Chapter Eight

JAMES HAD BEEN offered very plush accommodation in town for the duration of his stay, but he preferred to remain on board his ship, the Lancelot Striking. He always felt it set the crew at odds when the captain slept ashore and they didn’t. And it wasn’t as if he were swinging in a hammock below decks. His cabin had been fitted to the highest standards. Still, he looked forward to the first morning he awoke in his own bed, in his own house, surrounded by open fields and melodious birdsong. Instead of the endless boiling of the sea and the cackling of gulls.

He stood by the portside window of his cabin as the harbour wound down for the day. The great lifting cranes which swivelled from sunup to sundown were still, the traders who littered the docklands had packed away their wares, and the bedworkers had begun their nightly promenade for trade. They walked along the docklands, keeping away from the waterline and hugging the walls. Each carried a little lantern, enough to keep them safe in the night.

One of them, a sturdy lad with hair the colour of straw, caught James’s eye but he thought better of it. C.T.C. regulations forbade crew from bringing people on board for the purposes of sex, and the prospect of a quick rut against an old boatshed didn’t excite him the way it used to.

He picked up a book but it didn’t hold his interest for long. Instead, he pulled on his uniform coat and took himself down the gangplank to the shoreline. His boots crunched where he walked, leaving deep prints in the shingles.

He really didn’t want to do away with Vince Knight. If it came to it, he would, but he’d feel remorseful about the deed. He wondered if perhaps Vince might be amenable to remaining as head of the Watch under James’s command. Not that there would be any need for a Watch once the C.T.C. was given jurisdiction over the whole town. James had plans to place regiments throughout the town and beyond, into the countryside. He saw no reason why the C.T.C. shouldn’t patrol the entire island.

In fact, such was the impression he’d gotten from his meeting with Swan. There were a handful of small villages dotted about the island, nothing close to the size or difficulty of Port Knot. As Swan had told him, where Port Knot led, the rest of Blackrabbit would follow. He was perfectly prepared to assume responsibility for the whole island. And perfectly prepared to remove anyone who stood in his way.

IN THE BEND of a road called Bibbler’s Brook on the east side of town nestled a tiny alehouse named the Star We Sail By. The prow of a sailboat extended above the doorway, complete with an old masthead shaped like a portly gentleman wrapped in only a single ribbon of diaphanous silk which left nothing to the imagination. The wooden nude looked longingly to the grubby stained-glass star clasped in his outstretched hands. Some bedworkers leaned on the bulwark of the sailboat balcony and waved to Vince, beckoning him to join them. On any other day, he might well have done.

He let himself in through the double doors. Gregory Diamond, the landlord of the Star, froze in place, spilling some of the ale he’d been pouring onto the counter.

“Not here for you,” Vince said, nodding brusquely to him. “Watch business.” Spotting his target, Vince made a beeline through the tobacco smoke for a man with a wispy beard, drinking alone by the little dilapidated stage at the back of the room. He plonked himself down on a stool in front of the man and glowered at him. “Evening, Dick.”

“Vince,” Dick said, lifting his tankard an inch off the table. “We haven’t seen you around much of late.”

“Busy,” Vince said. “Greencoat sergeant in here a few nights ago. Dead now.”

“Crying shame, that is,” Dick said, taking a sip.

Vince stared at him. The tankard started to quiver, just a bit. Just enough.

“What makes you think I—”

Vince slammed his open palm on the table. “Here every night.”

Dick set his tankard down and wiped foam from his lip. “Two greencoat officers came in that night. Both in uniform. The man—a sergeant, he was—had loose hair to his shoulders. It looked like straw. The lieutenant was a woman. She wore her dark hair tied back tightly as could be. They had some drinks at the bar.”

“And?”

“And they talked to one another. Not to anyone else. Hushed, like. They didn’t look right in each other’s company. Like two children forced to play together. She couldn’t wait to get away. You could see it on her face.”

“And Crimp?” Vince asked.

