Adrian’s shooting never got any better after that. He was still fuming over what the other guests were saying about him. In total he only managed to hit three of the nine potential targets, planting him firmly in the bottom quarter of the scorecard. I, on the other hand, successfully ran a perfect game – which easily secured me the win.

There was no trophy to be awarded, just polite applause from the spectators. Adrian wasn’t concerned about that though. He was already asking me for my conclusion on what Cedric was up to.

“What do you think?”

“Looking at it objectively, I see no solid evidence to confirm that Cedric was the one who leaked that information. His involvement in an extremely risky property development scheme might prove to be an effective motivator to take control of your assets.”

“He did seem to be fishing for that when I spoke with him.”

“He was?”

“Yes. He kept asking me about how the businesses were doing and if I was handling the stress. He’s going to ask me to offload them onto him eventually, and he’ll offer a bad price given that he’s already low on cash.”

He was going to offer a bad price no matter his financial situation. Cedric wasn’t about to spend any more than he absolutely had to. He wasn’t going to do Adrian a favour, he just wanted to exploit him and his inexperience. There was no love lost between these two - that much was clear.

Adrian steered us back on track, “Listen – I don’t care about what Cedric decides to spend his money on. I want to know if he’s trying to get me killed.”

“I never said I was a skilled detective.”

“But you’re a bloody know-it-all, and you don’t filter that through a bunch of stupid detective novels like Claude does.”

“He is an idiot, but he has a strange way of stumbling across the right answer if you give him enough time.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

I considered our options. The big chest of blackmail was a bust, and I didn’t see anything in the office that we could use, so what else was there for us to do? I spoke with Cedric a few more times between rounds and tried to steer the conversation in that direction, but he was steadfast about keeping what he said on the level.

“Patience is a virtue. You should never anticipate finding all of the answers right away. The problem is that Cedric has been keeping himself at arm’s length from whoever he deals with. Has he ever expressed explicitly Monarchist sympathies?”

“The opposite. He finds all of the squabbling tiring,” Adrian explained.

“Then either he is a skilled liar who’s been pulling the wool over your eyes for years, or he sees his connection to the Monarchists as purely business. A man like him could easily arrange meetings with any number of prominent members and hand over compromising details without anyone finding out.”

These were all meaningless deductions.

“What do you think he asked for in exchange for information about the watch?”

“That depends on who he was speaking to, it would have to be someone in a position to offer him a concession that he desired. Likely a member of parliament or someone connected with them, or a potential business partner. Legal and financial aims are the core of what he’s doing.”

Adrian wasn’t happy, “Doesn’t that mean that there’ll be no evidence for us to find? There’s no way that any of those people will be truthful with a pair of kids like us.”

He was correct. This could have played out as a quiet discussion in the backroom of some smoking parlour between Adrian and any number of people. The only determinative fact was that the person he spoke with had to have been a part of the conspiracy operated by Lady Rentree before her untimely death. They were the people who took the watch.

“In the absence of better options, I would strongly suggest that you ensure there are people you can trust at the estate from now on.”

Adrian opened his mouth to reply but I cut him off.

“And don’t give me an excuse about not having anyone you trust. I already know that you fired every single servant who used to work at your house. Honestly. You continue to baffle me.”

Adrian retracted his defensive response and groaned into his hands.

“I didn’t want anyone hired by my Father to be in the house after what happened.”

“Did the spectators upset you by implying that you admire him in some way?”

“I don’t... I don’t hate my Father. I can’t bring myself to, really. Every time I think about it, I get angry with him all over again. He rushed ahead without listening to what I said and ended up in jail because of it. I should hate him. I’ve never felt this much stress in my life before. Is it even possible to?”

“It is. There are some families who genuinely hate one another with all of their heart.”

Adrian jumped headfirst into emotionally fraught territory without considering the consequences; “Like what happened between you and your Mother?”

I stared for long enough to make him extremely uncomfortable – just for kicks.

“Actually, that was the first time we’d ever met one another.”

Adrian’s jaw dropped, “You... that was the first time you’d ever met? And you got into a bloody fistfight with her?”

“I suppose it was. With that said, I hardly hate the woman. We merely had a difference of opinion about potentially unleashing a horde of intra-veil demons unto the world using that book.”

“That sounds like a good reason to hate someone,” Adrian countered.

“The point I’m making is that she and I have spoken with each other, at most, for around an hour collectively. She gave birth to me and left the estate at her earliest convenience. I am indifferent to her.”

