‘Is it this?’ She holds out the weight, which I lean in to sniff. Nothing, not even the scent of death, has remained on its cold metal surface. She may as well have left it, or returned it to that ragged boy who worries her so. The boy who, most likely, nicked the heavy trinket on some earlier visit.
A boy who was either welcomed in by Fat Peter via that locked front door, or, more likely, had run the same gantlet we did. I look up at Care, wondering how much of this she has realized. We smaller beings do tend to be sharper than the brutes of the world. Still, it may not have occurred to her, as it has, belatedly, to me. The shop we had visited was locked and dark. The alley guard had let us in and nearly trapped us there. If Care – if anyone – had been alone, he very well might have. But he hadn’t stopped whoever had come in to kill Fat Peter. He hadn’t stopped him – or her – either coming or going.
‘I’ve got to talk to Tick, Blackie.’ She’s rolling the cylinder around in her hand. ‘I don’t know if he knows anything, but this came from Fat Peter’s. Maybe he saw something – or someone.’
My ears go back. She’s not thinking clearly.
‘I know Tick.’ She’s staring into the distance, her eyes unfocused. ‘Fat Peter was a creep but Tick’s not a killer. If he didn’t kill our foster father after what that creep did, well …’ She turns to me. ‘He spoke to the old man, Blackie. He might have been the last person to do so. I need to find out exactly what he said and more – what he looked like, what he sounded like. You know?’
I don’t. Such loyalty is nonsensical. It serves no purpose. The old man is dead, and were he not, I would scratch him for sending her to the pawn shop. For putting her in danger.
‘He always said that everything could be a clue.’ She’s still talking, which is good in that it means she has not yet left – has not yet resolved to leave – our safe haven by the tracks. ‘The way a person speaks as well as the words he says. He’d have been pissed that I didn’t look at Fat Peter’s clothes or anything while I had the chance.’
No, but I did. Beneath the metallic tang of blood I can still smell the dust and sweat. The pungent smoke and the life-rich river mud on his shoes. All of this I would tell her, if I could. Anything to keep her from returning to that place of death, from confronting the dirty waif who is somehow involved. If only I knew how.
My whiskers bristle with the effort, obscuring even the pangs of hunger. I have lived a long life for one of my kind; the scars on my hide as well as the stiffness in my joints tell me this. A long life alone, but there is something compelling about this girl. Something beyond an imbalance in the scales.
Scales. The word echoes strangely in my head. Of course, the cylinder. Although I do not know how, I can see Fat Peter as he must have been, big belly pressing against the table and his white hands surprisingly delicate as he moved first one then another of the rounded weights. And lastly the smallest – the one Tick found a way to pocket. He is turning toward me. He is talking.
‘There she is! Oi!’ I wheel around, cursing myself for my distracted state. The guard from the alley is standing on the verge, pointing. Care and I are trapped.
SEVEN
I don’t freeze. I react. Only my default response – inflating my size with fur and spit – doesn’t have much effect on the man coming over the verge. Red-faced and furious, my scratch marks still showing raw on his slab-like cheeks, he stares down at me. He raises his boot and I know again what it is to face my death.
‘No!’ Something hits the side of that meaty head hard. The metal cylinder, expertly thrown, falls to the ground beside me, and the ruffian above me stumbles and goes down. I don’t need more of a cue and zip up the slope, my claws gaining purchase on the loose soil as he roars behind me. There’s a patch of scrub a hundred yards off, past another automotive carcass and a corrugated metal shed, but I hesitate. I can no longer rely on speed. As I pause, Care pulls herself up close behind me, until a hand grabs her ankle and she kicks it off, scrambles to her feet and starts to run again.
‘Blackie!’ She looks for me and pauses – a bad move, because as she does, another man appears. The brute in the gutter is still howling but the newcomer ignores him, coming up fast and silent.
I can’t wait. Neither of us can, and so I take off, heading for that scrub and trusting that Care will have the sense to do the same. Only as I approach do I realize how useless it is. I can dive under the brambles, make myself compact and hidden. She cannot. And by the looks of our pursuer, a few thorns will not be enough to dissuade him.