CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - THE VELVETEEN ABSENCE

"Well, that's a bit rotten, isn't it?"

Tanner shot Marana a look as she hurried along, her gait becoming significantly faster than was really decent, and she had to force herself not to sprint. Tanner full-sprint was not a sight the colony was ready for this early in the morning, it was like being charged at by some colossal exotic monster from a distant sweltering part of the world.

"Rotten. Yes. That's the word."

"Well-handled, though."

"Hm."

"Good to see the Erlize are limited here. My guess is they're happy to leave this to you - I mean, resources and whatnot."

Tanner groaned.

"Oh, wonderful, we're on our own. No assistance."

"Not no assistance, just... well, think of it this way. The Erlize have agents throughout the population. If you just spontaneously go from 'goodness, this fellow is free' to 'well, I know exactly where he is, who he's with, and the consistency of his last bowel movement at the microscopic level', what image does that present? That the secret police are everywhere, know everything, control everyone, and might be hiding in the bend of your toilet right at this moment."

Tanner didn't dignify that with a response. Why did everything have to be vulgar? Did she find it entertaining?

Feh.

"I thought that was the impression they wanted to cultivate. Like you said - an aura of omniscience and omnipotence."

"Well, an aura alone can't sustain them. They won't have many agents, not very well implanted. Hard to stay undercover in a tight-knit place like this, you're basically asking people to live a full, complete life here, engaging and sympathising and integrating, while also being prepared to betray everyone they've been getting to know at the drop of a hat."

"That's their job."

"An engineer has a job of fuelling up an engine with coal, doesn't make them immune to the engine exploding in their face. Trust me. Agents are difficult to run. Father complained enough about it. Too many going native, going nuts, and the ones without a conscience usually unnerved too many people, or got caught doing unfortunate things to innocent people. My point is, they'll let us do this on our own, because otherwise, you just become a patsy fro the secret police, we both lose all credence in the eyes of the people, and an air of hostility develops towards the big man at the top. Nothing to ruin avuncular charisma like openly (if indirectly) stating that you have a man monitoring their every movement and for crying out loud, slow down, I'm about to pop something."

Oh. Right. Talking and running wasn't a good combination. Tanner was still shuffling, really, but Marana had to really kick her legs up to keep pace. And, uh, now her face was alarmingly red and purple. She looked like the residue at the bottom of an old wine decanter, and she was wheezing like someone... how old was she? Twice her age might be too much, twice her age might just be a corpse. One and a half times, then. Tanner slowed. Waited for Marana to catch her breath, which came in hollow rattles. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her nose was running. Gods, she looked a mess. Tanner patted her uncertainly on the back, just trying to contribute to the general effort, even as nervousness and paranoia nipped at her heels with all the unwavering commitment of a rabid dog.

"...good point. Keep your voice down, though."

"Right, right, sorry, currently hacking out a damn lung. Alright. Fine. Let's go."

And off they went, shuffling through the snow under the interlocked roofs.

"So, who's on the docket? You let me do the... this, and you handle the judging business - who's first?"

Tanner kept her voice low, and pulled her scarf over her face, hiding her lips from any particularly perceptive individuals who might shelter behind those darkened, frost-kissed windows. Reminded her of the dead eyes of mutants. It was a silly exercise of paranoia, but... hell, she felt paranoid, might as well act appropriately.

"Neighbour who witnessed this. I'd want to interview all the neighbours up and down the street, but I'll hold off on that until we have more confirmation - I don't particularly want to start a panic by interrogating everyone in sight. Innkeeper, if I can find him. Bouncer, ideally. See what names they mention."

"What's the cover?"

Tanner blinked. Processed quickly. Right, she understood.

"We're just looking into a potential drunken altercation. At least, with the innkeeper, the bouncer, anyone else. With the neighbour, stay mum on the topic of him hiding in another house. If he brings it up, if he knows about it, good. Otherwise, no point alarming him. Hm. Ought to... yes, ought to see if a soldier can keep an eye on them as well, just in case. Don't want to take any chances on that point."

