FORTY-SIX #2
Aly was shaking beside him. “They’re sending people to Faerie without trial.” She pressed a hand to her lips, her face white. Calum reached for her, intending to comfort her, but she cringed away.
“There’ll be a legal challenge,” Calum said, pacing around the small room as his heart fluttered in his throat. “They can’t just send people off somewhere without telling anyone. Their families will want to know.”
Aly snorted. “We don’t have families. And those that do can’t exactly afford an advocate.”
“I have to tell the DCI.” Calum stopped pacing, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “She doesn’t understand what she’s agreed to, or what she’s ordered her officers to do.”
Aly let out a hollow laugh. “Are you fae-touched? One of them killed Cameron and they arrested us.”
Calum scrubbed a hand across his face. He couldn’t let anyone be charged with salching, that much was obvious, but he had limited options. “All right, so what happened after the police raided the market? Leading up to Cameron’s death.”
Aly eyed him, her expression wary. “Some of the locals showed up to block the end of the close so the police couldn’t get out. There was no rioting, whatever the coppers are saying. They just stood there.”
“And what about you?” Calum asked. “How did you end up there?”
“That,” Aly snapped, “is irrelevant to your investigation.”
“Right.” She was upset with him, that much was obvious, though he wasn’t sure why. “So what happened next?”
She sniffed, wiping an eye. “Cameron—he worked the door for the Caoineag sometimes—arrived and tried to get through to her. A copper tried to stop him, pushed him too hard, and he cracked his head.”
“So the death was an accident?”
“Accident?” Aly scoffed. “Your copper got too rough with a man who hadn’t done anything wrong. It would never have happened in the first place if the police hadn’t started arresting people whose only crime is poverty.” She lifted her chin, a challenge in her eyes. “Well, that and being part fae.”
Ah. So that was what it was about. “Aly—” He reached out a hand, and she shrank away. His cheeks burned as he let his hand drop. “You know—surely you know I’m not okay with sending salchs to Faerie.”
“Aren’t you?” Aly gripped the edge of the table so tightly her knuckles went white. “It solves all your problems, doesn’t it? All the fae in Faerie and none in Mossburgh.”
The words were like a lance through Calum’s heart. “Do you really think I’m okay with arresting people for crimes of desperation and transporting them to another realm?”
Aly’s expression softened, but her hands were still clenched around the table.
Calum cast about for something else to reassure her.
“I’ve known Flora was demi-fae ever since you described her scars.
That hasn’t stopped me looking for her, even helping you steal the fae ointment to try to find her.
” And knowing Aly was demi-fae hadn’t changed how he felt about her, either.
It didn’t stop the tightening of his ribcage around his heart at the lines of worry between her brows.
Aly’s hands loosened on the table. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. Have you been charged?”
“They didn’t even search my pockets. The dastards took my knives, though.”
“All right. Come with me.” He led her back to the cells. She shivered as they descended the stairs, from the cold or from the fear he didn’t know, and he ached to reach out and comfort her, but that would risk revealing their friendship to the sergeant at the foot of the stairs.
“Where are the prisoners’ personal effects?” Calum asked.
“You’re not releasing her, are you?” the sergeant sneered.
“Where are they?” Calum repeated.
“She’s a salch.” Beside him, Aly flinched at the venom in the sergeant’s tone. “Should have been arrested a long time ago, going by her scars.”
“Do I need to remind you that I’m in charge of this investigation?” Calum stepped forwards, looming over the other man.
The sergeant crossed his arms. “I know what you did to Morrison.”
Calum suppressed a wince, resisting the urge to say Morrison did it to himself. “Then you know what I can do to you if you continue obstructing my investigation.”
“Obstructing your investigation?”
Calum grabbed the other man’s upper arm, hauling him out of earshot for appearances’ sake. “You’re terminally incurious, I know, but surely even you are aware that sometimes we allow criminals to go free in order to see what they do when they think they’re not being watched, are you not?”
