"Wh-what d'you mean?"
"Well, you seem rather intent on a partnership here. Teamwork. Whatever you care to name it. That's new for you. And you'll pardon my saying so, but you don't play well with others. I believe we established that the last time we tried to work together."
Mary swallowed hard. "You're right. I didn't think through some of my decisions on the Thorold case, and I ought to have shared more information with you."
He feigned surprise. "An admission of imperfection? How unlike you, Miss Quinn."
"Pot and kettle, as you said earlier."
"True enough, and thus even more reason you ought to be resisting a partnership, rather than proposing one."
He was right: she needed his help more than he did hers, this time. She sat for a moment in silence, steeling herself for the confession, and then sighed. "All right. You want the real, humiliating reason I need to work with you again?"
"You're terrible at flattery, as well – did you know?"
She ignored that. "The men don't trust Mark. He's too well-spoken, too inexperienced, too – well, too not one of them. They're very guarded when I'm about and while I've managed to pick up a few bits of information, it's nothing like what I'd hoped."
"Ah. Finally, we have the ugly truth: you need me."
"I need to share information with you. I need to learn about building sites from you. You don't have to make it sound so…"
"Oh, just admit it: you need me. You can't survive without me. I'm your greatest – no, your only – chance for success and true happiness."
She snorted. "If that's what you choose to tell yourself."
His grin was brilliant, annoying, endearing. "You'll admit it soon enough."
"So we're agreed?" she demanded, suddenly impatient.
"Of course," he said calmly. "I knew it would come to this, all along. I'm quite looking forward to it."
"But you – you still made me – the apology-" She groaned with frustration. "Sometimes I think I hate you."
"You don't," he assured her.
She said nothing. He was correct, once again.
"So… you said Keenan threatened?"
"Very clearly. And Harkness didn't respond."
"That may have been the wisest course of action; the man's deeply unsavoury."
"Like his former associate Wick?"
"It's true that nobody seems to regret him much."
"When you add together Mrs Wick's banged-up face, and the late hours Wick kept outside the home, and the fact that he was good mates with Keenan…"
"You get quite a scoundrel, with no short list of suspects; just the sort of man almost anyone would like to push off a tower."
"What about Reid?"
"What about him?"
"I forgot – he was gone by the time you turned up." She explained about Reid's presence at Jane Wick's house, the night they'd both called on her. "And his face was bruised on Monday last, as though he'd been in a fight."
"He's completely banged up now. Perhaps he's always getting into fights."
She shook her head. "I think not. He's a careful man, a responsible one. I think fighting two men in one week – the second was Keenan, yesterday evening – is significant, in his case."
"So you think his first fight was with Wick, over his wife? In the belfry?"
"Quite possibly. Either that, or the fight led directly to Wick's fall."
James was silent for a moment. "It's certainly the likeliest theory. I'll ask the coroner about bruises on Wick's body. Anything else you've observed?"
"It's of less import, but there's a great deal of muttering on site."
"Yes. The joiners and the masons are concerned with petty theft. It seemed quite small-scale at first – a handful of nails here, a fraction of a load of Anston stone there – but their complaints are adding up. It's a serious drain on resources."
"Is widespread pilfering unusual?"
"It varies according to the site and the calibre of the labourers. It has to do with management, too: a well-managed site led by a respected engineer will suffer fewer losses."
"When talking among themselves, the men have scant respect for Harkness. I've not heard anybody say anything positive about him."
James frowned, as though pained. "I know. They've told me much the same thing." There was a pause, and he said slowly, "Widespread theft could affect site safety…"
"How so?"
"Well, theft on the scale the foremen suggest would seriously affect the materials budget. Perhaps Harkness is economizing on other fronts…"
Mary could practically see him jotting the note in his head: Check site budget. "Are they clever thefts?"
He considered that. "Well, they're fairly small ones. The sort that could be attributed to a larger number of people all taking things independently."
"But you think otherwise…"
"They're also quite similar. Not opportunistic; it's more as though…" He considered for a moment. "It's as though someone's carefully skimming a small percentage of all the materials, like a levy of some sort."
"The word 'levy' suggests a sense of entitlement…"
"And it's much too early to attribute motive, of course. But yes. It's as if someone's carefully taxing each of the materials in kind."
"Each foreman is in charge of supervising the unloading of his trade's materials."