"Get them to do it in plain clothes, a man in uniform inspires four responses - fear, hatred, arousal, and no matter what, attention. Don't want to frighten anyone. What was the man's name again?"

* * *

"Mr. Lam?"

A red-haired man blinked nervously at the two of them. He was wrapped up solidly, from a pair of heavy wool moccasins to a pendulous scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, and his hair was cropped close to his head - reminded Tanner faintly of a fox's fur, the sort she saw around the necks of particularly elegant women. He looked... meek. He almost retreated into his own scarf on seeing the large woman staring down at him, like a turtle entering his shell. His eyes blinked constantly, he seemed incapable of not blinking for longer than a second or two, and his eyes were a watery shade of blue. The dark shadows of a few days without shaving hung about his sharply defined cheeks, which on someone else might seem statuesque or imposing, but with him, made him look bony, fragile, liable to snap if clutched too tightly. Shrivelled, even. And the way he moved accentuated this - everything deliberate, stillness instilled into habit. Not in a harsh, calculated fashion, more... economical. Like he was familiar with the cold, the winter, and knew to conserve his energy.

"Yes? May I help you?"

"I'm Judge Tanner, this is my associate, Marana. Could we possibly come in? We're just collecting statements."

The man paled slightly.

"I really don't want to cause any trouble, honoured judge. Not at all."

"Oh, there's no trouble. Again, this is just for context."

She smiled, in what she imagined was a gentle fashion, while Marana rubbed her hands together for warmth. The man hesitated... then opened his door a little further, allowing them inside. The house was small, poky, but not quite as small and poky as Tom-Tom's little shack, which hadn't really been able to fit three people standing up in any one room, especially when one of them was Tanner. This house was slightly larger... Tanner's eyes flickered around quickly. Bedroom with an extra cot stuffed under the bed, slightly larger table... family unit. Didn't look like there was a wife around, so maybe just a son or daughter. No sign of them, though. Interesting. The man took them into the kitchen, where he performed the remarkable feat of sitting down at his table without actually sitting down, literally remaining an inch above the chair from sheer tension. Goodness. The kitchen was barely large enough for all three of them, and Tanner had to more or less lurk inside the door and poke her head inside awkwardly. Marana silently took her papers from her, withdrawing a long pencil from her own pocket - oh, that was considerate of her. She was the right size for sitting down and writing notes. How startlingly decent. Tanner hadn't even thought of this, dolt that she was.

One feature of the kitchen that caught her attention was the cage swinging overhead. Tiny, really. Maybe large enough for a sparrow or a robin or something suitably tiny and delicate. Made entirely of wood, not a single nail visible from the outside, and there was no door she could see. Interesting. The Rekidans seemed so very cloistered about their own culture, at least, beyond Tom-Tom and her skull-measuring obsession. Interesting to see such a naked expression of it. Interesting to consider what it meant, too.

"So... how may I help?"

Tanner paused, mulling over her own thoughts. Usually, when she handled statements, she did so in the inner temple, or a little office in the outer temple borrowed for the occasion, particularly if the criminal was considered risky in some way. Not used to doing it in other people's houses. Altered the tenor of things. Now... where to start... the man placed his hands together on the tabletop, clearly wishing to interlace them, to wring them a little, but... no. Stillness. Hm. Marana did nothing. Waited for her lead, pen poised over the page.

"You're Mr. Lam, yes? Is that a last name or a first name?"

"...first. My last name is, well, just a patronymic."

"May we have it?"

"I didn't know my father. There's no substitute."

She smiled gently.

"I understand. That's quite alright, we don't need one."

A pause.

"...you have a child, yes? I saw a cot in your bedroom, and your house is larger than the others I've seen."

"Oh. Yes. Yes, I do. Little girl. Yan."

"Would her patronymic be..."

"Lam, yes. Yan-Lam."

"Where is she now?"

"The governor's mansion. Works for him as a chambermaid, reason she was able to come out here."

