Guards of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk and Fisher (Hawk & Fisher) (38 page)

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Authors: Simon R. Green

BOOK: Guards of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk and Fisher (Hawk & Fisher)
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Ap Owen stood before his desk, staring at the far wall. Fisher followed his gaze, but couldn’t see anything of interest. She started to ask something, and then shut up as a door appeared out of nowhere, hanging unsupported on the air a few inches above the floor. It was plain, unvarnished wood, without pattern or trimmings, but its very presence was subtly disturbing. A mounting chill emanated from it, like a cold wind blowing into the room. Fisher’s hand dropped to her sword, and she had to fight to keep from drawing it as the door swung slowly open.
The delegates appeared through the doorway, chatting quietly together, and headed for the food and wine without so much as a glance at ap Owen and Fisher. The door shut silently, and disappeared. Fisher took her hand away from her sword. Ap Owen moved in beside her and quietly identified each delegate by name. Fisher looked them over carefully without being too obvious about it.
Lord Regis of Haven was of average height and weight, and in pretty good shape for a man in his early fifties. He had dark, flashing eyes and a quick smile buried in a neatly trimmed beard. He used his hands a lot as he talked, and nodded frequently while he listened. Lord Nightingale of Outremer was twenty years younger, six inches taller, and muscular in a broad, solid way that suggested he lifted weights on a regular basis. Which was a little unusual. As far as most of the Quality were concerned, strenuous exercise was something best left to the lower classes. The Quality only exerted themselves in duelling or seducing. Usually both, as one often led to the other. Nightingale, on the other hand, looked as though he could have picked up Regis with one hand, and torn him apart with the other. If Regis was aware of this, it didn’t seem to bother him.
The two traders, Rook and Gardener, were talking together quite amicably, smiling and laughing as they rummaged through the out-of-season delicacies on the trays. Fisher’s stomach rumbled, but she made herself pay attention to the two merchants. William Gardener of Outremer was in his early forties, with thinning hair and a droopy moustache. He was skinny as a rake, but wore clothes of the very latest cut with casual elegance. Jonathon Rook was the same age, and dressed just as well, but had the kind of figure politely referred to as stout. His hands were weighed down with jewelled rings, and he paid little or no attention to the expensive food with which he was stuffing his face. Fisher moved in a little closer to listen in on their conversation. They both studiously ignored her, which suited her fine. It soon became clear that both merchants thought they had a lot to lose in the event of a war, and were pressing for peace at practically any cost. It was also clear they were finding it an uphill struggle.
Major Comber and Major de Tournay stood a little way off from the others, talking quietly and only picking at their food. They were both in their late thirties, with short-cropped hair and grim faces. They’d swapped their uniforms for civilian clothes, and Fisher was hard put to tell which of them looked the most uncomfortable. They both glared at her when she got too close, so she didn’t get to overhear what they were saying. She sensed, however, that neither one was too pleased with the way the Talks were going, from which she deduced that neither side had gained the upper hand yet.
They all finally put down their plates and turned away from the table. Captain ap Owen coughed loudly, and then again, louder still, and having got their attention, introduced Fisher to each of them. Fisher bowed formally, and got a series of perfunctory nods in reply. Lord Regis smiled at her coldly.
“Good to have you with us, Captain. Your reputation precedes you.”
“You don’t want to believe everything you hear,” said Fisher easily. “Only the bad bits.”
Regis smiled politely. “Is your partner, Captain Hawk, not here with you?”
“He’s working on a case of his own at the moment, and can’t leave it, I’m afraid. But not to worry, my lord. You’re safe in our hands.”
“I’m sure we shall be.”
“I trust you’ll pardon my interruption,” said Lord Nightingale, looking only at Lord Regis, “but we are rather short of time. Perhaps you could continue this conversation later ...”
“Of course,” said Regis.
He nodded politely to Fisher and ap Owen, and turned to face the far wall. The door reappeared, and swung silently open. Fisher shivered suddenly. She tried to see what lay beyond the door, but there was only an impenetrable darkness. The delegates filed through, and the door swung shut behind them and vanished. Fisher sank back into her chair and stretched out her legs. This was going to be a long, hard job, she could tell. She looked thoughtfully at the food left on the table, but didn’t have the energy to get up and go after it. She hoped Hawk was taking it easy, wherever he was, but doubted it. Without her to keep an eye on him, there was no telling what he’d get up to.
4
 
