stench, though many might think it preferable to being locked outside the city.
Armed with questions, he approached a little house virtually hidden amongst its neighbours. Despite being so central within the city, people usually walked straight past the place as if they didn't want to see, without even knowing they were doing so. Its inconspicuous metal door was set in smooth pale stone. He knocked firmly and waited, and it was eventually opened by a raven-haired woman, her long, thin face pallid and gaunt.
She was a banshee.
'Morning. Investigator Rumex Jeryd. I have a few questions.'
'Yes, of course.' Her voice was soothingly deep as they always were – unless they were screaming. 'Please, do come in.'
Jeryd stepped inside her fragrant home, drawing his tail in behind him so that it didn't get caught in the heavy door. The house was intensely dark, the smell of lavender powerful. He'd been here several times before, and on each visit he wished they had put in a window to let in some daylight and fresh air. Coloured lanterns burned, as did a small log fire. There were several women ranging from young to old, all wearing black, grey or white fabrics. They were sitting on chairs placed randomly throughout the house. All of them had similar gaunt faces, similar mannerisms. Some were reading or studying, others were weaving material. There was a claustrophobia here amongst these women, maybe sisters and mothers or something closer still, as if they were suffocating in unison, tightening their bonds on each other as they suffered. He never understood, or commented on their situation.
'Please, be seated, investigator,' the woman said. 'I'll go and fetch Mayter Sidhe.'
She left the room.
Jeryd sat himself down on a simple wooden chair. The furniture here was rustic – as if they couldn't afford anything else. It seemed out of place for a home so near the Astronomer's Tower and the richer irens, but maybe it had been here from generations ago. A few of the women hummed gently, rocking back and forth in their chairs as if mildly insane: not a comforting noise, more an eerie lament. Paranoia forced him to wonder vaguely if this meant he would die at any point soon, as if just being around them was putting him a step closer.
Mayter Sidhe suddenly arrived, the banshee who had been present at the scene of Ghuda's murder, and her wail had declared his death to the whole of Villjamur. Black-haired, white-gowned, young-looking, too, but with that same haunted expression that the other banshees possessed. Blue eyes, with a strange distance within them that he could never understand. As with the others, he had encountered her before, because whenever there was a death in the city, they were always the first on the scene.
He stood up as she appeared.
'Good morning, Investigator Jeryd.'
'Morning, Mayter.' He sat down again.
'So this is about Councillor Ghuda?' She pulled up a chair, sat next to him, and unnerved him a little, this close presence. This air of death.
'Yes,' Jeryd said. 'Just the normal procedure. But this has to be considered an extremely high-profile murder. The victim, as you know, was a very senior member of the Council.'
'We're all the same, once we're dead, investigator. Our titles do not follow us.'
'Right. But while the rest of us are still alive, there's work to be done that can make the whole… pre-death concept a little easier to deal with.'
'Point taken.'
'So,' Jeryd said, 'I take it, as usual, you knew he'd be killed.'
'Yes, but not until he was.'
Whatever the hell that means… 'And it was too late by that point?'
'It always is. We're not life-savers.' She drummed her slender fingers on the table. For a moment Jeryd was distracted by the rings adorning them that caught the dull light of the room.
'No one suggested you were. So you were… in the area then? Or at least on the scene pretty quick.'
'Yes, I was, as you say, in the area. I was merely buying some vegetables. Then came the vision – and you know what happens after that.'
'Right,' Jeryd said. 'Up until that point, you saw nothing?'
'No more than any normal person would.'
'What about after?'
'Again, no more than other people who came on the scene afterwards. I got there in reasonable time, but I saw nothing strange.'
Jeryd straightened. 'OK, so tell me about the vision you experienced, if you don't mind.'
'It was like any other – the same glimpse through the eyes of the victim at his final heartbeat. Except… well, all I saw was a shadow, but it was like… like nothing I've seen before. A wild creature of some kind, I'd say. And then it seemed to disappear into the light – upwards.'
'Go on,' Jeryd said. This was the first concrete statement he'd received so far. If you could trust a banshee.
'That's it, just a shadow. A creature I've never seen before. Then I knew where I'd find him. And I instantly felt as if I wanted to vomit, so I knew he was just about to die.'
Jeryd said, 'And you can tell me nothing more about the creature?'
'Nothing.'
'What did it look like?'
'I can't tell.' She began to seem impatient. 'It was definitely not human or rumel. That's all.'
'OK. There were no flashes in your vision that might indicate who'd want him dead?'
'No, investigator. City politics makes little difference to our lives.'
A chair scraped over to one side in the other room, and Jeryd glimpsed one of the other banshees rush outside. As she slammed the door behind her, one of the lanterns flickered.
He turned to regard Mayter Sidhe once again. 'Anything strange happening that you know of?'
'Nothing that seems related. There're rumours of some of the Council members being Ovinists…'
Jeryd was aware those rumours had been circulating for years, the degrees of information depending on which tavern you drank in. Stories told of politicians gathered in darkened rooms drinking pig's blood. Divining secrets from these animals' hearts. Bathing in offal. Ritualistic slaughter. Even if it was true, it was all possibly harmless. How much damage could you do with a dead pig?
'Well,' Jeryd said, 'I've not seen any evidence of such practices. And it's very hard to bring the law down on those who think they're above it. Short of forcing them all into a Jorsalir church for cleansing, there's not a lot we can do.'
Faintly, in the distance, there was a scream, and he realized that it must have come from the woman who had left a few minutes earlier.
Meanwhile, Mayter Sidhe regarded him with an unsettling gaze. Jeryd never knew what these banshees really thought about anything: they never opened up, never showed any emotion. Yet they seemed to get distraught and upset whenever a death was near, as if they felt the same pain, and were sharing it with the sufferer. Nor did they ever seem to age. Mayter Sidhe herself could be anywhere between forty and ninety years, yet she looked eternally young, didn't she, and even vaguely beautiful. If anyone knew much about the secrets of these witch women of Villjamur, they didn't share them. Amid all gossip purveyed in the taverns of the city, the banshees were least spoken of. Perhaps it was a healthy fear that they could announce anyone's death simply at their own volition. As there existed the possibility it could be your own death, he felt it was best not to anger them.
Jeryd realized he would get no further information here, so he said goodbye, then proceeded on to interview the person whom he was least looking forward to talking to.
*
Up here the houses were also tall and narrow, three-floor constructions, most elaborately decorated with ridiculous statuettes of angelic creatures. The place reminded him of the ghost he was plays he'd watched in the underground theatres when he was still a young rumel. Beula Ghuda, of course, already knew about her husband's death, something at least for Jeryd to feel relieved about. Dealing with dead bodies and criminals was much easier than talking to the relatives of someone who had died in suspicious circumstances. You had to look them directly in the eye while being prepared for any number of reactions, any number of extreme emotions.
How could this happen?
What do you mean, dead?
