Steam Dogs (17 page)
Authors: Sharon Joss
Alderman Emmet Fitzhugh waiting for him when Roman arrived at his
home on Alfred Street, off West Ferry Road. Fitzhugh showed the Inspector smears
on the filthy window pane where the thief had gained access to the second
floor. Metal scratches in the windowpane casements indicated the intruder had
somehow managed to scale the exterior piping and use a metal tool to gain
access, all without making a sound. If not for the smears in the sooty residue
on the copper pipe, Roman might have dismissed Fitzhugh’s claim that there had
been a break-in at all.
This was not the work of a drunken lout who’d lost a week’s wages,
but a professional. It had to be someone unfamiliar with the Island. No
respecting London second story man would come to the Island to steal a man’s
wallet. Quite the contrary, most people came to the Island to starve to death.
Roman prided himself in knowing the faces, if not the names of
every man, woman, and child living on the Island. None of them had the skills
to pull this sort of a job. Had to be someone from the Mainland, then.
Or the continent.
His thoughts strayed to the airships and their foreign crews up at
the hangar. There had already been one suspicious bit of action up there. The
Italians had a badly damaged ship, which would be costly to repair. Yet, Captain
Paretti had seemed angrier that the French had not apologized than concerned
about paying for the repairs. Of course, neither team looked to be able to
afford such repairs.
Interesting.
He checked in with the owner at the Tyndall Iron Works. Yes,
Terrance informed him, Captain Paretti had paid cash to allow two of his men to
use his forge to make repairs and the custom spare parts he needed to repair
his ship. Money was hard to come by these days, and the Captain had paid half
up front and the other half just this morning. Neither of his men at the forge
seemed to speak English, but both were obviously skilled smiths.
Interesting.
The scratches s on Fitzhugh’s window had been caused by a metal
tool.
Roman thanked the smithy for the information and he headed back
along Ferry road. His thoughts continually wandered toward the wanker, Simon
Atters. A man of no particular role within the crew. Introduced only as a
childhood friend of the captain. Those fine clothes of his couldn’t disguise
the fact that the man had the lean and wiry build of sneak thief.
Very
interesting.
He walked through the heavy evening mist toward the Tavern,
pondering the possibility that Atters might be his second story man. The more
he thought about it, the better he liked the idea. Fitzhugh claimed he’d had
better than 600₤ in his wallet. The bill settled by Captain Paretti at
the Iron Works had been for the staggering sum of 430₤--and was paid in
British currency. Best to check in with the bank in Millwall and see if a large
currency exchange transaction had been performed recently. Something like
that--.
A lone figure stood in the marsh a dozen meters off the road. The
figure seemed to be hunched over, as if examining something lying in the brown
marsh grass. Something about the figure seemed familiar.
Roman stopped. Beside him, Henry whined; his body rigid with
attention.
“Constable?” As soon as he said it, he realized his mistake. When
the figure turned, the face was transparent.
It was Stackpoole, alright.
Roman experienced a sad, twisting pull at his heart. If not for
the rain, he probably wouldn’t have seen the ghostly visage. He settled his
hand on the truncheon at his belt. “Easy, Henry,” he said, his voice low.
The faceless figure seemed to be pleading with him. Trying to show
him something.
Never before had he recognized a wraith. In a few more days, this
one would lose any semblance it might have had to the living. Unnerving as
hell, but he knew it could not harm him. The dead cannot touch the living. He
closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
That’s not Stackpoole.
But when he opened his eyes, the figure was still there. Even from
this distance, a palpable and terrible miasma of earth magick and sadness
emanated from the wraith. It stared at him, its cavernous mouth frozen in a
silent scream.
Roman pressed his lips to a thin line, knowing he had just found
the body of Constable Owain Stackpoole.
Welsie could see the want in Simon’s eyes as Nuncio
helped her from the balloon’s basket. The crowd pressed close around them, and
Nuncio was right there, already helping another customer to board. Captain
Arvel was there too, and she thanked him and made her excuses.
She gathered her skirts and strode determinedly back
toward the Tavern, her heart pounding. Once inside, s
he made a beeline to the tap
and drew herself a small ale. She drank it in one long swallow, her hands
trembling so badly she could barely hold the glass.
Good heavens, she’d almost kissed him.
She wiped the foam from her lips. More than that, she still wanted
to.
The airman was kind, and even if he seemed a bit too sure of
himself, exciting, and a little bit dangerous.