Goodness. She hadn't been a woeful troglodyte by immediately speculating a connection between the two redheads she'd 'met' thus far in the colony. How nice. Tanner said nothing, though. Just watched. Interested. A small smile on her face that she intended to be welcoming, and it was all she could muster with paranoia and dread gnawing at her heels. Despite himself, Lam gave a little smile back, some of his tension fading, just for a moment.

"Lovely man. I wanted to move out of the shantytown, but the colony... they weren't very interested in complete families, not with things so young out here. But Yan was suffering in the bad air down there, had an awful cough, just wouldn't go away, and every doctor just said she needed proper fresh air... this was the first opening to come up. I asked if I could possibly manage to get up here, even with a child, and... well, the governor actually wrote to me, said he could sort something out. Lovely man."

"I've met your daughter. Does a very good job with the tea, never been disappointed by it."

The man's smile held on for a little longer, and his eyes crinkled slightly at the edges. Paternal pride. Hm. An odd thought struck her, and she felt compelled to pursue it. Just out of personal interest.

"I'm sorry if this is impertinent, but... last time I saw your daughter, just last night when I visited the governor, she had a nasty bruise around her arm. Is she alright, or...?"

Lam stiffened, paternal pride turning to paternal concern. Now his hands interlaced, and they clutched at one another like each one was trying to save itself from drowning.

"Oh. She's... well, she spends most of her time in the mansion, where she's needed - more spacious, too. I'm not... sure how she acquired that, but no-one's been here to tell me of any particular problems. The last time she was here was about a week ago, and she didn't seem hurt at all then... I hope she's alright, I'll try and get up there, soon as I can."

Right. Once the interview was over. Marana interjected suddenly, her voice smooth and professional, none of the usual alcohol-inflected rambles. Her smile was delicate and ambiguous, not quite reaching her eyes.

"Might be wise to stay here a little longer, Mr. Lam. We're asking a gentleman to keep an eye on your house, once we've sorted that out, I'm sure it would be easy for you to head up."

Right, yes, yes, should've remembered that. Still. She nodded along, acting like this was all expected and she had total command of the situation. Mr. Lam nodded as well, and for a few moments all three of them were nodding to one another like a bunch of morons. The dignity of her office demanded she stop nodding. The awkwardness of her nature demanded she keep nodding until someone else stopped. Finally, the former won out.

Goodness, he did look nervous.

"Now... yes, the events in question happened not more than a few days ago, relating to your neighbour, Ms. Tom-Tom. Could you take us through those events, as clearly as you can?"

Mr. Lam swallowed, and slowly unclasped his hands.

"...it was a few days ago-"

"When?"

Marana had her pen poised, and watched the man silently while letting Tanner take point on the interview. Very kind of her.

"The nineteenth. I was at home that day, had a sprained wrist from my work in the city - we were shifting rubble from a street, a brick fell on my hand. We wear these huge gauntlet-things when we're digging in the rubble, helps with lingering pockets of contamination, but still. Hurt like hell, overseer sent me home for a few days to rest up. Not so serious, though, not going to keep me out of commission for long, I was back to work a few days later, the overseer just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to make a mistake or injure myself permanently. Nice of him. Anyway. One day, I wake up, I'm eating breakfast, and I hear this... ruckus happening over the fence. Poke my head out to have a look, I see a man I'm... not overly familiar with, but I've seen him around, banging at my neighbour's door like he's possessed. Wants to get in, mostly just spouting nonsense, though. The woman doesn't sound very happy to have him there. I go out, yell for him to bog off."

"...and he did?"

"He did, but I stuck around for a little bit afterwards to make sure he didn't come back. The woman left, the man did come back, I yelled at him again... he sized the house up and left."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Marana's pen was flying over the page - she didn't write in the neat, cramped style of the judges, but she wasn't messy. Just had an elegant flow to it that probably looked fantastic when writing letters, everything looping and blending and intermingling. Say what you liked about Marana, but she had a beautiful hand. Tanner wasn't remotely jealous.

"Did he... say anything to you at any stage?"

"No."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing at all. Just glared and sidled off when I confronted him. Mean look in his eyes."

"You said you recognised this man from around the colony - what's his name?"

