Unraveled (Turner, #3)

“I suspect,” Miranda said, “that it has been a long time since anybody dared tease you.”


He didn’t deny it. He didn’t tell her to stop. A few more steps. They reached the dripping front gate of the gaol. He stopped just outside the entrance. “Miranda Darling,” he said in repressive tones that would brook no argument.

So why was it that she heard “Miranda, darling,” instead? Maybe he paused for emphasis. Maybe he paused to indicate a comma. Never had one little punctuation mark mattered so much.

“Yes?” she answered breathlessly.

“We’re looking for the records of George Patten, due to be released three days before. He was committed the twelfth of August. Yes?”

Ah. That had definitely not been a comma, then. “I told you all that?”

“No. You mentioned his name was George Patten. The rest I determined from our records, and interpolated as to the release date.”

She swallowed. The conversation they’d just shared had verged on the intimate—she had thought. But perhaps he’d not felt the same.

He closed his umbrella. A shower of droplets spun out from it, and the warm cocoon of heat that had enveloped her disappeared. No sun was visible, and the rain had robbed the sky of most of the light. He rapped once on the wooden door, turning from her. The door swung open; he leaned forward and murmured something to the man behind it.

The fellow narrowed his eyes, casting Miranda a sullen glower. Still, he stepped aside and let them through. The heavy door closed behind them. It had seemed dark outside, with the rain clouds hiding the sun. But when the door shut, all the light seemed to vanish. Only a trickle of fitful illumination fell from the gaoler’s lamp—not enough to light the way even ten feet in the damp corridor where they stood.

“Is there not more light than this?” Turner asked.

“No.” The gaoler adjusted the hood on his lamp to demonstrate.

“I see.”

Likely he couldn’t see much. But no doubt he could smell. The gaol smelled of old things—sour sweat, years of mold that had never been scrubbed away, buckets of waste left to sit for weeks. It made her faintly ill.

Turner’s nose twitched, but he showed no other sign of distress.

“Well?” he said. “Let’s get on with it.”

The records were in a dank room off the main hall. They were brought there by one of the gaolers, who stood in the corner. Turner ignored the man and took a dingy book from a shelf. “This,” he said to Miranda, “is the record of arrivals and departures. If anything happened to your friend, it’ll be listed here.”

He opened the book and set it on the table. Miranda peered over his shoulder. He turned the pages, scanning them so quickly she wondered if he was even looking at the words.

“Hmm,” he said, after he’d flipped through ten pages. “This is his arrival record.” He tapped it. “I didn’t see any record of his release. Or of a transfer. Curious.” He didn’t mention the possibility that he might have missed it.

“Is that bad?” Miranda asked.

He turned and plucked a more battered volume off the shelves. “The roll call,” he explained without answering her question. He flipped through a handful of pages and then stopped. “He was here five days ago. He wasn’t the day after.”

“People don’t just vanish into thin air.”

“No.” Turner frowned. “They do not. Maybe he escaped.”

Miranda shook her head. “Not George. Why become a fugitive the day before he was to be set free? I find that unlikely.”

He met her eyes. “I do, too. The most probable answer is that there has been an error. He was moved, or he was released, and it simply wasn’t recorded. These things happen.”

Miranda wasn’t so sure. Accounting errors did happen. But if this was a simple failure to record, where was George?

Turner crossed to the gaoler, sketched out the situation in a few words. The man listened, and then shrugged.

“Sometimes,” the gaoler said, “they disappear each other down there. Takes a while to notice it.”

Miranda swallowed. But Turner simply nodded, as if such casual mention of murder meant nothing to him.

The gaoler continued with an indifferent shrug. “Only way to find out is to ask.”

“Ah.” Turner didn’t move. He stood in the foul-smelling murk for a moment, staring straight ahead of him. “Of whom should I make these inquiries?”

“The prisoners,” the gaoler said. “Who else?”

Turner had set his hat to the side of the book when he entered. He picked it up now and turned it over in his hands. “Is there some kind of an interview room up here? How does one go about having prisoners brought up?”