, the other admiring her book collection.
‘Please don’t touch those,’ she said, ‘they’re in a specific order.’
‘They’re not alphabetical.’ He traced the titles. ‘Year of publication?’
She shook her head.
He studied the covers, the tiles each had two separate words. ‘Are they ordered in a pattern based on the number of syllables in each title?’
‘No, it’s in the order by which the authors died.’
She was his daughter, Francis thought, no doubt. ‘Ah yes, of course, dead men...’
‘...tell no tales, except the best tales,’ they both said.
‘Read them all, have you, Madeline?’
She removed her gun sling and threw it over the leather armchair. ‘Your quarters not good enough for you, father?’
‘I ran out of oil for my lantern, thought I–’
‘Go to the quartermaster, second deck, I’m sure Jennifer will–’
‘I noticed you had some.’
‘Help yourself.’ She threw off her pelt, it landed in a heap next to her desk chair.
‘No luck at the inn?’ His words came wrapped in a patronising tone, which she refused to acknowledge.
‘The innkeeper mentioned a brother and sister stayed the night, but nothing else.’
Francis sniggered much like the weasel when outwitting its prey. ‘You did think, with little evidence of marriage, they might have thought to save money, and pretended to be siblings to share one room?’
His daughter gave him a glare making it clear she’d acknowledged his patronising tone and if he decided to keep it up, he’ll become one with the Moor.
He rocked back on his heels. ‘I gather you got the name of this couple?’
‘They’re Beechcrofts, not Nightingales.’ She prepared for another smug reply.
Francis stood and shot over to her. It was the sharp gestures he did with her mother if she said something out of line. Madeline’s torso tensed.
‘Beechcroft, Madeline!’ he yelled. ‘My God, girl, I told you I should have come with you! That’s him! The Nightingales, they’re the Beechcrofts.’ Francis pulled at what little hair he had left in his long greying locks. ‘Order your men to set sail to the nearest port in the city. I’ll send for the local keep’s prisoner roster. No doubt entering the city with no money, they’ll have raised a few eyebrows.’
She burst out to the deck and ordered the new course. The Gypsy Moth set her sails, filling them with steam and blasted back to the city.
IV
Tabitha sat with her back up against the cold, wet wall. The cellblock’s moonlight lit a slab on the ground, and she’d been staring at the shimmering dust for what felt like hours. They sparkled as though magical properties were in abundance. Her teeth chattered together, applauding the lightshow. A cruel loop of her father’s old stories engaged her mind, she couldn’t escape them, a cell within a cell.
‘The city folk,’ her Father would say, ‘may behave like their better than us, but they’re not, love. If I told ya what they do to thieves, by joe, girl, you’d have nightmares for a week!’
She looked at each of her cuffed hands, where the sharp metal edges cut into the wrists. She leant slightly forward, saw the entrance to the cell where they held Baxter. No noise came from it. Just dips hitting puddles.
A creak of ungreased, rusted metal came from the end of the dungeon and footsteps echoed up the dark corridor. The steps sounded differently to the soldier’s boots, there was no rattle of keys, no lazy shuffling of feet across the stone floor. The steps took their time, a tapping sound, as though a lady were making her way passed each cell. The glow of a torch and the flicker of the flame grew brighter as it reflected off the damp stone walls. The cloaked figure stopped outside Baxter’s cell: staring in, and held the torch up in the air to illuminate it.
‘Guards!’ the figure yelled, a female voice. ‘This is him, release and have him cleaned.’
The guards came down the walkway with their keys prepared to carry out the order.
‘What about his companion?’ one of them asked the cloaked lady, pointing to Tabitha’s cell.
‘No,’ the figure said. ‘Keep her here and punish for whatever crimes she’s committed.’
Tabitha heard the words and tried against an unresponsive jaw to move her mouth enough to form a word. The numbed lips were useless, the swollen tongue filled her mouth and the dry throat with its pump from a breathless chest whizzed and whistled. The two guards appeared out of the doorway with Baxter hung between them, comatose. They dragged him out and followed the lady.
‘Stop!’ Tabitha shouted, her voice cracking from the strain. ‘Stop! Where are you taking my friend?’ One of the guards looked over, but the rest ignored her and carried on pulling the young man’s body. Tabitha let out a scream braking within seconds to a defeated rattle. The door to the dungeon slammed shut, locked, and the darkness returned.