“Indifference sounds good to me.”

“From the outside looking in, I can say that your Father doesn’t hate you. In his eyes – it was all justified in giving you the future that he believed you would come to like in time.”

“He wanted me to be like him.”

“Maybe so. True hate, familial hate, is different to that. It’s a wholesale rejection of everything that a child represents. They become a malevolent force, the source of all their self-prescribed woes, and the singular reason why they haven’t achieved what they want.”

Adrian silently shook his head. There was a part of him that refused to accept that a toxic relationship like that was even possible. It was so alien to most people that they would naturally reject the idea. Even Cedric, despite his attempts to have Adrian killed, couldn’t match up to that type of animosity. It was a hatred that eclipsed all else.

It was funny. There were a lot of folk who believed that I was raised in that type of household. In their eyes, the only possible way to become a man who killed for money was for him to be abused, neglected and beaten. They were afraid to admit the truth – that the pure pressure of economic forces was the sole drive behind my actions. It was a job I did to pay my bills. This belief simultaneously served to alienate people who were raised in abusive households and to reject the premise that something as universal as needing cash could drive someone to extreme lengths.

It was all prejudice at the end of the day.

“It doesn’t matter what your Father wants. He’s in jail, and you have to deal with this Cedric issue with your own two hands.”

“But we’re at a dead end.”

“To an extent. This development project at Church Walk could be a potent motivator, or it could freeze him from taking any drastic action. It depends on the balance between his fecklessness and sense of caution.”

“I’d say trying to get me killed by cultists is pretty reckless already.”

“Not if he’s keeping his name and face away from the culprits. Laundering your desires through others, who are also sworn to secrecy, is a powerful tool in the wrong hands. That is how criminal gangs tend to operate.”

I was starting to sound like Claude. I took a bite of the scone that I had pilfered from the buffet table and considered what we could do next. I would have liked to know more about the regeneration project, but the only family listed on the planning document whom I was personally connected with were the Abdahs.

“It would be simpler if we could ask Maxwell about it. His family was listed on the-”

“Why didn’t you say that from the start?” Adrian grumbled, “I spoke with him before I approached you to get his advice about this. He’s obviously going to be okay telling us what he knows!”

“I was not aware that you two were friends.”

“That’s overstating it.”

I stroked my chin, “Maxwell won’t be personally involved. He does not have a position of responsibility at the moment. The best we can hope for is hearsay unless he elects to do some investigating of his own.”

Better than nothing. If it was his Father or his brothers, he could hopefully pry some more compromising details from them without arousing any suspicion. They’d be happy to hear their youngest member becoming more curious about their business.

“If we’re going to visit, we should do it soon. His estate is on the way back from here.”

“You want to go today? He might not even be there.”

“It’s worth a try. What are they going to do, arrest us for asking?”

It was going to be pretty late by the time we passed through the town where he and Claude lived. It was probable that the servants would turn us away at the gate for not asking for an invitation.

“Fine. We can visit. I wish you would have said so sooner, I could have made plans...”

I placed my empty glass down on the buffet table and cracked my knuckles.

“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to your Uncle?”

“No,” Adrian said bluntly, “I’ve had enough of him for one day.”

---

“...And that’s what he really got up in my face, yelling at me, saying that I didn’t have the legal authority to check the body with him around.”

“But he never invoked P.I.G?”

“Nope. Didn’t say a word about any of that.”

Veronica’s brow furrowed as more pieces of information fell into place. Bernard Jones appeared at the station unprompted and started obstructing the investigation by threatening to arrest the officers, and when that didn’t work he then threatened to report them to his superior. According to two of the witnesses who saw him, he was very flustered, and in a hurry to keep the body away from them.

The instant he caught on to the fact that he was being kept there so Veronica could wring his neck, he fled through the back door and disappeared. The only reason to avoid utilising PIG was because it was one of the few ways to receive a harsh disciplinary from your handler. Misuse of the article to obstruct an ongoing investigation with intent would make his head roll. He was trying to get the right outcome without risking his position at the agency.

That went out of the window the moment he heard that Veronica was on the prowl. He understood what that meant. He was about to be a few broken bones richer for the experience. The grounds under which he tried to keep the body isolated were spurious at best, providing several different excuses depending on who was speaking with him.

“Are you saying that he wasn’t dispatched by the head office?” the policeman wondered.

“No. I’m only here because he was spotted starting trouble, but they’ll be interested in learning more about the situation now. Normally it would take a few days for the case to be referred to us by the Interior Minister.”