Even after the tavern began to fill with the day’s customers, her
mind was elsewhere. She broke a plate, and even brought Mrs. Ainsley an ale,
instead of her usual sherry.
The way he looked at me...
She spilled beer on
Mrs. Hennessey and used so much force slicing the mushrooms, she cut her finger
again. She bound the wound, wondering yet again of the choice she’d made when
she’d married Hamm.
She’d wanted a home of her own and security for her children, and
had been more than willing to work hard for it. The wife of a Ferryman seemed
respectable and secure. And then when the children didn’t come, he’d blamed
her. He’d blamed her as well for the loss of the passenger ferry business, and
doubly so for the success of the Tavern. It wasn’t that they fought—it was
that they never spoke.
Simon’s arrival had brought the undeniable realization home to her—the
thought of spending the rest of her life in a cold marriage to Hamm seemed a
bitter future indeed.
But what to do? Run the pub on my own? I do that now. The lease is
in Hamm’s name.
Move in with one of my brothers and their families? Both are
barely scraping by as it is. Gareth’s wife doesn’t care for me, and Raleigh has
fallen into the drink, just like Da did. I’ve nowhere to go, and only a few
pounds hidden away. I can’t leave.
But I can’t live like this any longer, either. I’ve got to talk to
Hamm.
This time, I will
make him
speak to me.
But Hamm did not come in for lunch at mid-day. When several people
came in to demand a refund for the ferry, she ran down to the dock to check on
the
Hound of the Mist
. It was tied up
to the dock as usual, but empty. Cully told her he hadn’t seen Hamm all day. This
had never happened before. She sent Cully home, telling him to come back
tomorrow. As the afternoon wore on, her concern turned to worry.
Something must’ve happened to him, but what?
She’d have to do something. She couldn’t ask Cully to take over;
he didn’t have a captain’s license and didn’t know the river. By law, the ferry
had to keep to the posted schedule, or risk a fine.
She kept listening for the tinkle of the bell at back door to the
kitchen, announcing his presence, but when the clock struck six and he still
hadn’t shown for his evening meal, she fretted. None of the regulars had seen
him. She bustled from the tap room to the kitchen and back again, unable to
make up her mind. Close up the pub and walk up to Cubitt Town to report him
missing or wait until Roman showed up for dinner? The inspector hadn’t been in
yet either, but sometimes Roman came late; just before she closed up for the
night. But what if something
had
happened to Hamm? She should report his disappearance to the
authorities—the sooner the better, eh?
No. That was worry talking. The
Hound of the Mist
was still tied up to the dock. Wherever he was,
Hamm would never leave his boat. He’d be back. He’d gone on an errand, and it
was taking longer than he planned, that’s all. Probably over at the iron works,
getting a part fixed.
Of course, they
close at dusk…
At the same time, her thoughts kept straying to the brilliant
skies above the clouds she’d seen from the basket of that elegant balloon with Simon,
a handsome, clever man who wanted her.
A heady realization that; one that could turn the head of almost
any woman. Handsome, he was. And those blue eyes; well, above the clouds like
that, he was well nigh irresistible. At least she’d had the good sense not to
kiss him.
But even as she remembered, her heart pounded and she had to
admit, that she’d wanted to. He made her skin tingle every time his eyes met
hers. He made her feel alive. Compared to the exotic and dashing Simon Atters.
the idea of kissing Hamm Foine held all the appeal of an empty keg of ale.
Had she ever felt that way about Hamm? She tried to remember how
she’d felt kissing Hamm on their wedding night, but couldn’t. She wondered how
different her life might have been if she’d met and married Simon Atters nine
years ago, and blushed. A very different sort of life indeed.
Just thinking about
all the places they would have traveled to made her smile.
When Mr. Ainsley and his wife asked after Hamm, she told them he
had a family emergency in Portsmouth and would be back tomorrow.
Roman proceeded directly to the station house, not even stopping
in at the Steam Dog Tavern for dinner,. He had not found Stackpoole’s body
after all, but was certain that the constable was no longer among the living.
At the station house, there was a telegram waiting for him in his
message box, but Roman slipped it into his pocket without looking at it. Until
he made his report, everything else would have to wait.
He caught up to Superintendent Wickes at his desk, just as the
senior officer was leaving for dinner, and laid Stackpoole’s heavy truncheon on
the man’s desk. “I found that in the marsh grass along Ferry Road, below the
air field.”
Wickes’s hand froze as he reached for the baton. An enormous canine
tooth was embedded in the thickest part of the wood.
