Darkwalker

CHAPTER 8

By the next morning, Lenoir was convinced that something terrible had befallen Zach. He had passed a sleepless night thinking about the boy, turning the possibilities over and over in his mind. The rational part of him said this was paranoia, that drink and nightmares and sleeplessness were a potent elixir for fevered imaginings. But that same part of him, the part that had guided him through more than twenty years of police work, also told him that he would be foolish to ignore his instincts.

It was the carriage that sealed it. Few could afford such a luxurious mode of transport, and people like that did not go around picking up stray orphans—at least not with good intentions. Unlikely as it seemed, therefore, Lenoir had to treat Zach’s disappearance as a kidnapping.

The uncle was an obvious place to start. Thad Eccle had not even troubled to mask his ill intentions the other night; he had gone after the boy in full view of everyone at the Hobbled Hound, including an inspector of the Metropolitan Police. He could easily have followed Lenoir and Zach out of the tavern and trailed the boy back to the orphanage. Admittedly, the carriage was harder to explain. A man of Eccle’s means could not afford a horse, let alone a carriage. He could have stolen it, Lenoir supposed. Or perhaps, if Lenoir’s hunch was right, and Eccle was under the patronage of a wealthy crime lord, he might have access to a carriage that way. But why bother? If Eccle was tailing the boy, he could easily have snatched Zach without subterfuge. Why go to the trouble of procuring a carriage? For that matter, why snatch the boy at all? He could have dealt with Zach right there in the street.

Troublesome questions all, but Lenoir had always believed that motive trumped everything else when it came to solving a crime. Thad Eccle certainly had a motive; he had made that clear at the Hobbled Hound. So Lenoir grabbed his coat and a loaded flintlock and headed for Eccle’s last known address.

The poor district was a bustle of activity, even at this ungodly hour of the morning. Carts selling bread and hot pies were already doing a brisk trade, and butchers and greengrocers and fishmongers were busy laying out their wares in the predawn gloom. Lenoir kept to the center of the street, in spite of the mud. It was easier than jockeying for position with broomsticks and wheelbarrows and apple crates, and a little muck on his trousers was preferable to running the risk of being doused with a pail of slops from a window. He wended his way between slow-moving wagons, choosing his steps carefully to avoid horse shit and the occasional trickle of privy runoff. Odors both tempting and foul clashed for dominion over his nose. He threw an arm over his face to block them all.

He turned west onto Eccle’s street, a narrow canyon cutting a perfectly straight path between the sheer cliff faces of the tenement buildings. Washing lines formed a sagging canopy from one side of the street to the other, looking like bedraggled pennants at a fair. Lenoir passed beneath them, scanning the numbers at the top of each stoop until he came to number 56, a four-story rookery with a simple facade of gray stone. He climbed the steps and tried the door. Unlocked. Lenoir grunted in satisfaction and slipped inside.

Peeling paint lined the walls of a long, shadowy corridor stained with soot. The hallway was empty but for a jumble of sound and smells: pots clanging, bacon sizzling, babies crying, and the dry, stiff toll of bootheels crossing the floor. Snatches of conversation floated, disembodied, in the air, scarcely muffled by the thin doors of the flats. Somewhere on the second floor, a dog barked. Lenoir counted eighteen doors as he passed. Eighteen doors, but how many windows? Few, judging by the thickness of the air. Packed in like rats in the hull of a ship. Suddenly, his own flat did not seem so cramped.

He was out of breath by the time he reached Thad Eccle’s flat on the third floor. He paused to collect himself, positioning his flintlock so that its handle protruded obviously from his coat pocket. Then he rapped on the door and waited.

Nothing. After a long pause, he knocked again. This time, something shuffled on the far side of the door, and the floorboards beneath Lenoir’s boots creaked. A rough voice barked, “What?”

“Thad Eccle.”

“Who wants to know?”

“I am Inspector Lenoir of the Metropolitan Police. Do not make me force the door. It would not be fair to your landlord.” That was pure bluster. Forcing doors was Kody’s job; Lenoir had not attempted it in years.

Fortunately, Eccle could not see him through the door, or he might have called Lenoir’s bluff. Instead there was a muttered oath, and the sound of a bolt sliding out. The door opened a crack. An unshaven face loomed over Lenoir, bleary-eyed from sleep. “You,” Eccle said.

“Indeed.”

“What do you want?”

Lenoir considered the carved gargoyle before him. There was no point in trying to intimidate Eccle physically—that much was obvious. The man outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, all of it muscle, and the knuckles grasping the door were scarred from use. Lenoir could draw his gun, but that would only make him look fearful. He would not get anything from Eccle that way. Instead he adopted an air of supreme boredom. It was easily done, for Lenoir wore that expression more often than not. “I am here for the boy,” he said.

