The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,96
hell of a start to a conversation. “I’m Will Darling.”
“Delighted.” The man smiled, though not in a reassuring way. “You may call me DS if you have to call me anything. Killed anyone interesting recently?”
“Uh—”
“Let me be frank, Mr. Darling,” DS said. “I feel as though I have been clearing up after you for months. There was a smashed head in the North Wessex Downs last November, Price from the War Office to explain away, then Libra’s mangled remains though I suppose you can’t be blamed for that. Then that fellow off the balcony, which required mops, and now you’ve broken Tommy Telford’s neck to go with Secretan’s exsanguination of Sir Alan Cheveley’s brother and the demise of Lord Waring. Are you two planning to stop leaving a trail of dead? Because I’m not your damned housemaid.”
This felt rather harsh to Will. “Waring wasn’t our fault. And Zodiac came at us first.”
“‘They started it’ is an excuse that works on playgrounds,” DS informed him. “All right, tell me about it.”
“Which part?”
“All of it. Start with a shifty character walking into your bookshop last November. Not this one,” he added, indicating Kim. “The other one.”
It took a while. Will wasn’t sure if it helped that DS already knew about him and Kim—it felt at this point as though everyone did, which was a whole pile of peculiarity he didn’t have time to think about—but it was something of a relief not to have to watch his words too carefully. He told the truth, and felt Kim listening by him, and waited to find out what would happen.
What happened immediately was that DS steepled his fingers, leaned back in his chair, and said, “What was your rank in the Army, Mr. Darling?”
“Private.”
“Really? If I were to classify you, I think I should take a leaf out of the insurance people’s book and list you as an Act of God.”
“Yes, all right,” Kim said. “None of this is his fault.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” DS removed his spectacles, closed the arms, and set them down. “But in fact, I agree it isn’t his fault. It’s yours.”
Kim’s face didn’t move exactly, but it set. Will said, “That’s not fair.”
“When I want you to speak, I’ll let you know. You’ve made a damned mess of this, Secretan, and the only reason I’m not hanging you out to dry at this very moment is it would have been a damned mess anyway. I do wish rich men could content themselves with buying yachts or rolling around in heaps of gold, rather than this endless insatiable greed. Avarice, envy, pride: three fatal sparks have set the hearts of all on fire.”
Will blinked. Kim said, “Dante,” through rather white lips.
DS leaned forward, eyes hard. “You should have told me, Secretan. You should have told me as soon as you realised. That was your job. We could have taken Capricorn alive, and his lieutenant with him, got information and leverage instead of this charnel house.”
“Leverage? What could you have threatened Waring with? To put him on trial in front of a jury and fill the newspapers with his crimes, and damn his daughter’s name? I wasn’t going to do that, sir. You may have my resignation when you please.”
“You don’t resign till I tell you to resign,” DS said, and something in his voice went right down Will’s spinal cord, making it straighten without his conscious intent. “How precisely did you intend to avoid blemishing his daughter’s name?”
“I don’t know!” Kim snarled. “I was hoping to squeeze him into it somehow.”
“Happy with how that turned out?”
“I was overtaken by events. I didn’t realise Cheveley was acting alone within Zodiac.”
“That’s quite understandable: it’s hard to spot. After all, I didn’t realise you were acting alone within the Bureau.”
Kim winced at that, as well he might. DS let the silence spool out for a nasty minute.
“Well,” he said finally. “Merton is rolling around in Waring’s papers like a pig in—with great enthusiasm. We’ll need to go in sideways to clean up the rest of Zodiac, but clean up we will, and if it has to be done under the table, that may yet pay off. Meanwhile, as a matter of future public record, I think we can agree that Cheveley was embezzling from Lord Waring, having recruited Anton and Telford to assist him, that Waring confided in you, and that you brought your friend here to assist, while not expecting matters to turn as violent as they did. That should