Veronica couldn’t stop thinking about the body. She believed that nothing would top the appearance of demons in her mind, but seeing a human body twisted in such a strange manner was more effecting than she first thought. Even before a pair of bystanders filled him with holes – he looked like a dead man walking.

The unusual circumstances of that shooting were the bread and butter of what WISA investigated. It could pose a threat to internal security, and the involvement of ambitious figures in government was a red flag that would not be so easily ignored. Veronica learnt the hard way that sometimes the greatest threats came from within, by people who believed they were helping. They often did more harm than good.

Someone called in a favour to send Bernard into the morgue. They didn’t want the police or WISA getting their hands on the body in the long term, which meant it was going to be a key piece of evidence moving forward.

“Will he come back and try it again?”

“If he has any sense, no. He used his one shot and missed, now he’s running for the nearest safehouse to see if it all blows over. Now I have to waste my damn time chasing him around until we find him.”

Victoria snapped her notebook shut and left the office so that she could speak with John again. She found him lurking around the bodies on the ground floor. Some of the gang members who’d been killed by the sickly stranger were now in his custody.

“What’s the tally?” Veronica asked.

“Nine of ‘em. I’ve never seen it be this bad, even when they were fighting with Tee’s boys on the reg. You’re telling me that one person did all of this damage?”

“I only have what the witness report told me. According to the people who were there, the stiff that Brandon is interested in was the one who killed them.”

“I think they should have dealt with the Walk gang before this incident, to be honest. There’s going to be all kinds of violence kicking off over this. Why the hell do we keep ignoring them?”

Veronica sighed, “Most of them don’t commit any offences, and when you put one behind bars, five more people are there to replace them. The police and WISA have bigger problems to worry about. The one who killed them doesn’t have any identifiable gang markings anyway.”

Perhaps if Church Walk and the surrounding areas were more secure and affluent, the problem would naturally go away. A lot of otherwise good working people joined gangs because it provided them with protection from other criminals, and they often had family connections inside the gang that would motivate them to help out and keep quiet when the police came knocking.

John frowned, “That isn’t going to stop ‘em. They’ll lash out at whoever they think is responsible for it.”

“There’s nobody to lash out at,” she repeated, “Tee’s Gang is scattered to the four corners of the country, the Sumaiyans are keeping well out of the way, and the Ruda People’s Movement isn’t positioned to start a fight.”

“They’ll find someone to start a spat with – as surely as the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening. It doesn’t have to make any sense.”

Veronica hated that John was probably in the right. The most likely targets would be the police, who were always on the receiving end of their ire for any number of grievances both real and imagined. There was no trust between the two sides, and that made policing the area incredibly difficult.

There was a commotion coming from the lobby, and that made Veronica’s hunch pick up. She left John to his tasks and walked to the double doors at the front of the morgue, where a small group of policemen were looking through the fogged windows at the large group that was gathering out front.

“We’re going to have to release a statement,” one of them worried.

“I’ll handle it,” Veronica insisted, “I was the one who invoked PIG. I don’t want them to know any more than it takes to move them away from the building. Stay here.”

Veronica walked onto the steps and made sure that the door was closed. A veritable mob of citizens from the Church Walk had gathered outside of the morgue, with a heavy-set man leading the charge. Veronica recognized him on sight. It was Robert Van Gervan, the man widely suspected of being the present leader of the Church Walk gang. Veronica put on her best public relations face and offered a grim expression to communicate how seriously she was taking their soon-to-be-shared complaints.

Robert Van Gervan scowled and wagged his fist, “I want some answers! I just got word that some of my boys got stabbed to death, and if I don’t get answers right away, I won’t be responsible for what happens!”

“The police did recover nine victims from an attack on Church Walk earlier today. Their bodies are currently under our custody, and will undergo an analysis before the identification process begins.”

Veronica let slip enough info to knock the wind out of his sails. Blowhards like him always wanted an obstacle to bowl over with their outrage and bluster. If that barrier gave way or moved with him, then it would naturally diffuse some of the tension and keep the stakes low.

“And what about the poor families? They’re going to have to wait and wait, without knowing what’s going on!”

“I appreciate your frustration – but it’s standard practice for the police to perform a post-mortem of the victims so that a full investigation can be completed. That will be done with haste, and the bodies will be released into the family’s custody within the next three days.”

“I’m not going to trust the word of some bloody coppers,” Robert declared.

“You asked for answers and that is what I gave you.”

