by KJ Charles
“Nobody.”
“Do better.”
“I said, nobody,” Leonora snapped. “Nobody is trying to kill me. I have no enemies.”
“What about Rackham?”
“What about him? He’s dead.”
“He was blackmailing you.” Crane caught her outraged look. “Don’t get your stockings in a knot, adai, Mrs. Gold is the only person in this room who he wasn’t distinguishing with his attentions. As far as I know.”
“No,” said Esther firmly. “Mrs. Hart, who else was he blackmailing?”
“I’ve no idea!”
“The thing is,” Stephen said, “you and Rackham clearly have a common enemy. The blackmail is the obvious link—”
“I have had nothing to do with that little toe rag since before Tom died. He was a junk-sick waste of skin.” Leonora sounded entirely sincere. “The matter that he was blackmailing me about is not…creditable, perhaps, but I can’t see how it’s related to anything else. Who are the other dead?”
“The family on Ratcliffe Highway were called Trotter,” Stephen said. “The Chinese who died were Tsang Ma and Bo Yi.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” said Leonora.
“Well, what about Java?” asked Crane. “Specifically, Sumatra. The Dutch East Indies. That seems to be the source of the rat problem.”
“So?”
Crane switched to Shanghainese to say, “Your second husband was Dutch.”
“Excuse me,” said Esther loudly. “We’ll do this in English please.”
“That related to a private matter. I don’t see any possible connection.” Leonora looked from Stephen to Esther. “I’m extremely grateful that you saved my life, but I know absolutely nothing of this. I don’t know anything about Sumatra beyond having the same few acquaintances as Lord Crane, I have no idea what Rackham was up to, I’ve never heard of any of these people. I honestly can’t think of any reason why anyone would try to kill me. Could it not have been a mistake? They were trying to kill someone else? It seems more probable.”
“So far the rats have been used on two Chinese practitioners, one old China hand and you, back from China,” Esther said. “There seems to me to be a pattern.”
“What does ‘practitioners’ mean?” Leo asked.
Crane opened his mouth to reply, but at that point there was a polite knock, and Merrick came in with a bundle. “I beg your pardon,” he began, and then recoiled at his master’s appearance. “What happened to you?”
“Blame Leo. She bled all over me.”
“That’s the Hawkes and Cheney suit!” said Merrick, outraged. “I’ll never get that stain out.”
“I’ll bleed more carefully next time,” Leonora assured him. “Hello, Frank.”
“Missus. You alright?”
“She’s fine. It was the rats.” Crane took the parcel. “The ones that got Rackham. While you’re here, I don’t suppose you know anything about Tsang Ma and Bo Yi?”
Merrick looked blank. “Can’t say I do, my lord. Who’s that, then?”
“The dead shamans.”
“What, the ones the rats killed, down in Limehouse? That’s not their names, is it?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?” said Merrick, frowning. “Could have sworn they said something else.”
“Said?” Stephen repeated. “Weren’t they dead?”
“I didn’t mean when they was dead, sir,” Merrick said kindly. “I mean, back in China.”
Crane choked. “What? When?”
“When I bumped into ’em back home. Good few years back, that was.”
“You knew them? Why the hell didn’t you say?”
“Why didn’t I say what?” demanded Merrick. “‘Hey, them two Chinese shamans, they was shamans from China?’ I told you every time I passed someone I ever met, we’d never talk about anything else! My lord.”
Crane glared at him. “You’re not fooling anyone, you know. So who are they?”
Merrick turned his hands up in exasperation. “I dunno, do I? They was a couple of bumpkin shamans what I met in some clapshop. Nobodies. You didn’t know them, I didn’t know them.”
“So why do you remember them?” asked Stephen.
“Well, you don’t see shamans in a whorehouse much, sir. And they was a funny-looking pair. Pretty torn up when I saw them the other day, and they’d got old, ain’t we all, but one of ’em had this, like, flower shape on his cheek, birthmark sort of thing, and the other one had a face like ma po do fu. Very pockmarked, is what I mean, sir. Stuck in the mind.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hart?” said Esther.
