They skin the shark and the Barrelman takes its skin to preserve and prepare for lamination — one of the many uses of a skin with a colour and a texture called jable. The salted meat they store in the barrels he marks, the fat is rendered for oil, and the cartilage stored in brine for later use in the manufacture of glue. When all is done, they wash the deck clean and replace the blood drains. All around the sea foams and great dark bodies surface and dive. All around, fins.
Night seems to drive the last of the sharks away or perhaps another jable hunter has cast a bucket of blood into the sea. Hinks knows there are those who prefer to hunt by the light of the moons, those who make it a mystic thing of ceremony and sacrifice, and toast each kill with shark’s blood drunk from whelk-shell cups. As he pulls in nacreous glitters of green mackerel and snaps their necks with his forefinger and thumb he wonders what questions the Captain might be asking now. It has been some time since he took the boy to his cabin. No matter, no concern. Hinks casts his line of lures back into the sea as the two yellow moons the twins have their names from break over the horizon like glaring eyes.
“He buggers an innocent while Pallister talks of shark souls, Cheyne sharpens all his knives, and you catch mackerel we don’t need.”
Hinks stares the pile of mackerel next to him then looks up at one of the twins. “Are you Jan?” She ignores the question. “In Piezel they would crush his testicles and throw him to the jable. We sit idle while he gratifies lust.”
“Many would, given opportunity.”
She steps more into the moonlight and stands with her hands on her hips. “I might give you opportunity, Hinks. It is for me to say yes or no and for you to accept or not. This boy has been given no such choices.”
Hinks reels his handline back onto its frame then climbs tiredly to his feet. It is his responsibility, just like with Chaff. They all know what the Captain is doing and they all know it is wrong, but only he can do anything, by the Book.
“Back me up then. Where is your sister?”
“She is testing the point of Cheyne’s most important knife.”
Hinks is surprised. In all the time the twins had been on board he had never known either of them to bed another member of the crew. The rumour was that they preferred their own sex, but then that was always the rumour when men’s egos are bruised.
“A strange night, and I wonder why you told me… Is she recruiting to your cause?”
“No and yes. She has been with Cheyne since the season began and he is in agreement about the Captain.”
“I heard nothing.”
“Cheyne does not gossip.”
Hinks shakes his head. Of course Cheyne does not gossip. Cheyne does not speak at all and has not spoken since the excision and cautery of the fungal infection in his mouth and throat. Through the double moon shadows they walk to the forward hatch and the single stair that goes down to the Captain’s cabin. As they slip below decks, Hinks shakes a biolight to luminescence and carries it before him. Soon they are before the door of shark skin stretched on its frame of manbone. They listen. Nothing. Hinks reaches to scratch on the door, but it opens, unlatched. They enter.
“It is murder. Murder has been done here.”
Hinks nods agreement, the rich smell of slaughter in his nostrils. What else could this be? The Captain lies sprawled across his bunk in a tangle of bloody sheets. Driven up through his groin and into his guts is a spike made of solid glass, like an icicle. But maybe this was not the first cause of his death, since neat as a cylinder his right eye-socket has been reamed out to the back of his skull. Hinks knows the horrible fear of the supernatural. They heard nothing, perhaps a shark soul was loose on this ship.
“Man overboard!”
The yell is from above and breaks into their nightmare reverie. Hinks gains some command over himself and pushes the unnamed twin back to the door. What now? Another murder, or a murderer seeking to escape? Past the twin he rushes up on deck. The Barrelman is there leaning over the rail and Pallister is beside him.
“Who is it?” Hinks asks.
“I do not know. I do not know.” The Barrelman’s voice is strange, as if surprised at itself.
“Pallister?”
“I don’t know, but he is done.” Pallister points to the floating body and to the fin slicing moonlit water just beyond it. Hinks watches the inevitable: the fin disappearing, the body snatched from below.
“Dead or unconscious when he went in, like as not,” says Pallister, then after glancing to the twin, “or she.”
“Get the crew on deck, all of them you can find, find that boy if you can, bring them all, bring them all here. Murder has been done. The Captain is dead in his cabin and who knows who the shark took.” It takes little time for them all to be roused and assembled as many of them were coming onto the deck as Hinks made his speech. He counts and he appraises. Cheyne and the other twin look flushed. Cook has certainly been sampling the sea apple wine again and the others seem no different from normal. All are here but the boy and the Captain. Hinks wants to be sure, though.
“I want the ship searched forward to aft, every unsealed barrel checked and every sail locker. Check the crow’s nest as well.” He turns to the Barrelman. “What say you, Barrelman?” The Barrelman shakes his head and goes below to his own kingdom. Cook follows him.
No boy is found, just as Hinks expected. He speaks with Pallister and Cheyne as allies always and knows a loneliness when he realises he cannot trust even them. In the end he must ask those questions.
“Pallister, did you throw the boy back into the sea?”
“As the Book is my witness, Hinks, I did not.”
Hinks inspects the rest of the crew who stand nervously around. Which one of them? Which of them committed murder? It could be any, even the twin who had him go to the Captain’s cabin might have come from there earlier.
“Somebody cast the boy into the sea, dead or alive, no difference. Somebody has murdered our Captain.”
“The boy,” says Pallister. “The shark soul. It killed him and returned to its element.”
“You talk like a Reader,” spat one of the twins.
Hinks stares at her. “Which one are you? Tell me now.”
“I am Jan.”
The rest of the crew study her carefully. So, Hinks decides, Jan is the one with her hair tied back and Char the one who was bedding Cheyne, this night, anyway.
“She may be right, Pallister. What matter? If what you say is true then there is no blame or guilt to attach anywhere and I will be glad. But I must be sure.”
“What are your thoughts?” asks Pallister.
“I think one of you killed the Captain, and the boy, in disgust,” he gazes at all the crew, “or fear,” he now looks particularly at Pallister. “And the boy was thrown into the sea to bring belief in your story.”
“It could have been you,” says Jan.
“Yes, but I know it was not,” says Hinks. “Now you and Pallister will come with me and we will once again view the body before it is passed on to the Barrelman. The rest of you prepare sail for the morning wind. We head directly for Piezel.”
“What weapon is this?” Pallister braces his foot against the Captain’s groin and tries to pull the spike from him. His hands slip along the glassy surface. “Too deeply imbedded, perhaps in his spine. It was put there with some force.” Hinks, suspicious of every action now, tries to remove the spike himself. He cannot.
“And what weapon caused this?” asks Jan, pointing at the neatly reamed hole in the Captain’s head. Hinks has no answer for her.