“Ms Crimp was here all evening. She turned away potential customers like she was waiting for someone in particular. A while after the two greencoats arrived, Crimp approached the sergeant with the straw-like hair. She was all over him. He was loving it; you could see it in his face. And in his breeches. The lieutenant didn’t look too impressed. She just sat there like a gooseberry while Crimp and the sergeant ignored her. Another woman came into the bar later, another greencoat. She sat with the lieutenant for a while. Crimp and the man were getting cosy so the lieutenant and the newcomer left them to it. They walked out and didn’t come back.”

“Jealous, you think?”

“No, I don’t think so. The second woman, she didn’t pay the sergeant much attention. And I don’t think the lieutenant liked him very much.”

“Not uncommon to start that way,” Vince said.

“Anyway, Crimp and him left about an hour or so later. That’s the last I saw of either of them. You heard what the greencoats have been up to of late? They’re building something new in their headquarters, but nobody can say what. Weapon of some kind, I reckon. It must be something big. Maybe big enough to kill for.”

Vince scrutinised Dick’s deeply wrinkled face. He would know if Dick were lying or holding anything back. Vince leaned in. “Hear anything about Crimp, come tell me straight away.”

Dick avoided looking at him, beads of sweat gathering on the bridge of his long, blotchy nose. He just nodded.

Vince stood, scraping the legs of the stool on the shabby wooden floor. On his way out, he passed by frame after frame of torn and faded playbills. Memorials to the Star We Sail By’s past as a playhouse. Gregory Diamond mopped up a spillage with a rag and avoided looking at him. Vince left without speaking to anyone else. If Dick didn’t see it happen, then nobody did. He walked to the harbour, to Quither Pier. He imagined Spradbery and Ms Crimp arriving, arm in arm. They stopped at the barrels, kissed, caressed, maybe more. Spradbery is stabbed in the back. By Ms Crimp? Or by someone else? If by someone else, perhaps Crimp escaped and went into hiding, fearing for her life. She was the key to it. He needed to find her. Unless she was dead too, of course.

He felt out of his element, however much he didn’t want to admit it. He was used to causing crime, not solving it. If the Watch couldn’t find this killer, Rabbit would be powerless to stop the C.T.C. from taking over. Or Captain James Godgrave would grow tired of waiting and take the matter into his own hands.

He didn’t seem like the patient type. And if he took over, the public would never get on the Watch’s side. The murder of a gang member meant less than nothing to the townsfolk but a greencoat? And a sergeant, no less? The people of the town might not want armed soldiers on patrol, but if the Watch couldn’t satisfy their thirst for justice, they’d flock to the side of anyone who could. And this whole experiment would crumble. What would he be left with, then?

He leaned on the rotten barrels under the pier. Barrels, he knew from experience, which were easily big enough to hold a body. Spradbery had been a small man, slight in build. It wouldn’t have been so much work to put his body into one. He would have been found eventually, but the longer his body remained hidden, the better, surely? The killer could have been disturbed before they could hide the body, but Vince was no stranger to the theatre of violence, and to him it really felt like the body of Spradbery had been left where it could be found. And then he started to wonder if that was the whole point.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Vince spun on his heels to find James Godgrave approaching across the sand.

“Careful,” Vince said. “Don’t want to get your nice coat all wet.”

The damp sand clung to James’s shiny black boots. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t be the one who has to clean it.”

“Come to check up on me?”

“Not at all, I didn’t know you’d be here. I found it hard to sleep. It’s much too warm, so I thought I’d take a little stroll.” He leaned against one of the barrels.

“Too warm to sleep but not too warm for a coat.”

James brushed the shoulder of his emerald overcoat. “It’s never warm enough to led standards slip, my good man.”

“People see the Watch and the C.T.C. conspiring in the moonlight, they might start to talk,” Vince said.

“Quite right,” James said. “Let’s have a drink. Somewhere bright and conspicuous with lots of witnesses.”