"Tyer, I think."

"No other familiarity, though."

"None. We don't talk, I'm on a city crew, he mostly works up at one of the cold-houses... don't even go to the same inns, really."

"Which cold-house?"

"North one, up on the hill."

"And what inns does he frequent?"

"The... Barrack-Room, I think. Saw him there once, I was there with a friend. Didn't take much to it."

Tanner hummed.

"Yes, I'm familiar with it. The liquor's fairly decent, but I can't stand the pies, myself. Far too much grease, not enough structural integrity. Collapse when you put a fork into them, and too messy to eat with your hands. Sticky bars, too."

Of course she was familiar. Marana, too. Inns were where all her damn interviews had happened, she literally had nowhere else to do her job. Marana had never minded. Of course she didn't. Mr. Lam's smile was small and tense.

"That's the one. Not sure about the others, but I don't think we've bumped into each other. Too small for someone to go unnoticed, honestly."

"Has Tyer been publicly drunk in the past?"

"Yes. Few times. Seen him stumbling home, man can't hold his liquor, I suppose."

"Bar fights?"

"None I've heard of, but bouncers break them up quickly enough. Pretty careful about that."

"But it's conceivable that he's been involved in bar fights?"

"Sure, sure."

Silence reigned for a few long moments, silence broken only by Marana scribbling away with her elegant hand. Interesting. She considered any further angles, any further clarifications... this was always just a small matter, really, but now she had confirmation on the basic issues of the case. Confirmation of the harassment, at least. The violence, that would have to be a case of her-word-against-his, but if she could get confirmation that he was a known drunk, had violent inclinations, and had been at an inn earlier that night before soldiering off into the snow, then she could easily put together the right circumstantial evidence to legitimise her judgement. Though, the fact that he had slunk off so peaceably was... a little odd. This was a man who'd struck a woman while drunk, then become obsessed with apologising in person, to the point of harassment. At the heart of the case was the anonymous figure of Tyer, who seemed to be... well, just a swirl of ambiguities. Who was he? Why had he done it? Where was he now? How had he known to flee, and how long could that deception last? Who were his allies, if any? Why had it taken so long for him to do something this unpleasant? It was a fallacy to assume that every criminal was born out of a life of crime, but Tanner would be surprised if there was no precedent for him doing this.

Right now, all she had were his outlines. Shanytown, originally. Worked as a labourer in a local colony of Fidelizh, one situated in its broader hinterland, rather than this far-flung place. Moved out here, and worked quietly until this happened. In short, a completely useless life story that told her basically nothing.

Anyway.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Lam. We'll be in touch if there's anything further. Again, just... stay put until a gentleman makes himself known to you as a soldier, though he might be in plain clothes at the time. Your daughter seemed fine, last I saw her. Just a bruise."

"...right. Thank you, honoured judge."

Marana looked up suddenly, her voice piercingly sharp in the otherwise intimate mumblings of an awkward interview.

"Why the cage?"

"...superstition, miss. Nothing else."

"What does it do?"

"Captures bad influences, miss. It's just a silly thing, old folks used to make them, taught me how. More an exercise in woodworking than anything else."

"Interesting. Any thoughts on the shape of my skull?"

A blink.

"Uh. It's a very nice skull."

"Thank you, darling."

And that was all.

* * *

The Barrack-Room was across town, and before they went there, the two investigators decided to have a little poke around Tyer's home. It was eerily pristine, for the home of a violent criminal. The soldiers hadn't busted down the door, they'd placidly unlocked it. No violence, no chaos, no change. Could easily just be any ordinary house. The windows had curtains drawn across them, and there were no soldiers to be seen, none at all. But they were watching, she knew that much. Maybe not wearing their uniforms, maybe hiding in a vacant house, maybe just patrolling with affected ease around a nearby street... but they were here. The key in her hand was heavy and certain, and she wondered where Sersa Bayai had found it. Was it a spare, dredged from the house? In the governor's mansion, was there a great array of keys hanging from some secretive wall, or nestled in nooks in some secretive ledger or filing cabinet, ready to be drawn out when security had to be preserved. Did they have a key to her own house? Or was every lock in town able to be opened by the touch of a single, special sort? She almost imagined Erlize officers walking around at night, their master keys hanging like pendants from their necks, like they were clockwork men who needed winding up from time to time. Ready to silently open well-oiled locks, to step inside with their cufflinks glinting, ready to study you in your sleep with their dead, dead eyes.

