Tabula Rasa

Chapter 37

The woman’s hair was dyed a harsh, unnatural fox-pelt red. Heavy makeup had collected in her wrinkles so the painted eyes in the artificially whitened face made him think of black beetles in a snowdrift. But she still had most of her own teeth, or someone else’s skillfully attached, and the smile that revealed them was professional. So was the disappointment when she realized Ruso had only come for information and was not intending to pay for it.

Yes, she had heard about the boy. It was a terrible thing.

“Do you have many customers who ask for boys?”

“Not often enough to warrant buying one,” she said, as if it were a matter of regret. “I send them to Vindolanda.”

“Do you know who those customers are?”

“I know who all my customers are.”

Ruso waited.

“Discretion, Doctor,” she explained. “I’m sure you understand.”

“And I’m sure you understand how urgently we need to know.”

The muscles holding the cheeks into a half smile relaxed, and the skin around her mouth fell to a slackness that betrayed her age. Ruso looked her in the eye until she pulled the smile back into place.

She remembered a tall gentleman with only one leg, and one who was short and stout and wheezy. She could hardly have invented anyone less like the man who had taken Branan.

“If you see either of them,” he said, “ask them to look out for him on their, ah . . . on their travels.”

“I’m sure they will,” she said, not in a way he liked. “Now. Who else can we offer you, Doctor?”