Whale Mail, page 3
“They were looking for something,” the city guard said. “They came into the inn accusing people of having stolen or hiding stuff. The citizens took offense to that. There are many things we are in Tamba, but thieves, we are not.”
“Who did they speak to?”
“Random people, it seems. None of the usual suspects. We’re working on a list of names.”
“I’d be interested in a copy. If they appear again, please call us sooner.”
Chapter 4
The inspectors walked back to the Bureau in a bedraggled group, carrying their useless magical items. Perrin felt as exhausted as Inspector Carbin had looked.
No one said it out loud, but it became ever more obvious that in order to fight magic, the Bureau would have to employ more serious measures than just a bunch of rat-like creatures with an ability to detect petty magic in inn kitchens. And even the use of confiscated magical items—illegally—made little sense unless the inspectors knew how to use them.
Talking about magic sniffers, he’d left his animals in the office, so he needed to pick them up first. They were even more cranky and hungry than they had been before.
Perrin lugged the cage through the town.
He wasn’t used to running through the streets anymore, and none of the active guard work, like chasing or arresting people, clambering over fences or up ladders, had ever come naturally to him, anyway.
He made his way through the dark streets, where all the shops were already closed and people had gone home. The sound of voices drifted out of the windows of houses, where people were sitting around after dinner, talking and laughing. The warm glow of light radiated from the windows.
To his surprise, Dorella was still in the tea shop where Perrin lived on the top floor. She was sitting at a table in the corner with several books spread over the table.
“You’re late,” she said without looking up.
“Yes, we had a bit of a problem and needed to chase some characters down in the harbour district.”
Now she looked up and let her gaze roam over his dishevelled and scuffed clothing.
“Oh, poor you. I have some tea. Would you like some?”
“I would never say no to that. But I need to feed these guys first.” He held up the cage where both creatures were running along the bars of the cage, raising themselves on their hind legs when they got to the corner and then turning around and running back the other way.
“I’ll wait.” She went back to her books.
Perrin stumbled up the stairs to the apartment where he had lived since his partner Atreyo’s unfortunate death. With the money wrangled from Atreyo’s rich family, he’d been able to buy the rooms.
The two magic sniffers squeaked and the other animals in the cages in his room also squeaked. He had eight of the creatures, soon to be more, but Frida was still in one piece, even if her belly stuck out so much that he wondered how many young she carried.
He transferred both magic sniffers to their own cages and shook the grain out of the bag into their trays. The excited squeaking made place for the crunching and nibbling of sharp teeth, chewing dry grain. He’d come back to give them fruit later.
Perrin went back to the shop and sank down at the table, as Dorella closed her books and put them in a stack.
“Doing the monthly figures?” he said while she walked to the kitchen.
“Yes, it’s such a joy to do this every month.”
He could hear her rolling her eyes while she said that. She came back to the counter carrying a teapot, and she grabbed some cups from the cupboard containing the tableware she would use to serve her customers. She poured steaming, dark tea.
“I shouldn’t complain, though. The shop has been doing quite well recently.”
She set the cups on a tray and carried it to the table and sat down with Perrin. The wonderful aromatic smell drifted on the air.
Perrin picked up his tea, stirred in some cream and drank in silence.
Dorella had also brought a plate of biscuits. There were always quite a few leftovers from the day’s trading, and those biscuits she would sometimes give to people who came to collect donations for the poorhouse, or she would give them away to people who wandered into the shop after closing to deliver things or messages.
“What have you been doing out so late for work? What was the trip to the harbour district about?” she asked. “Chasing someone, you said?”
Perrin told her what had happened. He got the feeling that as he spoke, by the way she nodded, that aspects of the story were familiar to her.
“I have heard of those cat people,” she said when he finished. “They haven’t come into my shop, but some people who run businesses closer to the harbour have mentioned things about them. They always wear a face covering that only shows their eyes, so people can’t see what they look like. They’re definitely from the realms and they have a reputation for being involved with shady deals. If the Bureau is going to stop them, that’s very good.”
“We’ll need better proof of wrongdoing for that. People from the realms can legally come to Tamba. There is no need for anyone to hide their identity, although there is no law that says that they can’t wear face coverings.”
“But they’re magical, shady people.”
“As inspectors, we also can’t assume that someone who is from the realms is here for a shady deal just because they come from over there. We need solid proof.”
“Well, those are the stories I hear from my friends and people who own shops, and in my book, there is usually at least some truth in rumours.”
“Yes, there is, and it doesn’t mean the Bureau won’t listen to those stories. What else do the rumours say?”
She gave him an uneasy glance. While Dorella and her tea shop had a business as harmless and cute as a business could be, she would, for some supplies, have to rely on other, less wholesome operators. She had previously been a good source of information for him.
