As they should be. Not poking about in basements.
Kella turned a corner and nodded to the guard at the front gate, who let her enter the courtyard of the private estate. She passed the gardens and fountain and climbed the marble steps in front of the stately manor house, its tall windows glowing with golden lamplight. She rapped as politely as her mood would allow, and when the doorman opened the door he took one glance at her and stepped aside, out of her way. “Supper has just concluded, detective. The lady of the house is in the study to your left.”
Kella crossed the foyer and passed down a narrow hallway where oil portraits hung in near darkness to a small study furnished with padded leather chairs, bookcases bowing beneath weighty tomes, and glass cabinets displaying old Indian crockery, primitive Europan spears and knives, and other exotic antiques.
The two people seated by the lamp in the center of the room looked up at her and set their teacups aside. Lady Sade motioned toward the couch. Kella sat down carefully, trying to look less like an angry police officer and more like an obedient citizen. It proved difficult.
“Detective, good evening,” Lady Sade said. “Have you come to tell us some exceedingly good news about the recent rates of street crime?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“No, I didn’t think so.” Lady Sade glanced at her companion, an older gentleman with a thick black beard, and she picked up her tea. “Is it Chaou? Any news of our missing ambassador?”
“No, I haven’t heard anything about her. This is another matter.” Kella folded her hands tightly in her lap to avoid curling them into fists. “A matter regarding the doctor you introduced me to this afternoon.”
Sade nodded. “And?”
Kella looked at the man, the stranger, but neither of them seemed at all concerned about discussing the doctor openly. “A young woman came to the police station tonight. I was on my way out, another few minutes and I wouldn’t have been there to catch her. She’s a medical technician working for your doctor. She says she saw the animals in the doctor’s basement being mistreated. She saw machines she couldn’t identify.”
“Indeed. Did she now? And what was this young woman’s name?”
The detective narrowed her gaze. “She described, in some detail, the various animals and machines that she saw. She wanted to show me, but I brushed her off and I tried to convince her that whatever she thinks she saw was nothing criminal.”
“Good.” Lady Sade sipped her tea silently. “Do you think she will let the matter drop?”
“No, I don’t,” Kella said. “She was terrified and disgusted. She came straight to the police as soon as she saw that room. I’m guessing she’ll probably tell her friends, or anyone who might be more supportive or sympathetic, and then go back to the police again, possibly with more evidence. She might even try to free the animals herself. She was very emotional.”
“Then we have a problem.”
“My lady, what is this doctor really doing?” Kella asked the question too quickly, before Sade had quite finished speaking. For a moment no one spoke, and the detective wondered if she would be chastised for speaking out of turn. She had heard rumors, only rumors but more than one, that Lady Sade frequently dispatched her private agents to punish those who were even slightly rude to her. Case files full of unsolved poisonings and stabbings washed through Kella’s mind.
But the lady only sipped her tea as before. “What did I tell you the doctor was doing?”
“Research, to help people.” Kella knew she was frowning, but she didn’t care anymore. “Is that what the doctor is really doing? Does she plan to help future patients by inserting these machines into their bodies? And by experimenting with explosive chemicals?”
“You seem upset, detective.” The governor tilted her head. “Why is that?”
Kella glanced down at her hands and forced them open to rest on the arms of the chair. “My lady, when you approached me about performing certain tasks for you, to help you with certain projects, I took that to mean I would be protecting the peace of this city and the security of the country. I was honored. And I understand that difficult times and circumstances require us to make certain sacrifices, to do what needs to be done, rather than what we would like to do.”
“But you no longer feel that way?”
The detective tried to put the words together in her mind as carefully as possible. “I am no longer certain that my actions are in the best interests of public security.”
“And if I explain to you exactly what the Espani doctor is doing, then that will set your mind at ease?” Lady Sade passed her empty cup to her silent companion to be refilled. “Do you want to know everything that I know? Do you feel you deserve to be privy to all of my private enterprises? Or is it that you wish to debate with me how I should conduct my affairs? Perhaps you have studied our national politics, the currents of our markets, the tides of public opinion and morale, and you have some suggestions as to how I might better serve my people?”
“No, my lady.” Kella glanced down, a quiet rage simmering in her chest.
“No?” Lady Sade shrugged her slender shoulders as she received her steaming cup. “As you wish. Then you will simply have to trust my judgment in the matter of the doctor.”
“Yes, my lady.” Kella studied the silent man, trying to place him. His face was familiar, probably from the rough portrait sketches in the newspapers that made everyone look vaguely alike. For a moment, the detective considered formally resigning her special appointment. But then what? A knife in a dark alley to silence me, and someone else takes my place as her errand girl? No, I’ve got to stay inside on this one until I know what’s going on. “I’m sorry I disturbed you and your guest, Lady Sade. It won’t happen again.”
Lady Sade nodded curtly and slid back in her seat, just a bit, and turned her body to face her companion, and Kella sensed that she had been dismissed. She stood, smoothed her jacket, and left.
Detective Massi took the long way home, which was one of several long ways she had deliberately mapped out in her mind for various reasons. This particular long way required her to cross several wide open parks and squares that offered no convenient places to loiter in hiding, and carried her past many long shiny store windows that cast enormous reflections of the streets around anyone who happened to walk by. This was a popular neighborhood, one filled with cafes and teahouses and shops peddling both traditional and novelty items from clothing to mechanical toys. During the day, these parks and squares became stages for singers, storytellers, acrobats, and preachers, and in the evenings they plied their trade all the more fervently, but now, in the dark of night, these places stood empty, swept clean by street workers and guarded only by the silent gas lamps sputtering atop their posts.
It took more than a half hour of meandering through open spaces and past reflective surfaces for Kella to spot the dark figure following her. He walked with a male stride, his posture too correct for the business of lurking and sneaking. He moved from shadow to doorway to corner, silently and swiftly. He clearly thought he knew his business. He didn’t.
Kella felt through the pocket of her gray jacket to the only weapon issued to members of Security Section Five: the police club, a slender little bit of wood with a small iron ring screwed into the business end to lend it some extra weight. The detective wondered how threatening a professional killer would find such a weapon. Her hand slipped around to the small of her back and she pulled out a folded knife and she thrust it into her front pocket. At the next corner she paused, kicked her shoes loudly against the stoop as though to clean them, and then sauntered into an alleyway where she promptly flattened herself against the wall and waited.