Everything in Its Place

“Who gains from a fever?” you asked, and Constance Ward’s smile lost a notch, which in a woman of her construction was the equivalent of a scream.

“The Chamber,” she said, after a measured pause, “has an interest in continuity.”

Continuity turned out to be a letter in a buff folder at her elbow, left half-closed in the manner of a woman who believes in her own discretion. You read it upside down, which was one of the few useful things a lectureship in sociology had taught you: an offer to Hollis Crane from Harborline Developments to buy the cannery site, dated the previous Friday. Beneath it, in the Chamber’s own minute-book hand, a vote “to support continuity and to delay public announcement”. Continuity, it seemed, meant that the works would close and the flats would rise, and that nobody was to say so until the paperwork was dry.

Ward watched you read it. She didn’t reach for it, which told you something about how a person manages being seen.

“We can be very useful to each other,” she said at last, softly, as if talking to a startled bird. “The Chamber would like to retain you. A short report on social harmony in Saltmarsh. Generous terms. A fee, a desk, a seat at the table. You’d find us very reasonable people.”

Jonah looked at the carpet. The carpet, for once, offered no advice.