Johannes Cabal the Detective

the whole region! They’ll even check the records of everybody travelling through their precious territory who hasn’t been blessed to be born Senzan to make sure they aren’t a threat to national security. They’ll search this ship when we reach Parila, you know? To make sure we’re not desperate anarchists and that none of the crew have been in the military, because they’ve decided to make that illegal, too! Because, obviously, we’re going to invade them with a luxury passenger vessel, and we’re carrying a load of deadly explosive potatoes that we’re going to drop on them. They are so stupid!”

Cabal felt obliged to raise both eyebrows. “Potatoes?”

“Calm yourself, my dear,” said Herr Roborovski, dismayed at his wife’s outburst. Indeed, such was the depth of her passion that a very, very faint pink the shade and intensity of a drop of blood on crushed ice had coloured her cheeks.

“Yes. Yes, of course.” She reined herself in from the towering heights of fairly annoyed to a simmering peevishness. Eager to change the subject, she said to Miss Barrow, “What part of England do you come from, Miss Barrow? The north?”

“Yes,” Miss Barrow said, laughing. “I know, it is a distinctive accent, isn’t it? I’m from the northwest, to be exact.”

The tension broken, the four made small talk (strictly speaking, only three made small talk, Cabal confining himself to the occasional grunt) until the Roborovskis made their apologies and went off to make more new acquaintances.

Cabal watched them go, the polite smile he had been keeping on his face by sheer force of will finally allowed to lapse into a faint sneer. Miss Barrow, noticing it, murmured, “Now, that’s more like the Johannes Cabal I know.”

“You know, by conspiring to conceal my identity from the Mirkarvians you’re probably committing some heinous crime, according to the comedic document they call a judicial code.”

“Is that concern for my welfare I hear?”

“It isn’t, no. It is a suggestion that, since we both have a lot to lose if my real name is exposed, it might be wise if you could stop blabbing it every few minutes.”

Stung, she glanced at him. “Why couldn’t you have decided to be something a bit less troublesome, Herr Meissner? A butcher, or a doctor — ”

“There’s a difference?”

“ — or a children’s entertainer, or … just something else. For God’s sake … Mr. Meissner, why do you do what you do?”

“That,” said Cabal, “is my business.” At which point, with the sharp ringing of a small gong, dinner was announced.

CHAPTER 5 in which dinner is served and acquaintances are made

The same steward who had cleared up Cabal’s spilt drink also seated him. The dinner was being held in the dining room at the ship’s bow, the same room that Cabal had first entered when boarding. “Oh, there are so many more gentlemen than ladies on this voyage,” he confided. “I’m afraid we’re having to seat the men in twos, but at least every gentleman will have a lady to chat to.” To Cabal’s dismay, he realised that he was being placed next to Leonie Barrow. He sat down in silence and looked pointedly off into the middle distance. The steward, however, had not quite fulfilled his quota of mischief for the day. As he leaned over Cabal’s shoulder to pour the wine, he whispered, “I took the liberty of seating you with this young lady.”

Cabal looked at him. The expression “if looks could kill” does not begin to describe the pure corrosive abhorrence that he put into the glance. If, however, the steward had suddenly found himself transported far away and nailed, through his genitals, to the steeple of a church in the middle of a violent electrical storm, a more exact impression may be gained.

The steward winked conspiratorially and moved along, pleased with his work. Cabal turned reluctantly to find Miss Barrow smiling not altogether pleasantly at him.

“I think we’re the ship’s official lovebirds,” she murmured.

Cabal, stony-faced, took his napkin, flicked it out, and placed it on his lap. “Imagine my delight,” he said, apparently to his place setting. Miss Barrow tapped his elbow and indicated the rest of the diners with a surreptitious gesture. Looking around, he saw that every single man there was tucking his napkin into his collar. Moving smoothly to avoid attracting attention, he picked up his and followed suit.

“Don’t bother thanking me,” she whispered. Cabal growled slightly and ignored her. He was mentally kicking himself; he’d learned about this particular piece of etiquette during his stay in Krenz prior to the attempt at burglary that had ended in dog drool and disappointment. Now he’d allowed himself to get rattled and it had slipped his mind. Johannes Cabal hated being rattled. It was so … human.

The first course was soup. Mirkarvian tastes predictably eschewed consomme in favour of something a little more masculine. Miss Barrow filled a spoon but found that she couldn’t bring it to her mouth without the spectre of a gag reflex. “What is this stuff?” she asked Cabal. “Oxtail?”

“I’m not sure.” He sniffed cautiously. They seemed not to have stopped with the ox’s tail. “Possibly boiled bull’s blood.” He fished around in the dark depths with his spoon. “With croutons.”

The next course was more acceptable — poached fish — and Cabal took the opportunity to study some of his fellow passengers. The “captain’s table” was actually a construct of all the dining tables in the room unbolted from the deck, rearranged into a squat oval, and bolted down again. Captain Schten held court from the middle of the forward long side — and very uncomfortable he looked in the role, too. With Leonie Barrow to his left, Cabal was almost opposite the captain. Cabal watched without sympathy as Schten tried to look interested in what a self- made, self-satisfied, self-aggrandising businessman was telling him about pork scratchings, the Bierkeller snack of the future.

To Cabal’s right sat a man in his mid to late forties. His face seemed lived-in to the point of being secondhand, perhaps third. He was prodding his fish fitfully with the end of his knife and it was hard to tell who was unhappier with the situation. The man noticed Cabal looking at him. “Poached,” he said in a tone of defeated disgust. “Flippin’ Nora, it would be poached. I thought, Oh, your luck’s in here, Alexei m’boy. Fish.” He patted his stomach. “I’m a martyr to my guts. They ought to open an institute dedicated to the study of my guts. The Alexei Aloysius Cacon Memorial Institute.”

“It’s traditional to be dead before having a memorial institution named after you,” Cabal observed.

“And how long can it be, eh? Murdered by me own internals.” Cabal thought they would have to go to the back of a long queue. “Still, if they’re the death of me perhaps medical science can study them and find a cure for my ills, so that future generations can say, ‘His sacrifice was not in vain.’”

Cabal watched him carefully for any flicker of irony and found none. “Ills?”

“Plural.” Cacon prodded his fish again. “That would have gone nice with a bit of batter. Oh, yes. I’ve got a regular compendium of complaints, I have. Me doctor’s baffled, baffled. Well, I say ‘doctor.’ I go to him and he just sends me home with the milk of magnesia and tells me not to worry about it.” His lip curled and he sighed deeply, disgusted at the way of the world. “The quack.”

Despite himself, Cabal was fascinated. He’d never met anybody so profoundly … wrong before. “I was under the impression that poached fish was supposed to be good for the digestion.”

“Oh, well,” said Cacon with the wearied yet supercilious air of somebody who’s put down that specious argument before. “They’d like you to think that, wouldn’t they?” No further indication of who the mysterious conspiracy of “they” might be was forthcoming.

The woman at Cacon’s other side started talking about how lovely it was to be away from that tiresome trouble back home, and Cacon had opinions on that, too. Cabal was unsurprised to discover that Cacon had been a tiger in his youth, a sergeant with the grenadiers. “Clickety-snitch,” he kept saying, to represent the pin being pulled and the spoon springing clear of an armed grenade. Cabal found something almost touching in the man’s self-belief, a faint tremor of empathy. Cacon seemed to live in his own little world, and where the real one impinged upon his it