Chapter Thirty-One

SPOILING FOR A fight, James gathered two of his Sentinels and took a carriage through the mist to the town hall. In his hand, he gripped the day’s edition of the Blackrabbit Courant so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

He once again ignored the obsequious fellow outside the council chamber and burst through the doors to find the council meeting already in session. The five members had gathered around the polished oval table in their animal masks.

“You’re late,” Rabbit said.

James threw off his hat and waved his copy of the Blackrabbit Courant above his head. “Absolutely outrageous! Slanderous!” He slapped the paper on the table.

“Captain, yes, welcome. This is what we wanted to discuss with you.”

He sat in the only vacant seat, red-faced and ranting. His attendants, Mr Spry and Mr Bodmyn, hovered by the doors until he yelled at them to get out. They backed away, pulling the doors closed behind them.

“It’s all anyone has been talking about this morning,” Fox said. “I was stopped and asked about it several times on my way here.”

“The people are demanding answers,” Badger said.

James could not stop himself from bellowing. “Here’s the ruddy answer—it’s twaddle! Malicious, fallacious twaddle!”

“So the rumours are untrue?” Badger asked. “The Sentinels have had no such allegations made?”

“The allegations were made, yes, but they’re unfounded,” James said. “No proof has been brought forward. Just the word of a confessed killer, who by the by, still hasn’t been handed over either to my Sentinels or to the magistrates.”

Rabbit exchanged a glance with Fox, who smiled.

“Nevertheless,” Fox said, “it would do little for the public profile of your new-found venture if the Sentinels were thought to ignore allegations of corruption?”

“It’s preposterous,” Swan said. “My officers are the finest, most upstanding members of society.”

Fox tilted her head to one side as she spoke. “Might I remind Swan she serves at the pleasure of all the people of the island, not just the upstanding ones. And certainly not just the ones on the Chase Trading Company payroll?”

“And given Lieutenant Hancock’s innocence,” Rabbit said, “surely she would have no qualms about stating her case before the magistrates?”

James’s voice turned volcanic. “What!”

“Rabbit, please, you must see how unnecessary this is!” Swan said.

“It will be a simple matter to settle in the public eye before it gets out of hand,” Rabbit said. “This Watchman—Mr Exeter—will state his case, the lieutenant will refute it, and the magistrates will note the lack of evidence and make a judgement. Captain, you will kindly make your lieutenant available for the hearing.”

“I’ll do no such bloody thing.”

Rabbit leaned to one side, propping her elbow on an armrest. “I would hate to have to call on the services of the Sentinels to bring in a suspected criminal.”

James slammed his hand on the table in frustration. His attempt at getting on Ms Hawkmoor’s good side had clearly been in vain.

“Do we know who told the newspaper about the allegation?” Rabbit asked.

James stood and tucked his hat under his arm. “I know exactly who told them.”

JAMES BARKED ORDERS at his attendants on the road outside the Quick tailor shop, instructing them to wait and to not allow anyone else to enter. He pushed his hat into the hands of Mr Spry, who clutched it tightly. They nervously stood by the carriage as he threw open the door to the shop and marched in, head held high.

A young woman approached with her measuring ribbon drawn. “Can I help you, sir?”

James all but spat his words out. “Do I look as though I’m in dire need of a tailor?”

“Well, you have just burst into a tailor shop…”

“Blast it, woman, I’m here to see Mr Knight. I was told he could be found within though I cannot begin to fathom why. Are sausage fingers suddenly advantageous in a seamstress?”

“Oh,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Yes, he’s here. I’ll fetch him. After all, what am I here for if not to attend the needs of the mighty Mr Knight?”

“Don’t bother,” Vince said from the door. “Heard him. Whole road heard him. Come through.”

“Yes, yes,” said the woman, “go on through. Apparently this is Mr Knight’s headquarters now.”

“Don’t be so impertinent,” James said as he passed. “It’s a woefully unattractive trait in a person your age.”

James followed Vince through the back of the shop and into a small parlour with entirely too many floral patterns—the wall, the curtains, the carpets, the cushions. He felt as though he’d stepped into a Dutch market. “Now look here,” he said, jabbing a finger against Vince’s chest. “Just what do you think you’re playing at, running off to the press like that? Don’t you know the trouble you’ve caused? For me and for you?”

Vince settled himself on a gaudy couch. His top shirt hung open to the navel, as usual, and James forced himself not to get distracted by the octopus tentacles and ship’s rigging inked onto the warm, bare flesh of his massive frame.

“Used to trouble,” Vince said.

James threw his hands in the air. “You could at least deny it! Do me that courtesy.”

“No point. Both know I did it.”

“But what on earth did you do it for? How does this help you?”

“Not about me.”

