The Chocolatier's Wife (24 page)

Yours,
e
ventually,

Tasmin

She
couldn’t
sleep.
She
wanted
to,
but
she
couldn’t.
They wouldn’t
give
her
a
c
cess
to
the
records,
and
neither
Andrew
nor William
had been allowed to read them. Apparently they were
delivered to the head of the house; the delivery boy waited and watched to make sure
nothing
was
done
to
the
record,
even
though
it
was
just
a
copy, and
then took
it away.

The
lawyer,
too, had
been
allowed
to
see
them,
and he
seemed
fairly grim.

She
tried
to
reconstruct
the
matter
in
her
head.
Bishop
Kingsley
was a
man
with
whom
William
had
had
a
good
working
relationship
but
no personal dealings. She’d asked William
questions from
all angles, and
he’d answered
them
patiently
enough.
She
realized
he
was
thinking,
too, trying to make
sense of the whole lot.

The sprites were in rare form, chasing each other around the room.
At
one
point
William’s
writing
quills
exploded
out
of
the
green
glass
jar he
kept
them
in,
and
now
the
sprites
were
running through
the
curtains, the
fabric
giving
a
little
jump
as
the
hard
puffs
of
air
hit
them.
“Please, please,
would
you
go
play
somewhere
else?”
she
moaned
and covered
her head.
They
were
often
affected
by
her
emotions,
and
she
rea
l
ized
they
were feeling chaotic,
as was she.

So,
William
was
not
the
killer.
But
someone
wanted
to
blame
him
for it.
Who
wanted
to
see
William
hang?
If
she
could
figure out
who
the
two men
(she
refused
to
use
the
word
victim
in
connection
to
William)
knew in
common,
then
maybe
she
could
create
a
pool
of
suspects
from which
to draw.

How
could
she
possibly
do
that
in
two
days? Both
the
Bishop
and William had
grown
up
here.
William had
traveled
the
world
for
trade,
the Bishop
had
completed
many
tours
for
diplomacy.
Two
years
would
not
give her the time to track
down every possible connection.

Well, maybe she was being a little pessimistic; after all, the person had to
have
been
here
to
commit
the
murder, right?
And
it
had
to
have
been someone who really hated the Bishop,
or
William,
or
both.

She
leapt
out
of
bed,
drew
on
her
dressing
robe, and
went
below.
The sprites
were
playing
their
favorite
game
of
“let’s
open
this
door
and
see what’s
inside”,
which
meant
that
nearly
every
door
in the
kitchen
was hanging
open.
One
to
her
left
was
wiggling
as
a
sprite
worked
the
lock,
and it
flew open,
revealing
nothing
but
the
smell
of
cocoa.
There
was
a
coo
of disappointment
at
the
empty
cupboard.
She
hummed
in
consolation, but did
not
shut
the
cupboards,
knowing
they
would
when
they
were
done,
and if
they
were
not
in
the
mood
to,
well,
she
could
do
it
just
as
well
in
the morning
rather
than
having
to repeat the job twice tonight.

She
heated
a
little
milk
and
added
the
last
of
her
private
stock
of
cacao powder
to
it,
stirring carefully,
and
then
setting
it
out
for
them
to
drink. “Poor babies,”
she
said.
“I
know it’s
hard
for
you,
here.
Come
and
have
a drink,
sweethearts.”

She
felt
invisible hands
clinging
to
her,
petting
her
hair
before
diving down
to
drink
from
the
wide,
low
saucer. Someone
squealed
something,
a long,
drawn
out
howl
she
could
have
sworn
sounded
like
“wait!”
and
a
door in
the stone wall next to her opened.

Cocoa-milk
splashed,
but
she
didn’t
see
it,
she
was
too
busy
looking
at the door she’d never
seen before.

She
took a
candle
over and
looked
inside.
The
police
had
missed
the place
as
well,
she
could
tell
from
the
lack
of
marks in
the
dust.
She
leaned in,
one
hand on
the
wall
of
the
opening,
careful
to
keep
the
door
open
as she assessed the space.

A
puff
of
air
settled
on
her
shoulder,
she
heard
the
roar of
wind
on
the waves
as
invisible
wings
fluttered next
to
her
ear
and
knew
the
clan
chief himself,
Nee-no,
was
taking
an interest
in what
had
been
found.
She
could step inside, then,
and
if the door did close, surely he would get her out?

So,
taking
a
deep
breath,
she
walked
into
the
room,
letting
the
door
shut and
dar
k
ness settle.
“Well,
let’s
see
how
easy
it
is
to
get
out?”
She
turned around
and
pushed
the
stone,
and
it
opened
again,
easily,
on
well
oiled
and well hidden hinges. She let it go,
and
it shut again,
silently.

“It’s
not
very
big.”
Even
with
the
candle,
she
felt
herself
taking rapid breaths, and
she
knew
a
long
limbed
man
like
William would
go
mad
in such
a
small
space.
The
clan
head
left
her
shoulder,
yet
she
could
still
hear the
roaring
of
the
waves
in
the
small
space,
doubtless
the
echo
of
the
chief’s wings. She coughed, feeling smothered. “Enough!” The door opened for her
and
Tasmin
ran
out,
panting. It
was
more
from
the
dust,
she
thought, than
feeling
trapped
in
such
a
small
space;
her
mouth
felt
as
if
it
were
filled with
cotton.
Behind
her, the
chief
was
too
far away
for her
to
understand his
words,
but
there
was
an
imperious
squeal.
The
dust
from
the
room was
being
collected,
the
sprites
outlined
in
gray
as
the
particles
stuck to
them,
and
for
the
first time
in
a
while,
she
could
see
them,
charming little Tatu with her pig-tails, Moru with his single braid of hair and fierce, always
displeased
expression,
and the
great
clan head
Nee-no.
There
were many
others,
at
least
thirty
strong, but
she
realized
that
their
bellies
were distended
with
dust,
dust
that
had
to
go
somewhere.
The
shu
t
ters
flew
open before
she
could
unlatch
them,
the
sprites
huffing
years
of
dust
out
into
the street.
She
winced,
and
hoped
no
one
was
looking,
but
felt
pleased.
No
one could
de-dust
a
room
better
than
her
sprites,
and
she
didn’t
like
the
idea of
anyone
breat
h
ing
dirt,
for
even
her
best
efforts
on
her
own
would
not
be good enough to get every bit.