The Constable Booked the Assassin Every Night novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Grave-Keeper's Hut
They went out over the roofs because the streets were watched.
The rain began as they crossed the Hall's tiles, thin at first and then in sheets.
Behind them the sky over Gate Street glowed orange.
The record room was burning.
Qinghe ran beside Shouzhi with the pipa case strapped across his back, and neither of them said what they both knew.
Everything the Doors had ever written about Tongling was going up in smoke.
The Doors keep their dead on the hill behind the Hall, under pines.
The graves are rows of plain grey stones, each with a ring cut into it.
Shouzhi's father's stone stood at the end of the last row, the only one with no name.
Shouzhi had passed it every year at the Winter Offering and kept his eyes on the path.
Tonight he walked up to it, in the rain, and stood.
"Hello, Father," he said, stupidly.
Qinghe stood a step behind him, rain beading on his curls, and said nothing at all.
A light showed in the small hut at the foot of the hill.
The grave-keeper opened the door before Shouzhi knocked, a bent old man with a lantern and a spade over his shoulder.
He looked at Shouzhi's torn coat.
"You've his chin," he said.
"Eleven years I've waited for somebody with that chin."
"The Chief came with a woman and a body in a cart, the same night."
"I helped dig."
"Under the stone, two feet down, in oilcloth."
"He said not to open it for anybody but the son."
"Give me the spade."
"You'll not dig that alone, lad. I've a second."
He had a second, and Qinghe took it.
They dug in the mud, in the rain, the two of them, hacking at the clay while the grave-keeper held the lantern.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Constable Booked the Assassin Every Night are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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