Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Lastly, of course, it was possible that Jeris and the Captain were right. There was no connection; these were all acts of random violence.

But there were too many things that just didn't add up. There had to be a connection. All of his years of experience told him that there was a connection.

His resolution hardened, and he clenched his jaw.I'm going to solve this one. No matter how long it takes, no matter what it costs. For a moment, the anger and his resolution held him. Then he looked down at the papers on the desk and his cold tea, and snorted at his own thoughts.

Getting melodramatic in my old age.

Still . . . He picked up the pages of his second report and stood up.

Idiot. It's duty, that's what it is. Responsibility, which too damn few people around here ever bother to think about. I became a constable to make a difference; too many young asses these days do it for the uniform, or the chance to shove a few poor fools about. And the rest take up the baton as a quick road to a fat salary and a desk, and political preferment. Damn if I don't think Jeris did it for all three reasons!

He made his papers into a neat stack and carried them down to the Desk-Sergeant, who accepted them without the vaguest notion of the thoughts that were going through Tal's head. By now, itwas quitting time; the constables for the next shift were coming in, and he could return to his two rooms at the Gray Rose, a hot meal, his warm bath and bed, and a dose of something that would kill his headache and let him sleep.

He could, and this time he would, for there was nothing more that he could learn for now.

He went out into the cold and rain with a sketchy salute to the Sergeant and the constables coming on duty. He hunched his shoulders against the rain and started for home.

But somewhere out in that darkness was something darker still; he sensed it, as surely as a hound picking up a familiar scent.

Whoever, whatever you are, he told that dark-in-the-darkness silently, I will find you. And when I do, I will see to it you never walk free again. Never doubt it.

The darkness did not answer. But then, it never did.

Chapter Two

There was no one waiting in the station as Tal came on duty two days later. Under other circumstances that might have been unusual, but not on this night. It wasn't rain coming down out of the sky, it was a stinging sleet that froze the moment it struck anything solid. The streets were coated thickly with it, and no one in his right mind was going to be out tonight. Tal had known when he left his rooms at the Gray Rose that this was going to be a foul shift. It had taken him half an hour to make the normally ten-minute walk between the inn and the station.

As a rare concession to the weather, both stoves were going in the waiting room. He stood just inside the door, and let the heat thaw him for a moment before stepping inside.What got into the Captain? Charity?

Before he left the inn, Tal had strapped a battered pair of ice-cleats on over his boots, and took a stout walking-stick with a spike in the end of it, the kind that was used by those with free time for hiking in winter in the mountains. Even so, he didn't intend to spend a moment more than he had to on his beat, and from the hum of voices in the back where the ward-room was, neither did anyone else. What was the point? There weren't going to be any housebreakers out on a night when they couldn't even carry away their loot without breaking their necks! Not even stray dogs or cats would venture out of shelter tonight. The constables would make three rounds of their beats at most, and not even that if the weather got any worse. A constable with a broken neck himself wouldn't be doing anybody any good.

The Desk-Sergeant crooked a finger at Tal as he took off his cloak and shook bits of thawing ice and water off it. Tal hung his cloak up on a peg and walked carefully across the scarred wooden floor to avoid catching a cleat in a crack. He couldn't possibly ruin the floor, not after decades of daily abuse and neglect.

'Got another mystery-killing this afternoon,' the Sergeant said in a low, hoarse whisper once Tal was within earshot. 'Or better say, murder-suicide, like the other ones you don't like. Want to see the report?'

Tal nodded, after a quick look around to be sure they were alone, and the Sergeant slipped a few pieces of paper across the desk to him.

Tal leaned on the desk as if he was talking intently with the Sergeant, and held the report just inside the crook of his elbow. In this position, he could read quickly, and if anyone came in unexpectedly he could start up a conversation with Sergeant Brock as if they'd been gossiping all along.

Brock wasn't supposed to pass reports along like this; they were supposed to be confidential, and for the eyes of the Captain only. Evidently Brock had gotten wind of Tal's interest, and had decided to give him an unofficial