A Fishmonger with a Witness Problem

The market had a quick tongue and poor manners. Arlen Pike lay under the spice awning with one boot in the gutter and a blue wax seal stuck to his cuff. The brass bell over Barrow Row gave a thin knock, then another, and the knife boards answered with their dry tapping, which was as close as the square came to a prayer. Jory took one look at the boot, then the cuff, then the blue pail under the fish table, and the day was already behaving badly. Tamsin was on her knees beside the body, her left knee clicking each time she shifted. "If he had to die, he could at least have waited until after washing day," she said. She said it to Arlen, to the awning rope, to anyone with manners. Jory caught her elbow before she could stand. Not because she needed help. She did not. Because Renn would arrive in a mood that turned names into rope. "Leave the face covered," Jory said. "I am not the one who put him on display." "Then don't add to it." There. His first lie of the day, folded neat as parcel paper. Tamsin had been at the stall all morning, gutting plaice and swearing at a herring with a split belly, which was true enough if no one asked about the hour before first bell. No one did, unless Jory gave them a reason. He kept his voice flat and quick and clean. It would do. A matchbox lay in the dust by Arlen's boot, one corner crushed flat, the lid hanging open like a bad mouth. Jory nudged it under the blue pail with the side of his shoe. Renn came down the lane with two lads behind him and his missing knuckles tucked into his belt like a bad receipt. "State it," he said. "Arlen Pike is dead," Jory said. "That part I can manage." "Under the awning," Tamsin said. Renn gave her a look that might have been a shelf label. "Did I ask you?" "No," she said. "You seem to be improvising." A fishmonger learned early which stains meant blood and which meant work. Blue wax meant work, unless someone had used work as cover, and that sort of trick belonged to clerks, runners, and men who liked doors with locks on them. The seal on Arlen's cuff sat a little too clean for market grime, a small hard crescent of office blue. Jory kept his wrist turned away from the body so his old break would not send up its complaint, and the movement made the pail knock once against the stall leg. Ordinary noise. The kind that covered everything. Nobody in the square had a gift for silence. That was one reason the dead man stood out so badly.

Jory crouched by Arlen's cuff and used two fingers, because wax and blood liked the same sort of bad company. The blue seal had chipped into a little crescent on the cloth, office blue, the kind that meant a permit had passed a desk and a clerk had stamped it with all the tenderness of a hammer. The paper packet in Arlen's coat was folded four times, then tucked inside itself once more, which was a merchant's way of hiding panic. Not a clean fold. Not a fish fold. A man fold. He eased the parcel open by the corner and stopped before the string gave. Fennel dust coated the inside seam. Spice stall, the easy story said. Arlen's breakfast said something else. The smell of old rope, wet wool, and fennel sat under the awning together, which was exactly the sort of mess Jory hated because it invited people to be simple. "Don't tear it," Renn said. "If I wanted a torn thing, I would have brought a nephew." "I came with lads," Renn said. "Then you know what I mean." Bunt arrived with his ledger, a damp blot on one cuff, and the expression of a man asked to file weather. "For the record," he said, "I have no section for this." "Start one," Tamsin said. "Use the bottom of the page," Jory said. Bunt blinked at him as if Jory had asked him to salt soup with coins. Renn crouched at the body and gave the boot a nudge. "He in the square this morning?" "Arlen?" Jory said. "He was where you are now." "That's not an answer." "It is if you stand still long enough." The parcel had a second fold hidden inside the first. Whoever wrapped it had done the job with cold fingers and a hurry that tried to pass for skill. Jory rubbed the edge with his thumb. The paper split just enough to show the inside crease had been opened after the original tying. That mattered. Most people wrapped to keep things in. Some wrapped to keep things moving. Somebody had done both. Bunt made a tiny sound over his ledger and looked offended by the human body, which did not fit any form he carried. "There ought to be a square on here for causes that embarrass staff," he said. "I'd fill that one in daily," Tamsin said.