Page 32 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

Thaniel swallowed down the urge to say that spilling boiling water on someone was a bit beyond the purview of most people’s jobs.

‘Mori,’ Thaniel said on the way back to the rooms. He was carrying Six, who was asleep. The house was creaking and counter-intuitive. Whenever his sense of direction wanted to turn left, they went right. Sometimes the shadows of other people flickered on the other side of the paper walls. He kept his voice right down. The whole house would hear a whisper. ‘About Kuroda. I heard he killed his wife.’

He had expected a hot denial, but Mori only put his shoulders back while he thought about it. ‘He had a hand in it.’

Thaniel lifted his eyebrows at the floor. ‘And he’s shot past slightly odd, through possible lunatic and right up to the top prize of the Napoleonometer! This is really quite extraordinary, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Mori, you have won a coconut.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? If Kuroda’s in the habit of murdering people – Mori. This stuff with his bodyguards; if he decides you’re – I don’t know, if he decides to have a proper go at you—’

Mori wasn’t looking at Thaniel. He was studying a patch of air just ahead of them, for all the world as if somebody were there, his eyes full of quiet reproof. Just for a second, Thaniel saw something like the outline of a person in the dust where it winked in the soft light.

‘He didn’t kill her. I did.’

Thaniel slowed down. It was hard to believe what he’d just heard and instead his mind skipped around to find other things to think about. They had come out into a big room partitioned into sections, empty but lit with oil lamps. The nearest screen was a hell triptych that showed a woman burning in a falling carriage. The style looked ancient, but the colours were still bright. Demons swam in the smoke. It was a horrible thing, and hallucinatory, because he still couldn’t place where they were in the house. Not the kind of thing Mori would choose, either. Of course he hadn’t; it would have been her. ‘Was there a good reason?’

‘Depends what you mean by good.’

‘I’ve never known you do a bad thing,’ Thaniel said honestly.

‘You haven’t known me long,’ Mori pointed out.

Thaniel didn’t think he was under special illusions about it. He’d heard plenty of shady stories. A dead cousin, a host of unlikely accidents, including the odd death of the Matron from Six’s workhouse. But at the end of it all, Mori was a quiet man who had been at war with the Haverlys’ cat for four years and made lightbulbs for his little girl. Thaniel said so.

‘The irritating thing about evil people is that they have a way of doing good things too,’ Mori said.

‘You’ve gone dramatic,’ Thaniel said.

Mori didn’t look convinced, but he did smile. ‘Why don’t you care? You should.’

Thaniel put his cheek against Six’s hair while he tried to think of something to say that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that he loved Mori so hopelessly he could have found a way to excuse cemeteries of dead wives. ‘None of my business,’ he said at last.

FIFTEEN

Yokohama, 19th December 1888

Thaniel had the same dream he’d had on the ship: that someone was in the room, watching him. It snapped him awake. His watch said half-past four in the morning.

He sat up and raked his hair back from his face. The bedding was all traditional, just a thin mattress and sheets set up on the floor, which was good, because you could surround it with books and cups. He sipped some water and gazed around. Even though he could see that the room was empty, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was there. The feeling was so strong that he got up with a candle to scrutinise the paper walls for eye-holes hidden among the paintings of cranes and trees. He didn’t find any. But even while he was looking, he kept catching maddening flickers right at the corners of his eyes. Even Mori, who had such a mathematical mind that he barely understood the point of art galleries, had said this place was haunted. And all those prayer cards in the garden; and Hotaru. Something was wrong about the place, whether it was ghosts or not.

He went to look at Six. She breathed silently, and he had to kneel with his hand on her shoulder to know that she was. She had set up her mattress by the balcony door, which was open. The air was freezing and she’d already given herself a cold this year, but she was claustrophobic at night. He tucked her in better, wishing she’d consent to having a dolly or a bear he could put in with her. She looked neglected without. He propped the generator manual up against the edge of the door where she would see it if she woke up.

Bright light shone through the whole room.

It was coming from next door, like the echo of a foghorn. Just on the other side of the paper wall, Mori’s silhouette was very clear. Thaniel could see his eyelashes. Katsu was curled up flat on his chest, tentacles shifting sometimes. The light was too much for candles or the soft oil lamps. It was the lighthouse.

Mori shifted uneasily. Katsu clung tighter to his arm to keep from falling.

From somewhere in the house, faint but clear in what was otherwise absolute silence, someone rang a small bell, and then there was another and another, until just for a second, the whole house was full of the sound. Mori jerked upright like someone had kicked him. It made Thaniel jump.

The lighthouse beam went out again. Mori sat frozen. He was holding his breath.

Thaniel touched the paper, which scratched against the telegraph-roughened tip of his forefinger.

Mori jolted back from the screen. If he had heard a dead thing rattle and hiss, and seen it scratch decaying fingertips against the translucent paper, he couldn’t have gone faster.

‘It’s me,’ Thaniel said quickly. He went outside and round to Mori’s open door. ‘Wake up.’