The uncle did some appraising of his own before he replied. His gaze swept over Lenoir’s shoulder, noting the lack of backup, before taking in the flintlock slouching conspicuously in Lenoir’s coat pocket. “What boy?”

“Do not waste my time, sir. I am a busy man.”

“If you mean that little piece of rat filth I saw you with the other night, I haven’t seen him since.”

“Oh?” Lenoir arched an eyebrow. “You seemed to have some rather urgent business with him.”

The scar on Eccle’s left cheek was a deep pink trough, shaped like the f-hole of a violin. A bottle to the face, Lenoir judged, probably in the man’s youth. When he smiled, as he was doing now, the scar coiled like a serpent about to strike. “You could put it that way. He owes me.”

“He owes you, or you owe him?”

Eccle’s smile widened unsettlingly. “Both.”

“Have you collected?”

“Not yet, but I will.”

“You are remarkably frank for a man under suspicion. Has it occurred to you that I could arrest you on the spot?”

Eccle snorted. “For what? He’s my nephew—I got every right to discipline the little bugger. But as it happens, I haven’t seen him.”

“And if I were to search your flat right now?”

“You’re welcome to try, hound, but I’d ask myself if it was worth the bother.” He sagged through the doorframe, giving Lenoir a better look at his massive frame.

Lenoir debated drawing his pistol. To stall for time, he said, “I want you to understand something. The boy may have information on a case I’m working. Therefore, he has value to me. I would be very put out if he were . . . indisposed.”

“What’s that to me?”

Lenoir gave a thin smile. It would not be as threatening as Eccle’s gargoyle grin, but he hoped it would do the job. “I’m sure you are aware that I have the ability to make your life extremely inconvenient, if not a good deal shorter. You are on thin ice with the Metropolitan Police, Eccle. And I carry a great deal of weight.”

Eccle’s eyes darkened. “I told you, I haven’t seen him since that night. If I’d wanted to do for him, I’d have done it by now. I know the orphanage where he lives. I told him to stay away from me, and he didn’t listen. Looked to me like I needed to make my point again, so I did.”

Lenoir eyed Thad Eccle’s brutish face carefully. He found much to dislike, but no evidence of deceit. More importantly, what Eccle said was true—he could have gone after Zach at any time since his release from prison a year ago. Why do it now, especially when he knew a hound had seen him chase the boy out of a tavern the night before? Eccle would have to be incredibly stupid to risk it, and he did not come across that way. And then there was the matter of the carriage. . . .

It doesn’t fit, Lenoir concluded unhappily. He could not discount the possibility altogether, but it seemed unlikely that Eccle was involved. It was time to pursue a different thread. “Stay away from Zach,” Lenoir said in parting, “or you will wish you had.”

Eccle stabbed a finger at him. “Keep him away from me, or you’ll wish you had.” So saying, he slammed the door.

Lenoir’s next port of call was the orphanage. It was only a little after dawn, so he was not surprised when the nun he had spoken to the previous night answered the door in her nightgown. She squinted up at Lenoir with sleep-crusted eyes and a thoroughly disapproving expression. “This had better be important, Inspector. You’re waking the children.”

Lenoir was in no mood for chiding. “I trust you consider it important, madam, that a child in your care has gone missing. Unless you have seen Zach since yesterday?”

“I haven’t, but you obviously don’t know much about running an orphanage. These kids go missing all the time. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t. I’m not running a prison here. If they want to run away, I can’t stop them.”

“And it has not occurred to you to suspect foul play?”

She passed a hand over her face in a gesture that was more weary than tired, and when she spoke, her voice was gentler. “These children lead difficult lives, Inspector. They mostly do all right until they’re about Zach’s age. That’s when they start getting into trouble. They fall in with thugs, get to stealing and such. And then one day they walk out my door and never come back. Usually it’s because they fancy themselves all grown up. They resent the rules around here, having to account for where they’ve been and what they’ve done, and they figure it’s time to make their own way. But sometimes it’s worse. They get into something they can’t handle, or end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve buried more than a few of those children. So when a boy like Zach goes missing, all I can do is pray to the good Lord that he’s one of the ones who decided it was time to make his own way.”

“Alas, I doubt that very much. Zach has his schemes, to be sure, but he is too smart to give up a warm bed and a guaranteed meal to go off and live in a ditch somewhere.”

She grunted. “I’ll give you that.”

“I need to speak with the little boy from last night, the one who came outside to talk to me. He may have an idea where Zach went.”