She sipped from her tea.
“Mind you, I have never faced any of these cat people in my life and I have no desire to have anything to do with them. But you don’t always have the choice. If a business is desperate to have money paid to them, especially if it’s a larger business, they might hire these people. They’re known to work as debt collectors.”
“But Tamba has our own debt collectors. Most businesses would go to the Office of Finance and hang their claims on the board outside for all to see. That usually fixes unpaid bills.”
“And what about debts for services that they can’t claim by posting a notice?”
“Well, then we’re talking about something else entirely. We’re talking about people who do illegal stuff. Not honest people.”
“That is what I’m talking about. People hire magical debt collectors, because they have no other way of getting their debts paid.”
“Well…” Perrin spread his hands. Types of debt collection and magic used in them were not his specialty. That’s what the accountants downstairs in the building were for.
He didn’t think there were businesses that would use this type of service without also being involved in other shady practices, but yes, in theory a business could be owed money from outside Tamba and there would be little point in posting a notice on the board outside the department of finance.
In theory.
Yes, there probably were those businesses. And they were most likely to be in the harbour district.
“Do you know anyone who would hire these services?”
“What? Me?”
She gave him a horrified look that answered the question.
“Just rumours, right?”
“Yes.” Her cheeks had gone red. “There are people who use these services. If you’re doing business, you will hear about them sooner or later.”
Perrin didn’t think that was the entire story, but he let it rest.
This issue needed time. Time for something to get out of hand and parties to be referred to the authorities.
He wasn’t looking forward to it.
He went upstairs to his room a bit later when he finished his tea and Dorella needed to complete her accounting.
Chapter 5
When Perrin came into the office the next morning, the table that usually held pieces of paper with each inspector’s work schedule for that day displayed a sign about a pre-work meeting.
So they all waited in the big office. While they waited, inspectors who had already gone home yesterday evening heard about the event in the harbour from colleagues.
Inspector Carbin read out the official report she had filed with the council about the happenings of the previous evening. It was a rather sanitised version of events, so she elaborated by giving more details.
She had also received a report from the guards, which included the names of people who had been questioned by the cat people. Strangely enough, there were few familiar names on that list.
A railway labourer. The owner of a small shop that sold bric-a-brac and secondhand goods. Dock workers.
There was no obvious connection between them.
Did that woman ever sleep?
She also announced that she had asked someone from the Investigator office to talk about what they were dealing with.
Perrin stood at the door of the rather cramped meeting room where Tyro told the group of gathered inspectors that the cat people called themselves pumans and they came from the realm of Rimindi. That magical realm traded little with Tamba. It was a landlocked region on the other side of the mountains. It was not a land of great riches, and Perrin understood they relied on Solania for a lot of their supplies.
But Tyro also said, “Pumans can be extremely dangerous and we should avoid dealing with them unless we have no other option. They answer only to their group’s leader. They live in family groups of a handful of individuals, called a pride, and do not otherwise accept authority. They may have a reputation as debt collectors, but more often work for themselves under the guise of being debt collectors for others, meaning that they will collect the debt but then fail to pass it on to the people who are paying for its collection. In our limited experience, they’re nothing but trouble. It’s going to be vitally important that we find out what they want if we want them to leave.”
“Certainly, we’re not going to give in to a bunch of criminals,” Inspector Carbin said. “It would help greatly if we can find out what they want, so that we can seize it and send it back to whatever realm it came from.”
Perrin relayed what Dorella had told him, with Tyro nodding all the way through.
“Yes, puman debt collectors are a bit of a myth. Businesses in town will even threaten each other with the potential of hiring them if a dispute drags out. In truth, few people would know how to hire them, and even fewer would command their respect. People on the street talk about the “cat people” but few, if any, would have dealt with them directly. Pumans just don’t come out and advertise that they can be hired to ruffle the customers who are late paying their bills. These people are very secretive. They will give their names and identities at the border or at the port wherever they come in, but most of the time those identities are not trackable, and they don’t have a clear place of residence that we can make a complaint to. Sometimes they leave trails of dead bodies, especially those who are the subject of their claims. It’s not the first time that they have come to Tamba. Every now and then, one of the merchants or someone in authority runs afoul of someone in the realms, and if that particular person is rich enough or angry enough, they may employ pumans. They don’t come cheap.”
“So it is all about finding out who owes what and making sure that they pay up?” Inspector Carbin said.
“Well, it’s usually not that easy. Very often there are disputes about business contracts, often on the very margins of what’s allowed, and since the Bureau doesn’t get involved in commercial businesses, we usually can’t take action, but yes we can pressure the parties into finding some sort of a solution that makes these bandits go away. The main issue for the Bureau is that the pumans may be after the subject of a claim, but while they’re here, they often find extra ways to create trouble. They don’t usually have or use money, so they end up stealing things, or they end up threatening people surrounding those that are the subject of the claim and very often, these are innocent people. The pumans are not easy to deal with. They stick to themselves and they don’t like talking to anyone.”