She really needed to calm down. They weren't here.

But they were definitely watching her. In some way. Maybe not at night, but... in general. Like Marana said. Like stepping into a compressed cobweb. No matter where you move, you touch dozens of strands, strands that by all rights ought to be quite distant from one another. One step, and the governor had an eye on her, and the Erlize, and the locals, and everyone and everything.

"Alright?"

Tanner almost jumped

.

Almost.

"Fine. Just thinking."

"Me too. Something about Mr. Lam's rubbing me up the wrong way."

Tanner said nothing. Let her talk.

"He elaborated too much. Most people are more stingy with the truth. It's like... the difference between a bank note and a counterfeit note. Both are made of paper. Both are stylistically similar. But one is devoid of value, and is just a piece of paper. Throw it around by the bundle, burn it up, have at it. Anyway. Let's move."

Tanner wasn't sure she liked following that train of thought. The same low unease that had characterised her first few weeks here was building up again, subtle and coiling. Hm. The house loomed, and without further ado she advanced, feeling the imprints in the snow where soldiers had moved in the dark, hunting for the man. Might still be here, curled up under the floorboards like a rat, fingers inching upwards to rip the board free and release himself. No, no... don't be ridiculous. The lock turned smoothly. Silently. She entered like a ghost, with no fanfare, and the first creak of a floorboard made her almost jump out of her skin with its suddenness, with how it tore the silence apart. It was a tiny house, like Tom-Tom's. Identical, really. An eerie thought - once you were in a few houses in the colony, you knew basically all of them. Would make it easier for a soldier to examine them, for Erlize officers to ransack them, for a criminal to manoeuvre inside them. If Tyer had entered Tom-Tom's house, he'd have felt completely at home, known every nook and cranny from the start.

Cold. The stove was empty and dark. The bed was unmade, blanket half-draped off the edge. A small book on a low shelf, which Tanner examined carefully. Just a book of poems. Fidelizhi. Nothing remarkable, they were mostly romances. Even so, she flicked through all the pages, imagining finding a hollow segment where some awful souvenir of an old murder was stored. Nothing. Her attention wandered. A single cast iron decoration on the wall, like the ones that featured in all the inns - a swirl of geometric designs, clustering around a figure that might've been human, but dissected to the most basic motifs. Flailing arms, kicking legs, a head tilted back, all of it broken by the interminable churn of the abstract patterns. She'd seen plenty before - this was no different. Nothing behind it, and it was too thin to store anything inside. Next to the book was a tiny print, looked torn from a newspaper and mounted on a piece of cheap wood. Nothing odd, just an engraving of the god-towers of Fidelizh, with their great windmills and painted faces. Nothing behind it, but she intended to slide a knife under it later, to check for anything hidden on the underside of the image. The kitchen was just as unremarkable - Tanner felt an unpleasant twinge of familiarity when she looked around this meagre little space, with its crude hob and narrow cupboards, built into the walls. The same hallmarks of the single man, the same that dwelled in her own home. Everything eaten by halves, everything consumed too slowly, everything done in a slow, depressing race against rot, the mould mocking one's solitude.

A shuffle of movement caught her attention, and her head twitched...

A shadow at the window. Barely visible behind the curtains.

A memory of a pale face at her own window in the middle of the night. She remained very still. A voyeur, a gossip-scavenger, picking over the remains of a scene that, once, had been more interesting. Picking for any details. No rattle from the door - the shape wasn't trying to get in. Just peering. Tanner remained still, and could vaguely see Marana in the bedroom, likewise frozen. The figure hovered for a moment, swaying from one side to the other, desperate to peek past the thick curtains...

Gone.

