Zebra tugged at my sleeve. ‘What about the two people I said were after you, Tanner? They acted like outsiders, according to Dominika. They might have killed her for snitching about them.’
‘I don’t even know who they are,’ I said. ‘At least, I can’t be sure. Not about the woman, anyway, but I’m willing to hazard a guess about the man.’
‘Who do you think it is?’ Zebra said.
Quirrenbach cut in, ‘I really don’t think we should spend too long here; not unless you want to tangle with what passes for authority here. And believe me, that’s not especially high on my agenda.’
‘Much as it grieves me to agree with him,’ Chanterelle said, ‘he has a fairly good point, Tanner.’
‘I don’t think you should call me that any more,’ I said.
Zebra shook her head slowly. ‘Who do we call you, then?’
‘Not Tanner Mirabel, anyway.’ I nodded at Dominika’s body. ‘It must have been Mirabel who killed her. The man who’s following me is Mirabel. He did this; not me.’
‘This is insane,’ Chanterelle said, to general nods of agreement, although no one much looked like they were enjoying proceedings. ‘If you’re not Tanner Mirabel, then who are you?’
‘A man called Cahuella,’ I said, knowing that this was only half of the truth.
Zebra placed her hands against her hips. ‘And you didn’t feel like telling any of us this until now?’
‘Until recently I didn’t realise it.’
‘No? Just slipped your mind, did it?’
I shook my head. ‘I think Cahuella altered my memories — his memories — to suppress his own identity. He needed to do it temporarily, to escape from Sky’s Edge. His own memories and face would have incriminated him. Except when I say “he”, I mean “me”, really.’
Zebra squinted at me, as if trying to tell if her earlier judgements had been fatally incorrect. ‘You actually believe this, don’t you?’
‘It’s taken me a little while to come to terms with it, believe me.’
‘He’s clearly snapped,’ Quirrenbach said. ‘The odd thing is, I assumed it would take rather more than the sight of one dead fat woman to push him over the edge.’
I punched him. It was quick; I allowed him no warning at all, and in any case, under the permanent threat of Chanterelle’s gun, he was in no position to fight back. I watched him fall, slipping on the floor which was slick with some spilled medical fluid, one hand rising to nurse his jaw before he even hit the ground.
Quirrenbach slipped into the shadow beneath the couch, yelping as he made contact with something.
For a moment I wondered if he had touched a snake which had found its way to the floor. But instead, something much larger emerged from the shadow. It was Dominika’s kid, Tom.
I reached a hand out towards him. ‘Come here. You’re safe with us.’
She had been killed by the same man who had visited her before, asking questions about me. An offworlder, yes — much like you, Tom said, casually at first, and then repeating himself in a tone that was altogether more suspicious. Not just much like Tanner — but very like him indeed.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘The man who killed Dominika only looked like me. It doesn’t mean I’m him.’
Tom nodded his head slowly. ‘You no sound like him.’
‘He talked differently?’
‘You talk fancy, mister. The other man — the man who look like you — he don’t use so many words.’
‘The strong silent type,’ Zebra said. Then she drew the kid away from me, wrapping her long lean limbs around him protectively. I was touched, for a moment. It was the first time I had seen any hint of compassion shown by someone from the Canopy for a Mulch-born; the first time I had seen any hint that either party regarded the other as human. Of course I knew what Zebra believed — that the game was evil — but it was another matter to see that belief acted out in a simple gesture of giving comfort. ‘We’re sorry about Dominika,’ she said. ‘You have to believe it wasn’t us.’
Tom sniffed. He was upset, but the shock of her death had yet to set in, and he was still reasonably coherent and eager to help us. At least I hoped it was because the shock had not set in; the other possibility — that he was just immunised against that kind of pain — was too unpleasant to contemplate. I could handle it in a soldier, but not in a kid.
‘Was he alone?’ I asked. ‘I was told that two people were looking for me; a man and a woman. Do you know if this was the same man?’
‘Same guy,’ the kid said, turning his face away from the suspended corpse of Dominika. ‘And he not alone this time either. Woman with him, but she no look happy this time.’
‘She looked happy the first time?’ I said.
‘Not happy, but…’ The kid faltered, and I could see that we were making unreasonable demands on his vocabulary. ‘She look like she comfortable with guy; like friends. He nicer then — more like you.’
It made sense. The first time he’d paid a trip to Dominika’s would have been a fishing trip; gathering what information he could about the city and — hopefully — where he could find the man he wanted to kill, whether that man was me or Reivich or both of us. It might have made sense to kill Dominika there and then, but he must have suspected she could be of use to him in the future. So he had let her live, until he returned, with the snakes he must have bought in the bazaar.
And then he had killed her in a manner which he knew would speak to me; a private code of ritual murder which opened seams into the heart of my being.
‘The woman,’ I said. ‘She was offworld too?’
But Tom seemed no wiser than I about that.
Using Zebra’s phone, I called Lorant, the pig whose kitchen I had half-destroyed during my descent from the Canopy, an eternity ago. I told him I had a final huge favour to ask of him and his wife, which was only that they look after Tom until things quietened down. A day, I said, although in truth I plucked the figure from my head at random.
‘I look after myself,’ Tom said. ‘No want stay with pig.’
‘They’re good people, trust me. You’ll be much safer there. If word gets out that someone witnessed Dominika being killed, the same man will come back. If he finds you, he’ll kill you,’ I said.
‘I always got to hide?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Only for as long as it takes for me to kill the man who did this. And believe me, I’m not planning on spending the rest of my life doing it.’
The concourse was still quiet when we left the tent, meeting the pig and his wife just beyond the cataract of greasy rain which fell endlessly down the building’s overhung side, like a curtain of yellowing calico. The kid went with them, nervously at first, but then Lorant scooped him aboard and their balloon-wheeled vehicle vanished into the murk like an apparition.
‘He’ll be safe, I think,’ I said.
‘You think he’s in that much danger?’ Quirrenbach said.
‘More than you can imagine. The man who killed Dominika isn’t exactly overburdened with a conscience.’
‘You sound like you know him.’
‘I do,’ I said.
Then we returned to Chanterelle’s car.
‘I’m confused,’ Quirrenbach said, as he climbed into the vehicle’s bubble of dryness and light. ‘I don’t know who I’m dealing with any more. I feel like you’ve just pulled the carpet from under me.’
He was looking at me.
‘All because I found the dead woman?’ Pransky said. ‘Or because Mirabel has started going mad?’
‘Quirrenbach,’ I said, ‘I need to know of places where someone might buy snakes; probably not far from here.’
‘Did you hear anything of what we just said?’
‘I heard,’ I said. ‘I just don’t want to talk about it right now.’
‘Tanner,’ Zebra said, then stopped herself. ‘Or whoever you say you are. Does this business about your
