25
THE DUTY OFFICER TOLD me—somewhat skeptically—that I would find Sergeant Andrews near Szenga Square, where a pair of protests had broken out. One of the protests was largely white and in carnival mood, singing raucous patriotic songs, waving flags, and burning an effigy of the Grappoli king on a bonfire outside their empty embassy. The other was quieter, angrier, a swelling horde of black men and women who chanted antiwar and antigovernment slogans. Mnenga may have been with them, but I couldn’t see him, and as soon as Andrews caught sight of me, he shepherded me around the corner.
I thought of Kalla, wondering how she would weather whatever turmoil was coming to the city, and reminded myself that she would fare no worse for being at Pancaris.
Almost certainly better.
I cared about the child, but I could not care for her. For all the dourness of the orphanage, she was safe there, and I was free to do my job, my duty to my friends and the city. Without her, my mind was clearer, like gazing through clear glass into a blue, empty sky.
I watched the Mahweni demonstrators. You could almost taste their fury and frustration. It was like some great penned beast that had been starved and tormented for years, outrage and injustice heaped on it day after day, till it exploded with lethal, snapping fury. It had just been a matter of when. Mounted dragoons had been called in to Acacia Road, and they waited there, rank upon silent rank, steaming in the heat.
Andrews gave them a long look.
“Will they be sent in?” I asked.
“Let’s hope not,” he answered, avoiding my eyes.
*
MACINNES’S FACE FELL THE moment I walked in, and that was before he saw the uniformed policemen and realized who Andrews was. He tried for righteous indignation first, exclaiming on the barbarism of storming into a respectable place of business in ways that might tarnish his reputation, but Andrews blew through that as if it were steam from a kettle.
“I am Detective Sergeant Andrews of the Bar-Selehm police department,” he said. “And you are Elmsly Macinnes, shined-up lowlife.”
“I have always been most cooperative with our fine friends in law enforcement,” said Macinnes. “I see no reason for besmirching my good name.”
“Your good name,” said Andrews, “smells like what comes out the back end of a warthog.”
“I don’t have to stand here and listen to you casting aspersions on—”
“In fact,” said Andrews, “that’s exactly what you have to do. So. Mr. Macinnes, are you aware that trading in stolen luxorite is a crime punishable with a thousand-pound fine and three years in prison?”
“I did, actually,” said Macinnes at his most cherubic, “though I can’t image why you think that might pertain to me. You ought to be protecting the likes of me from looters.”
“Is that right?” said Andrews. His three uniformed officers had eased themselves around the store, and they projected an aura of regimented menace, like dogs ready to break the leash. One of them, truncheon already out, was watching the bullish security guard closely, and though the guard was both imposing and armed, he looked very unsure of his role. “Then perhaps,” Andrews continued, “you would like to explain why the Dowager Lady Hamilton told me not one hour ago that she purchased a luxorite pendant with some very shaky-looking documentation from this very establishment.”
Macinnes must have considered his options earlier. He was the kind of man who kept his ear close to the ground, and news of what happened at the opera house had surely reached him. He had been expecting us.
“I did indeed sell the good lady a piece of fine jewelry,” said Macinnes evenly, “but I am shocked to hear that you think the paperwork not entirely in order. I assure you that when I acquired the piece—”
“Who from?” Andrews cut in.
“What? Well, I’m not sure I can remember. It was so long ago—”
“No,” I interjected. “It wasn’t. The stone was new, but judging by what you have in this case, the setting wasn’t. You mounted it yourself, yes?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, stiffening. “I don’t believe I’ve seen your badge.”
“Miss Sutonga is a consultant,” said Andrews, daring him to argue. “She is assisting the police with their inquiries.”
“Sutonga?” he echoed. “You’re the one what did for young Billy Jennings!”
“Miss Sutonga has been cleared of those charges,” said Andrews.
“Did you get the stone from a Lani boy?” I pressed.
“A Lani boy?” he repeated, still hostile.
It was the first time since we had come in that he seemed off script. He looked surprised, confused even, as if he might have misheard.
“Did you get the luxorite from a Lani boy?” I pressed.
“No,” he said.
“Then who?” Andrews demanded.