Inspector Carbin said, “Following on from what Tyro said, it’s important that we find out what they’re doing here. Finding out starts with proper reporting, so I want all of you who came with me yesterday to file your own individual reports. Write up what you remember from last night. Don’t compare notes with others, but deliver the reports straight to me. I want everyone else to be super vigilant from now on.”
According to the reports delivered by the guards, the pumans hadn’t communicated with anyone what they were looking for and why they roughed up random people and why a railway labourer, a small shop owner and two dock workers qualified as subjects for their dubious questioning methods.
Inspector Carbin said that she would keep in close contact with the guards in case more information came out.
None of the other inspectors had noticed the pumans as visitors in any of the inns and guest houses they had inspected during the normal course of their work.
“Is there any way we can engage them in conversation?” Perrin said. “If we happen to come across them in our regular work, we could start a friendly chat. It’s in their interest if we can get all parties to cooperate so that the debt gets paid or the dispute is solved, right?”
Tyro said, “You can try to engage them in conversation if you see them, but I wouldn’t rate your chances too high. These guys don’t chat over cups of tea. They avoid talking to anyone, and if they do, they are likely to lie. On top of that, you can never be sure that pumans are in Tamba to collect debt. It’s unlikely to be their main business.”
“Then what else do they do?” Perrin asked.
Tyro met Perrin’s eyes. “They’re so secretive, we’re unsure what their most important source of income is. It’s likely to be something illegal, something magical, or something relating to the proceeds of crime.”
So after the meeting broke up, Perrin wrote up his report from what he had seen and went into Inspector Carbin’s office to deliver it to her.
But while he went on his regular round of inspections of inns, he couldn’t shake a feeling of disquiet. If Dorella, a sweet middle-aged lady with not a devious bone in her body, knew about these characters, the problem was likely to be worse than it at first appeared.
He’d do some of his own investigations.
Verbena lived in the harbour district, and he asked her to keep an eye out when she walked past the inn on her way to and from work to see if she could spot the pumans again, and follow them to where they were staying.
Chapter 6
Not much happened over the next few days, so Perrin returned to his normal work of going around the inns and inspecting the kitchens.
He encountered nothing unusual, and no matter how much he looked, he didn’t see any suspicious characters.
He also spent some time looking after all his magic sniffers, because the young ones were about to make their appearance, and he needed to keep the cages clean and the animals well fed.
Every evening, when he returned home, he heard the normal type of things from Dorella while they shared a cup of tea, and they talked about all kinds of things. He asked a few times about the puman cat people, but Dorella could not give him any more news than what she had already told him.
And now that he thought about it, Dorella’s knowledge was likely to be dated. She might have once mingled with people who knew about pumans, but he hadn’t asked her how long ago she had heard the information.
Verbena walked past the harbourside inn every morning and evening but didn’t see anything worth reporting either.
Perrin almost dared hope that the puman people had left town and he would not have to worry about them anymore.
But of course, that was only wishful thinking.
On an evening about three days later, he was walking home and picking up a few things from the shops on the way home, when he saw a suspiciously familiar character about a block ahead of him. It was not so much that he knew the individual, but that he recognised the fluid and soundless way he walked. Like a cat.
He sped up until he walked right behind the man and yes, when he turned his head sideways ever so slightly, Perrin could see the edges of the black mask painted with silver.
A couple of shoppers coming the other way raised their eyebrows, but strange characters from the realms were no uncommon sight in the central shopping district of Tamba, and many of those wore face coverings to hide their unusual features.
Perrin kept back a little and followed along to see what this person was doing. He was alone and didn’t seem to care about being followed. A cloth bag containing a small item swung from his arm. Perrin didn’t see weapons on his belt.
About halfway up the street, he turned to a nondescript shopfront along the street and went in through its dusty door. Perrin was going to wait across the road in an alley, when a second puman came out of that alley, crossed the main street and went into the shop as well.
Well, that was a bit of luck that Perrin hadn’t followed too closely. They would have noticed him.
He waited in the porch of a groceries shop further back.
Perrin was not familiar with the business where the pumans had gone. The building looked old and in need of maintenance. There was no sign either in the shop window or on the door that indicated the type of business conducted inside.
The main street held a few of those places, businesses from bygone eras, where someone still paid the rent, where the owners stored spare items, or where the shopfront was a cover for another business like a bookkeeping business, and where competing shop owners hadn’t yet offered the right price for the building to change hands.
