All Our Hollow Covenants

A disgraced private investigator meets a terrified informant at a fog-shrouded ferry terminal. The exchange of a single piece of evidence sets off a chain of events from which there is no return.

"You're late," Thomas said, not moving. His voice was flat, absorbed by the fog.

Chris flinched, his cheap suit jacket pulled tight around his thin frame. "I had to be sure I wasn't followed." His eyes darted around the empty, decaying terminal, lingering on the shadowy recesses where seagulls and ghosts roosted.

"Everyone's followed in this city, kid," Thomas said, pulling a crumpled cigarette from his coat pocket. He didn't light it. Just held it. "The question is whether you're worth the effort. You think you are?"

Chris swallowed hard, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet. "I know I am. What I have... it'll burn the MacLeod family to the ground. Shipping, imports, the harbourmaster... it's all in here." He tapped a trembling hand against a worn leather ledger tucked under his arm.

"Ledgers," Thomas mused, looking out at the grey, choppy water. "Funny how it always comes down to ink on paper. Not data, not whispers. Just a man with a pen and a guilty conscience." He finally looked at Chris, his eyes narrowed. "Or a greedy one."

"This isn't about greed!" Chris snapped, a flash of desperate indignation in his eyes. "This is about what they did to my father. He was a foreman on their docks. He saw too much, so they... they arranged an accident. Made it look like he was drunk. He wasn't."

Thomas stayed silent. He'd heard a dozen versions of the same story. Each one true to the person telling it. He held out a hand. "Let's see it."

Chris hesitated, clutching the ledger like a holy text. The fog swirled around them, cold and clinging. A distant foghorn moaned, a lonely, mechanical beast calling out from the harbour.

"You'll protect me?" Chris's voice was barely a whisper. "The money I promised... it's only half. The other half is when this is over. When I can leave the city."

"I'm not a bodyguard, kid. I'm a private investigator. I investigate," Thomas said, his hand still extended, patient. "I take your book, I verify your claims, I give my findings to someone who can use them. That's the deal. Protection is a different line of work. Messier."

The refusal seemed to break something in Chris. The last bit of his hope crumbled. With a shuddering breath, he thrust the ledger into Thomas's hand. The leather was worn smooth, the pages thick with handwritten entries and notations.

---

Thomas tucked it inside his coat. The weight of it was real, substantial. The weight of a man's life, or in this case, a man's death.

"Good," Thomas said, turning to go. "Go home. Lock your doors. Don't answer the phone. I'll call you from a payphone in two days."

"Wait," Chris said, grabbing his arm. His grip was surprisingly strong. "There's something else. A name. Not in the book. A fixer. They call him 'Silas.' He's the one who... arranged my father's accident. He's the one I'm scared of."

Thomas looked down at the pale, bony fingers on his sleeve, then back up at Chris's terrified face. For the first time, he felt a flicker of something like pity. The kid was in way over his head. A swimmer in a shark tank.

"Silas," Thomas repeated, committing it to memory. "Got it."

He gently removed Chris's hand from his arm. "Now go."

### A Price Paid in Full

Chris nodded, a marionette with its strings cut. He turned and started walking back the way he came, his footsteps echoing on the damp wood of the pier. Thomas watched him go, a small, lonely figure swallowed by the fog.

He was about to turn himself when he heard it. Not a bang. More of a sharp, wet crack, like a tree branch snapping in a winter storm. It cut through the thick air, sharp and definitive.

Chris stopped. He stood perfectly still for a second, a strange, quizzical look on his face. He looked down at his chest, where a dark stain was blossoming on his cheap grey suit, spreading like spilled ink.

He looked back at Thomas, his mouth open as if to say something. No words came out. Only a soft, wet gurgle. His eyes were wide with a final, profound surprise.

Then his knees buckled, and he crumpled to the pier. He fell loosely, all his tension gone. One moment he was a man full of fear and desperate hope, the next he was just a pile of wet clothes and cooling meat on the rotting planks.

Thomas's hand flew inside his own coat, but not for the ledger. It went for the worn grip of the .38 in his shoulder holster. He scanned the foggy rooftops of the warehouses across the water, the gantries of the loading cranes. Nothing. Just grey on grey. A professional shot. The shooter was long gone.

He walked slowly, cautiously, towards the body. The smell of cordite was faint, almost lost in the stronger scents of the harbour. He knelt. Chris's eyes were open, staring up at a sky he couldn't see. The ledger inside Thomas's coat suddenly felt a hundred times heavier.

The kid was right. He was worth the effort after all. He just hadn't understood what that effort entailed. He hadn't understood the price. But now he had paid it. And then he died.