TWELVE
Calum left the station house, his mind swirling with questions and possibilities brought on by his last conversation with Aly.
Gibson was one of the most upstanding burgesses the city had seen in the years Calum had lived there.
He stood up for the rights of the most vulnerable, arguing against extending guilds’ powers and in favour of more support for those out of work, even when he was the lone voice in a government looking to pander to the wealthy.
It didn’t make sense that Gibson would then go to the slums and take advantage of those same vulnerable people, putting their lives in danger for his own high.
More than once it had crossed his mind that Aly was lying to him.
She was keeping secrets, of that much he was certain, but he didn’t think she was lying about this.
There was no reason for her to and besides, the ferocity and determination that underlay her actions was unmistakable; it was the same strength of will that had enabled him to survive in and, eventually, escape Faerie.
She wanted to survive, and she would do what she had to in order to do so.
Lying to the person who could help pull her out of the gutter wouldn’t achieve that.
And he didn’t want her to be lying, because that meant he was wrong about the kind of person she was.
His stomach twisted. He’d always prided himself on not allowing his personal inclinations to compromise his ability to do his job.
It didn’t matter that the witness in the Robertson case was a violent scumbag, and that the information he withheld could catch a killer; the man still had a right to be treated with civility by the police, not tortured for information.
That was what crime lords did, not coppers.
And in a sense, trusting a known thief because she reminded him of himself nine years ago was no different from what Morrison had done.
He had offered her this arrangement because he had seen something of himself in her, and because he wanted to trust her, as much as because he thought she could help him find Gibson’s killer.
If that trust proved to be well-founded, he could solve the biggest murder case the city had seen in years.
If not, it could destroy his career.
Calum rubbed a hand over his face, letting out a sigh.
He’d spent the morning interviewing Gibson’s fellow burgesses and getting nothing out of them.
They’d been cagey when asked about what bills they were working on at the moment, redirecting him again and again to the records office, but all had been outraged at the very idea that Gibson might have been killed over his work.
When he’d broached the possibility that Gibson might be less ethically driven in reality than he appeared, he’d been shunted out by assistants and had the door slammed in his face.
He’d sent Clare to the records office, but she had been unable to find anything particularly suspicious.
She’d given Calum a full list of all the bills currently passing through the council, which Calum had spent the afternoon poring over alongside Gibson’s own files, but nothing stood out as a particular reason for murder.
He turned down Harbourside Street and stopped at number twenty-two. It was the return address on the letter Lewis had given him. He knocked on the door, and moments later it was opened by a broad middle-aged woman with curling chestnut hair.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her scowl suggesting she had no interest in doing so.
Calum showed his warrant card. Graham would have his head if he knew Calum was claiming official police business on this.
His chest constricted. He was taking the law into his own hands again, and he didn’t even care.
“I wonder if I might ask you a few questions about Flora Hamilton. She’s been reported missing.
” The letter had mentioned that Margaret and Flora lived in the same boarding house, which meant Flora had lived here.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Missing? Well, do come in. I’m Ellen.
This is my house.” She led Calum past a narrow staircase and into a small parlour off the front hall, its windows so tiny that Calum suspected they let in hardly any light even during the day.
It was sparsely furnished, with a handful of wooden chairs in front of the stone fireplace and a settee under the windows. “Can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps?”
Calum waved a hand, taking a seat on the hard settee. “No, thank you. Do you serve meals to your tenants?” From what he’d seen entering the hall and the parlour, this was a traditional boarding house, and it would be expected that meals would be included in the rent.
“Aye. Breakfast and dinner.”
Calum frowned. “And yet you didn’t notice Flora’s been missing for at least a fortnight now?”
“She rarely came to meals. She often worked late, past dinnertime, and in the mornings would skip breakfast in favour of a lie in. How a young lass like that can expect to work a full day on an empty stomach I can’t fathom.
” She spoke quickly, like she was afraid Calum would interrupt if she didn’t rush through with everything she wanted to say.
