The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (39 page)

“Yes.”

“The day you talked to Analaea?”

A twinge in his middle. “Yes…”

She snapped the note back to her face, looking at it once more. “‘Deserved to die,’” she read. “Why? And why tell you that? Why would that make a difference? Why tell
you
anything?” She swirled away. She wore a gown that would have been outdated two hundred years ago, and she looked like she was going to a costume party. Her hair was held back with a net of pearls, discoloured with age, and her massive skirts rustled and moved like a living thing about her legs. “Did you see anything?” she asked him again.

“No,” he repeated.

“Did your
sister
see anything?”

“
No
.” His voice rose, but she was oblivious to his tone, turning the note over and over in her hands. “She saw someone standing over her in the dark. She’s exhausted, remember, and she’s sedated.”

“Has there been anything else odd?” she asked. She turned in circles like an agitated cat. He could practically see her tail lashing and whiskers twitching. “Has anything happened out of the ordinary?”

So
much of both that he didn’t even know how to begin filtering it. Doctor Francis Livingston and his strange but increasingly tempting offer were hardly relevant. Nor was Avery Combs, with his slimy smile and poison charm. The rapport growing between him and his governess was nothing Olivia wanted to hear about. Fernand telling him they’d run out of money, White Clover Farms and rogue cloudlings, reporters showing up late in the evening to try and talk to the little wizardling, salamanders in the night…

He halted at the last, remembering. Miss Albany against his side, the two of them standing in the dim light, barely breathing, while the hot orange glow pulsed right outside the door. He’d thought of it the morning after the home invasion, but things had been so mad ever since Ana had died.

“Someone followed me home,” he said. “The day before that. Maerday. They broke a light and ran off.”

She snapped her eyes to his again. “And what else did you do Maerday.
No
―” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth to respond. “No, I remember. I sent you snooping. You found the room, with the drop of blood.” Her gaze sharpened. “You talked to Analaea that day, too, didn’t you?” And before he could respond, she set off again. “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “I don’t understand. Why you? Why the assistant? Why threaten
you
?”

My sister,
he wanted to crow.
They threatened my sister! I didn’t bring this to you for evidence. I brought it so you could help me!
With all his restraint, he produced the latching wooden case lined with fine velvet he’d purloined from the kitchens. “It was pinned to the door frame. With this,” he said.

Olivia barely looked up at his voice. She looked at the case with disinterest. “What’s in it?” she asked, and, when he didn’t immediately reply, stormed up and seized it. One-handed, she threw the latch and flung it open, and then looked down into the box at the single large, sharp knife tucked in where normally an entire cooking set would be. No one had used the box for a decade. It had seemed as good a way as any to transport a potential weapon.

He didn’t know what sort of reaction he’d expected. But at the sight of the knife, Olivia’s breath all left her lungs like a rush of sylphwind. Her eyes bulged and her mouth fell open, and she stared down into the box like it held the crown jewels themselves. “A knife,” she breathed, with such reverence she could have been speaking the name of a god.

She dropped the note as if it were nothing and it fluttered away. Her second hand came up to cradle the old knife case like a holy relic. Once again indifferent to his presence, she started off toward the mirror, eyes never leaving the precious artifact she held before her. She set it down on the table gently and she struck out a frequency on the chimes. Clouds filled the mirror as the gnome reached out, searching for its cousin to link with, and Olivia’s gaze never left the knife.

If we had that knife…

Against his better sense, he felt a tiny ball of rolled up excitement quivering in the pit of his stomach. He saw what she did.

When the mist in the mirror cleared, Chris could barely make out the freckled face of Officer Maris Dawson. “Faraday,” she said, sounding confused. “What can I help you with? Is it the daughter’s autopsy report? We have it, but there isn’t anything especially―”

“I need to see William,” Olivia interrupted in a rush, raising her eyes eagerly to the policewoman’s. “Today. Right now. As soon as humanly possible, I need to see him.”

A silence. Then, “William? Today?”

Olivia took the knife in both hands, blade and hilt both balanced on her index fingers. She raised it to the mirror, and what Chris could see of Officer Dawson’s face transformed immediately. “Where did you get that?”

“Somewhere suspicious enough to try,” Olivia replied. Her voice had a ragged edge of excitement.

The policewoman’s reply was slow and uncertain. “Faraday,” she said. “There are channels. There’s a process. Paperwork, set-up, appointments. Mister Cartwright isn’t even working today. We’d need to call him in. We’d need to push a lot of important clerical things to one side, and―”

“Maris, please!” Olivia’s voice was sharp, and Chris started at the genuine desperation he heard in it. “Please! You’ve pushed it before, when it was necessary. I’m
floundering
, here. I know who did it. I do. I just need proof, but it’s been almost a week and everything is getting cold and who knows when another body might show up?” There was a pause, and whatever Olivia saw on the policewoman’s face must have encouraged her. “We could end this case right now, today. If I see the Duchess in this, that’s it. We all go home!”

“And if you don’t see the Duchess?”

“We arrest whoever we see, instead.” One final pause, and Olivia extended the knife forward further as though offering it. “Maris, come on. You saw the girl yesterday. Don’t you want to put this one away?”

A growl, then, “I want every piece of paperwork you owe me in on time without delay for the next month, or we’re going to have a problem.”

Olivia would have clapped her hands if she weren’t holding a possible murder weapon. “Yes! Of course!”

“Done by you,” Officer Dawson elaborated. “Not Buckley,
you
.”

“Naturally!”

Officer Dawson sighed. “Be here in an hour,” she grunted. “And
you
can deal with Cartwright.”