Everyone turned. Leonora was staring at nothing, mouth slightly open. Her skin was pallid.
“Leo?” said Crane.
“Who were the shamans, Mrs. Hart?” Esther asked.
“Pa Ma and Lo Tse-fun,” Leonora whispered. “They’re dead? And so is Rackham… Oh, no. No no no. I have to get out of here.”
“You’re going nowhere.” Crane grasped her wrist as she leapt up.
“Get off me!”
Crane tightened his grip. “Sit down.”
Leonora struggled fruitlessly. “Let me go, you bastard,” she snarled, in English, and then slapped a hand over her mouth like a child.
“Watch your language,” said Crane. “And stop playing the fool. Whatever this is about, your best chance is to tell these two about it right now.”
Leonora swallowed. “They’ll want me dead.”
“If you tell us who they are, we can stop them,” Stephen said.
“No. I mean you. You’ll want me dead.”
Stephen and Esther looked at each other.
“In the general way,” Stephen said carefully, “we don’t often want people dead.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Esther. “Why don’t you tell us about it, Mrs. Hart, and let us be the judges of what we think.”
“Nobody ain’t going to lay a finger on you, missus,” said Merrick. “Not while me and my lord are standing. You tell Mr. Day about it and don’t worry no more.”
“Since when did you talk to the law?” demanded Leonora in Shanghainese.
“Since his nobility’s been fucking it. You want the shortarse on your side.”
“That’ll do.” Crane spoke in English. “Sit, please.”
He pulled at Leo’s wrist once more, and she collapsed without resistance onto a chair, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“This is about Tom, isn’t it?” said Crane, watching her. “What happened? What did he do?”
“Who’s Tom?” Esther asked.
Leonora scrubbed at her face with the heels of her hands. “My husband. He was a…businessman, in Shanghai.”
“Tom had a small legitimate trading concern, and a rather larger illegitimate one,” Crane said crisply. “He ran a few smuggling operations as well as funding various less-than-reputable businesses. He was pretty ruthless and a bad man to cross. On you go.”
“He loved you,” Leonora said reproachfully.
“I loved him. What did he do?”
“Pa and Lo. They were shamans. From Xishan, in the countryside. But they didn’t want to be shamans, they wanted to be city boys. Do you—is it the same for shamans here?”
“I doubt it.” Crane looked at the two justiciars. “Chinese shamans are more like a priesthood, like monks even. There’s rigorous training, asceticism, they don’t drink or gamble or use drugs. They can marry but they don’t whore. They live rightly.”
“Well, Pa and Lo weren’t like that,” Leonora said. “I think they’d run away from Xishan. They wanted to live the life in Shanghai, but they had no money and really, they were a pair of bumpkins, utterly hopeless. And Tom…well, he saw an opportunity.”
“To…?”
“To use their skills. That was wha
t Tom did, he got people to do things for him. And here were these two country boys, all they wanted was to go drinking and whoring and gambling without getting taken away for re-education by the other shamans, and they had these astonishing powers. So Tom took them under his wing.”
“Hold on.” Crane was frowning. “When was this? I don’t remember any of this.”
“You were in the north that year, playing the fool with that warlord. It started after you’d gone, and ended long before you were back.” Leo took a deep breath. “Pa and Lo were stupid and greedy and lazy, but they weren’t particularly bad men. Not at first. But something happened to them. Corruption.” Her eyes were distant. “They went bad. They became nasty drunks. They liked their work for Tom too much.”
“Doing what?”
“Reminding people to pay their bills. Setting up deals. Solving problems. That sort of thing.”
“Shamans did that stuff?” Merrick sounded shocked.
Leonora shrugged impatiently. “You know how Tom was. He kept them supplied with drink and girls and opium and let them gamble in his places, and they did what he needed. I didn’t like them. They were just the usual sort at first, but they changed. They began to frighten me, eventually.”
