The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [68]
Groaning and rubbing his eyes, Valentine attempted to recount what they knew about Zindel’s murder. “Zindel is a geometer. He’s at home with his family…we’re assuming that he’s locked his front door, because everyone in North Ferry does.” He raised his head. “Should we be doing that? I mean, if the door was unlocked, then anyone could have gotten in and just done it. It could just be a random murder.”
“Right. In which case, we’ll never find who did it. Let’s assume, for the moment, that the open lock is something important, because it gives us somewhere to look.”
“Okay. So, someone came to the Zindel house, and unlocked the door. He murders them, then maybe gets some sharpsies to cover it up, or maybe he is a sharpsie and does it himself. So, why does Zindel let the sharpsie into his house? It must be because he’s dead, so someone must have hired the sharpsie. But then, why didn’t he just hire the sharpsie to kill Zindel in the first place? If he had access to the house? Maybe he did, but I still don’t understand why a sharpsie would come in and murder someone and then not bother robbing them…”
“All right.” Skinner’s voice was firm. “All right. Let’s skip that bit. Whatever happened in the house, we haven’t got enough information about it. Tell me about the coachman again. He came to Zindel’s house…”
“The coachman saw the cordon and left. Suspiciously. I followed him. After he went to Printer’s Close, someone shot him. That same someone was then killed by a…by a something that I’d rather not think about.”
Skinner leaned back in her chair and started tapping her fingernail on the plate across her eyes. “You know his name? The coachman’s?”
Valentine nodded. “James Crowell. Works for a private livery stable in New Bank. He lives right about where Red Lanes turns into River Village.”
“So, that’s easy. We talk to his boss, find out what jobs he took.”
Valentine shifted uncomfortably. “Ah. I tried that, actually. Right after I found it. The company usually lets cabs out for…hm. Trips to Fleshmarket, things like that. They pride themselves on being discreet.”
“We’ll demand their records…”
“They don’t keep any. I mean, they do. But cabs are all paid for in advance, and anonymously. Drivers are given an address, often not the home address of their passengers. Passengers are never identified by name and the drivers never keep a record of where they’ve gone.”
“So, his boss doesn’t know who hired him, or where he took the coach?”
“Correct.”
Skinner started tapping her eye-plate again, for several seconds. Valentine found it decided creepy, and was about to ask her to stop when she said, “Hnh. Well, I guess we’ll go to his house.”
“Do you think he left notes?”
Skinner shrugged, and got to her feet. “He might have. Right now, it’s the only thing we can check that we haven’t got conclusive answers about. Karine,” she called to the indige secretary, “have Harry get the coach ready.”
The trip to River Village gave the two coroners a much better view of what was happening in nearby Mudside. The shanty-town was burning fiercely: blue phlogiston flames turned to red and orange as they spread to the wooden homes. Men were shouting, dragging struggling, tooth-gnashing sharpsies out into the street, occasionally shackling them and throwing them into the backs of reinforced prison-wagons. More often, the gendarmes, who generally outnumbered their opponents at least five to one, were simply beating the sharpsies bloody, sometimes to death.
One such group dragged a young sharpsie man right into the path of the coach, ignoring Harry’s shouts as he demanded that they clear the street. The men screamed at the sharpsie as their cudgels rose and fell, blood splattering on their faces, days’ worth of fear and anger finding free expression in their violence.
Valentine climbed down from the coach. He fired a few shots into the air and the gendarmes, who rarely could afford comparable