Though Pellu had kept the corpse on ice, a week of death had done its work. The flesh around the man’s eyes had sunk into his sockets, and a faint smell of corruption clung to him like rank cologne. But the fire would take care of that, and burn away the gaping knife wound in his gut.
He arranged the dead man on the sofa and, when his body was propped upright, paused to touch his cheek.
“Thank you,” he said, feeling only moderately foolish. The poor creature had probably been stabbed anonymously in an alley and dumped for the night nurses to find. A senseless death, but at least now it wasn’t entirely without purpose.
Aristide slipped out of his dressing gown—Niori silk embroidered with explosive peonies—and wrapped it around the dead man’s shoulders. His slumped body was otherwise naked, stripped of any identifying clothes or effects. If anything remained after the fire, it would be scraps of Aristide’s robe.
In the kitchen, Ilse was washing the breakfast dishes. Aristide almost laughed. He started opening drawers, shuffling through foreign implements. Finally, she put down her rag and rounded on him.
“You’re making a mess,” she said. “What are you looking for?”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “Shears.”
“Why?” She wiped her hands on her apron, leaving wet splotches.
His hand moved, unconsciously, to the braid hanging over his shoulder. He forced it back to his side, but she’d seen him.
“Ah. I’ll get my sewing kit.”
She passed him on her way out, and he caught her arm. “Thank you. And … I’d avoid the parlor.”
In less than a minute, she was back with a comb, a pair of bright silver shears, and a smaller set of thread snips.
“You should’ve asked,” she said. “If you try to do it yourself, it always comes out crooked.”
“I don’t need anything fancy,” he said. “Just … take it all off.”
She lifted the braid and he shut his eyes, as if that would stop him feeling the bite of the scissors. But it didn’t come.
“You’re sure?” she asked. His scalp prickled as she hefted the weight of his hair.
“Just do it, Ilse. I haven’t got much time.”
She tched. “No need to be so snappish.” Then, without ceremony, she sliced clean through his plait.
*
He sent her home after that, with another one of the dwindling stack of fat white envelopes from his safe.
“It might be for the best if you got out of the city for a while,” he told her. “You have an aunt who lives in the weald, don’t you?”
She nodded, and pocketed the cash.
“Go to her. Don’t come back if you don’t have to, not for a month at least. Are all your things out of the flat?”
Lifting a voluminous handbag, she said, “This is the last of it. Most I took home on my night off.”
“Good girl.” He looked around the office once more and squeezed her shoulder. “Now, stroll off. Do you have a gun?”
She shook her head.
“Do you want one?”
She shook her head again, more violently.
“Well, be careful. Take a hack if you can find one. There’s more than plenty in there for the fare. Now, go.”
And she did.
Left alone under the high ceilings of his flat, Aristide changed into a cheap suit of itchy brown wool—the kind of thing a farmer might wear, on his one big trip to the city—and secreted a snub-nosed revolver in his pocket.
In his scuffed white canvas duffle, there was a heavy overcoat, because the nights in Currin would already be cold, and getting colder. An oilskin, for the relentless rain and mist. Other clothes and sundries. And at the very bottom, sewn into the lining, a rope of golden pearls he couldn’t sell but couldn’t bear to burn. The rest of his jewels had been converted to more liquid currency.
He emptied his safe into the sack as well—a few more envelopes of cash to use as needed. An emergency roll of large bills wrapped inside a few disguising smaller denominations. And a thin packet he slipped carefully against the side of the duffle, curving it with the canvas so it wouldn’t wrinkle.
He set the bag by the service stair and went into the kitchen. Ilse had ordered a drum of paraffin, at his request, last week. Aristide dragged it out into the parlor, where his doppelg?nger rested on the sofa. With a heave, he toppled it over at the dead man’s feet. Oil soaked the carpet, wicking through the thick white pile.
Aristide dragged the barrel across the room, letting the last of the stuff drain out. Outside, glass broke. He could hear the crash over the noise of the crowd. Then, the high keening of an ACPD whistle. He had to hurry, before the hounds and the mob really got into it.
He left the barrel by the sofa and went to the bar. Set behind the brandy and port, there was a bottle of white blinder—grain alcohol. He tucked it under his arm, settled into his secondhand boots, and stopped to look around one last time.