The nun was shaking her head before he even finished speaking. “He’s asleep, at long last. Come back later.”

“Every hour is precious, madam,” Lenoir said coldly. “I need to speak with the boy now.”

“He’s four years old, and a teller of tales besides. What could he possibly—”

“Now.”

She flushed angrily, and for a moment Lenoir thought she was going to slam the door in his face again. But she spun and disappeared inside, returning a few moments later leading a whimpering little boy, the same child Lenoir had spoken to the night before.

“Well, Adam, I know you’re sleepy and confused, but the inspector here is very important, and he needs to speak with you right now.” She tugged the boy’s hand and dragged him into the sunlight. The child whimpered again, digging his small fist into his eyes, and the nun gave Lenoir a look that was both smug and scathing.

Lenoir squatted so that he was eye level with the boy. “Adam, do you remember me from last night?”

He shook his head.

“You told me you wanted to go with Zach, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you still want to go?”

Adam perked up a little at that. He nodded solemnly.

“I need you to tell me about the rich people you saw. What did they look like?”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Try to remember, Adam.”

“I can’t,” he whined, his face collapsing into a scowl. The boy was cranky and tired; Lenoir sensed he was on the verge of tears. He tried a different tack.

“What about the carriage? Was it nice?”

Adam nodded.

“What did it look like?”

“Golden,” said the little boy, with something more like the enthusiasm he had shown the night before.

Lenoir eyed the child skeptically. A teller of tales, the nun had said. He did not need to look up; he could sense the smirk she was directing his way. “Are you sure it was golden, Adam?”

“Yep, and blue.”

“He means green,” the nun interjected. “He gets them mixed up. Don’t you, Adam? You mean green like your blanket?”

Adam furrowed his brow in thought. “Yeah,” he said doubtfully, “green.”

“Can you remember anything else about the carriage?”

“It had angels on it.”

“That’s good, Adam. What else?”

He shook his head. “I’m sleepy.”

The nun took the boy’s hand again. “I think that will do, Inspector,” she said sternly. “A gold and green carriage with angels on it. That ought to be enough for you.”

Reluctantly, Lenoir rose. He did not even have a chance to thank the boy before the nun had dragged him inside and closed the door.

His next stop was the local wheelwright, and it proved to be an excellent move. Lenoir had not gone far in his description of the carriage before the wheelwright began to nod knowingly. “That’s one of them for-hire jobs, Inspector, the kind folks get for special events and the like. I’ve done a lot of work for that company—it’s not far from here, actually.” He walked Lenoir out of the work yard to point him in the right direction.

“And you’re certain that’s where the carriage is from?”

The man nodded again. “They paint all of their carriages that same green and gold, so as they’re easy to recognize. Sort of like advertising, I guess.”

When Lenoir arrived at the company’s front shop, he saw immediately what the wheelwright had meant. A green and gold carriage sat idle in the street, its coachman slouched casually on his perch. It was a distinctive enough contraption, for aside from the garish green of its hood, its faux-gilt frame was so elaborate—with great swooping wings and frescoed door panels—that it was clearly designed to be noticed. From a distance it might pass for something grand, and certainly it was enough to impress a small boy. But up close it was tired-looking and shabby; the cherubim on the panels were badly drawn, and the paint was peeling. The seat cushions looked old and worn. According to the wheelwright, this was the less expensive of the two carriage-for-hire firms in town, and Lenoir could readily see why.

As he approached, a couple was exiting the shop, accompanied by a man wearing the same livery as the coachman. The footman, for so he appeared to be, assisted the lady to climb into the carriage; Lenoir quickened his step to reach them before they departed.

“Hold a moment, please,” he called. The lady leaned out of the window with a quizzical expression, and the three men turned their heads to look at Lenoir.

“What can we do for you, Inspector?” said the footman after Lenoir had introduced himself.

“Actually, it is your coachman I wish to speak with.” Lenoir looked up at the man on the perch. “Sir, were you driving this carriage yesterday afternoon?”

“I was,” said the coachman warily. He looked uncomfortable in his tacky green tunic.

“Did you pick up a young boy in the poor district, sometime in the afternoon?”

The man shook his head. “No children, sir, not yesterday. But you might try the other coachman, Marrick.” His yellow glove gestured in the direction of the shop. “Out back, washing the other carriage, I think.”

Lenoir followed the coachman’s directions through the shop and out to the back, where a man in breeches and an undershirt was mopping the running gear of an identical green and gold carriage. He swore under his breath as he worked, and did not seem to notice Lenoir’s presence until the inspector cleared his throat.

