The Kingdom of Bones by Stephen Gallagher

preferable to the head that he’ll have.”
    “What about the blood?”
    “Blood?”
    “Under the door.”
    “Ah. Sayers?” Whitlock looked up at his acting manager.
    “Cheap red wine and ruby port,” Sayers suggested tersely. He was in no mood to offer excuses for Caspar. Let Louise see the man as he really was.
    Whitlock said, “Let us pursue this indelicate line no further. I have to ask for your understanding.” He looked around to include Tom Sayers and the sewing woman. “All of you,” he said. “This is not something of which I often speak. I knew Caspar’s father. I’ll go into no details, but they had been separated for some time. Caspar was a wild child and all but a lost soul then. His father had taken on the work of reclaiming him for God, but died with it barely begun. I swore to him that I would continue the work until its end. I pledged my own soul to the task.” At this point, he looked pointedly at Sayers. “Do not judge Caspar too harshly,” he said. “One day you will see the good in him, as I do. There has been much to overcome. There is yet some distance to go.”
    “That is a very noble story, Mister Whitlock,” Louise said, and Sayers felt his heart sink a little.
    Whitlock acknowledged her compliment with a slight and graceful nod. Sayers, tight-faced, was disinclined to believe a single word of it. He knew Whitlock’s technique too well, and was least persuaded when the old tragedian seemed at his most sincere. But he said nothing.
    A few minutes later, Louise was well enough to return to her own berth. Sayers would have stayed to present his argument to Whitlock, but a warning look told him that Whitlock would not have it. At least not here, and not now.
    Sayers stepped out of Whitlock’s compartment and closed the door behind him. It was, perhaps, inevitable that Louise would believe only the best of someone. Had Caspar been a worthier man, Sayers’ gloom would have been more profound; as it was, he had to have faith that she would see the wastrel’s true nature before too long, and reach the appropriate conclusion. By much the same token, Sayers hoped to have his own qualities understood.
    A woman would choose the steadfast man in the end. It was always so upon the stage.
    The corridor was empty now. The sewing woman had retrieved Louise’s fallen shoe. Everyone else in the company had retired.
    Except for one figure, down at the far end.
    The Mute Woman was there on her hands and knees outside Caspar’s compartment. She had several rags and a bucket of water, and she was cleaning up the stain from the floor.
    She looked up, and her eyes met Sayers’ own. Her expression did not change. She swayed a little with the movement of the train. Her face remained blank.
    And as Sayers turned to make his way to the berth that he was to share with the Low Comedian, the Mute Woman lowered her head and carried on with her task.

SEVEN
    T he next morning, about an hour before noon, a group of men passed through the gates of the cattle yard. Three were in police uniforms, and two were not. They were led by Superintendent Turner-Smith, a formidable figure with a broad white mustache, a war wound, and a walking stick. Despite his impediment, the others had to hasten to keep up with him.
    The group crossed the marshaling area to reach the slaughterhouse. There was a bellowing from the nearby pens, and a foul country smell in the air. The business of the cattle market had been under way since first light, but after the last arrivals the stones of the yard had been swept and most of the dung moved outside the walls. Turner-Smith spied an approaching figure and altered his course in order that the two of them should meet.
    The approaching figure was a man of less than thirty, brown-haired and black-suited. He’d a broad forehead and serious eyes, as brown as any Spanish girl’s.
    “Well then, Becker,” Turner-Smith said. “What do you have for me?”
    Sebastian Becker, the youngest