“Perhaps Chinese shamans have a reason for their rules,” said Esther mildly.
“And then Rackham got in trouble. He was working with them and Tom, as an intermediary of sorts. And he asked for help, and Pa and Lo went, and… The girl died.” She bit her lip. “They killed her.”
“Shamans?” said Crane. “Shamans killed a girl?”
Leonora nodded, staring at her intertwined hands. “I don’t know if they meant to. They said it was an accident. But she was dead. So Tom helped them to…you know.”
“Cover it up?” Crane could sense Stephen’s eyes on him and felt the unfamiliar, unwelcome prickle of shame.
“But someone found out anyway. Another shaman came to Tom. He knew all about it. He said Pa and Lo would be taken for judgement and Rackham would be handed over for murder. He said Tom would be judged too for his part in corrupting them. He was angry and he threatened them and—” She licked her lips. “They panicked. Pa and Lo and Rackham. I suppose he wasn’t expecting them to fight, but they did. They killed him.”
“Another shaman. While I was in the north.” Crane’s voice sounded hollow in his own ears, and an awful suspicion was building at the back of his mind.
“He’d come alone. Shamans usually work alone in China,” Leonora added to Esther. “And Rackham said if we put the body in an iron box, and threw it in the harbour, it couldn’t be traced. So that’s what we did. And—”
“Hang on.” The same unwelcome thought had obviously just hit Merrick. “This shaman, missus. You ain’t saying—”
“Xan Ji-yin,” said Crane. “Tom had Xan Ji-yin killed? Tom?”
“He didn’t have him killed! It just…happened.”
“Mother fuck!” Crane leapt up from his seat and stalked over to the window. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Gold. My apologies.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Esther dryly. “Make amends by telling me who this man was.”
Crane put his hands through his hair. “One of the most powerful, influential shamans in Shanghai. His disappearance was still a scandal when we came back from Manchuria. They never stopped looking for him. Imagine knocking the Archbishop of Canterbury on the head and chucking him in the Thames.”
Esther whistled, unladylike. “The body wasn’t found?”
“Not by the time we left, and that was less than a year ago. This must be what, thirteen years back?”
“But what about those flagpoles? I thought dreadful things happened if you didn’t bury shamans properly.”
“You said something about their souls becoming vampires.” Stephen’s voice was professional and unemotional. “That’s rather close to this Java business, the anitu. Souls of the dead taking animal form for purposes of murder.”
“You think it’s this Xan chap possessing the rats?” said Esther thoughtfully. “Well, that would be interesting.”
“That’s not the word,” Crane snapped. “Surely to God that’s not possible. It was on the other side of the world!”
Esther shrugged. “What did this precious pair, and Rackham, do after murdering the archbishop?”
“Tom got rid of them. He sent Pa and Lo to the other end of China and put Rackham on a ship to Macao, told them all never to come back. I never heard anything about Pa or Lo again. Rackham came back a few years later, after Tom died, with an opium habit.” Leonora looked around helplessly. “I thought it was over. I forgot about it.”
Crane sat down and put his face in his hands. “You forgot.”
“Well, what did you want me to do?” snapped Leonora. “Get the harbour dredged and present his bones to the next of kin? Go to a nunnery? The man’s dead!”
“Who’s avenging him?” asked Stephen.
Leonora shook her head. “I don’t know. He had apprentices, followers. It could be anyone.”
“You don’t agree?” Stephen asked Crane, watching his face.
“It doesn’t feel right. I can’t help thinking they’d have come on a lot stronger if it was Xan’s followers. Taken Pa and Lo and Rackham back for judgement, confronted you directly. I’d have expected rather more of a performance made of it. This business with the rats is vengeance, not justice. Especially with the Ratcliffe Highway deaths. That’s not what shamans—true shamans—would do.”
Esther nodded. “What about the girl?”
“Which girl?” asked Leonora blankly.
