Ink and Bone

‘Perhaps,’ Wolfe said. ‘But we have a job to do. You’ll wait with Captain Santi while my team searches.’

‘But I must protest!’ the big man said, and jabbed the book back towards Wolfe like a sword. Wolfe deftly intercepted it and put it away. ‘This is outrageous, I am no criminal! I would never …’

Santi stepped forward then, and the man’s bluster drained out of him, and something like fear crept across his face. ‘Please take a seat on this very fine couch,’ Santi said, and led the man to it. ‘Who else is at home today?’

‘My – my wife Nabeeha,’ the man said. ‘But she is unwell. In bed.’

‘Postulant Seif,’ Wolfe said. ‘Please go find the lady Nabeeha and bring her here, if she can walk. If not, we will go to her in a moment.’

Khalila wavered, then bowed her head and went quickly down the hall. The house was built in a square, with a central sunlit courtyard made serene with a bathing pool, fountains, flowers, and sheltering trees; the thick-walled house stayed cool, and fu

Jess wondered if he should follow Khalila, to be sure she was all right, but before he could make that decision Guillaume Danton said, ‘Sir, should I explore the other rooms?’

‘Go,’ Wolfe said. Danton disappeared after Khalila. When Jess made a move in that direction, Wolfe extended a sharp finger towards him. ‘Thorough search of this room, Brightwell,’ Wolfe said. ‘Portero. Check out there.’

Jess didn’t really need to search at all, because he knew exactly where the compartment was; he’d recently spent an hour finding it in the dark of night. He wished that Wolfe had sent him off to search somewhere else, because now he had to make an elaborate production of not finding the spot … at least, not quickly.

Jess started on the wrong wall, tapping and probing. It felt like elaborate theatre. He’d gone more than halfway around the room when he finally arrived at the tiny piece of fabric stretched tight and plastered in place that hid the switch.

‘Found something, Scholar,’ Jess said, and pressed hard. There was a muted click, and a square section of the wall about four feet square sagged inward and rose up. Inside, it was covered by a layer of plastered fabric that was cleverly secured at the corners.

Jess peeled the fabric back, and behind it were the treasures. Seen in full daylight, they would have been breathtaking to most – stacks of original books, and a honeycomb of scrolls. The smell of the old ink and vellum and parchment … it smelt like home to him, and for a dizzy moment, Jess just wanted to touch those smooth leather bindings, those crisp rolled edges.

He stepped away and met Wolfe’s gaze. Wolfe nodded, looking far too thoughtful. ‘Good, Postulant Brightwell,’ he said. ‘You have a knack.’

‘That’s – that’s not mine!’ the fat man in the corner blurted, and Niccolo Santi pushed him back down on the couch as he tried to rise. ‘I swear, I am i

Guillaume Danton had returned, Jess saw; he was supporting the bowed weight of a woman of about the same age as the house’s owner. She seemed old before her time, and moved as if each step pained her. Her eyes widened when she saw Jess standing at the wall, and the uncovered cache of books. Her knees loosened, and she would have fallen if Danton hadn’t held fast to her.

Or at least, that was how it looked at first, until the seemingly frail woman snatched a hidden knife from her belt, straightened, and threw Danton off balance. He had no real chance to react before the woman had whipped an arm around his throat to choke him and pulled him up to his toes, while the knife hovered over his vulnerable, fast-pulsing jugular.

‘Let my husband go or this boy dies,’ Nabeeha Nejem said. Santi exchanged a glance with Wolfe, who’d not moved so much as an eyebrow, and stepped back to let the fat man stand up. The husband seemed unsteady, and out of his depth. ‘Abdul, get the books. Go.’

‘There’s nowhere you can run,’ Wolfe said. ‘You must know that.’

Jess moved aside as the fat man came towards him, and made sure that as he did, he angled closer to the woman, and Danton. The other boy’s face was even paler than usual, but he didn’t struggle. She was pressing her arm like a bar over his throat, and he was likely to lose consciousness if it continued. The London Garda had favoured that move, and it was usually successful. Danton might be stronger than Nejem’s wife, but she had better leverage.

And she had the knife.

She also wasn’t stupid, and as Jess shifted his weight, her dark eyes cut towards him. Suddenly, the knife pressed hard enough against Danton’s neck to slice a thin line of red. But she didn’t speak to him – instead, she spoke to her husband. ‘Abdul, move! We have little time!’

Abdul Nejem was already hurrying, but he was clumsy and nervous, and there were far too many books for him to carry. There must have been twenty volumes, not including the scrolls. Abdul had to pick and choose, and it was clear he was too frightened to do it well.

As he reached for another volume, the five he already had stacked in his left hand slipped, and two of them crashed to the tile floor. Abdul gave a little cry of alarm and tried to pick them up, but that only created more of a landslide … and in the distraction, Khalila Seif slipped up silent as a ghost behind the wife, and grabbed the woman by her long braid of hair. The wife cried out, unprepared for the sudden attack, and then froze. From Jess’s angle, he could see that Khalila had pressed her own blade into the woman’s back.

‘Let my friend loose, or this goes into your liver,’ Khalila said. ‘It might not kill you, but it will certainly make you wish you were dead.’ What seemed most effective about it – and, Jess had to admit, most chilling – was the calm way Khalila said it. She didn’t raise her voice. There was no sense of tension or excitement. It was as casual as if she’d commented on the lovely garden just visible beyond the other doorway.

Nabeeha must have known she had no chance. She waited long enough that Jess began to calculate his chances of disarming her, but then she suddenly lowered the knife and let Danton fall. The boy, only half-conscious, dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Blood dripped slowly from his cut neck – a flesh wound, from the look of it. Lucky.

Khalila stayed where she was, one hand clutching into the other woman’s braid and the knife pressed against her back, until Niccolo Santi stepped forward to take charge of the captive. Then, the girl let go, sucked in a deep breath as if coming out of a deep sleep, and shuddered all over. Jess watched her as she tried to resheathe her knife; her hand trembled too much to hit such a narrow target. She finally put the blade down on a small table near the wall and knelt down next to Guillaume Danton to see how he was. Jess understood. Always easier to see to another than face your own fears.

Abdul Nejem, meanwhile, stood indecisive in the centre of the room with his arms filled with a tottering stack of illegal books. He stared at his now-captive wife with shock, as if he couldn’t quite believe that she hadn’t won the day, and when Wolfe stepped up and took the books from him, the man deflated like a punctured balloon. He sank down on the only other furniture in the small room – a chair that groaned beneath his weight – and buried his face in his hands. ‘You’ve killed us,’ he wept. ‘You’ve killed us all, you greedy woman!’

‘Shut up, for the love of heaven,’ Nabeeha said. ‘We claim academic privilege!’

‘Really,’ Wolfe said, in that ominously silky voice that Jess recognised from classes. He turned towards Nejem and tilted his head to one side. ‘Regale me with your credentials. I will be fascinated to hear of your work.’ The man only sputtered, clearly unable to manufacture anything useful. ‘Niccolo, I believe we’re done. Secure them both.’