Page 39 of A Case of Possession
“What does that mean?” said Stephen warily.
“Shout at. Fuck. Adore. Come here.” He pulled Stephen’s chin up and planted a hard kiss on his mouth, then let him go just as Dr. Gold banged the door open, with a smock-like linen shirt in his hand.
“All I’ve got that might fit you, I’m afraid, here you go. The ladies are ready. If you go upstairs, I might even be able to see some patients. What the devil is that?”
“Tattoos.” Crane finished stripping off his stained shirt as the doctor stared in astonishment at his decorated, animated skin. “I had them done in China.”
“They’re moving!”
“They do,” Stephen said. “Don’t ask.”
“This is typical of you, Steph,” said Dr. Gold bitterly. “Typical. Of course you can’t just be unnatural like everyone else. Go on, get this overgrown magic lantern out of my way, this is a surgery, not a circus. Out!”
Leonora and Esther were waiting upstairs in the Golds’ small drawing room when Crane walked in, still grinning. It was a slightly awkward space, with bare floorboards and cheap furniture covered up by cushions and rugs, piles of books, and a couple of rather attractive wall hangings with lettering that Crane guessed to be Hebrew. The two women were sitting together as Crane and Stephen entered. As well as their similar colouring, they were much of a height, though Leonora filled the plain, borrowed gown almost to bursting. Esther didn’t give the impression of being aware of the unflattering contrast.
“You look wonderfully…intact,” Crane told Leo. “Stephen, Mrs. Hart. Leo, this is Stephen Day. In case you don’t know yet, Mrs. Gold and Mr. Day are justiciars. Shamanic law enforcers. Now, pay attention. The rats that attacked you also killed Rackham. Before that, they killed two men in Limehouse, and a family on Ratcliffe Highway. There’s probably but not necessarily a shaman behind this. The rats were very definitely trying to kill you; they didn’t touch me. So who’s after you?”
“Nobody.”
“Do better.”
“I said, nobody,” Leonora snapped. “Nobody is trying to kill me. I have no enemies.”
“What about Rackham?”
“What about him? He’s dead.”
“He was blackmailing you.” Crane caught her outraged look. “Don’t get your stockings in a knot,adai, Mrs. Gold is the only person in this room who he wasn’t distinguishing with his attentions. As far as I know.”
“No,” said Esther firmly. “Mrs. Hart, who else was he blackmailing?”
“I’ve no idea!”
“The thing is,” Stephen said, “you and Rackham clearly have a common enemy. The blackmail is the obvious link—”
“I have had nothing to do with that little toe rag since before Tom died. He was a junk-sick waste of skin.” Leonora sounded entirely sincere. “The matter that he was blackmailing me about is not…creditable, perhaps, but I can’t see how it’s related to anything else. Who are the other dead?”
“The family on Ratcliffe Highway were called Trotter,” Stephen said. “The Chinese who died were Tsang Ma and Bo Yi.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” said Leonora.
“Well, what about Java?” asked Crane. “Specifically, Sumatra. The Dutch East Indies. That seems to be the source of the rat problem.”
“So?”
Crane switched to Shanghainese to say, “Your second husband was Dutch.”
“Excuse me,” said Esther loudly. “We’ll do this in English please.”
“That related to a private matter. I don’t see any possible connection.” Leonora looked from Stephen to Esther. “I’m extremely grateful that you saved my life, but I know absolutely nothing of this. I don’t know anything about Sumatra beyond having the same few acquaintances as Lord Crane, I have no idea what Rackham was up to, I’ve never heard of any of these people. I honestly can’t think of any reason why anyone would try to kill me. Could it not have been a mistake? They were trying to kill someone else? It seems more probable.”
“So far the rats have been used on two Chinese practitioners, one old China hand and you, back from China,” Esther said. “There seems to me to be a pattern.”
“What does ‘practitioners’ mean?” Leo asked.
Crane opened his mouth to reply, but at that point there was a polite knock, and Merrick came in with a bundle. “I beg your pardon,” he began, and then recoiled at his master’s appearance. “What happened to you?”
“Blame Leo. She bled all over me.”
