The Iscariot Sanction by Mark Latham Page A

heard of any other cases,’ said Lillian. Sir Arthur remained silent.
    ‘Then that is testament to the integrity of your fellow agents,’ replied Sir Toby. ‘I asked them to conceal all evidence of the crimes, lest it cause a panic, and to keep speculation about monsters and cannibals out of the newspapers. Isn’t that right, Sir Arthur?’
    ‘Indeed, Sir Toby,’ came the reply.
    Lillian turned to look at Arthur. The only rule in the field was discretion. If Arthur had investigated a case without her and been sworn to secrecy—as was so often the custom—she could hardly hold it against him. And yet she did anyhow, for how could he withhold such information from her if he thought it might have any bearing on their own case?
    ‘What our agents discovered,’ continued Sir Toby, ‘was a string of disappearances—of both the living and the dead—in a pattern across the north. Mostly unfortunates and beggars, but all in most mysterious circumstances, and with no real regard for secrecy when disposing of the remains. Bones chewed, flesh eaten and, in some cases… well, Sir Arthur can explain better than I.’
    Arthur cleared his throat, probably feeling the hole that Lillian’s eyes bore into him more keenly than most. ‘Of course, Sir Toby. As I stated in my last report, the final victim we discovered was in a less defiled state. A young woman, an unfortunate taken from the slums we think. The body was found in a crypt beneath York Minster, seemingly drained of all of its blood, and partly… eaten.’
    Lillian observed that Sir Arthur looked uneasy at the memory. She guessed that he must have used his powers to discern something of the victim’s history, and perhaps had gleaned more than he’d bargained for. Whatever gruesome discovery he had made in York perhaps explained his hesitation yesterday.
    She snapped her attention away from her partner when she realised that Lord Cherleten was standing right next to her. He had a way about him that was sly, and a tread that was silent as a cat. He reached across her, holding out a box of cigars to Sir Arthur, who took one gratefully and lit it. Lillian fancied it was to steady his nerves. She wished she could partake too, as the close proximity of Cherleten made her skin crawl, but that was not the done thing. No, for all of the systems of rank and military swagger of Apollo Lycea, it was still based in a gentlemen’s club, and Sir Arthur Furnival was a gentleman of high standing, not a mere soldier to be ordered about.
    So what does that make me?
    ‘We encountered a great deal of superstition from the locals about the murders,’ Sir Arthur went on once his cigar was lit. ‘I confess, at first glance it was tempting to write it off as the work of the Riftborn; yet my own intuition and Smythe’s examination—’
    ‘Beauchamp Smythe?’ Lillian interrupted, instantly regretting her outburst as all eyes turned to her. In her experience, the surgeon Beauchamp Smythe was a popinjay, so absorbed in promoting his fledgling theories of ‘forensics’ that he often lost sight of the goals of Apollo Lycea. She felt the strangest sense of betrayal that Sir Arthur had been on a secret assignment with an agent she disliked.
    ‘Yes, the same,’ Arthur replied, the look on his face one of puzzlement and amusement both. ‘As I was saying, Smythe’s examination of the cadavers led us to believe that the killers were certainly flesh and blood. And I suppose now we’ve seen the evidence with our own eyes.’
    ‘Or perhaps you do not see it all,’ said Cherleten. He always had an air of eccentricity about him—eyes wide, red hair dishevelled. Every sentence uttered seemed to hang in the air, as if he were waiting for imaginary friends to finish it for him. Perhaps he was trying to be enigmatic. Lillian snuck a glance at Sir Toby, whose eyes belied an annoyance at his peer, if only for a moment.
    ‘Agent Smythe has been of singular use again,’ Sir Toby interjected,