Point of Dreams

“Aconin was shot,” Trijn repeated. “And when was this?”

“He wouldn’t make the point,” Rathe said, and Trijn allowed herself a sigh as dramatic as any actor’s.

“Who shot him?”

“No idea, Chief,” Rathe answered, and Eslingen cleared his throat again.

“I walked him to Forveijl’s. He didn’t want to go home.”

“Not to the Court, no, he wouldn’t,” Rathe said. “Where is he living, anyway?”

“Close by the river, on Altmar Lane,” Eslingen answered, and Sohier nodded.

“That checks. Next to Armondit’s house.”

Rathe nodded, reaching for his coat, and Eslingen stood. “I’m coming with you.”

He thought for a moment that Rathe would protest, but Sohier nodded.

“I’d take it kindly, Lieutenant,” Trijn said, and Rathe’s frown deepened.

“It’s not necessary.”

“Answer me this,” Trijn said. “Are you that happy at the thought of seeing Forveijl again?”

Rathe hesitated, and she nodded. “Not that I blame you. So Lieutenant Eslingen is more than welcome to join you–as long as he keeps any murderous impulses well in check.”

Eslingen swept her a bow. “I am restraint itself, Chief Point.”

Forveijl’s lodgings looked very different in daylight, an old house kept in good repair, with a narrow band of fallow garden between it and the dirt of the street. Of course, it had to be kept up, Eslingen thought; Madame Armondit’s house was too expensive for her to tolerate a slovenly neighbor. She also didn’t like the points’ presence, he saw, with an inward grin, and nodded to the doorkeeper watching suspiciously from his little house.

“Second floor,” Sohier said. “Always assuming he’s home.”

That would be the question, Eslingen thought, following the others up the stairs, and if it were me, I’d be long gone. He glanced at Rathe, but the man’s face was expressionless, shuttered against any show of emotion. Sohier knocked on the door, first with her fist, and then, when there was no answer, with her truncheon. There was still no answer, and Rathe swore under his breath.

“I didn’t think he’d have the nerve to run.”

“I’ll get the landlady,” Sohier said, and Eslingen flattened himself against the wall as she clattered back down the long stairs.

“Do you think he’s gone to Aconin?” Eslingen asked, and Rathe tipped his head to one side, considering.

“He said it was over between them, though Sofia knows if he was telling the truth. But, no, I don’t think so, mostly because I doubt Aconin’s neighbors would want a stranger bringing his troubles into the Court.” Rathe turned back to the door, pounding it with his closed fist. “If he’s not here, I don’t know where he’d go.”

“Someone at the theatre will know,” Eslingen said. Privately, he wasn’t so sure–Forveijl had been solitary for an actor, seemed to keep very much to himself. “Or at whatever company he was with.”

“Master Forveijl?” The voice came from the stairwell, a quavering voice, sexless with age, so that Eslingen had to look to see that it was an old man, remembered him as the landlady’s man. “Are you sure you don’t want next door?”

“No,” Sohier answered, and from the sound of her voice, Eslingen guessed she’d answered the question before. “No, we don’t want Madame Armondit’s. Like I said, we need to get into Forveijl’s lodgings.”

“But he’s an actor, not–” The old man broke off in confusion, and Rathe tilted his head again.

“Not what?” His tone was genuinely curious, and the old man bobbed his head.

“Not a criminal, or I never would have thought so, not him.”

“We just want to talk to him,” Sohier said. “You said you could let us in.”

“But isn’t he there?” The old man blinked at her, and Rathe’s eyes narrowed.

“You heard him come in? When?”

“Noon, maybe?” The old man shook his head. “I’ve not heard him go out.”

“It’s urgent, master,” Rathe said, and there was a note in his voice that made the hair stand up on Eslingen’s neck. The old man seemed to hear it, too, and fumbled a ring of keys from under his short coat. He found the one he wanted, and fitted it into the lock, grunting as he struggled to turn it. The door swung back at last, and Rathe swore. Sohier caught the old man by the shoulders and swung him away from the opening, his mouth wobbling open in shock.

“Go across to Armondit’s, get her to send a ru

The old man nodded, tottering down the stairs, and Eslingen stepped forward, bracing himself for the worst. Forveijl lay sprawled across the foot of his bed, one bed curtain pulled half off its rings to fall across the body. It was stained with blood, as were the disordered sheets and Forveijl’s shirt and waistcoat–too much blood for him to be left alive, Eslingen thought, but even so Rathe went to him, feeling for a pulse at first one wrist and then the other. He checked before he touched the throat, and straightened, shaking his head.

“Dead for sure, then,” Sohier said, and her voice cracked on the words.

“His throat’s been cut.” Rathe turned away from both of them, stood facing the shuttered window, and Eslingen winced. Bad enough that your ex‑lover attacks you, tries to seduce you, but then to find him dead like this, without a chance for either revenge or forgiveness… He shook his head, and looked at Sohier.

“You’d better see to the body.”

The pointswoman nodded, understanding, and bent to sort through the dead man’s pockets. “Nothing much here,” she a

A month’s wages at least, Eslingen thought, though that depended on the contract he had negotiated with Gasquine, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Rathe turn back to them, his face set and grim.

“And we won’t have to ask the alchemists how this one died,” she went on, and then winced. “Sorry, Nico, I didn’t think.”

“It’s all right.” Rathe took a breath, glancing around the crowded room. It was tidy enough, Eslingen saw with mild surprise, though the man had probably had someone to clean for him. The bed curtains looked new, or at least well kept, and the door of the clothes‑press was open, revealing at least one other good coat. There were books everywhere, stacked in a case and on top of it and the scarred table. An open chest was stacked with the long, narrow sheets that were actor’s copies of their parts, and at least a dozen broadsheets lay on top of that, spilling out across the table, the one sign of clutter. Or had someone started to search the room? Eslingen wondered.

“What we need to know is how long he’s been dead,” Rathe said, and Sohier nodded.

“He’s cold.”

Rathe nodded, expressionless. “And the old man said he’d come home at noon, or thereabouts, he thought.”

“But he said he hadn’t heard him leave,” Sohier said. “Which means he didn’t hear the murderer leave, either.”

“At least not to notice,” Rathe answered. “We’ll have to talk to him about that. But for now–” He glanced around the room again. “First we find the Alphabet.”

Sohier nodded, and together the three went through the shelved books, plays mostly, Eslingen saw, and guessed they were ones Forveijl had done well in. He knew some of the names, but not all, paused for a moment over a copy of something called The Fair’s Promise and Payment. Aconin had put his own name down as playwright, he saw from the title page, and Rathe grimaced.

“I hope it reads better than it plays.”

“Oh?” Eslingen gave it a second, curious glance, and Rathe sighed.

“That’s the play Aconin wrote for him, wooed him and won him with it. I shouldn’t talk, I never saw it.”

Behind him, Sohier lifted her head, and then seemed to think better of anything she might have said, hunched one shoulder instead, and kept sorting through the papers. They worked their way across the room–it was a little like the looting after a fight, Eslingen thought, down to the body on the bed, except that he was careful to do as the others did, and put each piece back in its place. Sohier was first to straighten, hands on hips, but she waited until the others finished before she spoke.