The Constable Booked the Assassin Every Night novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Nine Names

Shouzhi woke to the smell of rice porridge, which his lodging had never produced in ten years.

Qinghe was crouched at the brazier in Shouzhi's second-best shirt, stirring a pot with a bone spoon.

The shirt came to his knees, and the sleeves were rolled four times.

"You slept through the bell," he said, without turning. "And the baker's cart, and a quarrel in the lane about a goat. Eat."

"I never eat before the morning watch."

"It's after the morning watch. Eat."

Shouzhi sat on the cot with the bowl in both hands and ate.

He was apparently a man who did what he was told.

The porridge had ginger in it, and a little salt, and it was the best thing he'd eaten in months.

He thought about the other thing he'd put in his mouth the night before, and he went red to the collar.

Qinghe saw it.

He grinned over his shoulder, and Shouzhi looked fixedly at the wall.

The wall was the nine dead men.

Shouzhi had pinned each man's name and papers to the plaster, with threads running between them.

A grain broker from the east gate.

A bannerman who ran a pawnshop.

A doctor.

A bailiff, a salt clerk, a scribe, two shopkeepers from different counties.

And the ferryman, new, with the ink still wet.

"You know what troubles me?" Shouzhi said. "They have nothing to do with each other. Every thread I run leads nowhere."

"Everything has something to do with something."

Qinghe set down his bowl and came to stand beside him, a head shorter.

"What's the string for?"

"It's the Crow's signature."

"I don't think it is."

Shouzhi turned and looked at him.

"A man who wants credit signs his name," Qinghe said.

"He cuts it in the wood or leaves a card."

"A string tied on a dead wrist can't be read by the dead."

"Who has seen the strings?"

"The Doors. The families."

"And the men who are still alive."

Shouzhi's skin prickled.

"A message to the living," he said slowly. "Nine dead, and every string says..."

"You're next."

Shouzhi read the papers again.

There was a note on the bannerman, three weeks old, that he'd never thought to read twice.

The bannerman had moved house after the third death, and sold his shop at a loss.

So had the doctor.

So had the salt clerk, one night, without telling his wife.

"They knew," Shouzhi said. "They knew why they were being killed."

"Someone knows why," said Qinghe. "I'd start with the most frightened man in Shuangjiang."

"Who?"

"Yesterday on the bridge, you told me, a certain man ate a whole bag of plums."

Shouzhi frowned.

"The Prefect?"

"I only said frightened."

"Prefect Ding is a hog," Shouzhi said.

"He's cruel, he's lazy, and he's never lifted anything heavier than a seal."

"But he's the Prefect."

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