The sergeant glowered up at him. “They’re in the evidence room. Upstairs on the left.”
Calum released his arm. “Thank you.”
He gestured to Aly to follow him and took her to the evidence room. Aly’s knives poked out of a box, along with a jumble of other weaponry. He passed Aly her daggers. She took them, wrapping the belt around her waist and adjusting her coat to conceal the flat blades.
“Go home,” Calum said. “I’ll finish up here.”
Aly didn’t move. “What are you going to do with the other salchs? You can’t let them go to Faerie.”
The very thought made Calum’s chest seize. “I won’t.” He wasn’t certain how, but he wouldn’t. Convincing the sergeant he was releasing one prisoner to follow her was one thing, but an entire cell full of them was another matter entirely.
It would be easy enough to release without charge those arrested for rioting—any so-called rioting had happened after Cameron’s death, which muddied the accusations enough that he could avoid charging them.
The salchs, however, were trickier. He’d already let on that he knew they were salchs, and he’d been given a copy of the bill and been told that they were under orders from the chief constable to arrest salchs.
“I can probably release them on bail,” Calum said finally. That was at his discretion as it wasn’t a violent crime, though the legislation implementing a punishment without trial might interfere with that. “I’m not sure I can get away with not charging them at all.”
Aly rubbed her fingertips over her temples. “Salchs are good at hiding from the law. If they’re bailed, a lot of them will be able to disappear. But not all of them. Can you caution them?”
“For salching?” Calum shook his head. “You can’t caution for serious crimes.”
“Serious crime, my arse.”
“I know,” Calum said quietly. “I’ll try releasing them without charge. With any luck, no one here will catch on until they’re all gone.” He sucked in a breath. “But there’s a rumour that someone threw a stone at PC Shaw. If that’s true, and I find out who, I will have to charge them.”
“You realise no one will admit it, and no one will clipe?”
Calum gave a small smile. “I realise.”
He saw her out and returned to the cells to interview the others.
He spoke to the salchs first, releasing each of them after interviewing them, before moving on to the protesters.
They were all, unsurprisingly, less cooperative than Aly, but nevertheless a clear picture began to emerge of a peaceful protest. Cameron’s death may not have been deliberate, but all the same it would never have happened if not for draconian legislation that penalised poverty and protected greed.
The door to the interview room slammed open as Calum was interviewing the last of the protesters. DCI Murray stormed in with a face like thunder. “Can I have a word?”
“I’ll be back in a moment,” Calum murmured to the woman seated across from him. He followed Murray into the corridor, closing the door behind him with a snick.
“What’s this I hear about you releasing all the salchs without charge?” She spoke in a harsh whisper.
Calum exhaled through his nose. “I thought it the best way to proceed with my investigation.”
“You know, when people said you were happy to let murderers go, I thought they were being unfair,” she snarled. “Morrison cocked up, we all knew it. But you’ve just let eight salchs walk out that door despite clear evidence of their crime and strict orders to arrest them.”
“I don’t give a toss what you’ve been told to do.” Calum folded his arms, stepping closer to her. “I’ve been told to ascertain PC Shaw’s guilt in the matter and keeping half my witnesses locked up for an unrelated crime doesn’t help me with that.”
Murray glared at him. “This is about more than just your investigation. Just think about the kind of unrest we could be facing if coal prices don’t come down soon.
Winter isn’t over yet, and prices are still rising.
And you”—she pointed a finger at Calum’s chest—“have just released the folk we were going to send to the mines to help with that. I’ll be telling your DCI about this. ”
“You do that.” Graham would have his hide, but he’d deal with that later.
Murray turned on her heel and disappeared down the corridor.
Calum went back into the interview room and asked a few remaining questions of the woman across from him, then told her she was free to go.
He watched as she departed the interview room.
Today he’d helped people in a way only a police officer could.
But he couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling in his gut that he was working for the wrong side.