“That is Stackpoole’s badge number carved on the handle, Sir. If
that tooth belonged to whatever attacked the Constable, surely, he is dead.”
Wickes was a man who most appreciated facts. Roman could not tell
Wickes of the wraith or the sadness he’d felt emanating from Stackpoole’s
shade, or his own feelings of guilt and loss. That would simply not do. Instead,
he described the earlier report of the missing sailors and blood splatters
found near the outer walls of the Lumber Dock and the airship hangar.
Wickes used his pocket knife to pry the broken tooth from the dense
mahogany club. The massive canine lay on the desk between them—two inches
of pointed yellow ivory. “Was there any blood?”
“It was too dark.” Roman struggled to keep the anger out of his
voice. “I’ll go back tomorrow and search in daylight.”
Wickes gave him a sharp look. “Then how did you manage to find
this?”
The superintendent had risen through the ranks in the station
rough area of Whitechapel in East London. He was no islander—he had never
walked the beat here. He didn’t know what it was like out there, but the man was
no fool.
“Ah, the dog,
actually.” Roman nodded to Henry, standing attentively beside him. He prayed
Wickes wouldn’t see the heat of his lie in his face.
Wickes selected a file from the right-hand drawer of his desk and
slid it across to Roman.
“It’s from Stackpoole. A messenger delivered that a few hours ago.
Intolerable conditions, he says. A delicate constitution, I’d say.”
Roman read the neatly typed resignation letter signed by Owain
James Stackpoole. He shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. How did his
truncheon end up in the marsh? And what about that tooth?”
“Perhaps,” Wickes leaned across the desk and took back the file
and letter. “He threw it away in disgust when he decided to quit, and one of
one of McGann’s missing beasties found it.”
“With all due respect,
I don’t think that’s from a dog. He told me--.”
“What are you saying,
Greenslade?” Wickes picked up the tooth up between his thumb and forefinger.
“What else could it be?” The superintendent glared at him with a dubious
expression.
Roman dared not say anything that might make him appear unsteady. He
had worked hard to earn his Inspector ranking, and could not allow Stackpoole’s
superstitions to put him on thin ice with the Superintendent. As the first Inspector
in the Island’s history, he knew better than to speculate in front of his
superior officer.
He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know, Sir. That fang is
bigger than any dog’s tooth I’ve seen. Something tore Mrs. Walker’s goats to
pieces last week, and there are others who’ve lost livestock recently.” He
quailed under the Wicke’s sharp-eyed gaze. Better to retreat now and come back
when he had the facts. “But I suppose that letter makes the issue moot. If that
tooth is from one of McGann's dogs, something ought to be done about it.”
“Already seen to,
Inspector.” Wickes seemed pleased by the suggestion. “Sir Magnus Vetch has assigned
one of his men to round up all the loose dogs. No doubt John Raikes will put an
end to these shenanigans before long. Better him than us, eh?” Wickes relaxed
back into his chair, and the tension in the room dissipated. “But I agree, a
bit of caution is in order. I’ll have the men to carry their cutlasses until
these ferals are caught. I’m not eager to admit to HQ that we’ve had another
man quit on us, but it wasn’t all that surprising to lose Stackpoole, now is
it? A lot of fellows wash out in their first few months.”
Roman picked up the tooth to examine it. A peculiar tingle crawled
across his skin; something he hadn’t felt for many years. A memory stirred;
something he’d long forgotten. Something he’d hoped to never feel again. He
quickly set the fang back on the desk. A sense of unease gnawed at his gut.
He’d had his suspicions before, but now he was certain—Stackpoole had not
been killed by a dog.
Or any other living thing.
There had been no signature on the resignation letter, merely his
name typed at the bottom. And even the wording of the resignation letter didn’t
sound like the man he knew at all. But pushing the issue without hard evidence
would not do him any favors in Wickes eyes. Better to keep the Superintendent
in the dark until he had more evidence than the actions of a marsh wraith.
The tooth’s invisible stain burned his bare skin. If not washed
off would continue to spread across the rest of his skin. He needed to get out
of here.
“On a happier note,”
Wickes locked the file into his desk drawer. “Billings is awake. I want you to
check in at the hospital and take his statement. See if he remembers anything
useful.”
That was it then. Stackpoole’s resignation letter explained away
everything. Roman immediately understood that any actions on his part to
investigate the issue further would have to be on his own.
“Will do, Sir.” As soon as he left the room, Roman used his
handkerchief to vigorously wipe his fingers; trying to remove the lingering
taint of magick.