“Oh, excuse me, sir,” Marrick said sheepishly, rising. “It’s only that the paint keeps flaking off when I wash it. Frustrating, you know?”

Lenoir was supremely uninterested in the tribulations of carriage washing, and he hoped his expression conveyed as much. “I am here from the Metropolitan Police, and I would like to ask you a few questions.”

A worried look crossed the coachman’s face. “The police? Is there something wrong?”

“I wonder if you can think back to yesterday, to the people you drove in your carriage. Do you remember a boy, about ten years old? Name of Zach?”

“Oh yeah, yeah,” Marrick said enthusiastically, clearly relieved. “I remember the kid. Filthy little beggar, he was. . . .” He paused, flushing slightly. “Excuse me again. No disrespect intended. . . .”

“Not at all. That is quite helpful, actually. It means we are almost certainly talking about the same child. Was this yesterday afternoon?”

The coachman nodded. “Picked him up over on Barrow Street, about two hours before sunset, I think.”

“Was there anyone else in the carriage?”

“Course! The boy couldn’t very well have paid for it, now, could he?” Marrick gave a timid laugh.

Lenoir did not so much as hint at a smile. “Perhaps you would indulge me, sir, by telling me who else was in the carriage.”

The coachman scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Oh, right. Well . . . he didn’t give his name, actually. I mean he hadn’t booked or anything, he just flagged me down. We’re not supposed to do that, if you want the truth—my boss would box me around the ears if he knew. Doesn’t conform to the image, he says, picking up folks as though they were common hitchhikers. . . .”

Lenoir listened to the man’s drivel without comment, his face expressionless. But this seemed only to intimidate Marrick further, and he began to wander so far off topic that for a brief moment Lenoir considered cuffing him into silence. In the event, he merely said, “Stop. Try to focus, please. Short answers. Now, where did you pick this man up?”

“Warrick Avenue,” the coachman gulped.

“And where did you drop him off?”

“Berryvine.”

Lenoir blinked in surprise. Berryvine was almost two hours west of Kennian. “He must have paid you well.”

Marrick only nodded mutely.

“Was the boy with him when you dropped him off?”

Again, Marrick nodded.

“And did you have the impression he knew the boy?” Zach’s uncle flashed briefly through his mind.

Marrick considered this. “Well, I couldn’t hear their conversation from up front. But now you mention it, I guess not.” He hesitated, then shook his head firmly. “No, I reckon he couldn’t have known the boy, because he seemed to just sort of happen upon it. See, at first he just said he wanted to ride around town for a bit, but when he saw the boy, he asked me to stop. I don’t know what he said to the lad, but he looked happy enough to get in the carriage. And then the customer just asked me to take them to Berryvine, and that’s it. I dropped them on the main street, and he didn’t say where they were headed.” Marrick paused guiltily. “Guess I should’ve known something wasn’t right, him picking up a strange child like that.”

Lenoir ignored this, a knot tightening in his stomach. Any lingering doubt that Zach had met with foul play had now dissolved; the coachman’s description sounded like a classic case of a predator luring a child. Such things were not uncommon in Kennian, and orphans were especially vulnerable. Few people thought to wonder about the disappearance of a street urchin, and those that did tended to dismiss it as nothing out of the ordinary, just as the nun at Zach’s orphanage had done. All too often, the first sign of foul play was the discovery of a corpse.

Lenoir had only one question left. “What did he look like, this man? Would you know him if you saw him again?”

Marrick glanced skyward as he thought. “Well, let me see . . . He was tall, I suppose.” This seemed the limit of his powers of observation, for he was silent a long moment. Lenoir was on the verge of giving him a solid shake when the coachman added, “Oh, and his skin had a darkish hue. Might have been Adali.”

It was not much, but at least it was something to go on. If the man really was Adali, that would certainly narrow the field. Lenoir was skeptical, however, as he always was when a witness identified a suspect as Adali. As a race, the Adali were so distrusted that many witnesses either lied outright, preferring to see an Adal in jail rather than no one at all, or merely remembered the suspect as an Adal, when in fact that was not the case. The mere presence of an Adali camp near one of the outer villages was often enough to provoke a surge in the number of reported crimes.

He needed to return to headquarters and see if he could find Kody, for he would need help if he was to interview residents of Berryvine quickly. He only hoped the sergeant was there and not out chasing his phantom corpse thief.

Kody was in the middle of dictating a report when Lenoir found him. He was taking his time, waiting patiently while the scribe scratched his words out in full. You never knew when the smallest detail could be important, and Kody wanted to make sure that the scribe got everything down. He’d made it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate shorthand or paraphrasing, so he paused often and for as long as it took for the quill to stop moving. He’d just started up again when Lenoir stalked up to the scribe’s desk. The inspector didn’t even offer a greeting before cutting into Kody’s recitation.

