K Parker - Evil for Evil

She glanced at him for a moment, but it was like looking into a mirror. "Have you checked the factory?" she said.

He glanced down at some papers on the table in front of him; the way he leaned forward suggested he was a bit short-sighted. "Yes," he said. "All areas of the factory to which Foreman Vaatzes had access have been thoroughly searched."

"Oh." She shrugged. "I thought maybe one of the people he worked with might've borrowed it. Needed a special tool for a job or something."

He seemed to be thinking for a few seconds; then he checked his papers again. "Unlikely," he said. "I have here the list of items contained in the box at the time of the original search. Would you care to see it?"

She gave him a big smile. "Sorry," she said, "I can't read. Also, it wouldn't make any sense to me even if I could. I don't know anything about tools and stuff."

He nodded. "Well," he said, "looking at this list it all seems to be fairly straightforward, ordinary hand tools, nothing that wouldn't be on the open racks at the factory. It would appear that Foreman Vaatzes kept all his specialist tools at work. On the list there's just a hand-drill, various files, a hacksaw and an assortment of blades, that sort of thing. Nothing you'd expect anyone to go out of his way to borrow."

"I see," she said. "So, if it's all just ordinary stuff, why are you so interested in it?"

He laughed; and then the shape of his face reverted straightaway to its previous setting. "You can't remember anything about it, then?" he said. "Can you tell me where it was usually kept?"

"Of course. Under the bench in his study."

"You don't remember if you happened to move it anywhere? When you were cleaning, perhaps, or tidying up."

She shook her head. "He didn't like me going in there," she said.

"Yes, but after he'd gone. Maybe you took the opportunity to give the study a thorough tidying."

"I don't think so," she said firmly. "I had other things on my mind apart from spring-cleaning."

He seemed to play with that thought for a moment, like a dog chewing on an old shoe. "Many women would use housework as a way of taking their mind off something like that," he said. "Familiar routine work is quite therapeutic under such circumstances, so I'm given to understand."

He was like one of those burrs you catch on your sleeve and can't seem to get rid of. "Not me," she said. "Maybe I'd be able to help better if I knew what it was you're looking for."

Gone deaf again. "When your husband was making things at home," he went on, "did he stay in the study or did he use other parts of the house? The kitchen table, maybe."

"No. He was very considerate like that."

"Indeed." She must have said something that puzzled him, or else failed to say something he'd been expecting to hear. He rubbed the tip of his small, round nose against the heel of his hand. "Apart from the toolbox and the rack on the study wall, was there anywhere else in the house where he regularly stored tools?"

"No. At least, not that I knew about."

"Do you know if he was in the habit of bringing tools home with him and then taking them back when he'd finished with them?"

She shook her head. "Wouldn't have thought so," she said. "There weren't any pockets big enough in his work clothes to carry anything much."

"What about friends, neighbors? Did he borrow tools from them?"

"Usually it was more the other way round. People would borrow his things and then forget to give them back." She scowled at him. "You still haven't told me what all this has got to do with defending the city from the savages."

"Was there anybody you can think of who borrowed something shortly before he was arrested?"

"No."

"You can't remember who it was, or there wasn't anybody?"

"Both."

"Your husband, Falier. Did he borrow tools from Foreman Vaatzes?"

She thought for a moment. "Yes," she said, "now and again. Not very often."

"Does he bring tools home from work?"

"No. He doesn't work at home like Ziani used to."

He narrowed his eyes into a frown; then a fit of coughing (which reminded her of a small dog barking) monopolized him for quite a while. Shaking like a building in an earthquake, he groped for the water jug and a plain earthenware beaker, but the fit was so ferocious that he couldn't keep steady enough to pour. She thought about doing it for him, but decided not to. When he'd finally stopped trying to tear himself apart from the inside, and had drunk three cupfuls of water in quick succession, he blinked at her like a fish out of water, and nodded. "Thank you," he whispered. "You've been very helpful."

"Is that it? Can I go?"

He frowned. "If you wouldn't mind sparing us a little more of your time. Please wait here." He stood up, one chubby paw pressed to his chest. "Someone will be along to see you very soon."

He left, and the paneled, heavily molded and studded door closed behind him with the softest and firmest of clicks. She sat still and quiet for a minute or so; five, ten, and then she lost track. The windows were behind her, and for some reason she felt reluctant to get out of her chair and move, even for something as innocuous as looking out of the window to see where the sun was in the sky. After what felt like an hour, her back started to hurt. She wriggled, but it didn't help. She turned round as far as she could without actually getting up, but the window was just beyond the edge of her vision.

They must know something, she thought. But they can't know about the letter. They were at the house when I came back from handing it over. They couldn't have known I was going to write it, because I didn't know I was going to until Falier told me about… She shivered. There was still plenty of time before Moritsa needed to be fetched from school, but she couldn't help worrying. She told herself to calm down. She'd been in worse situations before, and without the letter there wasn't anything they could prove.

Had that man's coughing fit been genuine? Hard to believe it wasn't; in which case, maybe the delay was simply because he'd gone somewhere to lie down and drink honey and hot water until he felt better. As for all that stuff about a toolbox, she couldn't make head or tail of it. They must've known she wouldn't know anything about tools, so why had they asked her?

Didn't matter. No need to understand, so long as she kept up a solid defense, kept her head and didn't contradict herself. The good thing about the toolbox questions was that she could tell the truth; so much less effort than making things up.

The door opened, and a soldier (armor but no weapons) came in. He glowered at her as though she was making the place look untidy, and said, "If you'll follow me." Her legs were stiff and wobbly from sitting still for so long.

He led her up a huge, wide stone staircase, along a broad, high-ceilinged corridor that seemed to go on forever, up another staircase, along some smaller corridors to a dead end with a small door in it. He knocked and waited before opening it and beckoning her in. Once she was inside, he shut it behind her. She listened, but couldn't hear the sound of his boot-heels clumping away across the tiles.

This room was much smaller, about the size of her kitchen. There was a plain board table, and one four-square Type 19 chair, which she sat on. Nothing else. The light came in through a skylight, what there was of it. No fireplace; she felt cold. The man who'd designed the room had done his job well. You couldn't sit in it on your own for more than a minute or so without realizing that you were in a lot of trouble, which presumably was the intention. She'd heard somewhere that architects design buildings with all sorts of mathematical calculations; ratios of height to width, that sort of thing. Was there a special sum you could do to figure out the most depressing possible dimensions for a room? If so, there'd be a specification somewhere in the Guilds' books, like there was for everything else. All in all, this place made it very hard to believe in the existence of a concept such as love, even though almost certainly that was what had got her here. A room like this could kill love, like the clever jars the silk-makers use for killing silkworms; seal love in the jar and it quickly, painlessly suffocates, leaving the valuable remains undamaged.