Free A Madness of Angels: Or the Resurrection of Matthew Swift by Kate Griffin Page B

and of his, and knew what was coming for him, but could not stop it. Imagine that, if you will; imagine that.”
     
I said nothing.
     
“Patel went missing, but they assumed he was dead when they identified his thumb and part of his left hand by its fingerprint. Awan was found partially flayed – thankfully, I believe, the shock killed him first; Koshdel had been strangled with his own intestines; Akute’s head was discovered on her bedroom floor, we’re not entirely sure where the rest of the body went; Pensley was set on fire. Ah, now Dhawan managed to put up a bit of a fight, which unfortunately collapsed the entire building he was in, making identification a tricky process – dental records, eventually. Did you know Foster? A young sorceress, perhaps not really in your circle, but her death was by…”
     
“Did the same person kill them all?” I asked breathlessly, the words running like sand between my fingers.
     
“We assume so.”
     
“Why?”
     
“Oh, the violence of the crime, the focus on practitioners of the art, the ritualistic nature of the death, the prolonged …”
     
“I meant why kill them?”
     
“We don’t know. We have theories.”
     
“Who’s ‘we’?”
     
His eyes shifted away to the city, his right hand twitched. “We are… concerned citizens.”
     
“Urban magicians?”
     
“Some of us, yes.”
     
“Why do you think they were all killed?”
     
“Now that’s really very tricky to say.”
     
“Try.”
     
His eyes flashed for a moment, glancing at me and away. If he’d felt anger, though, he hid it well. “You must have views yourself. You were one of them – until today.”
     
“I have an idea of who may have had motive.”
     
“Then you must have an idea who sent the litterbug after you this morning.”
     
That surprised me – that he could have known, and so soon. I tried to hide it, but I’m sure he saw through my half-hearted grunt and tight expression to my unease.
     
“We found the burnt core,” he explained, almost nicely, “and the local council was inundated with complaints about rubbish on the streets near one of its stations. I’m sure you understand why we made the leap of judgement – there are only so many practitioners of our unique profession who understand the summoning of such a creature, or indeed know the best way to break such a powerful spell.”
     
When I didn’t say anything he shifted his weight slightly and said, “May I suggest something to you? I don’t wish to influence your own personal views in any way, or even imply a course of action. I merely wish to throw an idea out, sir, and see if you find it in any way conducive.”
     
“Well?”
     
He leant in close until his breath almost tickled my ear and whispered, “Robert James Bakker,” and leant back with a smile to see how I reacted.
     
I rocked the sole of my left shoe idly across the floor of the capsule. I ran the index finger of my right hand in and out of the dips between the knuckles of my left. I watched the city. I said not a word.
     
Not a word seemed ample, for Mr Sinclair. “Very good,” he said, “very good. You are a man who does not wish to be too forward with his own views – I respect that, it is an admirable quality; you wish to gather all information first, yes, of course, naturally. Perhaps, then, it would be of interest to you to know that Patel was one of Khan’s closest confidants, and that if Khan revealed anything about his impending death, it would have been to that young gentleman? Awan, of course, was linked to Mr Guy Lee, who I’m sure you know of, a close associate of Mr Bakker’s. Koshdel was a gentleman who had very strong, perhaps too strong, views about the appropriate use of power, and liked to get involved. Pensley, one of my closest associates, yes, indeed, a tragedy for Pensley considering he was only doing as asked – Dhawan, a sorcerer like you, I’m sure you must have met him on occasion, and of course, he too knew Bakker. Akute… remains something of a mystery, but I suspect