Calum made a note of that in his notebook. It was plausible, but still struck him as strange that the landlady would fail to notice her tenant missing for a couple of weeks.
“I don’t keep my tenants locked up like some folk do,” she continued, which was a somewhat extreme characterisation of the common practice of the proprietor holding the only key to the house and locking the front door at night.
“They’re free to come and go at all hours as they please.
Free, too, to spend nights away without informing me, as long as their rent is paid up. ”
“And is Flora’s rent paid up?” Calum asked.
“It is. This is a respectable house. I charge by the month here.”
“You said Flora often worked late. Do you know what she did?”
Ellen clasped her hands before her, the tendons straining. “She was an apprentice tailor. That was why she worked late so often, finishing up stays and jackets for her clients.”
Calum didn’t contradict that statement; the letter to Edzan had stated that Flora had recently left an apprenticeship, and that was information she was unlikely to share with her landlady.
“When did you last see Flora?” he asked.
Ellen sucked her yellowing teeth. “Hmm, I can’t recall. She wasn’t here for the Samhain dinner, that I remember, but I’m not sure about the others.”
Margaret had reported her missing a few days before Samhain, so that was no surprise. “Did she seem strange to you at all? Worried about anything?”
Ellen shook her head. “She was always in a rush when I did see her, but no more in the last few weeks than she’s ever been.”
Calum thanked her and rose from his seat. “One more thing. I’d like to speak to your other tenants, see if any of them know anything.”
“Of course.” Ellen started for the door. “Most of them should be home at this hour, since I’m about to start making dinner. I’ll fetch them for you.”
There were five tenants in total, not including Flora herself. The first three Calum spoke to had nothing to offer. Flora wasn’t home much, they all said, and didn’t speak much when she was. The fourth one, however, a young, fair-haired man called Finlay, was slightly more informative.
“I heard her coming home sometimes,” he told Calum, his slender hands clasped tightly together in his lap.
“Her room was just across from mine. One night I heard a thump and opened my door to see if she was all right. She had tripped and fallen . . . She seemed almost drunk, but she insisted she was just knackered from long days of work. She was so tired, she said, she’d managed to cut herself on her sewing shears, which I suppose explained the blood on the sleeve of her shirt.
” His narrow face was pale as he looked at Calum.
“Do you think—do you think she was lying?”
Calum reassured Finlay as well as he could.
It was hardly uncommon for guild masters to work their apprentices hard, but to the point one would injure herself and go stumbling home crossed the line.
If she’d been telling the truth, the Guild of Tailors would have found itself in trouble had she reported them.
Of course, apprentices often didn’t report such abuses, because they were so desperate to keep their position that they didn’t want to risk retaliation.
He briefly considered the possibility that she had reported the Guild, and this was the retaliation, but dismissed it. The guilds didn’t make people disappear.
No, far more likely Finlay had got it right, and she’d been lying about everything in the first place.
Finlay departed, and a dark-haired woman with hazel eyes stepped in. Calum introduced himself, holding up his warrant card.
“You must be Margaret.” He gestured for her to sit across from him.
Margaret crossed her arms, remaining standing. She was a good twenty centimetres shorter than Calum, but somehow she still managed to look down her nose at him. “I’ve nothing to say to you.”
Calum dropped his hand. “I’m trying to find your friend.”
Margaret’s mouth twisted. “Aye. Right.”
“I know you wrote to your local burgess,” Calum went on. “You must care about finding her.”
Margaret’s eyes flashed. “Is that why you’re here? Because someone rich and important complained that your lot did nothing?” She turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving Calum no closer to learning what she might know. He moved to go after her, but Ellen stood in his way, blocking the doorway.
“I’ll not have you upsetting my tenants.”
“But—” Calum started, but Ellen raised her hand to cut him off.
“But nothing. You may be the police, but this is my home.” And with that, she marched him to the door and pushed him into the street.