Mark Newton - Retribution

Leana was up already, fully engaged in her morning exercises — it looked too much like hard work so I decided to lie in bed, allowing the sounds of the morning markets to rise up to my ears, and wallowing in contemplation.

As ever, I found it easier to work over cases during this hazy, calm hour. The relative stillness of my mind allowed me to process the events of the last couple of days, and this time I was attempting to find connections and differences between the incidents, rather than look at each in isolation.

Two murders.

Two high-profile victims.

A bishop, his body discovered many days after his disappearance. Cut hundreds of times before being dismembered, a piece of him possibly thrown over the wall to the Sorghatan Prefecture — a public show, perhaps — and his tongue removed.

A retired naval officer, taken somewhere after a night with his friends. His body, too, covered in cuts before being dragged to a very public place where he could be found. His tongue also removed.

But he had not been dismembered. And he had not been hidden.

A point really niggled, if both men had been tortured. The usual reason for such brutal treatment while someone was alive was to gain information or a confession. It was odd that they’d had their tongues cut out. The tongue was very necessary to divulging information in the first place.

Another reason for the barbarous act crossed my mind. It might, in fact, have been to silence the men from screaming rather than let them talk. That Grendor was involved in imports and exports made me suspect that he might have been involved in something dangerous. Had both of these men stumbled across some dreaded secret and needed to be silenced? Had they both witnessed something they shouldn’t have? It did not seem all that likely, since they led very different lives. One was quiet and contemplative, the other outgoing.

Yet there were more differences, too, and I wondered if the differences themselves were telling.

One body had been left fully intact, the other in pieces. One body had been dumped for others to find, the other had been returned home, for his wife or others to discover. Though it could be said, as Leana did last night, that both were very public settings. The murderer clearly had no concerns over the bodies being found.

Indeed, the incredible similarities couldn’t be ignored and it was likely we were dealing with the same murderer. That fact offered up a worrying possibility: that the killer was still in the city and would strike again. Who was to say that this all stopped with Grendor?

I was not in the business of relying upon coincidences where patterns or connections could be perceived. I needed much more information about the bishop and Grendor. Hopefully an examination of Borta’s house this morning, and a thorough interview with her, might bring me closer to that.

It continued to be a pleasant morning. Flower sellers were out with their carts, and in surprising numbers. People crowded them, buying huge quantities of bright-red flowers or digging into boxes of petals to scatter about the pavements, transforming them into shades of pink, white and yellow. It left a wonderful fragrance about the city. I wondered if it was a religious holiday, for priests were also walking the streets in brightly coloured robes chanting the wonders of Astran and Nastra, their censers swinging back and forth adding to the heady scents of the flowers. Today certainly contrasted with the usual woodsmoke and horse manure one could normally expect from any city in Vispasia. Some of the citizens laid petals at the feet of an enormous old man, who wore a large double-horned helmet and a loincloth, which only just showed beneath his rolls of fat. Blue spirals had been painted on his flesh and he sat cross-legged and rather serenely on the steps of a temple, seemingly oblivious to the gestures of the people around him.

The main forum of the prefecture, a stone’s throw from Grendor’s house, was packed. The crowds moved fluidly between the islands of stalls, which were not in rows but of a circular design without awnings. People gathered around them buying various vegetables, spices, leather goods, cookware and hunting equipment. The wares of the most popular stall by far would have eluded me, so big were the crowds, had it not been for the carcasses strung up behind on large, sturdy poles. The meat glistened in the morning sunlight.

We arrived once again at the newly built street where Grendor of the Cape lived and slowly made our way towards the bottom of the stairway, casually examining the scene to see if daylight could give us more clues. A few stains could be perceived by the lower steps and that was all. Sheltered from the evening rain, the blood was clearer now, but suggested there had not been a struggle. Grendor would have already been dead by this point.

We continued up the stairs and knocked on the door. Borta in a long, high-collared blue dress answered almost immediately and urged us to step inside. She peered back down the stairs nervously before closing the door firmly.

‘Does your family have enemies?’ I asked.

‘My family?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘No. . I’m not aware of any.’

I indicated the child’s woollen sock lying on the floorboards behind her feet. ‘Just the one, or do you have more?’

She took the sock and added it to a pile of washing. She seemed vaguely embarrassed. ‘They can be quite a handful. I have two, by the way. Two boys. Would either of you like a drink? We have a good selection of tisanes. Grendor was always bringing me home new varieties.’

Leana asked for a cup of water and I agreed to try one of the tisanes. Borta left us momentarily.

This place was certainly impressive. Though I generally admired age and heritage in my houses, for homes to feel lived in , this was filled with a freshness of style. There were fabrics on display that had travelled far; the designs were not merely the natural, animalistic motifs found around the rest of Koton, many were from further afield — the gold star and red crescent of Locco, the white wings on blue of Theran. Much of this was consistent with a man who had travelled widely in the navy, or worked in a trade that dealt with imports and exports. There must have been some stories behind these — were they simply traded goods or had they been gifts from foreign ambassadors?

The apartment, all on one level, was a large complex of rooms and long corridors, and must have occupied all the space above the shops below. From just a casual glance down the corridors drapes hung from the walls and there was an eclectic display of ornaments. There was a lot of wealth on show.

The sound of children playing drifted in from another room — it suddenly occurred to me that they would now be fatherless.

The thought brought back memories of my own childhood. My mother, a loving, kind woman, died when I was very young and remained a notable absence despite my privileged upbringing. How much do these events during our youth go on to define us when we are older? Luckily I had taken on some of my mother’s more considered, perhaps tender ways, and was not as stern as my father had been. But her absence affected me greatly, and so I understood what the two children might be going through — or about to go through — if their mother had not yet told them.

Borta returned with our drinks and guided us to the orange and purple cushions, which were arranged around a low oak table. The window beside it faced directly down onto the busy forum, and I marvelled at the number of people who were already milling about the stalls and tables.

‘One can lose an entire day staring from that window,’ she said. ‘Grendor would often sit where you are, Officer Drakenfeld.’