The boy looked at the ground. ‘There’s nothing for me to do here except get in the way.’
‘You could finish the job you were told to do,’ his aunt snapped. ‘And I’ve a good mind to tell your father what you’ve told us. What were you thinking of, talking to Red Macaw? Do you realise what that man’s done?’
To my amazement, my mistress rounded on her. ‘Of course he doesn’t!’ she snapped. ‘That’s the whole problem, here, isn’t it? It’s a secret. There are too many bloody secrets!’
Goose lurched to her feet and tottered towards Lily, her red-rimmed eyes all but popping out of her head in anger. ‘This can’t come out!’ she hissed. ‘Especially now, with the boy here.’
The broom hit the ground with a clatter. ‘That’s it!’ the youngster piped, outraged. ‘You can go on talking as long as you like! I’m going to ask her myself!’ And before anyone could think of stopping him, Snake was out of the courtyard, running in the direction of Atlixco plaza.
Lily, Kite and I stared at each other. Without a word, we turned to follow him.
‘Wait!’ Goose cried. ‘You don’t understand!’
‘If you have your way, we never will,’ I muttered, but I did not say it aloud. I wanted all my breath for running.
Beside me, Lily panted: ‘That poor woman. Don’t they realise her son’s gone missing too?’
3
Red Macaw and his mother lived in a house almost identical to Handy’s. Lily, Kite, Snake and I reached it, just as the sun rose above the tops of the neighbouring buildings, by walking beside and crossing several other waterways that were all but indistinguishable from each other. By the time we arrived I was lost. This was no more than what I expected, but it was a reminder of how far my experiences as a priest and a great lord’s slave had taken me away from the everyday life of the common people. A typical Aztec was born and died in the same parish, coming to know the same few streets, plazas and canals as well as he knew his own courtyard, and seldom venturing further afield unless ordered to, as part of a work detail or a war party. Even then, though the army took him half way across the world, he would be surrounded by men he had grown up with. I felt a moment’s regret for a life spent away from home. It would be as much as I could manage now to remember how to get from my mother’s hearth to the local market.
‘It’s this one,’ Snake announced, before stepping up to the front doorway and calling out through the wicker screen that hid the inside of the house from our view.
For a long time there was no answer. Eventually, just as we were about to give up and go away, we heard a shuffling from beyond the doorway and a scraping sound as the screen was pulled back.
The doorway opened directly into a room, and in the gloom inside it was difficult at first to make out details of the person looking at us. All I could see clearly at was a pair of eyes, squinting painfully up at us from a position at about the height of my chest.
When she came forward into the light, we saw the silver-haired figure of an old woman, so stooped with age that she was bent almost double.
She looked steadily back at each of us in turn. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded querulously. I wondered whether she might have been more co-operative if Kite had brought his sword with him, but he had diplomatically left it at Handy’s house.
I opened my mouth to respond, but shut it again without a word. Instead I found myself staring at the dark, wrinkled face in front of me, startled into silence. To my amazement I realised that I had seen this woman before, although at first I could not remember where.
Lily said: ‘Xiuhtonal, We need to talk to you.’ Snake had given us the name, which meant ‘Precious Light.’
‘If it’s about my son, I’ve already told the police everything I know.’ She glared at Kite. ‘Unless you’ve come to tell me you found his body.’
‘No,’ The policeman replied quickly.
The old woman’s expression did not change in response. I continued to gaze at her leathery features, squinting as though that would bring them into sharper focus. Where else had I seen them?
Kite added mildly: ‘You didn’t tell us everything.’
Snake cried: ‘I want to know about Red Macaw. Him and my father!’
Precious Light looked at him with interest. ‘Your father,’ she said slowly. ‘You mean that man Handy.’
‘It’s not just about him and Red Macaw now.’ Kite told her. ‘There have been deaths. There was one last night, and…’
He might as well have been talking to himself, because the woman’s ancient, red-rimmed eyes were fixed on my face. I found their gaze hard to meet. The moment I looked away was when she chose to speak. ‘I’ve seen you before.’
I seemed to have been waiting for that to shake loose the memory. ‘At Handy’s house,’ I said wonderingly. ‘You were in the burial party. You led the women to the house, before Goose took over, and you spoke to him after they’d knocked the wall down And it was you who made the speech at the graveside.’
‘I didn’t do it for him,’ she said softly. ‘It was for her. I knew she would need us: the women. I bore her no ill-will. She might have been any of us.’
‘Are you another midwife?’ I asked.
The question seemed to surprise her. She paused before answering, and when she did it was in an even sharper voice than before, as though I had accused her of something: ‘No!’ she cried, so vehemently that I flinched. ‘I’m an old woman, that’s all. Just an old woman who’s seen too many of her friends put underground.’ She caught her breath, as though fearful that
