Mark Newton - Retribution

That aside, as this area was meant to be a thriving place in the daytime it was a good place to live to keep up with the city’s affairs. Thousands of people would have passed by when the sun was up. Maybe that was how Grendor liked things — busy, hectic, full of activity. Then again, given the nature of his death, was he a fearful man, desiring to be close to others at all times, knowing that someone might come for him? I was perhaps letting my imagination get the better of me.

Access to the apartment was up a neat stairway. While Sulma Tan knocked on the door at the top of the stairs to call on Grendor’s wife, Leana moved her torch along the walls of the stairwell. Blood had been smeared on otherwise-clean walls, especially down near the bottom. Because it hadn’t rained hard, we could still see scratch marks between the pavement and the stairs.

‘We saw that he had dirty heels,’ I said to Leana. ‘He may have been dragged here, from the road.’

‘Brought by a cart?’

‘It’s hard to say. He might have been dragged all along the road for all we know. Although a cart would be more discreet.’

Leana crouched down by the marks with her torch. ‘The marks seem wide enough — hip-width apart — to have come from boots.’

‘There was mud on them, which suggests his body had been somewhere else at some point. We probably knew that anyway.’

A new voice interrupted us.

‘Good evening.’ A woman of around thirty summers came down the stairs to greet us and stepped into the flickering light of the torch. She wore her dark hair tied back; her bright eyes, green maybe, were soft and her expression, understandably, haunted by grief. She wore a black shawl bordered with crimson lace.

‘My name is Borta,’ she began in perfect Detratan. ‘I’m Grendor’s wife. You must be Officer Drakenfeld and Leana. I received your messenger, Sulma Tan, to say you would be coming.’

Only then did I think she was surprisingly young to be the wife of someone so old, and I wondered at what age she had married him. She must have been in her teens. Sulma Tan had told me that Borta was well connected, through powerful families such as the Rukrid clan. Like so many marriages in Koton, she explained, theirs had been arranged between two families — and it had grown into love.

After a few cordial exchanges, with great dignity, and without any encouragement from me, Borta explained the events that had led to her discovery of her husband’s body.

Occasionally her speech was hard to follow and her words descended into an inaudible whisper, and at times she was fighting back tears. Her willingness to involve herself so quickly in the investigation was impressive, so much so that at first I thought it suspicious, but her body language appeared genuine. I did not think she was lying. Many of my older colleagues would have used a firmer hand, and been more blunt in seeking information, but I preferred a more gentle approach. In my experience, the truth was always more forthcoming with empathy rather than bullying.

‘The last I saw of him was two days ago, late in the afternoon,’ she said. ‘Later that evening he went out for a supper with his five friends. All elder statesmen of the city, one might say. He was often out late at night.’ She listed their names and I looked to Sulma Tan for guidance — she nodded a confirmation, suggesting these were all people she knew.

‘They were all gentlemen of our armed forces,’ she continued. ‘Not the navy, with whom he often socialized, but the army. All of them friends of the queen. Good people. They always treated me with respect.’

‘Why was he meeting with the army?’ I asked.

‘It wasn’t anything official,’ she replied. ‘He has friends everywhere. He says it’s good for business.’

Business . This must have been the shipping company that Sulma Tan mentioned earlier. To my mind Borta was describing a man whose social connections were simply ways to make more money. Grendor was a shrewd individual. To have friends in the army could make various trade routes more secure from raids, should he have money invested in certain quarters, or be importing from difficult regions. Though the nations of Vispasia were not at war, there were often tensions with factions and nomads who chose not to submit to any particular royal.

Borta continued to talk, occasionally wrapping her arms around herself and staring at the ground. The sentences were coming more slowly now and when I asked her once again about his final movements, it was an effort for her to speak.

‘I’ve known them for many years. Each of those friends of his have visited me this afternoon to offer their condolences. They said he came to visit, ate well, drank a little too well, but showed no signs of uneasiness. There was no reason to think he knew he was in any trouble. I am sure no one ever does show such obvious signs, Officer Drakenfeld. You must hear all this nonsense so frequently.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ I replied softly. ‘It’s useful to know that he didn’t feel he was in any trouble, at least. That might tell us much.’

A polite half-smile faded from her lips. ‘That was the last anyone knows of his whereabouts. He left the supper late at night and started back here on his own. He never came home.’

A gust of unseasonably cold wind passed along the road, beating down the flame of Leana’s torch. The night sky was now cloudless, the bad weather had moved away, and starlight defined the rooftops of the city. The scorching Detratan summer suddenly felt a lifetime ago.

‘Why were you not invited to the dinner?’ Leana asked, bringing her torch a little closer to Borta. Only then did I notice the woman’s classical attractiveness: a beautiful face, surely, in any of the nations of Vispasia.

Leana had asked the difficult question and I was curious as to what the reaction would be. If Borta was hiding something, such as the couple having an argument beforehand, she was betraying nothing.

‘He sometimes wished to dine alone with his friends, as do I,’ she said sincerely. ‘It’s perfectly normal for us to enjoy the company of our own friends as individuals. We women should not be bound to our husbands like a trained dog just because we’re married.’

Leana seem satisfied with that. Later I would have to ask Sulma Tan for the addresses of those men who had dined with Grendor in his final moments, so we could verify what Borta had told us.

‘So to be absolutely clear, he never made it home,’ I said, ‘and that was two nights ago?’

‘I only knew about his absence the following morning when I woke up and he was not lying next to me. I do not wait up for him to return and I am a heavy sleeper.’

‘You presumably raised the alarm immediately?’

‘Not. . immediately, no.’

My neutral expression must have made her suspect I was thinking the worst.

‘It’s not for any bad reason. I thought then that he might have come back and left early to attend to trade, as he so often did.’

‘Hadn’t he retired?’ I asked, hoping she would expand upon his business affairs.

‘From the navy, yes,’ Borta said. ‘Though he often advised importers and exporters on trade routes and so on. His company kept his mind occupied.’

Imports and exports , I smiled inwardly. The business of spies and agents throughout the continent — there was no escaping them. There might have been more to Grendor’s life than even Borta knew about.

‘And so,’ Borta continued, ‘when he did not return yesterday evening, and I had received no message, I began contacting people. I grew increasingly concerned. Last night, nothing. I began to panic and fear the worst. .’ She trailed off, her eyes welling up, but she didn’t let herself go fully. We waited patiently until she was ready to continue. ‘Then, earlier this afternoon, I came back and found him. . here. .’