V
Francis sat smoking as soldiers carried the hooded boy onto the ship. He didn’t help. Instead, he took a deep long to
ke on Mr Shanks’ tobacco, it was the good stuff. He fingered the smooth ivory engraved figures of a couple dancing on the side of his daughter’s pipe, a nice touch of Seagraves’; how his daughter loved to dance. She was such a sturdy girl, strong arms and thighs able to crush most of the men who ever tried to make her open them. She moved one of the barrels from one side of the deck to the other with ease, she wasn’t shy of hard work, raised to understand the joys of labour, the merits of doing things for yourself. Francis continued to watch them, stepped forward and removed the boys hood.
‘It’s him,’ Francis said, blowing the smoke from his lungs in the boy’s face. ‘He’s the kid who gave me the blanket with the nightingale on it.’ He watched his daughter collect Baxter’s legs and rest them on a few nearby sandbags. She might be rugged, he thought, but she was her mother’s daughter.
‘Father.’ she called out, the crew looked at her then at each other, She hadn’t told them yet.
Francis smiled. ‘Yes?’
‘Inform Seagrave we have Baxter Nightingale and we’re bringing him in.’
‘How do you expect me to?’ He took another long draw on his daughter’s pipe.
Madeline nodded at one of the deckhands. They quickly acknowledged her and rushed over.
Pulling her tunic taut, Tabitha walked over to him. ‘Father,’ she said, coughing in the cloud of smoke he’d hidden within, ‘I beg you, please quit with the undermining repertoire when you’re a guest on board my ship.’
‘But Maddy–’
‘No buts,’ she interrupted. ‘If you want to question my authority here, do it how all other traitorous crews do and raise a mutiny against me, otherwise keep your mouth shut. On board my ship you’re a guest, understood?’
Francis placed his pipe on the top of a nearby barrel. ‘Since when were guests given tasks, Captain?’
Madeline turned scarlet. ‘Father.’
‘Okay, let me finish this batch I have here and I’ll make some enquires.’ He bowed.
‘Go to the main postal office here in Staddiscombe, and send a runner. I’m sure they’ll have one.’
‘Bit lavish, Maddy, are you sure you–’
‘Here,’ she threw her father a shilling. ‘It’ll be enough.’
CHAPTER 13
Long-out-of-date news clippings covered Hans’s desk, with boards holding pinned articles. He hunted around as the girl stood in the corner. Her face hadn’t changed, puffy from the dam holding gallons of tears waiting to explode down her chubby cheeks. He had to enact damage control and try and make his office as little girl friendly as possible. A stool hidden under a pile of magazines might suffice. ‘Here, would you like to sit down?’
She didn’t reply. Her eyes continued to track his, with the haunted expression which hadn’t faded since the village.
‘Ah-ha,’ Hans said, ‘here’s a–’ He hunted for an object to pass off as a toy. ‘It’s…a…stapler!’
She took it from him and pulled the top off.
‘No, no, look.’ Hans grabbed a few bits of paper and stapled them. ‘See, they join things together, how much fun is this?’ He grabbed a few extra pieces and a pair of scissors. ‘Cut out these girls in this.’ He handed her a magazine, it had pencilled drawings of pin up girls. ‘And staple them together, so they become friends.’
The girl smiled, yet her eyes stayed doleful.
‘Hans is going to go and find some things in the other room. I won’t be long, it should take no longer than a shake of a babe’s finger, my girl.’
She didn’t reply, engrossed in the stapler.
Found under papers a box of staples. ‘Here, in case you run out.’ Hans left them on the side next to her and zipped out of his office to the main hall of the Royal constabulary.
II
Two doors opposite, both locked, just as Hans suspected. The lobby to the Chief Inspector’s office appeared closer than usual. He hurried in his mind at a narrative to why the girl was with him. He opted to dash past, hoping she didn’t notice.
‘Hans! Oh good, you’re back. Come in here, please.’
‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘Helen! How the devil are you?’
‘How was it, any luck?’
‘Well, I appeared to have lost a herbalist and gained a witness.’
The Chief Inspector Helen Longstrike stood from behind her desk. She was as tall as Hans, and the glow of the window behind her from a passing airship made her an outline of darkness.
‘How’d you lose a herbalist?’
‘The mission was a bit of an issue,’ he said, trying to break it down to foundational chunks, removing the slightest incline of emotion. ‘I was just compiling my report. A village in the forest behind the fungi infection had been abandoned, and we were ambushed.’