“And what about the bloke who did it? I bet he’s still roaming the streets waiting to strike again.”

Veronica resisted the immense urge to comment on the hypocrisy of that statement. She saw Robert as nothing more than a parasite, dressing himself up in a well-meaning façade by exploiting people’s distrust towards authority. If the civilians who gathered out front with him knew half of what his gang was responsible for, they would not be so happy to stand beside him.

“Oh no, he’s quite dead. There’s no doubt about that. His body has also been recovered, and we have eyewitness reports confirming that he was the one responsible for the attack. Now, the investigation is still ongoing – so I cannot spare more details than that at this time.”

“Typical. Covering up for what really happened again!”

“If that’s your issue, then they’d be more than happy to hear your side of the story about how this incident started. You appear to have testimony that could be helpful to the case.”

Rudolf bristled at the insinuation, “My lads didn’t start shit! They were minding their own business. I don’t speak to coppers. I have half a mind to lead these good people through those doors and find out the truth.”

The crowd cheered the incredibly reckless idea like the feckless sheep they were. Veronica’s patient mask could only sustain so much damage, and every word that came from Robert’s mouth pushed her closer to the edge. He thought himself a man who didn’t know the true meaning of fear – but Veronica was confident that he had never dealt with her when she was angry before.

“I would strongly recommend that you not interfere with the police’s work. It will only cause undue delay.”

Robert stepped closer to the stairway, “And what are you gonna’ do about it, lass?”

Veronica crossed her arms and laughed, making sure to ‘gently’ brush one side of her jacket open to momentarily reveal the holstered pistol that rested against her chest. Robert froze, his eyes wide in shock at an implicit threat being made by an officer of the law.

“Normally you’d be charged with interfering with a criminal investigation, as for the situation we face now, I’m not even at liberty to say what the punishment would be. You should be confident in the belief that it will be far, far worse than a trespassing charge and a slap on the wrist. Are you willing to risk that to prove a meaningless point?”

That was the wrong way to phrase it, and Veronica regretted challenging him by trying to make light of the situation. It wasn’t meaningless to him. He was throwing his weight around to try and preserve his position as a community leader. This was the carrot side of his gang operation, with the violent crime being the ever-present stick. People like him hated being challenged. It wasn’t about the bodies now. This was about saving face.

“Watch your mouth! Do you have any idea of who you’re talking to?”

Veronica nodded, “Robert Van Gervan. Fifty-two, born into a family of labourers, moved into the city at twenty-three. Committed his first criminal offence two months later. Charged with property damage, assault, theft, and trafficking and was the first person to ever be prosecuted under the Criminal Organizations Act. Widely considered to be the leading member of the Church Street gang and their subsidiaries.”

Robert's face was like thunder, “Is that meant to scare me?”

Veronica closed the gap between them and placed a firm hand on his shoulder; “No. That isn’t the scary stuff. I know more about you than you know about yourself.”

“Bullshit.”

“You said you don’t trust coppers. Here’s the issue – I’m not a copper. I’m much, much worse news than your average bobby on the beat. So you can believe me when I say this. You so much as touch that front door and I’ll ask the coroner to reserve another slab for you."

She shoved him back into the worried throng of onlookers. Veronica, normally composed even under stressful circumstances, could feel the vein bulging on her forehead. She was furious. She was so angry that she couldn’t think straight. This was supposed to be nothing but a distraction, yet her emotional state was thrown into abject chaos by an otherwise pointless confrontation.

In the back of her mind, her rational self was already crying out. This was because of what happened with Maria. She was off-balance. She’d dedicated dozens of hours to trawling the archives and asking questions, but was no closer to discovering how, when and why Maria learned to kill in the same manner that she did. That frustration was boiling over and making a terrible mess of what should have been a simple situation.

That fury was evident to Robert and the others. Robert was upset about how the confrontation had transpired, but he was also cognizant of his responsibility to keep those with him safe from harm. This was supposed to be a fact-finding mission, and if his hunch about the strange woman was correct, she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him dead then and there if he crossed her a second time.

“I’ll remember this,” he warned ominously.

The crowd dispersed, with Robert taking some of the affected relatives away from the morgue building and back to their homes. Veronica kept a keen eye on them, ensuring that they left before she turned back and returned to the officers inside.

“I want eyes on every entrance. If you see Robert Van Gervan or any of his gang members, you shoot them on sight.”

“On sight?” the officer at the door echoed, “Are you certain?”

“Is there a problem with my order, officer?”

“No Ma’am. On sight it is.”