Brilliana looked unhappy. “People with enemies have been known to find the staircases very slippery. Not recently, but it has happened. In turbulent times.”
Miriam shuddered. “Well, I take your point, then. Thank you for that charming thought.”
A huge pair of oak doors gaped ahead of them, a curtain blocking the vestibule. Chilly air sent fingers past it. Brilliana held it aside for Miriam, who found herself in a shielded cloister, walled on four sides. The middle was a sea of white snow as far as the frozen fountain. All sound was damped by winter’s natural muffler. Miriam suddenly wished she’d brought her gloves.
“Whew! It’s cold!” Brill was behind her. Miriam turned to catch her eye. “Which way?” she asked.
“There.”
Miriam trudged across the snow, noting the tracks through it that were already beginning to fill in. Occasional huge flakes drifted out of a sky the colour of cotton wool.
“Is that the orangery?” she asked, pausing at the door in the far wall.
“Yes.” Brilliana opened the door, held it for her. “It’s this way,” she offered, leading Miriam toward an indistinct gray wall looming from the snow.
There was a door at the foot of the hump. Brilliana opened it, and hot air steamed out. “It’s heated,” she said.
“Heated?” Miriam ducked in. “Oh!”
On the other side of the wall, she found herself in a hothouse that must have been one of the miracles of the Gruinmarkt. Slender cast-iron pillars climbed toward a ceiling twenty feet overhead. It was roofed with a fortune in plate-glass sheets held between iron frames, very slightly greened by algae. It smelled of citrus, unsurprisingly, for on every side were planters from which sprouted trees of not inconsiderable dimensions. Brilliana ducked in out of the cold behind her and pulled the door to. “This is amazing!” said Miriam.
“It is, isn’t it?” said Brilliana. “Baron Hjorth’s grandfather built it. Every plate of glass had to be carried between the worlds-nobody has yet learned how to make it here in such large sheets.”
“Oh, yes, I can see that.” Miriam nodded. The effect was overpowering. At the far end of this aisle there was a drop of three feet or so to a lower corridor, and she saw a bench there. “Where do you think Lady Olga will be?”
“She just said she’d be here,” said Brilliana, a frown wrinkling her brow. “I wonder if she’s near the boiler room? That’s where things are warmest. Someone told me that the artisans have built a sauna hut there, but I wouldn’t know about such things. I’ve never been here on my own before,” she added a little wistfully.
“Well.” Miriam walked toward the benches. “If you want to wait here, or look around? I’ll call you when we’re ready to leave.”
When she reached the cast-iron bench, Miriam turned and stared back along the avenue of orange trees. Brill hadn’t answered because she’d evidently found something to busy herself with. Well, that makes things easier, she thought lightly. Whitewashed brick steps led down through an open doorway to a lower level, past water tanks the size of crypts. The ceiling dipped, then continued-another green-lined aisle smelling of oranges and lemons, flakes of rust gently dripping from the pillars to the stone-flagged floor. Here and there Miriam caught a glimpse of the fat steam pipes, running along the inside of the walls. The trees almost closed branches overhead, forming a dark green tunnel.
At the end, there was another bench. Someone was seated there, contemplating something on the ground. Miriam walked forward lightly. “Olga?” she called.
Olga sat up when she was about twenty feet away. She was wearing a black all-enveloping cloak. Her hair was untidy, her eyes reddened.
“Olga! What’s wrong?” Miriam asked, alarmed.
Olga stood up. “Don’t come any closer,” she said. She sounded strained.
“What’s the matter?” Miriam asked uncertainly.
Olga brought her hands out from beneath the cloak. Very deliberately, she pointed the boxy machine pistol at Miriam’s face. “You are,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “If you have any last lies to whisper before I kill you, say them now and be done with it, whore.”
Part 3
The interview room was painted pale green except for the floor, which was unvarnished wood. The single window, set high up in one wall, admitted a trickle of wan winter daylight that barely helped the glimmering of the electrical bulb dangling overhead. The single table had two chairs on either side of it. All three pieces of furniture were bolted to the floor, and the door was soundproofed and locked from the outside.
“Would you care for some more tea, Mr. Burgeson?” asked the plainclothes inspector, holding his cup delicately between finger and thumb. He loomed across the table, overshadowing Burgeson’s frail form: they were alone in the room, the inspector evidently not feeling the need for a stout sergeant to assist him as warm-up man.
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Burgeson. He coughed damply into a wadded handkerchief. “ ‘Scuse me…”
“No need for excuses,” the inspector said, as warmly as an artist inspecting his handiwork. He smiled like a mantrap. “Terrible winters up there in Nova Scotia, aren’t they?”
“Character-building,” Burgeson managed, before breaking out in another wracking cough. Finally he managed to stop and sat up in his chair, leaning against the back with his face pointed at the window.
“That was how the minister of penal affairs described it in parliament, wasn’t it?” The inspector nodded sympathetically. “It would be a terrible shame to subject you to that kind of character-building experience again at your age, wouldn’t it, Mr. Burgeson?”
Burgeson cocked his head on one side. So far the inspector had been polite. He hadn’t used so much as a fist in the face, much less a knee in the bollocks, relying instead on tea and sympathy and veiled threats to win Burgeson to his side. It was remarkably liberal for an HSB man, and Burgeson had been waiting for the other shoe to drop-or to kick him between the legs-for the past ten minutes. “What can I do for you, Inspector?” he asked, clutching at any faint hope of fending off the inevitable.
“I shall get to the point presently.” The inspector picked up the teapot and turned it around slowly between his huge callused hands. He didn’t seem to feel the heat as he poured a stream of brown liquid into Burgeson’s cup, then put the pot down and dribbled in a carefully measured quantity of milk. “You’re an old man, Mr. Burgeson, you’ve seen lots of water flow under the bridge. You know what ‘appens in rooms like this, and you don’t want it to ‘appen to you again. You’re not a young hothead who’s going to get his self into trouble with the law any more, are you? And you’re not in the pay of the Frogs, either, else we’d have scragged you long ago. You’re a careful man. I like that. Careful men you can do business with.” He cradled the round teapot between his hands gently. “And I much prefer doing business to breaking skulls.” He put the teapot down. It wobbled on its base like a decapitated head.
Burgeson swallowed. “I haven’t done anything to warrant the attention of the Homeland Security Bureau,” he pointed out, a faint whine in his voice. “I’ve been keeping my nose clean. I’ll help you any way I can, but I’m not sure how I can be of use-”
“Drink your tea,” said the inspector.
Burgeson did as he was told.
“ ‘Bout six months ago a Joe called Lester Brown sold you his dear old mother’s dressing table, didn’t he?” said the inspector.
Burgeson nodded cautiously. “It was a bit battered-”
“And four weeks after that, a woman called Helen Blue came and bought it off you, din’t she?”
“Uh.” Burgeson’s mouth went dry. “Yes? Why ask me all this? It’s in my books, you know. I keep records, as the law requires.”
The inspector smiled, as if Burgeson had just said something extremely funny. “A Mr. Brown sells a dressing table to a Mrs. Blue by way of a pawnbroker who Mr. Green says is known as Dr. Red. In’t that colourful, Mr. Burgeson? If we collected the other four, why, we could give the hangman a rainbow!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Burgeson said tensely. “What’s all this nonsense about? Who are these Greens and Reds you’re bringing up?”
