Ring. Sister. Piano (Book 4 of The Powder Trail)

Chapter One: The Gruesome Pinnacle of Hopelessness

Inspector Hastings was a surreal and alarming sight to see first thing in the morning, when you had spent the last ten hours sewing up a man's chest. Sergei felt like one of those overworked seamstresses in the capital – more overworked, perhaps, because sewing flesh was a lot harder than sewing cloth. It was wet and tender, and the blood rushed in everywhere you didn't want it to, as though determined to obscure your view.

He had enlisted Sarah and the cook as helpers, telling them to pass him instruments, and clean away the blood from the wounds. Their gasps, grumblings, and threats to leave his service had been the only noise in the operating theatre that night.

But always, his son's calm, dark eyes had watched him, their lashes rising and lowering like a portcullis.

Sergei didn't know what their expression was. He thought it might be lots of things as exhaustion began to work on his imagination: pride or gratitude or hostility or righteous indignation. All of them seemed appropriate at various different times. But Sergei didn't mind. He only cared that the boy was there, and he was helping him.

Now he stood on the steps of the Faculty building, looking at Inspector Hastings, who was a few steps below, but tall enough to be just in his eye-line.

It was a lovely day. Jack was too injured to work any mischief, and Sergei had been able to help his son. Looking at it symbolically, he had saved the life of a man who had saved the lives of thousands of new-breeds. Perhaps he had worked off his debt to the new-breed race. Perhaps he was forgiven.

All in all, he was feeling quite cheerful as the Inspector yelled at him.

"I can come back here with a squad and force my way in, you know!"

"I'm afraid you'll have to," said Sergei.

"I can have you arrested for refusing me – that's obstructing an Officer of the Crown in the course of his duty."

"I'm not very interested in the legal implications, Inspector. I am only interested in the fact that my patient will die if he's moved. Barristers could argue over one but not, I suspect, the other."

"Then you won't object to letting my men in to guard him, as long as we don't move him?" said the Inspector shrewdly.

"Guard him? He's more stitches than man and he has the faintest discernible pulse. What do you imagine he can do?"

"I wouldn't like to imagine! He's Jack Cade, so the very worst I could imagine probably wouldn't be depraved enough!"

Sergei sighed. "I do think arts students and police officers have a tendency to exaggerate."

This inflamed the Inspector more, as he had known it would. Sergei usually hated confrontation, but it had been a very trying night.

"How can you underestimate him like this?" the Inspector demanded, mounting another step, and pushing his red face closer to Sergei's. "You know him!"

"Yes, but I also know lots of other things, like the consequences of severe blood loss and prolonged surgery. I am also of the opinion that an armed guard in a sickroom can do little to aid the healing process."

"How do I even know he's injured," said the Inspector, "if you won't let me in to see him?"

Sergei looked down at the steps, where Shikari's bloody footprints were beginning to dry and flake in the sun. "The trail of blood which led you here would presumably have been a clue?"

"That could be anyone's blood."

"I don't keep bags of it in the cellar on purpose to mislead you."