Free Ha'penny by Jo Walton

can’t here,” she said, gesturing around the restaurant. “I don’t know how to start. Take the eleven-eighteen train, and someone will meet you at the station.” She stood up, leaving her pie almost untouched. “Please, Fats, Viola I mean.”
    She had never been my favorite sister. It wasn’t because I liked her. I didn’t like her or even trust her. It was true what she said, I hardly knew her. But she looked desperate and weary and she was my sister and I believed she was in trouble. Or maybe she just infuriated me so much that she drove me crazy with curiosity. Anyway, I must have been absolutely mad to agree.

6
     
    O n Sunday morning, Hampstead looked asleep in the sun at nine o’clock. Curtains were drawn and milk bottles stood neglected on doorsteps. The policeman at the gate of 35 Bedford Drive seemed by contrast almost unnaturally alert.
    “Even the press are still in bed,” Carmichael said, as he shut the door of the Bentley and surveyed the street, empty but for a scattering of parked cars.
    “Not their work, though,” Royston said, indicating the papers sticking from the letterboxes of many of the doors around them. “They keep late hours. I expect we’ll have them shouting round again later.”
    “No doubt,” Carmichael said, then turned to the bobby at the gate. “Good morning. Has the house been secured?”
    “May I see your identification, sir?” the bobby asked.
    Carmichael and Royston both fished out their papers and handed them over. The bobby scrutinized them carefully and handed them back. “Well?” Carmichael asked impatiently.
    “Only following orders, sir,” the bobby said. “And yes, the house is secured, least, that’s what the man I was replacing told me.”
    “We’ll go in then,” Carmichael said. “If Inspector Jacobson arrives, please ask him to join us.”
    “That bloody yid,” the bobby muttered.
    “I beg your pardon, constable?” Carmichael asked, silkily.
    “Jacobson, sir. He’s a Jewboy. Didn’t you know?”
    “I didn’t,” Carmichael said.
    “Shouldn’t allow them in the police,” the bobby said.
    “I’m surprised they do,” Royston put in.
    “Oh, they allow it,” Carmichael said, weary of the whole conversation. “They think if they can stand the constant pinpricks of dealing with people who hate them, they’ll make good police officers. Not Scotland Yard, of course, but in the Met and the provincial forces. Come on, Royston, let’s see the house before it falls down.”
    The bobby at the back had seen them the day before. He saluted. “The sappers said to say, sir, that fortunately there isn’t any gas, and the water main was secured right away, so the damage is mostly to the kitchen and the back of the house.”
    “Thank you, constable,” Royston said. Carmichael nodded at the bobby and they made their way carefully in.
    The house had been shored up with timber and tarpaulins. The dining room, the site of the explosion, was a shattered ruin. The kitchen, next to it, was also badly damaged and showed signs of water damage. “Not much point looking around in here, sir,” Royston said. “This is probably a job for the forensic boys.”
    “They’ll be around,” Carmichael said, stepping over the remains of a table. “Let’s look at the rest of the house.”
    There was a little sitting room at the front. The windows had been boarded up. Royston took out his torch and played it around. It was a conventional enough room, with sprigged wallpaper and a three-piece suite. A large looking glass hung cracked and crooked over the mantelpiece, reflecting the torchlight and the room crazily.
    “Blast,” Royston said, using the word accurately. “Reminds me of the Blitz. Not much to see in here, sir.”
    The room across the passage from it was more informative, and lighter, as the windows had survived intact. It was a small study, almost filled by a large untidy desk. The walls were covered with photographs, posters, and framed press