The moment the policewoman’s face was no longer visible in the mirror, Chris could no longer keep his silence. The tiny centre of excitement he’d felt before was growing, and despite all that had happened, despite how little she seemed to care that Rosemary had been threatened, he felt an eagerness, a thrill at the thought that they may actually be making progress. “You think that’s
the
knife,” he said.

She set it back into case, arranging it and then closing the cover and flipping the latch with a quiet
snap
. When she turned back to him, she was grinning. The feelings he was experiencing himself were plain on her face, though the animalistic gleam in her pointed canine teeth was unsettling enough that he didn’t like to think of himself exhibiting anything similar. “I’m surprised you didn’t think of it,” she said.

It seemed as good a time as any to remind her why, exactly, he’d brought it to her. “My sister…” he said, letting his voice trail off and hoping she’d take the rest of his meaning from there. He watched her as she stopped at the door and slipped the knife case into her handbag. She didn’t seem to be drawing any conclusions. She reached for her still-dripping wrap and rain-speckled umbrella. “My
sister
,” he said again, and then, furrowing his brow. “What are you doing?”

As she turned to him, she popped the umbrella and a shower of droplets peppered the room and his suit. She met his indignant stare with an innervated grin. “We’re walking to the station,” she chirped, and then looked him up and down imperiously. “Get your boots on, Mister Buckley!”

Olivia’s whim to walk could not be discouraged. Chris huddled beneath his umbrella, feet soaked even in his rubber boots, as they made their way down slick, soused sidewalks and splashed through puddles that were growing larger by the moment. All the fury the clouds had held back the day before was unleashed, and the world couldn’t have been greyer or wetter if it was the tears of Mother Deorwynn herself falling on Darrington.

Despite the truly horrific weather, Olivia seemed possibly more energetic than Chris had ever seen her. While he tried to make himself as small as possible, miserable in his drenched coat and trousers soaked up to the calves, Olivia danced along the street like it was a warm, sunny summer day. She splashed in puddles, cheerfully greeted every other person stupid enough to be outside, and didn’t seem to even notice the rain. For once, however, she didn’t chatter on about all the little trivia she usually heaped upon him when she was in these moods. She was silent, and, whenever he looked over at her, her face was animated with manic glee, her eyes far away.

She was an animal on the hunt.

He didn’t long for conversation. There were things he wanted to ask, but he had no desire to speak them. All he wanted was to be dry, and warm, and since Olivia Faraday was the person who’d contrived to make him wet and cold, he entertained himself for most of the walk by quietly hating her.

It was easier than looking at Darrington around them.

Every church they passed streamed hymns and prayers into the road, soundshields deactivated. The faces of those they passed were sombre, and many were red and blotchy with tears. Most shops were closed, and a great number of buildings were dark and strange and empty looking from the road. The rain had chased most of the usual loud doomsayers, lamenters, and sneering traditionalist malcontents off the streets and into teashops and cigar parlours, but that didn’t make it any less obviously the day it was.

The station itself was one of the mildest offenders they saw. Brightly lit against the gloom that rain like this always brought with it, streaming with police officers going about their business as usual, the only sign of the date whatsoever was a small display near the door bearing the Mark of Three and surrounded with drooping flowers experiencing various degrees of water log. Olivia stopped to stare at it as curious police officers passed them by, crooking one eyebrow. “Yes,” she murmured, as if to herself, “I’m sure that’s very comforting to everyone you’re making work today, Your Majesty.” She slipped past a handsome young officer entering the building, thanking him and batting her eyelashes. Chris had to catch the door for himself to follow after her.

He’d never been in a police station before. He looked around, a bit awed at how such a well-organized work area could be so dishevelled and confused by the presence of its workers. One long counter extended in the front, and then there were desks and workstations all spread out around the room behind it, filled with shouting, gesturing, gossiping, laughing, quiet, considering, hard at work police officers. The man at the front bent over a scattering of papers. He was a homely, middle-aged fellow with a mole on his cheek that could draw the eyes of a blind man. He looked up at their entrance, saw Olivia, and shook his head, turning back to his work without saying a single word.

Olivia stopped for only long enough to pull down her umbrella. She left ghastly puddles as she brushed past the counter into the loud, chaotic mess of police officers. Chris had no choice but to follow after her, lest he somehow manage to lose her and her ridiculous costume amidst the cacophony of sound and herds of moving officers that assaulted his senses.

Officer Dawson didn’t look up until Olivia laid a hand on her desk. She raised her head, blinked, took a second look, and one eyebrow crept upwards while her mouth pulled into a purposeful frown that seemed to be hiding some other expression. “Did you
walk
?” she asked.

“We did walk,” Olivia agreed pleasantly. She looked about rather than meet the officer’s eyes. “Where is he? It’s been at least an hour, hasn’t it?”

Officer Dawson’s eyes slid past Olivia, meeting Chris and giving him a commiserating shake of her head. “You’re soaked,” she said, looking at him and not her. “You’re
both
soaked,” she repeated after Olivia didn’t immediately say something, clarifying her point.

“Well, Maris, we’re not made of sugar and baking soda. I’m sure we’ll survive.” Olivia reached into her handbag and pulled out just the corner of the knife case, letting Officer Dawson get a look at it.

The policewoman ignored Olivia for a good minute, looking down at her desk and writing away. He felt Olivia tensing and shifting beside him, but by her silence, he sensed this was another game between the two of them. Officer Dawson was defining who was in charge of this situation. Olivia could either accept it and get what she wanted, or throw a tantrum and be told to come back later.

When the policewoman finally capped her pen and stood up, pushing her chair back, Olivia heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief, but wisely said nothing. Officer Dawson made a jerking motion with her head and then set out at a brisk walk in the direction she’d indicated.