‘Finnuc kept himself to himself,’ the Casker said. ‘And now we know why, don’t we? The things he did. Can’t be right in the head. I hope he don’t last long on the Steppes.’
Cora was about to tell him that Finnuc hadn’t made it that far, but stopped herself. The news would be in the pennysheets before too long. Or some version of it.
The Casker loped into the queue and headed back towards Hook Square. She watched him go, and for a moment he was Finnuc. A moment too long.
Jenkins was waiting on the gangway, her gaze firmly fixed ahead of her towards the Hook, whatever that might be.
‘Come on, Constable, we might as well see it as we’re here. Save the whole trip being wasted.’
‘No luck with the Caskers?’
‘Not about Finnuc, but there was something he wouldn’t say.’ Cora dropped her voice. ‘About Kranna. He disapproves of something she’s doing but he’s too afraid to say what.’ Cora became aware of the chatter around her which was growing more excitable. ‘The Perlish Hook seems to have stirred everyone up. You heard anything about it?’
‘A little. I won’t spoil it for you.’
‘Please do.’
Jenkins shook her head and grinned.
They moved further onto the gangway. It was wide – enough for eight to stand side-by-side, maybe. They’d built something extra since Cora had last been to see a Hook here. This new part of the barge was a huge square arch coming out of the water on either side of the gangway. Perhaps they were going to cover the approach? Cora imagined standing here in the Painter’s rain would be enough to dampen anyone’s excitement, even that of Jenkins.
‘What’s all this?’ Cora asked the purple tunic standing nearby – a harassed-looking man no older than Jenkins.
‘You’ll see.’
‘And what about them?’ Cora gestured to a group of people who’d been stopped by more purple tunics, halfway along the gangway.
‘They’ll see too. You’ll all see.’
‘Can’t you see, Detective?’ Jenkins asked, as if Cora were fool enough for the Drunkard.
‘I see myself losing my patience,’ Cora said.
‘No, look,’ Jenkins said, pointing at the big arch.
‘What?’
‘That’s the Hook.’
Cora turned back to the arch. ‘That?’
‘What does it look like to you?’ Jenkins said.
It stretched so high, Cora’s neck ached from trying to see the top, but the planks were thin – thin enough you might miss them as you walked through them, beneath them. ‘Like someone was building something, but didn’t finish,’ she said.
‘And what about the people under it?’ Jenkins was enjoying herself, that much was clear.
They were still. All of them looking back along the gangway at Cora.
And then Cora saw it.
The arch was an enormous wooden frame. A picture frame.
She stared, open-mouthed, until the purple tunic told her to move forward. As she and Jenkins did as they were told, the group standing in the frame moved along too. Cora was stopped again, right under the frame, and then it was her turn to gawp back from the middle of the gangway.
So many people, from all over the Union, walking through an empty space that the Perlish had chosen to mark out as important somehow.
‘Audience take me if I can see what this means for the Perlish story,’ Cora said.
‘Well… A frame is a way to hold something, isn’t it?’
‘But there’s nothing inside this frame,’ Cora said.
‘That’s not true,’ said a man beside her. He scratched his long nose, which was beset by warts. ‘We’re in the Perlish frame, aren’t we? Walking through it.’
‘What have we got to do with the story?’ Cora said.
Jenkins smiled.
‘She sees it,’ the man said. ‘We look at what’s in a frame, don’t we? A frame shows us what’s important.’
They were moved on by tunics for a third time, finally onto the Hook barge, but not to go inside. The single room where the Hooks were normally displayed was all closed up; heavy curtains blocked the windows, and bars crossed the main doors.
‘Maybe they’re still cleaning up after the Lowlanders’ Hook, the mostins?’ Jenkins said as they filed past.
‘That wouldn’t be a small job,’ Cora said. ‘Especially now the Commission have cut the number of bargehands.’
A smaller, thinner gangway – not much more than a few planks of wood lashed together – took them back onto dry land, and back to the crowds. Cora looked again at the square arch, at the Perlish picture frame. She was beginning to understand.
‘I like it,’ Jenkins said. ‘It makes a kind of sense. We’re in the frame.’
‘But frames don’t just show what we’re meant to look at, Constable. They cut things out, too. What would the Perlish want to exclude with their story?’
‘The pennysheets can’t seem to agree. It’s like the ’sheets are talking about separate stories. No two reports are the same, or anything like each other.’ Jenkins sounded incredulous.
Cora grunted. ‘So what’s new?’
They made their way across Hook Square, fighting the tide of people surging to see the Hook.
‘It’s not like that, Detective. The way I read it, each pennysheet has been leaked a different tale. There’s no way to link them.’
‘The Perlish are just trying to get everyone talking about it,’ Cora said, ‘like we are now.’
‘Maybe… The Spoke made a big fuss about a plant, some kind of creeper, but then The Fenestiran Times said it was all about a game.’
‘The whole election’s a game,’ Cora said. ‘And there’s one of our players.’
The bargehand she’d spoken to earlier was coming their way. He slowed his pace as he reached them but didn’t stop.
‘Dock forty-nine, Detective,’ he said as he strode by. ‘That’ll tell you all you need to know about our Chambers.’
And he was gone into the crowd, back towards the barge.
*
Docks one through twenty were in central Fenest, not far from Hook Square where the barge was moored. But twenty-one through forty were on the other side of the quay, and forty-one onwards were further away still.
Cora and Jenkins made their way along a quay strewn with broken barrels and discarded pennysheets. The River Stave beside them didn’t look too clean either, the water here brown and oily. Most of the docks were empty, and those barges or small sailing craft that were moored up seemed none too water-worthy.
‘What would a Chambers be wanting with a dock here?’ Cora said.
‘Hiding something.’
‘Something that bargehand didn’t approve of, that’s for certain. Not many prying eyes down here.’
‘There are some eyes,’ Jenkins said quietly, and inclined her head towards the corner of the street.
An ageing man leaned against the wall. His open shirt and rouged cheeks made his profession clear, as did the fact he tossed his hair and catcalled them as he watched their progress along the quay.
‘If only I wasn’t on duty,’ Cora called back. ‘Bernswick Division. You know it? The place with the crowded cells.’ Suddenly the whore had somewhere else to be.