Satisfied that there was nothing to find.

Tanner let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

Marana looked into the kitchen, her face set and tense. Neither spoke to one another. Felt improper. And would be risky. They didn't want to give the impression that this place was being ransacked, to her knowledge Sersa Bayai had been very careful indeed, and she didn't want to disrupt that. Maybe the population had suspicions, but she didn't want to confirm anything. World of difference between 'odd goings-on around Tyer's house' and 'Tyer has vanished, is hiding in the town to evade the law, and his house was being searched by that enormous judge that just arrived'. The former was a stub of a conversation that wouldn't flourish into anything but wild speculations that died out with a lack of evidence. The latter was far too real. And reality could flower into further realities, while uncertainty could only flower into conjecture and fantasy.

She kept searching. Looking around for any clues. The house was scrupulously clean, by and large, kept to a basic standard by its sole inhabitant. She'd hoped to find bottles scattered around the floor, puddles of vomit, the hallmarks of a drunkard's den, but... no. No. He had liquor in the house, yes, a bottle of gin that was half-empty, but... no, no, think. She murmured very, very quietly to Marana once they were secluded in the hallway.

"Do you think the governor would allow people to take alcohol home with them?"

Marana hummed, and whispered back, voice barely audible.

"I doubt it. Place like this, alcohol's valuable. Let people take alcohol home, you're asking them to associate in private, to form unregulated groups, to act according to their own whims. Inns, you can regulate. Station bouncers outside, set dedicated closing times... then make the houses resistant to any kind of gathering by keeping the size down, the dimensions awkward... then make it completely pointless by making drinking cheaper and easier in an inn. They do that in New Trobalis, incidentally - opium dens are owned by the state, makes it easier for them to regulate the things, strangle criminals

wallet-first."

Hm. So... well, they weren't going to find any indications of habitual alcoholism here. Unfortunate. Unless half a bottle of gin qualified as 'extreme alcoholism' in Rekida, they were out of luck. Searching the house ceased to become a matter of exploring his character, and more a matter of just... looking around for any clue to his whereabouts, anything. But there was no book but the single book of poetry. No pictures beyond the two already mentioned. He was a labourer, he worked all day, drank all night, and shambled back here to sleep. Didn't leave much room for decorations. Indeed, for all she knew, his life as a labourer in another colony might've made him incredibly good at packing up in a flash, keeping all his belongings close together. Indeed... hm, hm. In the kitchen, there were three mugs. Three. In a house designed to receive, ideally, zero visitors - and he only had a single chair. Two mugs were sturdy ceramic things, anonymous and not too old, but the third... chipped tin. Once upon a time, painted. No more, though. All flaked away over the years. Cheap thing, but the basic metal was intact... if she was going to guess, she'd say he brought it into the colony with him from outside. So he'd taken the trouble to bring this, but hadn't taken the trouble to take it with him to his hiding spot.

She thought back to Mr. Lam's interview, which she still had to note down formally. Confronted. Left. Clearly lucid at the time. Presumably scarpered when he realised that Tom-Tom was going for the judges, or someone else in a position of authority. Why not come back here to pick up this mug, that he'd lugged across most of the continent? There were legitimate explanations - the mug wasn't that significant to him, or he expected to return, or he'd been panicked about returning home. But still... everything in this house of personal value was small and highly portable. A small cast iron decoration, a small cut-out from a newspaper, a single book of poetry, a chipped tin mug. Clearly the belongings of someone who moved a fair amount and kept his things close to his chest. So... why not grab them?

Would he be back for them, was another question. Was that shape at the door Tyer, heading back to check on his house, to see if he could... no, dubious, highly dubious.

The coiling feeling of unease was growing. An itch within her teeth was rising. Tanner knew how she was meant to behave, and when she didn't, she became unnerved. And the opposite side of this habit was being aware of how others were meant to behave. Few things worse than being in a play with someone else forgetting their lines. A shudder ran up her spine - gods, she was thinking about the mandatory drama again, urgh. Horrid. Nightmarish. Not for consideration. Anyway. She knew how a stalker and habitual drunk should be behaving, how things should click, and this place didn't quite add up...

