A Novel by A. J. Hartley Page A

distinct indentations in the mortar between the bricks of the ledge, about a foot and a half apart. They were new, unweathered, and sootless.
    Hook marks.
    *   *   *
    THE POLICE STATION ON Mount Street was a blank-faced structure of pale stone steps and columns, undecorated but somehow outsized. It loomed out of the gathering evening breathing power and stability. Around it, the flying foxes were leaving their roosts in its eaves, and the lamplighters were rigging their ladders.
    For a long moment, I sat on the steps of a bank across the street, looking at it. Reporting Morlak would achieve nothing other than getting me arrested for assault or murder, but that was not why I was there. I got to my feet, crossed the street between a pair of horse-drawn cabs, and ascended the long, tall steps to the entrance.
    I had expected the lobby to be a bustle of noisy activity, but it was silent, and my feet echoed on the tiled floor of a vast, open chamber with a high counter at the far end. I’m taller than most girls, but I still had to look up to speak to the desk sergeant, though I refused to use the wooden step stool. I took a long steadying breath and tried to find the words.
    â€œCan I help you?” he began, looking up from his evening paper and mug of tea, his smile curdling slightly when he saw me.
    â€œThe steeplejack case,” I blurted. My heart was beating fast and my mouth was dry. “I want to talk to someone. An officer working the steeplejack case.”
    â€œSteeplejack case?” he said. “What steeplejack would that be?”
    â€œThe boy,” I said. “Fell from a chimney.” I was gripping the edge of the wooden counter with both hands, knuckles whitening.
    â€œOh, that,” he said, shaking off his momentary confusion. “There’s no case. He fell.”
    â€œHe didn’t,” I cut in. “I told the … the officer at the scene. He was stabbed.”
    He frowned. “Saw it, did you?”
    â€œI saw the wound,” I said.
    â€œSo someone killed him, then hauled his body all the way up one of those chimneys just to throw him off again?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “They killed him up there. They waited for him on a ledge below the cap. They used a body harness or rubble skip hooked to the edge. Then they attacked him from behind.”
    The policeman was unmoved. “All that to kill a street kid?” he said.
    â€œHe was a steeplejack,” I said, defiance bristling. The muscles of my forearms were tight with the pressure of my grip on the counter.
    â€œSo?” he said. “Not exactly a rare commodity in Bar-Selehm, are they?” He looked me over pointedly.
    I fought back the urge to run. I reached across his desk and tapped the headline of the newspaper he was reading. It blared, BEACON THEFT .
    A change came over him then. He put down the mug he had been cradling, and his eyes narrowed. “You know something about the Beacon?” he demanded.
    â€œNo,” I said. “But whoever took it would need a skilled climber.”
    He was alert now, his eyes fixed on me as one hand groped for a pencil. “What’s your full name?” he began, but I had said all I meant to. “Miss!” he called after me as I crossed the empty vestibule and pushed through the revolving door into the street.
    â€œMiss!”

 
    CHAPTER
    6
    THE MAHWENI GIRL WITH the tied-back hair who worked the newspaper stand was packing up as I arrived, and she gave me a baleful stare as she loaded unsold copies onto a pallet. The evening edition had added a new wrinkle to the story of the missing Beacon, one with actual content, and in spite of my distraction, I stopped to glance over the front page.
    LUXORITE MERCHANT SUICIDE! screamed the headline.
    â€œNot a library, you know,” said the girl.
    I scowled, my eyes flashing over the text.
    In a shocking development apparently related to the theft of