TWENTY-SEVEN
Aly was shaking as they stepped into the street. Grant had hired the Cailleach to kill Gibson. And he hadn’t told her. She took a quivering breath that caught in her throat.
“Maybe she’s lying,” Calum said tentatively. “The evidence all still points to Gibson’s wife.”
“What reason would she have to lie?” Aly countered.
If the Cailleach had been hired by Gibson’s widow, she could have refused to give Aly information at all.
“And why would she tell a lie like that, when I could ask Grant and hear him deny it?” She shook her head.
“She wouldn’t have said that unless she thought he’d admit to it. ”
Calum’s face crumpled. “Don’t go back to him.”
Aly whirled to face him. “What? I have to.”
“It’s too dangerous.” It had started drizzling, and raindrops glistened in Calum’s hair as he bent his head towards her.
“Do you think it’s safe if I just walk out on him?” Aly gave a hollow laugh. “He’s already suspicious—he asked me last night if I’d seen you again since you arrested me.”
“He what?” Anxiety edged Calum’s voice.
Aly ran a hand through her hair. “I think he was fishing more than anything, but . . . he hired an assassin without telling me, he lied to me to get me to blackmail a burgess, and then he started asking me about you.” She slumped against the damp stone wall.
“At first I thought maybe someone had seen us, but Gibson died before I met you and he was already hiding things from me then.” She glanced at Calum.
The drizzle had settled over his shoulders like a mantle, beading on the wool of his coat.
“I think he’s up to something more. He knows that I know that he’s pushing for harsher penalties for criminals, but he’s still being secretive and demanding shows of trust, and last night .
. .” The scars on her arms stung, and she shuddered at the memory of the cold creeping through her bones.
Never before had he drained her to unconsciousness and left her there, unconcerned as to whether she lived or died.
“You don’t think he’s the one kidnapping salchs, do you?” The colour drained from Calum’s face.
Aly stared at him, horror washing through her. “Kidnapping salchs? Is that what you think is happening to them?”
“How else are they disappearing?”
Aly laid out how she’d assumed there was a new salching market in town, one that wasn’t bothering to protect its employees. “It fits with the most recent missing person you have—the orphan boy. If he just started salching, he wouldn’t know which markets are relatively safe and which ones aren’t.”
“What about Flora? You said the market she salched at was one of the better ones.”
“Aye, it was. In part because the Caoineag places limits on how long or often folk can salch for. If she was desperate enough for money, she might have gone elsewhere.”
Calum scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “All this time, you didn’t think they’d been abducted, but you’ve still helped me look for them. Why?”
“Deliberately or not, someone’s killing salchs. And I want to stop them.” Whether she stopped them with a knife or with the justice system, it didn’t matter to her. “But that’s why it’s not Grant. He has a salching market—a successful one—and his salchs stay alive.” She made sure of it.
“But he still hired an assassin to kill a burgess,” Calum said, his voice quiet. “Maybe you should leave town. Fake your own death and go far away.”
Aly scoffed. “Me and what money? Everything I have, other than the clothes I’m wearing and”—she dug in her pocket for her purse, turning up a handful of change—“two shillings and thruppence, is his. And if I take any of it with me? He’ll know, and he’ll track me down.”
Calum stretched out a hand and for a moment Aly thought he’d reach for her, but he let it fall to his side. “I can help. I have some money saved up.”
Aly shook her head, damp hairs that had escaped her plait slapping at her cheeks. “No.” She couldn’t be indebted to a copper. “I won’t take your money.”
Calum looked at her pleadingly. “Please, Aly.” He wet his lips. “You said yourself he’s up to something more, and he’s not trusting you . . . you’re not safe.”
“I’ve not been safe for a very long time. I can handle Grant.”
Calum looked at her, and his gaze bored into her and stripped her bare, seeing past all artifice and feigned confidence to the core of her. “Can you?”
Aly ducked her head, staring at the cobblestones.
She didn’t know, and she didn’t want to admit to Calum that she didn’t know.
Grant had scared her yesterday, truly scared her in a way he never had before.
He’d threatened her plenty in the past, and it wasn’t the first time she’d feared he would kill her, but it had always been in anger that he’d been the most fearsome.