A Matter of Trust
 
Hawk led Captain Burns into the rotten heart of the Northside. The streets grew steadily narrower, choked with filthy snow and slush, and bustling crowds that made way for the two Guards without ever looking at them directly. Even so, they made slow progress, and Hawk had to fight to control his impatience. The pressure seemed to be bearing down on him from every side now, but he knew his only hope of dealing with it was to stay calm and controlled. His enemies would be delighted to see him striking out blindly in all directions and missing the real targets. Besides, he didn’t want to spook Burns. And yet behind his grim, impassive face, Hawk’s thoughts danced restlessly from one problem to another, searching for answers that eluded him. The super-chacal was out there somewhere, poised to sweep across the city in a tidal wave of blood and death. Morgan was out there too, hidden somewhere safe and plotting the deaths of everyone who knew the truth about his new drug. Not to mention Hammer, the gang leader from the Devil’s Hook, and his threatened vendetta.
And also back at the Hook, the little girl Hawk had rescued from underneath the wreckage was lying in a hospital bed, still in a coma. The doctors didn’t know whether she’d ever regain consciousness.
On top of all that, the Guard wanted his scalp for screwing up, and they’d taken Isobel away from him. Some days you just couldn’t get a break. Hawk realised Burns was speaking to him, and looked round sharply.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“I said,” Burns repeated patiently, “is it always this bad here? I’d heard stories, of course, but this place is disgusting.”
Hawk looked around at the squalid buildings and the ragged people, and the overriding sense of violence and despair that rose from them like an almost palpable mist. After five years working the Northside he’d grown inured to most of the misery and suffering, for the sake of his sanity, but it still disturbed him enough to appreciate how bad it must seem to an outsider. Haven was a dark city wherever you looked, but the Northside was dark enough to stamp out the light in anyone’s soul eventually. Hawk realised Burns was still looking at him for an answer, and he shrugged harshly.
“It’s quiet today, if anything. The snow and the cold are keeping most people off the streets, even the beggars, and those who are out and about aren’t hanging around long enough to start any trouble. But you can bet that somewhere, someone is starting a fight, or stabbing someone in the back for no good reason. There’s all sorts of crime here, everything you’d expect in an area as poor as this, but the violence never ends. To a Northsider, everyone is an enemy, out to steal what little he has, and most of the time he’s right. There’s little love or comfort here, Burns, and even less hope. And the only thing the Northsiders hate more than each other is an outsider. Like us.”
“How do you cope with working here?” said Bums. “I’d go crazy in a week.”
Hawk shrugged. “I’ve seen worse. All you can do is try and make a difference for the best, where you can. What brought you here from the Westside?”
“Doughty and I were filling in for some Guards who were down with the flu. When I heard they were sending us here, I seriously thought about calling in sick myself, but of course it was too late by then. Doughty didn’t mind. There wasn’t much that bothered him.”
“I’m sorry about your partner,” said Hawk.
“Yeah. He had a wife, you know. Separated three years back, but... Someone will have told her by now. I should have done it myself, but she never liked me anyway.”
They walked in silence for a while, not looking at each other.
“So, what’s the plan?” said Burns finally. “Are we headed anywhere in particular?”
“I thought we’d start off with Short Tom,” said Hawk. “Has a nice little distribution setup, down on Carlisle Street. He’ll move anything for anyone, as long as the money’s right. Not one of the biggest, but certainly one of the longest established. I doubt he’s handling the super-chacal himself, but he’ll probably have a damned good idea who might be.”
“Will he talk to us? Do you have a good relationship with him?”
Hawk looked at Burns. “This is the Northside, no one here talks to the Guard willingly. We’re the enemy, the ones who enforce the laws that keep them in their place. The poverty here’s so bad, most people will do anything to escape it. They don’t care who they rob or who they hurt. All they care about is making that one big score that will finally get them out of the Northside. You can’t reason with people like that. Short Tom will talk to me because he knows what will happen to him if he doesn’t.”
Burns stared straight ahead of him, his face expressionless. “I don’t approve of strong-arm tactics. I put on this uniform to help people, not oppress them.”
“You’ve spent too long in the Westside, Bums. They still like to pretend they’re living in a civilised city over there. Here in the Northside, they’d quite happily cut you down for the loose change in your pockets, or a chance at your boots. The only thing that keeps them off my back is the certain knowledge that I’ll kill them if they even think of raising a hand against me. I have to be obviously more dangerous than they are at all times, or I’d be a dead man. Look... I used to think the same as you, once. There are good people here, same as there are good people everywhere, and I do my best to help and protect them. Even if it means bending or ignoring the rules to do so. But when you get right down to it, my job is to enforce the law. Whatever it takes.”
“Being a Guard doesn’t give us the right to beat up someone just because we think they might have information that might help us. There are procedures, proper ways of doing things.”
Hawk sighed. “I know. I’ve read the Manual too. But the procedures take time, and for all I know, the super-chacal’s already seeping out onto the streets. I could threaten to arrest Short Tom, maybe even drag him down to Headquarters and throw him in a cell to think things over. But I couldn’t hold him for long, and he knows it. I don’t have the time to be a nice guy about this, and to be blunt, I don’t have the inclination. My way works, and I’ll settle for that. I’ve never laid a finger on an innocent man, or killed a man who didn’t deserve it.”
“How can you be sure? How can you be sure you haven’t killed an innocent man by accident? The dead can’t defend themselves from other people’s accusations. We’re Captains in the Guard, Hawk—not judge, jury, and executioner.”
“I go by what works,” said Hawk flatly. “When the people in the Northside start playing by the rules, so will I. Look, there are just four Captains and a dozen Constables to cover the whole Northside. We can’t be everywhere at once, so we have to let our reputations go ahead of us. It’s a big area, Burns, and rotten to the core. All we can ever hope to do is keep the lid on. Now, I don’t care if you approve of how I do my job or not; just watch my back and don’t interfere. The only thing that matters now is stopping Morgan and his stinking drug.”
Burns nodded slowly. “Of course, finding the super-chacal would go a long way towards reinstating you in the Guard, wouldn’t it?”
Hawk looked at him coldly. “If you think that’s the only reason I’m doing this, then you don’t know me at all.”
“Sorry. You’re right, of course. Hawk, can I ask you something ... personal?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. What?”
“What happened to your eye?”
“Oh, that. I pawned it.”
 