Well.

Almost.

She advanced back to the bedroom, doing one last check. Didn't expect to find anything. The unmade bed made her feel viscerally uncomfortable for a moment, not unlike when she'd first seen Eygi's bed unmade, all those years ago. Just... she didn't want to see the fabric that swaddled someone's near-naked body during the wee hours of the night. If you were unwilling to see undergarment for that reason, why weren't you unwilling to see bedclothes, hm? Anyway. She gently pulled the sheet back over the bed on instinct, and...

The floorboards under the bed were wrong.

She could see the raw pale wood where nails had been dragged out and replaced. Blackened slightly with shoe polish to mask it, but the shade was still a little off, a little different, a little... wrong, in some respect. A little was scraped off where a final removal had taken place, and nothing had been applied afterwards. Someone had been in a hurry. She hummed, checking the bed again, before casually picking the whole thing up and levering it to the side, tongue sticking out one side of her mouth as she tried to avoid crashing around like an ogress. These houses were light as could be, honestly, most of the things inside them were thin and cheap - she'd be surprised if she couldn't tear her way through most of the things in here if she was so inclined. Was that another planned disincentive towards private assembly? 'Oh, come on in for a spot of tea, given that the alcohol is reserved for the inns... oh, oh dear, my mug snapped, oh dear, my chair snapped, oh dear, everything breaking with stress, and even a single accident is a permanent reduction, what on earth am I going to do now'. Or something along those lines. On second thought, it was probably just cheaper and easier, not everything was part of a grand political conspiracy to put everyone in a neat little box. Sometimes a bed was just cheap.

...a filthy part of her wondered if the beds were this thin and light to prevent fraternisations. Hoo, what a thought. Two people, going at it, then the bed snaps under them. How dare you try and do things without the say-so of the governor! Didn't you know that the colony has a strict policy on fraternisations, with any engagement requiring paperwork, licenses, and a chaperone from the Erlize to stare unblinkingly as the two of you do a passable imitation of a pair of cannibalistic leeches?!

Stop it, brain.

Marana approached to see what was happening, but otherwise was gratifyingly quiet. Good. Tanner knelt. Examined the boards, brushing off any... no, not a speck of dust. Scrupulously clean, like the rest of the house. Again, that surprised her. From experience, houses tend to get... dirty when you weren't living in them constantly. Her room in the labyrinth? Spotless, immaculate, could eat your dinner off the floor if you were so inclined. Her house in the colony? Parts were good. But there was too much dust in some corners, the lesser-used rooms could acquire quite a thick coat before she got round to cleaning them, the risk of vermin was always in her mind, and she keenly aware of just how much slipped her attention while she was running around doing her job. Squalor was easy when you didn't have to remain in it constantly.

Now, for getting this thing open. Presumably, the fellow had levered the nails out with a hammer, perhaps, or a screwdriver. Neither could be seen in the bedroom, and she didn't remember seeing any in the rest of the house. So... eh. There was a gap. And if she took a knife, jimmied it into the gap, widened it just enough for her fingers to get in, then pulled with all her strength, the nails flew out, the board came up with a wrench of protesting wood, and Tanner could politely set the thing aside while Marana stared onwards in mild shock, and a faint degree of exasperation, all buried under a fine patina of intrigue. Sometimes, sometimes, it was nice to have quite large muscles. Investigating crime scenes, walking alone at late hours, and opening jars. The three times. And hauling ammunition. Four times.

And beneath the boards...

A box.

Leather-wrapped. Unsure what animal, but it was scratched in a few places where handling had been rough. Not enormous, more of a travelling case than anything else. Rather pleasingly made, nothing overly cheap, and the buckles fastening it shut gleamed in the dull morning light. It was nestled amidst the foundations, and she could see a ragged nest of cloth all around it... ah. Good move. Tyer would wrap this thing up to protect it from the damp, and... presumably had ripped the protection off. So, he might've been here in a hurry. The stories were starting to add up again. Good.

