The Kingdom of Bones by Stephen Gallagher Page B

horror.”
    “I’ve harmed no one.”
    “You blinded a man in the ring once.”
    “I fought by the rules. The man knew the risks.”
    “What am I looking at, Sayers? Are you an aberration? Or are you something terrible and new?”
    “You are looking at an innocent man, Inspector Becker.”
    “Don’t you realize that only cooperation can help you now? You’ll still hang, of course. Nothing can change that. But there’s more than one path to the gallows.”
    “You speak of hanging. You found a boy in my room that I neither harmed nor placed there, and you speak of crimes against people that I do not know nor have even met. At no time did I ever hear the name of Clive Turner-Smith until I had it from your lips.”
    “You arranged to meet him in the saloon of the public house by the theater during the second act of last night’s performance. Your note was still in his pocket when you speared him with his own blade.”
    “I put my hand to no note. And at no time did I ever leave the theater.”
    “The saloon bar was a matter of yards from the stage door. No one saw you backstage in that time.”
    “I went to look at the play from the back of the auditorium.”
    “Where everyone’s attention was on the players. How very convenient.”
    “Ask Lily Haynes. She works behind the bar. She saw me. She spoke to me.”
    “Not in the second half of the evening, she didn’t. Admit it, Sayers. Stop lying. Behave like a man and not the base thing you have descended to. You’ve left a trail of blood that matches your company’s dates exactly. Did you think that by targeting paupers and unfortunates in different places you might escape notice for your crimes? A fifteen-year-old boy saw through you. And the evidence he provided will damn you.”
    Saying this, he picked up the page of pasted newsprint that he’d taken from the body in the lodging house, and thrust it out for Sayers to see. Suddenly, instinct and reason moved a step closer together.
    “Caspar,” Sayers breathed.
    “Mister Caspar was onstage throughout the evening. He has seven hundred and fifty ticket-holding witnesses. How many could have spoken for you? One. Whom you strangled and stuffed into a box with your second-best suit.”
    “In God’s name, Becker, don’t close your mind to me or a terrible injustice will be done!”
    “Don’t quote the name of God at me, Sayers. If God exists, you serve a different master. I take it you will not confess.” He rose to his feet. The clerk stopped writing, and began to pack away his notebook and writing kit. One of the two senior men muttered something inaudible to the inspector, and then he and his colleague left the room.
    Sebastian Becker came around to stand in front of Sayers. He crouched a little and looked into the prizefighter’s eyes, as if in search of something.
    “Help me, Sayers,” he said. “It cannot change your fate, but help me to understand. Lily Haynes would believe no ill of you. Clearly, she is wrong. But how can a man who inspires such loyalty in his friends be capable of such deeds as yours? How can a fiend be in any way human, Sayers? Or a human being truly a fiend?”
    “You’d have me explain what I do not know,” Sayers said. “I tell you once more, I am innocent of these deeds. Call back your clerk, and I’ll tell you again.”
    Sebastian Becker straightened up and said, “You have killed an officer of the law. That means he was a brother to every man here. But we are not beasts as you are, Sayers. You
will
face the ultimate penalty, but there will be no rough handling. The true test of justice comes in moments like these.”
    Sayers had the impression that these words, though directed at him, may have been more for the benefit of the uniformed man by the door.
    “Sergeant,” the inspector said, “take him down.”

FOURTEEN
    T he sergeant’s grip was tight on Tom Sayers’ arm as he was walked down the corridor, away from the interview rooms and in the direction of