Short Tom’s place was a two-storey glorified lean-to, adjoining a battered old warehouse on Carlisle Street. The street itself was blocked from one end to the other by an open-air market and the tightly packed crowd it had drawn. The tattered, gaudy stalls crowded up against each other, and the vendors behind them filled the air with their aggressive patter. Most of them were bundled up to their ears in thick winter furs, but it didn’t seem to be slowing them down any. Some of them were all but jumping up and down on the spot in their attempt to explain just how magnificent and amazingly affordable their goods were. Hawk glanced at a few stalls, but wasn’t impressed. Still, with Haven’s Docks closed by the winter storms, goods of all kinds were getting scarce, and even rubbish like this was starting to look good. The smell was pretty bad, particularly around the food stalls, and Burns pulled one face after another as he and Hawk made their way slowly through the crowd. Even their Guards’ uniforms couldn’t make them any room in such a crush.
Short Tom’s lean-to loomed up before them, looking more and more unsafe the closer they got. It looked like it had been thrown together on the cheap by a builder in a hurry, trying to stay one step ahead of his reputation. The walls weren’t straight, the wood was stained and warped, and the door and window frames were lopsided. It was a mess, even by Northside standards. Still, it was no doubt cheap to rent, and for a man in Short Tom’s line of business, that was all that really mattered.

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