James pulled off his emerald-green-and-white overcoat and sank onto an armchair by the cold fireplace. “You’re punishing me. Don’t deny it. You’re punishing me for taking the Watch away from you. I can restore it if it will make you happy.”

“Already talked about that.”

“Then I can hire you and the rest of the Watch. You don’t have to join the C.T.C. I can make you all civilian advisors or something. We can work out the details later. I have the power to do it.”

“And Hancock?”

“Dammit, man, she didn’t do anything! Hounding her isn’t helping you! What are you going to do, stand up before the magistrates and tell them what happened? One killer confessed to you—another killer—that an officer of the Chase Trading Company orchestrated it all? You have no reputation to tarnish but Perty Hancock does.”

“Going to be a trial, then?”

“The Council is pushing for one. As you bloody well knew they would. And what about this Exeter chap, come to think of it? Shouldn’t he be behind bars as we speak?”

“Keeping him safe.”

“Safe from whom?”

Vince glared at him with his single icy blue eye. How intense he must have looked when he still had two.

“You can’t honestly think Perty Hancock…” James closed his eyes so as not to lose his temper any further.

“Exeter is the only one who can explain what happened,” Vince said. “Much as I hate to admit it, Quaintance is untouchable. Legally, anyway. Need to keep Exeter out of harm’s way until the trial.”

“He’s here, isn’t he? You’ve hidden him under a pile of lace or something.”

Vince didn’t respond.

“Oh, so now you don’t trust me either,” James said.

“Do any different in my shoes?”

James sat up straighter. “I’d understand my word as a criminal and a murderer carried no weight whatsoever. I’d understand that even if Perty Hancock did have a hand in the death of Sergeant Spradbery and that bedworker, there are more important things at stake.”

“More important than two dead people?”

“Frankly, yes. My Sentinels are the only ones who can stop the gangs from damaging this town any more than they already have. If some sacrifices have to be made along the way, so be it. It’s a dirty business.”

Vince’s gaze never wavered from James. “Keep calling me a killer, like you’ve never taken a life.”

James’s spine straightened enough to snap. “I, sir, am a captain in the Chase Trading Company. I have fought pirates, and Spanish, and French. The lives I have taken have been for a cause greater than myself. The lives you have taken were…”

“Go on.”

James sat back in the armchair and played with one end of his gently curving moustache.

“Don’t know, do you?” Vince asked. “Heard the broad strokes, not the specifics.”

“The details of crime don’t interest me.”

“Funny position for the head of the new town Watch to take.”

“We’re not a Watch,” James said. “We’re something else. Something new.”

Vince’s face remained unreadable. A statue would have had more life about it. “Lives I took were other criminals. Other killers.”

“How terribly noble of you.”

“Nothing noble about it. Did it to protect my territory. Or for revenge. For the death of my people. Murder of my husband.”

James squinted at him, trying to decide if he was lying or not. “I didn’t know you were a widow.”

“No reason you should.”

“What was his name?”

“Martin. Showed me I could be more. Before him, was only ever useful to people on my back or in a brawl. People didn’t care what I had to say. Last time you and I spoke made me remember what it felt like. Don’t like that. Don’t like being ignored.”

James’s thumb turned the silver ring around his finger. He never imagined a man as big as Vince could be insecure about not being seen or heard. “I never intended to make you feel that way.”

“Did anyway. Not your fault. Old pain is like a building you pass every day. Always there but you stop noticing it. Until the day you do. Then you see something new. Some aspect of it you hadn’t seen before.”

“I don’t know which is the more painful—the loss of a spouse or the loss of a child.”

“Hope you never find out,” Vince said, his voice gentler than before.

“A person must be more than a catalogue of their tragedies,” James said. “Though had I suffered as you have, I do not believe my heart could take it. I don’t think I could let myself get close to anyone else ever again.”

In the misty morning light, Vince’s snowy white hair almost glowed like a mountain peak. “Hurts but it’s worth it. Don’t want to be alone forever. Both of us have blood on our hands. Both have our reasons. Port Knot is a bad town filled with bad people. Compromises have to be made or nothing will ever get done. Rabbit understood that when she hired me. Past is done. Future beckons. Have to make the best we can of it.”

James sighed and slid down into his seat. “Perty Hancock and Spradbery hated one another,” he said. “Still, I can’t accept she had any hand in his death.”

“Trial will show that,” Vince said.

“And then what?” James asked. “If it comes out Hancock is innocent, what becomes of your Mr Exeter?”

“Confessed to killing Ataraxy Crimp. Has to be punished for it, no matter what happens. Magistrates will send him to Blackrabbit gaolhouse. C.T.C. run it. Some greencoat guard will find out what he did and take revenge.”

“You have a very low opinion of my organisation.”

“Born of experience. Even greencoats are human. Human needs. Human frailties.”

“I can try to make sure he’s safe,” James said.

“Some things are beyond even your power,” Vince said.