The Constable Booked the Assassin Every Night novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Alibi

Shouzhi swore to the Prefect that the pipa player never left his sight, and that night the music turned into a kiss.

The ferryman lay face down on the pier with his hands under him.

He hadn't tripped.

There was one fine red line across his throat, thin as a hair, cut so clean it had barely bled.

On his left wrist was a loop of pale silk, tied in a neat bow.

Shouzhi crouched and touched it.

The silk was cool and glossy, finer than anything on the Doors' pay.

Kucha silk.

Behind him, forty constables stood along the bridge rail in the dawn mist and did not look at each other.

"Constable Tan."

The voice was soft and pleased.

A palanquin had stopped at the foot of the bridge.

Prefect Ding was climbing down from it with a paper bag of candied plums in his pink hand.

He was a small round man with a thin gray beard and a jade belt.

He walked like a man who had never been in a hurry in his life.

"Another one," Ding said, and sucked on a plum.

"Yes, Prefect."

"The ninth."

"Yes, Prefect."

"You told me last week you were close."

"I said I had a lead."

"And where were you last night, Tan?"

Ding looked around at the Doors and spoke up so every one of them could hear.

"Your Chief says you weren't at your desk."

Shouzhi's ears went hot.

He didn't look at Chief Dou, who stood a little behind him with his bad leg and his short white beard.

Dou said nothing, and it was louder than shouting.

"I was at the Plum Lantern, Prefect, with a witness," Shouzhi said.

"I woke at midnight and again at the fourth watch, and he was in the room both times."

"A witness," said Ding. "A musician."

A few constables made small sounds into their sleeves.

"A musician," Shouzhi agreed.

"Well, that's one way to catch a killer."

Ding popped another plum into his mouth.

"Thirteen days, Tan, and not one of them for sleeping."

"Yes, Prefect."

"On the Lantern Festival the Doors' purse goes up the hill to me, and so does your badge."

He patted Shouzhi's arm with that soft hand, and Shouzhi stood still for it, because he had stood still for a lot of things.

When Ding had gone, Dou limped up beside him and looked down at the ferryman.

"He's afraid of the Crow," the Chief said quietly.

"He doesn't look afraid."

"Look at the bag."

Ding had left the paper bag on the rail, torn open and empty.

He had eaten every plum in it between the palanquin and the pier.

That night Shouzhi went back to the Plum Lantern with his badge in his pocket and no excuse in his head.

Madam Hui was wiping the counter, and she lifted one eyebrow.

"Same as always?"

"Same as always."

"They say the Prefect had you on the bridge this morning."

"They say a lot of things."

"Mm."

She wrote in her ledger and didn't smile this time.

"He's upstairs, playing the same four bars for an hour. Be kind to him."

Shouzhi climbed the stairs.

Qinghe was on the cushion with the pipa, and he stopped playing when Shouzhi came in.

Shouzhi put the booking coins on the low table.

Then he pushed them away with one finger, until they sat in the middle.

"That's for the music," he said.

"I know what the coins are for."

"Did you leave this room last night?"

Shouzhi had not planned to ask it.

It came out of him.

Qinghe set the pipa against the wall, slowly.

"Once," he said. "To the privy. You were snoring."

"I don't snore."

"Like a bear in a drain."

Shouzhi almost laughed, and the almost hurt.

"I told the Prefect you never left," he said.

"In front of forty men."

"It's the first thing I've said as a constable that I wasn't sure of."

The room was very quiet.

Qinghe looked at him for a long moment with his heavy-lidded eyes, and the laugh had gone out of his face.

"Why?" he said.

"Because I don't want it to be you."

Shouzhi hadn't known it was true until it was in the air between them.

Qinghe stood up.

He crossed the room and stopped in front of Shouzhi, close, looking up.

"Shouzhi."

It was the first time he had said his name.

Shouzhi had been "Constable" for eleven nights.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Shouzhi said, stiffly. "It's been years. I was always busy."

"I'm not busy," Qinghe said. "Kiss me, you terrible man."

Shouzhi bent down and kissed him.

It was clumsy.

He had no idea where his nose went, and Qinghe laughed against his mouth, a warm shake Shouzhi felt in his own chest.

Then Qinghe took Shouzhi's face in both rough palms and tilted it, and the second kiss was not clumsy at all.

Qinghe's lips opened his.

Their tongues touched, hot and slow, and every muscle in Shouzhi's back that had been clenched for three months came undone at once.

He made a sound he would have denied in any court in the empire.

"There," Qinghe said into his mouth. "Good. Come here."

He walked Shouzhi backward until his knees hit the couch, and pushed him down onto it.

Then Qinghe climbed into his lap, one knee on either side of his thighs.

The weight of him was solid and warm and unbelievably welcome.

"Tell me what you want," Qinghe said.

"I don't know."

"Then I'll tell you what to do."

Shouzhi was hard already, painfully, and Qinghe knew it, because he rocked once, very slowly, down onto him.

Shouzhi's hands flew up and gripped Qinghe's hips.

"Oh," he said.

"Good oh?"

"Yes. Do that again."

Qinghe did it again.

He rolled his hips, and Shouzhi felt every inch of him through the thin cloth.

Qinghe's cock was hard against his stomach, and the heat and pressure made Shouzhi's vision swim.

"Hold on to me," Qinghe said. "Both hands. Like that. Don't be so polite."

Shouzhi dragged him down harder, and Qinghe gasped.

It was the best sound Shouzhi had ever heard.

"Qinghe."

"Again."

"Qinghe."

Qinghe kissed him while he moved, deep and wet, grinding in a slow circle that went through Shouzhi's belly and up his spine.

Shouzhi's cap fell off, and Qinghe pushed his fingers through his loosened hair.

Shouzhi shook.

"You're so good at this," Qinghe murmured. "The most orderly man in Shuangjiang, and look at you."

"Don't tell me that," Shouzhi said, and gripped him tighter.

"Why not?"

"Because I'll..."

"Do it," Qinghe said in his ear. "I want to feel it. Come on, Constable. That's an order."

That did it.

Shouzhi came with a choked shout into Qinghe's shoulder, in his trousers like a boy.

He was hot and helpless and shuddering, and Qinghe held on and rocked him through it.

"Oh," Qinghe breathed. "Oh, that's..."

He ground down hard twice more, with his face tucked into Shouzhi's neck.

Then his thighs shook, and he came too, with Shouzhi's name caught in his teeth.

They sat there, wrecked, tangled in the couch cushions.

Qinghe's curls were damp, and Shouzhi couldn't stop touching them.

"That," Qinghe said, muffled, "was the best thing that has ever happened in this room."

"It was an inquiry," Shouzhi said.

Qinghe laughed so hard he nearly slid off his lap.

Then the door rattled.

Madam Hui didn't knock.

She stood in the opening with her lilac sleeves pressed to her chest and every ring on her fingers gone still.

"Constable," she said, quite calmly. "The Prefect's captain is on my stairs with twenty men, and they have a warrant for my pipa player."

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