Kraken by China Miéville Page A

kitchen.
    “That ain’t all,” Collingswood said. She made shapes with her hands, chopped the air up. “Something big happened tonight. Big like when the kraken got took. I don’t know what it is, but something’s wandering around out there.”
    Baron nodded slowly. “Prof,” Baron said. “Any thoughts from your good self? Wish to revise your opinion about the unlikelihood of any attacks by your teuthists?”
    “No,” said Vardy shortly. He folded his arms. “I do not. Care to revise your tone? Can’t tell you what’s gone on here or who’s done what to whom, but seeing as you ask, no . This does not read teuthism to me.” He closed his eyes. His colleagues watched him channelling whatever it was he channelled when he did what he did. “No,” he said, “this does not feel like them.”
    “Well,” Baron said. He sighed. “We’re on the back foot here, ladies and gents. Our star witness and intended colleague is gone AWOL. We know the guard system was up and running. Doing what it was supposed to. But we also know it had both been tripped and not been tripped. Do I have that right?”
    “Sort of,” Collingswood said. “It went off in reverse. Woke me up. I couldn’t work out what it was at first.”
    “It would cover windows, too?” Vardy said. She stared at him. “Fine,” he said. “I have to ask.”
    “No you don’t,” she said. “I told you. No one could get in.”
    “No one?”
    “What’s your point? I ain’t saying there’s no one stronger’n me out there—you know there is. If anyone got in, it would go off and I’d know. No one broke in …” She stopped. She looked one by one at the post. She looked at the cardboard book box. “No one broke in,” she said. “Someone sent him something. Look. There’s no stamp, this was hand-delivered.” She hefted it. She sniffed it.
    Vardy unfolded his arms. Collingswood moved her fingers over the paper, whispered, ran little routines and subroutines.
    “What is it?” Baron said.
    “Alright,” she said finally. In the other room the grumbles of the other police were audible and ignored. “Everything remembers how it used to be, right? So like, this …” She shook the container. “This remembers when it was heavier. It was a full parcel and now it’s empty, right? It remembers being heavier but that ain’t the thing, the weird thing.”
    She moved her fingers again, coaxed the cardboard. Of all the skills necessary for her work, what she was perhaps worst at was being polite to inanimate things. “It’s that it remembers being not heavier enough.
    “Guv,” she said to Baron. “What do you know about how to …” She opened and clenched her hands. “How to make big shit go into something little?”

Chapter Fourteen
    “W HAT HAPPENED TO L EON ?” B ILLY SAID .
    Dane glanced at him and shook his head.
    “I wasn’t there, was I? I don’t know. Was it Goss?”
    “That man Goss, and that boy. It looked like he—”
    “I wasn’t there. But you got to face facts.” Dane glanced again. “You saw what you saw. I’m sorry.”
    What did I see? Billy thought.
    “Tell me what he said,” Dane said.
    “What?”
    “The Tattoo. Tell me what he said.”
    “What was that?” Billy said. “No. You can tell me some stuff. Where did you even come from?” They turned through streets he did not know.
    “Not now,” Dane said. “We ain’t got time.”
    “Get the police …” Beneath Billy’s seat the squirrel made a throat noise.
    “Shit ,” Dane said. “We don’t have time for this. You’re smart, you know what’s going on.” He clicked his fingers. Where his fingers percussed, there was a faint burst of light. “We do not have time.”
    He braked, swore. Red lights disappeared in front of them. “So can we please cut the crap? You can’t go home. You know that. That’s where they got you. You can’t call Baron’s crew. You think that’s going to help? Old Bill sort you out?”
    “Wait …”
    “That flat