“Get your riding cloak, Sergeant. We have work to do.”

The scribe looked up from his notebook, his quill poised in midair. He glanced uncertainly between Kody and Lenoir.

Because I’m not doing any work here? Kody thought irritably. Aloud, he said, “I’m in the middle of a report, Inspector. I spent the morning talking to some of the other sergeants, and I found out some interesting things.”

Lenoir’s lip curled. “Excellent. I can see you are on the verge of solving the crime of the century. But if you can delay your historic triumph for a few hours, I require your assistance to find a real, live child.”

Kody felt heat rise to his face, but he bit back the caustic reply that was on his lips. There was no point in antagonizing Lenoir. The man was his superior and had every right to divert him to another case. In truth, Kody was surprised Lenoir hadn’t already done just that. Still, if he didn’t finish his report now, there was a good chance he might forget some detail that could prove pivotal later on.

“If you could just give me five minutes, sir,” he said as evenly as possible, “and I’ll be finished here. I want to get this down while it’s fresh in my mind.”

A moment of indecision flashed across Lenoir’s face. Then, to Kody’s relief, he said, “Be quick about it.”

Kody cleared his throat, then hesitated uncertainly.

“An Adali male was spotted,” the scribe supplied helpfully.

“Right. An Adali male was spotted in Brackensvale some days ago by the blacksmith, who lodged a complaint with the constabulary claiming that this Adal had stolen a horse and most of his tools. Constable Sownes visited the village, but was unable to locate the suspect, and no one else in town reported seeing anyone matching the suspect’s description. Referring to Constable Sownes’s own report on the matter, quote, ‘It is possible that an Adali male was in fact in Brackensvale. However, there is no evidence that the individual was involved in the theft of Mr. Estes’s horse or his tools,’ end quote.”

Kody glanced at Lenoir to see if the inspector had caught the significance of this. But it didn’t look as though Lenoir was even listening; he stared fixedly at the floor, his eyebrows knotted as though he was deep in thought.

Pursing his lips in irritation, Kody waited until the scribe’s quill stopped bobbing. Then he raised his voice a little and said, “I would like to refer here to my previous report, in which I noted that a witness in North Haven claimed to have seen a strange Adal in town on or about the night the Jymes boy’s corpse disappeared. To have a witness in Brackensvale also claim to have seen a strange Adal on or about the day the Habberd boy disappeared is quite a coincidence.”

Still Lenoir didn’t look up. Was the man stone deaf? Or was he feigning indifference purely out of spite? To the below with him, Kody thought sourly; if the inspector could ignore him, he could ignore the inspector.

“Lastly, I was informed that Constable Crears of Berryvine reported a boy missing yesterday. A live one, that is. His parents haven’t seen him in two days.”

It was as though Lenoir had been startled from slumber. His head shot up. “What did you say?”

At last. “A boy has gone missing in Berryvine, Inspector,” Kody repeated gravely. “A nine-year-old boy.”

Lenoir swore quietly in Arrènais, his gaze abstracted. Then he said, “Get up, Sergeant. You have finished your report. We must ride to Berryvine immediately.”

Kody was momentarily stunned. He’d never seen Lenoir react so vigorously, not even for a murder. Wary but hopeful, he grabbed his cloak and followed Lenoir to the police livery.

As the stable boy fetched their mounts, Lenoir said, “The boy I am looking for is also in Berryvine. But he was taken there from Kennian.”

Of course. Kody should have known better than to think Lenoir gave a damn about some merchant’s boy in Berryvine. “Whose son is it?”

Lenoir frowned. “Pardon?”

“I assume he’s a nobleman’s son? Or did his family offer money to find him?”

He knew he’d gone too far as soon as he said it. Lenoir turned to him slowly, his face a cold mask, and when he spoke, his voice was low and dangerous. “That is the last time I will tolerate your impudence, Kody. If there were another sergeant I could count on to assist me, I would relieve you of your duty here and now. Fortunately for you, your colleagues are buffoons and imbeciles. But if I hear so much as a single word out of your mouth between here and Berryvine, I will have you thrown in Fort Hald for insubordination. I do hope I have been clear.”

He snatched his horse’s lead out of the hands of the startled stable boy and heaved himself into the saddle. Kody followed suit, his face burning. Lenoir had never spoken to him like that before, but he didn’t doubt for a moment that the inspector would follow through on his threat. Whatever questions Kody had, he’d have to swallow them. It would be a long ride to Berryvine.