Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘These new revolutionaries need to be uncovered,’ said Hoggstone. ‘I will not abide this damnable mystery to fester on my streets, eating away at our authority.’

‘Yes,’ said the inspector. ‘I’ve seen the reports from my crushers on the gaslight shift — terrified out of their wits by what they think they’ve seen. Companies of worldsingers and Special Guardsmen herding unmentionable things through the rookeries and the alleys.’

‘Nothing to get to Dock Street,’ said Hoggstone.

‘The news sheets will catch wind of your excursions soon enough if it keeps on,’ said the inspector. ‘Am I to presume your acceptance of my invite down here means your friends haven’t run down any useful information?’

‘You would think they were hunting ghosts,’ Hoggstone snarled. ‘The man you’ve got. He was a printer?’

‘Yes. A small Hoax Square operation — bill stickers for the tonics, supposedly. We raided him on a tip-off he had a sideline in relish, which he did. Crates of real-box smut, enough pictures to keep the Greenhall censorship committee in sitting for weeks. It was probably one of his girls that blew on him — artistic differences and the like.’

Hoggstone held onto the rail at the side of the wall as he walked down the stairwell. ‘But you went back to his print house after the blood machine results?’

‘Too right, First Guardian. We raided it at night, ripped the place apart just as quietly as we could. That’s when we found the other stuff. I have a watch on the place now, to see if anyone else turns up there.’

‘You’ll be lucky if they do,’ said Hoggstone.

‘Could be a waste of time, but stranger things have happened. I dare say the politicals have got the place under observation now too.’

The stairwell finally ended — a single iron door waiting for them. Inspector Reason rapped on the metal and a grill pulled back, then the door swung inward. A grasper in a black police uniform saluted them. ‘You’ve never been down here before, First Guardian?’

Hoggstone shook his head.

‘One door in, one door out. Both manned. Plenty of people have done a bunk from Bonegate after we’ve passed them to the doomsman for sentencing, but nobody has broken out of the yard’s cells. Some right old rascals have had the chance too — the Lions Field strangler, Vaughan the highwayman, even science pirates like Newton and Krook.’

In front of them a second constable unbolted the last door revealing a long corridor, cells on both sides with glass doors. Ignoring the other inmates Reason led Hoggstone to a cell at the end — the only cell with an iron door and rubber seals like the cabin on a submariner’s boat.

‘Turn the noise off,’ Reason called to one of the guards. ‘And pull the bolts on this one.’

Three cracks echoed off the enclosed space and Reason spun the door wheel. Inside, a figure stood upright, blindfolded and chained to a metal frame.

‘The political police would be able to get information out of him a lot quicker,’ said Hoggstone.

‘Slow but steady, First Guardian,’ said the inspector. ‘You know the yard doesn’t approve of their methods. Matey here has got all his fingernails intact, and I don’t need some backstreet sorcerer to rip his mind apart either. Besides, if you are strong you can train against the politicals’ methods, and if you are weak you’ll just say whatever they want to hear in the end. When the yard wants the truth, we just leave them alone with the noise — a day, a week, a month, the noise gets them all in the end.’

Hoggstone glanced around the cell, bare except for the reflecting plates that helped the noise move around the chamber. The sound of devils dancing.

Inspector Reason pulled the blindfold off the prisoner. His wide eyes moved slowly around the room, taking in Hoggstone and the policeman. His gaze was wild, splintered, as if his reality had been fractured and there were other things in the room only he could see. Things he had to move aside to make room for the two visitors.

‘What name are you using today? Garrett or Tait?’

The prisoner mumbled something.

‘It must be hard choosing,’ said Inspector Reason. ‘You’ve been living as Garrett for fourteen years. But your blood records show you to be Tait. Now Garrett was not very respectable, was he? Maybe on the surface he was, but all those boxes of smut you were peddling. That’s good for a couple of years in the clink in itself. So tell the gentleman here what your name is.’

‘Tait,’ said the prisoner. ‘It’s Tait.’

‘But Mister Tait is a combination man,’ said the inspector. ‘From the coal fields. How did you end up as someone else?’

‘Identity. I took Garrett’s name. He was dead in the famine — nobody knew.’

‘Well now that’s a problem,’ said Reason. ‘Because Tait is still wanted for organizing the mine labour in the Carlist uprising. Garrett gets two years in Bonegate, but Tait — well, he’s going to get the rope, isn’t he?’

‘Tait, I’m Tait.’

‘Good,’ said the inspector. ‘To tell you the truth, Tait, I don’t really care about your relish, and as for what you did in the old days? Well, if I were to arrest everyone who stuffed a fuse in a jinn bottle during the uprising, I’d have the lords of commerce lining up outside Ham Yard to complain about the labour shortage. What worries me is the hidden basement under your print room. All those fresh copies of Community and the Commons boxed up and ready to distribute. Do you find much of a market for that rubbish these days?’

‘Please, let me sleep. I just want to sleep.’

‘Then tell me what I want to know, man,’ said Hoggstone. ‘So we can move you to a cell with a bed. Tell me about the troubles on the street. Were you and your friends at the docks when things got ugly down on the Gambleflowers?’

‘Not us,’ said the prisoner. ‘It’s not us.’

‘But the rabble rousers call themselves Carlists, man.’

‘Not the sort to join my chapter,’ said the prisoner. ‘Different.’

‘How?’ Hoggstone demanded.

‘They want things. Things from their members. Crazy stuff. Crazy like a hex. People start believing it.’

‘I often find the most powerful ideas are like enchantments,’ said Hoggstone. ‘Who are the organizers, where does their committee meet?’

‘Vicious,’ said the prisoner. ‘They’re killing us off. Killing their own.’

‘He doesn’t know who they are himself ,’ said Inspector Reason. ‘The noise would have winkled it out of him if he did.’

‘Something this well organized doesn’t just spring up from thin air,’ said Hoggstone. ‘Tait, you might not be familiar with the new Carlist movement, but one of your people must know where this latest brand of revolutionary poison is coming from.’

Tait moaned in pain.

‘Tell him the name, Tait,’ said Inspector Reason. ‘Tell the gentleman the name you blew for me. Tell him exactly who your relish money was going to. Who you’re funding and printing for.’

Tait shook his head.

‘Damn your eyes, man, I need that name,’ said Hoggstone.

‘You lasted three days alone with the noise, before,’ said the policeman. ‘I’ve seen a real hard man last five, maybe seven days before they broke. You want to find out if you’re a hard man, Tait?’

‘Carl. Ben Carl.’ The prisoner said the name like a prayer. ‘He knows about the new revolutionaries.’

Hoggstone bit his lip. ‘Middlesteel’s prodigal son? Circle, I thought he was dead for sure! Where has he been hiding all these years?’

‘Worth the trip?’ said Reason to the First Guardian.

Tait was crying, stung by the shame of how easily betrayal came. ‘I only saw him the once, at a meeting. He’s scared too. They’re hunting for him now as well, the new ones. He’s too important to leave in peace.’