‘Ambushed?’
‘Yes ma’am. By the witch.’
‘The Mother. And what of Maximus, where is he?’
‘I don’t know, I lost him in the fire.’
‘Fire?’
‘Yes, there was a big fire.’
‘Right,’ she said shaking her head and walking slowly from her desk. Hans got the impression she was coming to shake the lies out of him.
‘The witness?’
‘Yes, she’s in my office.’
‘Who is she? Can I meet her?’
‘She’s okay, Helen. I have her under my protection just in case–’
‘In case what, is the witch still at large?’
‘No ma’am. I’m a little concerned, she’s young.’
‘How young?’
‘Between six and nine, I’d say? Not a word since I took her in. She lost her family.’
‘Tragic.’
‘Indeed.’
‘I’ll be interested in hearing your report. How’d you stop the witch?’
Hans had been running his rehearsed script up until this point. Then he felt the blood rush to his cheeks. He could feel the heat pricking under the skin popping like corn too close to the fire. He had to improvise. ‘I killed her.’
‘Great, how?’
Sweat ran down from his hairline. ‘I threw her in a river.’
‘Good, you drowned her? Hold on a second.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t witches float?’
She was right, Hans thought, they did. ‘Yes, I had to jump on top of her and hold her head under.’
‘I see, where was Maximus during this…’ she hesitated.
‘Execution?’ Hans raised his eyebrow.
‘Yes.’
‘He was collecting some puzzle weed.’
‘Oh. Why?’
‘It’s a weed witches find revolting. It makes them vomit.’
‘Right, ok. So why did you want her to vomit?’
‘Well…’ Hans fought in the confines of his mind for answer. ‘It stops them from cursing you.’
‘Oh yes.’ said Helen.
‘Keeps the mouth busy,’ Hans said, pointing at his own while doing an impression of being sick.
‘Enough please.’ She tapped him on the shoulder. Her other hand pressed on a sheet of paper. The word confidential stamped in red ink.
‘Ma’am, with your permission I’d like to take this girl to a refuge in the city, have her speak to some of the nuns for counselling purposes.’
‘Yes, of course, she must be quite shaken up.’
He tried to get a better look at the paper.
‘Report back to me in the morrow.’
‘You look nice, Helen, off anywhere fancy?’
She blushed. ‘I’m seeing Don Giovanni tonight.’
‘Oh, how splendid.’
‘Have you seen it?’ she asked with an upward inflection, steeper than usual.
‘Yes, well, not since conditioning, do have...’ he paused, noticing the name “Beechcroft village” and “attack” on the red ink document, ‘a marvellous time, though, Helen.’
As she grabbed her coat from the nearby stand, Hans was quick to snap a further peek at the report; “In
spector Falcon” and the name… Nightingale.
‘Here,’ he took her coat and held it, blocking the document, ‘allow me.’
‘Thank you, Hans, always the gentleman.’
‘Not always, Inspector.’ He looked for the document. ‘May I take this, if it’s no bother?’
‘What?’ she asked. ‘Oh, the Inspector file?’
‘Yes. Just wondering about Inspector Chase.’
‘Oh, what about him?’
Hans gulped in a dry throat. ‘He owes me money, I need to go and collect it.’
‘Goodness me, Hans, who doesn’t?’ She looked at him, compressing her eyes together as though she’d found him out. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten.’
‘About what?’
‘Those two shillings I owe you for the day you took my jacket to the Chinese cleaner.’
‘Oh,’ he said, gasping. ‘It did need it, Helen, couldn’t let the Chief of the Royal guard go about state business smelling of cabbages.’
She stopped getting ready and stared at him in silence. ‘Turnips, Hans.’
‘Right,’ he said, looking away uncomfortably. ‘Your husband grows turnips.’
She did a movement with her head, Hans recognised it as a married woman’s way of thanking a man of his chivalry. ‘Good night, Hans.’
III
As she left, he rushed back to his office with the file and closed the door behind him. Reams of stapled-together papers, surrounded the girl, Hans flicked through the file, found Inspector Abigail Falcon’s location and closed it on his finger.
The girl held up her design to Hans. The shapes were a man and woman with two children holding hands. Kneeling, Hans whispered to the girl, ‘I will help you find them, I promise.’
Dark Age Page 25