Marana was peering over her shoulder like a gargoyle, eyes bright, fingers twitching.

Tanner did the honours. Drew it out of the darkness. Heavier than she thought, heavier than the size would indicate. There was a lock, but the mechanism had been undone, it was ready for her to tear apart if she felt like it. Once more, the feeling of importance, just like with the mug, the decorations, the book. The same feeling of this being something the man would haul around with him from place to place.

Tanner flicked it open as quickly as she could, breath stilling in her throat.

The box opened smoothly on well-loved hinges. Nothing unattended to. The same attitude which made this house spotless extended to the box, apparently.

And inside said box...

Tanner's eyes widened.

Knives.

A whole array of the things. Anchored in red fabric. The box had layers of them, folding out one after the other like a grisly deck of cards.

Long. Short. Curved. Straight. Double-sided. Vicious. Serrated.

Knife upon knife upon knife, arranged with exacting precision. Hunting knives for different kinds of game, a straight razor for shaving, a switch-blade for bloody alley-work, an ice-pick as thin as a mosquito's proboscis, knives for fish, knives for bones, knives for all the miserable work a knife was heir to. Polished to mirror sheens, each and every one, not a speck of rust of deformation on the blades.

Labours of love, each and every one.

And...

At the bottom, a crumpled patch where something had been removed.

Marana's voice was low.

"We have our proof, then. A knife-obsessed stalking drunk."

Tanner nodded slightly, eyes refusing to move.

"Wonder why... he left that first colony. The one he used to be a labourer in, before coming here."

"Weren't for the snow, we could send word. Ask. But... it doesn't look appealing."

"No. No, it does not."

She traced the outline at the bottom. A heavy weight had been here. Possibly one of the sturdiest knives in the collection. Looked like it had an exaggerated handle, thicker, with a guard around the knuckles. Had a dim recollection of what it might look like, something out of a recruitment poster for the colonial corps in Fidelizh. Knife with brass knuckles, potentially spiked. Brutal. Effective. Pointless for use against mutants, but for humans... for humans, it had a vicious little niche. Her voice was low.

"Wherever he is, then, he has a knife with him. Stopped by here. Picked it up. Ran off. Left everything else behind. Wonder why he didn't take the case"

"Too big to hide, I suppose. Under his coat, anyway. It'd bulge, people would notice it, sticks in the mind. One knife, though..."

Someone was harbouring a knife-wielding unstable individual.

That was...

Well. This was getting worse and worse, wasn't it?

"...Marana, I'm... going to check out the cold-house on the hill, if that's fine with you. I don't want to waste any time - could you go and check the Barrack-Room? If you see a soldier, ask him to relay what we saw to Sersa Bayai, I'll do the same."

"Time's of the essence?"

"Right now, yes. Very much so."

"Should talk to the governor. He might decide subtlety is worth abandoning right about now."

"...yes, yes, I suppose I must."

"Would you like me to come with you?"

Tanner glanced over sharply. Marana was smiling - not mockingly, not smugly, just... understandingly.

"That would be very much appreciated. Thank you."

"Well, it's what you pay me for."

"I don't pay you."

"You pay for my expenses."

"Debatable."

"You pay for room and board."

"Hm."

"Come on, on your feet, you big lug. Bring the case, I think. Props are always pleasant, hm? Gives you something to occupy your hands with."

Tanner came back to herself.

"Yes. Quite. Let's be off. Dangerously unstable habitual drunk with a knife collection and a stalking habit to drag out of someone's house, who may or may not be aware of how dangerous this fellow is."

"Normal, for you?"

"Usually I deal with the dangerously unstable after they've already done something dangerous and unstable. Never encountered one in the wild before."

"Luxurious."

"I suppose."

And with that, they were off, even the lightest patter of conversation enough to get Tanner's nerves restrained again.

And at her side, a case of glittering knives swung in absolute silence. Everything fastened so perfectly that no a clink or clunk issued forth.

And even so, Tanner could feel the absence where that man-killing knife had once lain.

A hollowness that could contain any number of catastrophes.

Her pace increased.