The nearest alehouse was the Jack Thistle tavern, along the seafront. James ordered a bottle of the local whiskey and they took a seat by the window. James wasn’t the only greencoat in attendance and two drunken men saluted him.

“Crew?” Vince asked.

“No, not mine, at least,” James said. “Local boys, I would guess, from the looks of them. No crewmen of mine would be allowed out with their uniforms in such a state.”

“C.T.C. headquarters is just down the beach,” Vince said, pointing. “Big draughting office. Warehouses. Probably came from there. Working on a new weapon. Something hush-hush.”

James’s eyebrows shot up and he laughed. “Not so hush-hush it escaped your cauliflowered ears.”

Vince touched one of his own little jug ears and frowned.

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” James lowered his voice to a purr. “They taste better than they look.”

Vince grunted with surprise. “Do remember me, then?”

James’s eyes twinkled like stars. “Oh, yes. As soon as I saw you in Rabbit’s office, I recognised you. There aren’t many men built like you, on this island or anywhere else. A silver bull in a tricorne. Also, there’s the eyepatch. Even in the subdued light of a cherry house, one couldn’t miss it.

“Oh,” Vince said. “Forgot about that.”

“I do wonder what’s underneath.”

“Lost treasure,” Vince said.

“You haven’t had it long, have you?”

Vince ran his finger along the bottom of the leather patch as he spoke. “Couple of months.”

“Dare I ask what happened?”

“Let my guard down.”

James sat up straighter and laughed a little. His whole frame jiggled. His eyes became upturned crescent moons. “I cannot tell if you’re joking or not, so I’m just going to assume you are until I hear otherwise. It makes you appear delightful instead of exasperatingly enigmatic.” He lifted his glass and sniffed it, crinkling his nose up. He took a sip and winced. “Ghastly. You Pellans have no business making this; you don’t know your arse from your elbows.” He tilted the bottle and squinted at the label. “You can’t even spell the word correctly. Every Scotsman knows there’s no ‘e’ in whisky.”

“Gets you drunk the same.”

James leaned in, sharpening his words. “It very much does not, my good man. Too many glasses of this stuff and you’ll wake up with a splitting head and melted teeth. Scottish whisky carries you away on a gentle amber tide. This stuff drowns you in a muddy maelstrom.”

Vince took a long drink from his own glass and stared at James the entire time.

“If anything,” James said, “I didn’t think you had recognised me in Rabbit’s office.”

“Took me a minute.”

“I’m hurt,” James said with a little laugh. “Are there so many men in your life that I simply number one among dozens?”

Vince took another sip of his drink. “Can’t blame me. Spent most of the time with my face in a pillow.”

James settled back in his seat and grinned. “So, the new commander of the Night Watch. What is your grand stratagem for ridding the town of the gangs, hmm?”

Vince shrugged. “Bust open every gin house in town. Crack any heads that need cracking.”

“We are indeed kindred spirits!” James toyed with the silver ring on his own little finger, rubbing his thumb across the pacing wolf engraved upon it. “Have you found anything out about Sergeant Spradbery’s death?”

“Someone might have seen what happened. Gone missing though.”

“Any idea where to find them?”

“Some.”

James raised his eyebrows again and wobbled his head, waiting for more information.

“Let you know what I find,” Vince said.

“If you told me their name, I might be able to help, you know.”

“Don’t need help,” Vince said. “Rabbit doesn’t want C.T.C. involved.”

“And you always abide by the rules, do you?” James asked.

“Only when it suits.”

James shook his head and laughed, flashing his pearly white teeth. He really was the most wretchedly dashing man Vince had seen in a good long while. Vince drained his glass and stood. “Will say this, though—feels like it might not have been about Spradbery. Feels like one way or another, someone was going to end up dead under the pier. Thanks for the drink.”

James’s gaze wandered from the tip of Vince’s boots to the top of his head. “I’ll see you again soon, I hope.”

Vince grunted and left the tavern.