“Ma’am.” He cleared his throat, then carefully pretended not to have heard a single word. “It’s about the furnace. I’ve got the first epoxide mixture curing right now, is that what you wanted?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, relief forcing its way out of her in a shout. “That’s what I wanted.” She began to calm down. A thought occurred to her. “Roger. When you go home tonight, I’d like you to post a letter for me. Not from the pillar box outside, but actually into the letter box of the recipient. Will you do that?”

“Um.” He blinked. “Would it be something to do with the King’s man as called, just now?”

“It might be. Then again it might not. Will you?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Don’t like those folks. Not at all.”

After he retreated to his workbench Miriam sat down in front of the manual typewriter and threaded some paper into it—then paused. They can identity typewriters by their typeface, can’t they? she remembered. Sort of like a fingerprint. And they lift messages off used ribbons, too. She pulled out the notebook computer and briefly tapped out a note, then printed it on the battery-powered inkjet printer she’d brought over with her. Let them try and identify that.

She took care to pull on her gloves before feeding the paper in, and before folding it and putting it in the envelope, leaving no fingerprints to incriminate. Then she addressed it and sealed it. If they were tailing Roger or had staked out Burgeson’s shop it was just too bad—nothing she could do would help—but if they were still looking for information she doubted things would have gone that far. Besides which, Erasmus had agreed to make inquiries on her behalf: If the inspector nailed him for sedition, there’d go her most fruitful line of inquiry in pursuit of the hidden enemies who’d murdered her birth mother and tried to kill her.

It was only on her way home, having given the anonymous tip to Roger, that she realized she’d stepped over the line into active collusion with the Leveler quartermaster.

One week and two new employees later (not to mention a signed, formal offer for the house), Miriam practiced her breaking-and-entering skills on the vacant garden for what she hoped would be the last time. After spending two uncomfortable hours in the hunting hide, she felt well enough to risk an early crossing.

Paulette was in the back office doing something with the fax machine when Miriam came in through the door. “What on earth—” She looked her up and down. “Jesus, what’s that you’re wearing?”

“Everyday office outfit in Boston, on the other side.” Miriam dropped her shoulder bag, took her hat and topcoat off, then pulled a face. “Any word on my mother?” she asked.

“Nothing I’ve heard,” said Paulie. “I put out a wire search, like you said. Nothing’s turned up.” She looked at Miriam worriedly. “She may be alright,” she said.

“Maybe.” Black depression clamped down on Miriam. She’d been able to keep it at bay while she was on the far side, with a whole different set of worries, but now she was home she couldn’t hide it anymore. “I’m going to the bathroom. I may be some time. Taking this stuff off’s a major engineering undertaking.”

“Want me to make you some coffee?” Paulette called around the door.

“Yes! Thanks!”

“So you have to play dress-up all the time?” Paulie asked around the door.

“It’s only dress-up if you can stop after a couple of hours,” Miriam said as she came back out, wearing her bathrobe. She accepted a coffee mug from Paulette. “What you’re wearing now would get you arrested for indecent exposure over there.” Paulette was in jeans and a plaid shirt unbuttoned over a black T-shirt.

“I think I get the picture. Sounds like a real bundle of laughs.” Paulette eyed her thoughtfully. “Two thoughts strike me. One, you’ve got a hell of a dry cleaning bill coming up. Secondly, have you thought about putting artificial fibers on your to-do list?”

“Yeah.” Miriam nodded fervently. “Starting with rayon, that came first I think. Then the overlocking sewing machine, nylon, and sneakers.” She yawned, winced at her headache, then stirred the coffee. “So tell me, how have things been while I’ve been away?”

“Well.” Paulie perched on the desktop beside the fax. “I’ve got the next gold shipment waiting for you. Brill is doing fine, and those, uh, feelers—” She looked furtive. “Let’s just say she’s going to be from Canada. Right?”

“Right,” Miriam echoed. “What else has she been up to?”

“She’s been visiting your friend Olga in the hospital. Once she spotted someone trying to tail her on the T, but she lost him quick. Olga is out of intensive and recovering nicely, but she’s got a scar under her hairline and her arm’s in a sling. The guards—” Paulie shrugged. “What is it with those guys?”

“What’s what?”

“Last time she went, she said one of them said she ought to come home. Any idea what that’s about?”

“Uh, yes, probably he was a relative of hers. You say she’s visiting Olga now?”

“Why, sure.” Paulette frowned. “I’ve just got an odd feeling about her. Great kid, but she’s hiding something. I think.”

“If she wanted me out of the way she’s had more than enough opportunities to do it quietly.”

“There is that,” Paulette agreed. “I don’t think she’s out to get you. I think it’s something else.”

“Me too. I just want to know for sure what she’s hiding. The way she and Kara were planted on me by Angbard’s office, she’s probably just reporting back to him—but if she’s working for someone else …” The fax machine bleeped and began to emit a page of curling paper. “Hmm. Maybe I should check my voice mail.”

She didn’t, not at first. Instead she went back into the bathroom and spent almost an hour standing in the cramped shower cubicle, at first washing and thoroughly cleaning her hair with detergents of a quality unimaginable in New Britain, even for the rich—then just standing there, staring at her feet beneath a rain the temperature of blood, wondering if she’d ever feel clean again. Thinking about the expression on Roger’s face when he’d been ready to murder a secret policeman for her, and about Burgeson’s kindly face, high ideals, and low friends. Friends who believed fervently in political ideals Miriam took for granted, and who were low subversives destined for the gallows if Smith and his friends ever caught up with them. Gallows where whoever had kidnapped or murdered Iris belonged—and that in turn led Miriam to think about her mother and how little time she’d spent with her in the past year, and how many questions she’d never asked. And more questions for Roland, and his face as he’d turned away, hurt by her rejection; a rejection he didn’t understand because it wasn’t anything personal, it was a rejection of the world he would unintentionally lock her into, rather than the person he was.

Miriam had lots of things to think of—all of them bleak.

She finished with the shower in much the same black mood she’d been in that fateful evening when she’d first opened the locket and unhitched a mind-gate leading to a world where things turned out to be paradoxically worse. Why bother? she wondered. Why do I keep going? True love would be a great answer if she believed in it. But she was too much the realist: While she’d love to find Roland in her bed and fuck him senseless—the need for him sometimes brought her awake from frustrated dreams in the still small hours—there wasn’t a cozy little cottage for two at the end of that primrose path. Miriam had held her daughter in her arms, once, twelve years ago, kissed her on the head and given her up for adoption. Over the next few years she’d spent nights agonizing over the decision, trying to second-guess the future, to decide whether she’d done the right thing.

The idea of bringing another child, especially a daughter, into the claustrophobic scheming of the Clan filled her with horror. She was a big girl now, and the idea of expecting a man to protect her didn’t strike her as cool. That wasn’t what she’d gone through pre-med and college and divorce and most of med school and the postgraduate campus of hard knocks for. But facing all this on her own was so daunting that sometimes it made her lie awake wondering if there was any point.