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

Chapter Twenty Four: Fever and Fog

Snow was sifting down over the city, but Sam was sweating by the time he reached the University Church. He had stomped all the way up here, his breath steaming on the air and making him look even more like a fuming beast. Nobody had waylaid him with idle conversations.

He wasn't, in truth, that angry. He didn't know what he was. But anger was something he knew, and seemed like an emotionally safe place to be, so he shrugged on its mannerisms like a well-worn coat, and allowed it to guide him up the hill to the High Street.

It left him on the threshold of the church doors. The chill suddenly set in, curled its fingers round his jaw and turned his head, until he was looking longingly back the way he had come. He might have gone straight home if Manda hadn't spotted him.

"Are those my books? Shut the door, will you? I'm freezing."

He was carrying a small wooden crate in his arms. Its contents jangled now as he hefted it into a more comfortable position, revealing the fact that it did not just contain books. In fact, it contained enough artillery to equip a small army – which was, he supposed, exactly what it was going to do. An army of twitchy old women who cried for a living. But Manda had asked him, and he didn't seem to be able to say no to Manda these days.

Sam grunted and kicked the doors shut behind him. At least the workmen had gone home. He would probably not have the courage to say what he had come here to say, but even bumbling fruitlessly around the subject would have been made more difficult by company.

"Are they heavy?" she asked, as he came closer, lumbering through the dim candlelight. "Why didn't you take a cab here? Just look at you!"

He dropped the crate onto the nearest pew, and she passed him a handkerchief to wipe his brow. 

She was freezing. There were goose-bumps under the black, gauzy material of her dress. It was not compulsory for mourners to dress this way – in fact, she was wearing what might have been referred to as summer mourning attire. But it was like her constant working, her constant holding of that broom, the fact that she was here at all hours now, overseeing work that could have gone on perfectly well without her. She was trying to distract herself.

"Where's Madam Seacombe?" he said.

"I sent her back to Iffley Road. The rooms here aren't really habitable yet."

"But you're staying the night here?"

"Well, I don't have any time to habit," said Manda. "There's too much work to do."

Sam looked disconsolately at the floor. There was not a speck of dirt in sight.

He had spent the past few days cleaning out the station. It wasn't just the broken, out-of-date furnishings that were going, but the broken, out-of-date policemen: anyone who had been complicit in Jack's takeover, anyone who had looked the other way when things went missing from the evidence locker, or when the mayor dropped by and asked them not to arrest murderers because they happened to be his friends. 

He was stuck with the mayor himself, of course – and stuck with keeping Jack out of prison. Jack knew too much about the city's most powerful men, and they wouldn't risk making him angry. But they wouldn't risk making Sam angry either, because he had impounded all Jack's incriminating documents.

It was not perfect. There was no integrity to it. The job of manipulating the city's powerful men had just passed from Jack to Sam, that was all. But at least he knew he could be trusted with it.

In any case, Manda had asked for some of the old truncheons and revolvers. This had made Sam uneasy even after she'd explained that the mourners wanted to make their rebuilt premises more secure, so that no gargoyles or slave-dealers would ever sneak in and set fire to the place again. It made sense – he just didn't want to think of Madam Seacombe with a pistol under her pillow.