POV: wayne
Summary
Wayne kicks open the double doors of the Fourth Octant constabulary precinct in a borrowed brown constable uniform, drooping fake moustache, and an uncomfortably hot domed hat — proof to him that constables are grouchy mostly because their hats are bad. He has traded for the uniform up in a Seventh Octant precinct, leaving behind a perfectly good silk shirt as compensation. The bullpen of brown-uniformed men sit up straight, hands brushing pistol grips, until he bellows for whoever is in charge in a voice pitched halfway between minor lord and ironworks foreman with a touch of canal captain — *Who's in charge of this place!* — and they snap to attention. Half of them salute on reflex. People, he reflects, will believe a loud man with insignia who acts as if he is owed something. Accents, he reflects, are not impressions; they are stolen, and he has been collecting them in pubs and parks all over the city for weeks.
Captain Brettin opens his office door annoyed and freezes at the sight of a captain's insignia from another octant. Wayne announces himself as Captain Guffon Trenchant of the Seventh and bullies through Brettin's hesitation — Brettin is the sort who never quite remembers whether he has met someone, and Wayne is counting on it. They sat at the chairman's dinner together last spring, Wayne lies; Brettin pretends to remember. Wayne then complains, loudly, that he had to learn about the captured Vanishers from the broadsheets. Brettin protests jurisdiction and a missive sent. Wayne deploys the line Wax wrote for him about prior-claim prosecution rights — the first robbery had happened in the Seventh Octant. Brettin protests written requests. Wayne claims a missive was sent that morning; Brettin's clerk happens to be out fetching scones. Wayne offers a deal: drop the transfer paperwork in exchange for time with a couple of prisoners. Ten minutes apiece with two, Brettin counters. Done.
The first prisoner is the heavy-set bandit whose arm Wayne broke at the wedding with a dueling cane (rude of him, Wayne thought at the time, to have tried to shoot when challenged with a cane). The man does not recognise him under the constable hat. Wayne plays the hard-conner script for the audience — *No coddling!* — then in the room he leans in and drops into the working-class Sixth Octant accent the Vanishers use among themselves: a cup of canal worker for authenticity, a healthy dose of bartender for trust, the rest north-side Sixth. He claims he killed a constable for the uniform and is here to break the prisoner out, then bullies the bandit into spitting on him again so the front room doesn't get suspicious. The bandit volunteers that the only weak link will be a new recruit named Sindren, a short man with big ears. Wayne fishes out Tarson's name (the prisoner unhelpfully clarifies that Tarson just hits things; Wayne meant his boss) and the name of the recruiter, *Clamps*. He bellows about a closed-mouthed git on the way out.
He picks Sindren out of the cells next: young, large-eared, wide-eyed. This time Brettin insists on no whispering. Wayne tells Sindren under his breath to hold perfectly still no matter what, drops a speed bubble around the two of them and conducts the entire interview inside the bubble in real time — any blur from outside would give the trick away. He shifts his voice to Inner Seventh millworker, tuned to a tinge of Sindren's father's dialect, and claims Clamps sent him to get the kid out. Sindren confirms he was recruited two weeks back, that he had been put in only one of the gang's supposed several stations, and gives up the location: an old foundry in Longard. He also volunteers that the boss is always going on about payback and the city betraying him, but the rank and file are mostly in it for the money.
Wayne tells the kid the truth on the way out: he has just been tricked, the gang are about to lose their foundry, and Sindren is not cut out for crime. His advice — given softly, with a wink — is to find a solicitor by the name of Arintol, hold out for a freedom deal with the constables, trade everything he knows, and then disappear out to the Roughs to find quiet work in a mill. He drops the bubble and rolls into a shouting match for Brettin's benefit, with Sindren gamely playing the defiant outlaw at him. Wayne storms out, gives Brettin a we-tried shrug, and snatches a scone from the tray on his way out the door — the trip, at least, was not a complete waste.