“The one whose murder your husband concealed,” Stephen said. Crane felt himself flinch along with Leo. “Who was she?”
Leonora reddened. “I wasn’t thinking— I don’t know who she was. Her name was Arabella. She was with the Baptist mission. I don’t know anything else. Tom didn’t tell me and I didn’t want to know.”
“Rackham had an English girl killed?” said Crane incredulously.
“Is that worse than a Chinese girl?” asked Esther.
“Less usual. Was her body dumped too?” Crane asked Leo.
“I don’t know. I suppose so.”
“Right,” Stephen said. “So we have our link between the rat victims. There remains the possible Java connection—anything coming back to mind on that, Mrs. Hart? No? And other than that, we have two very clear motives of vengeance. We need to know who this Arabella was. Lord Crane, can you assist?” he asked formally.
I know that you know that everyone in this room knows I’m fucking you. Please, don’t do this. Crane made himself meet Stephen’s neutral look with an equally blank one. “I can ask. Cryer will recall a name if anyone does.”
“Then you and I will go to Mr. Cryer. Esther and Mr. Merrick will stay with Mrs. Hart for now, in case of rats. Es, whistle up the others please. If the rats come after Mrs. Hart again, keep a couple alive for me, and we will track this back. If not, we’ll leave her with Joss, and the rest of us will go chase down any connections or, failing that, turn Limehouse over for friends or relatives of this man Xan.”
“You’re assuming Lord Crane and Mr. Merrick’s cooperation,” Esther observed mildly.
“Yes, I am,” Stephen said. “You’d better change, Lord Crane.”
Esther and Stephen left them in the drawing room. Crane changed his clothes rapidly, knowing Leo didn’t care.
“Well, this is a fuck-up,” remarked Merrick in Shanghainese, handing him his trousers.
“It is, yes.”
“That’s him? The little one? Yours?” Leo asked.
“Yes.” I hope.
“Not your usual type,” she observed.
“His usual type is dangerous buggers,” Merrick said. “And there’s no change there. Do not piss Mr. Day about.”
“What are they going
to do to me?” she asked in a thread of a voice.
“Nothing,” Crane said. “You’re not in their jurisdiction. Things are different here. Their job is to stop people misusing magic. They might not be very impressed with that story, but unless they find out you personally murdered Xan or the girl, they’ve nothing to say to you.”
“Then why are you scared?” asked Leonora.
Crane pulled on his coat with no respect for its quality. “Let’s just get on, shall we?”
Chapter Thirteen
Crane and Stephen took a hackney to Town’s lodgings, which were in the Holborn area, more for private conversation than to save the walk, although no conversation was forthcoming at first. Finally, Crane took a deep breath and started somewhere.
“Are you all right? With the Golds?”
“Maybe. Probably. It depends how Esther feels once she’s stopped being happy I’m not a warlock. But, well, I said I’d understand if she wanted a new partner, and she said yes, she wanted one who wasn’t congenitally stupid, so I think things might be all right. You can say ‘I told you so’ if you want.”
Crane let out a long breath, feeling one knot of tension ease. “I’m glad.”
“I suppose they always knew, really. Dan wasn’t surprised, was he?”
“Not at all.”
“What were you talking about with him?”
“He was trying to decide if I’m good enough for you.” Crane grinned at Stephen’s expression. “Not quite in those words, of course.”
“He, er, can be a bit blunt sometimes,” Stephen said cautiously.
“So can I. It’s entirely reasonable, Stephen. He’s your friend, he’s concerned for you.”
“And look what I did to him, what I put him through. I’ve told you about the craving for power—well, you saw it then. It was a foul thing to do to him without warning.”
“He said he’s had worse,” Crane commented. “And, if I may say so, you had the same thing happen to you out of nowhere four months back, and you haven’t been madly craving power ever since, have you?” He paused. “Have you? Shit. Stephen—”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t. How hard has this been for you?” Crane felt a surge of guilt, another unfamiliar sensation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”