The way he’d calmly disregarded her safety for his own gain wasn’t new, either, but he’d never let it go that far before. And that terrified her.
But she had little choice. “Let’s say I did take your money and flee the city.
The country, even. What then? You still have a crime lord who is blackmailing and assassinating burgesses in an effort to pass a secret law, and you’ve lost your informant.
And you’re not going to find another one before there’s a by-election and the council is able to vote on it.
” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, feeling the cobblestones through the leather soles of her boots.
It wasn’t only that she was afraid of simply shifting her debt from Grant to Calum; it was that with Calum, who was possibly the only copper she’d ever met who wasn’t bent, she saw a chance to get out of Grant’s reach for good.
She wouldn’t have to look over her shoulder as she tried to start a life in a new town, or stay up late wondering what poor sod he’d replaced her with.
She could be free, truly free of him, when his reputation came shattering down around him and he lost everything.
And she could watch him fall. She wanted to see his face when he learnt he was going to prison and it was her doing.
“I’m his deputy, Calum. He might not trust me as much as he used to, but I can still get you information no one else can.
” She cast about for an example. “Like the blackmail letters. Who else could have sneaked into his desk and got that for you?”
Calum ran a hand through his hair, his fingertips skipping over the white streak like a stone over water. “Arresting Grant isn’t worth your life, Aly.”
“I’m well aware what my life is and isn’t worth,” Aly snapped. And it was worth this, for the chance to be free and to see Grant destroyed.
Calum looked stricken. “Don’t talk like that. Please.”
Aly’s stomach tightened. She didn’t like it when he looked at her like that, when he looked like he cared.
It made it too easy to forget that he was a copper and she was a salch.
She inhaled sharply, tossing her hair out of her face.
“I’ll be fine. I’m sure he’s hired assassins before without telling me about it.
This is just different because you arrested me for it. ”
“And because the victim this time was a burgess.”
“That part is strange,” Aly agreed. “He was blackmailing Gibson’s lover to vote in favour of his legislation with their letters, right? But she’s unmarried. Surely those letters would be more effective for blackmailing Gibson.”
“Maybe Grant tried to blackmail both of them, and Gibson refused.”
“No, Gibson died the same night Grant got the letters.” He’d known what he was looking for, though. He’d told Aly exactly what box to grab. “He wouldn’t have had Gibson assassinated if he still thought there was a chance to blackmail him into submission.”
“Unless he had to act quickly because he knew Gibson was going to talk,” Calum finished for her.
“That’s it!” Aly’s veins buzzed with excitement. This was what she needed to ruin Grant’s life. “He must have threatened to expose Grant—to go to the press, to the police, to the public, something like that—and Grant had him killed before he could.”
Calum’s eyes lit, sparkling in the lamplight. “I have all of Gibson’s papers from his office. If there’s anything in there about all of this, that could be what we need to connect everything back to Grant.” His smile faded. “He’ll figure out your involvement eventually, you know.”
“Then we’ll just need to make sure he’s safely in prison when he does.” Where he couldn’t hurt her.
The following morning, Calum went straight to Clare’s desk. She looked up when he arrived.
“Have you had a chance to get through all of Gibson’s papers yet?” Calum asked.
Clare flicked the end of her pencil towards two piles of paper. “This pile”—she pointed to the shorter of the two—“I’ve read through. Not much of interest, other than the letter I showed you.”
“All right, thank you. Could you please focus on the remainder this morning?”
Clare tossed her thick plait over her shoulder. “Anything in particular I should be looking for?”
“Anything about a bill proposing harsher penalties for criminals, specifically transportation, or secret unrecorded meetings. Oh, and anything that suggests he might have been going to the press.”
Clare’s eyes widened. “You don’t think he was killed for whistleblowing, do you?”
Calum grimaced. “It’s starting to look that way.”
“Starting to look what way?”
Calum spun round at Graham’s voice. The DSI had entered the station house and was striding towards Calum and Clare. Snowflakes were melting on his dark hair, leaving damp patches in their wake.
Calum inhaled. “There’s reason to believe Gibson was killed because he was planning on blowing the whistle about secret meetings the burgesses were having with a crime lord.”
“A crime lord?” Graham raised his eyebrows. “That’s an interesting change from the widow. Though not an unwelcome one,” he added, under his breath. “What changed your mind?”