Daniel Seasalter

He came to Maidstone on a promise of work that never came, and found other work instead: black opium, sold cheap by the twist under the bridge.

Daniel Seasalter came from Canterbury to Maidstone on a promise of good work that turned out to be no work at all. He stayed, and found a trade that needed a very large man: selling black opium in the back alleys and under the arches of Maidstone Bridge.

Black opium is impure opium, the dregs and scrapings of the trade cooked down over a coal fire with coal tar, lamp oil, slaked lime and burnt treacle until it sets black and bitter. It is cheap, unlawful everywhere and far more dangerous than anything a licensed dream room would pour, and its old customers are known by their soft, bleeding gums and missing teeth. Seasalter sells it by the twist to labourers and bargemen, takes the coins, and settles disputes over the price by leaning on the table.

This autumn he has begun selling nightcoal as well: black opium worked by an alchemical process into something darker and denser. It came first by sea, through a smuggling ring with a substance from abroad; now it is made at home from local dregs, cheaper, with less pleasure in it and far more death, because a man who feels too little takes another twist. Two bargemen who took it from Seasalter have not woken. He is not cruel, only unmoved. A company hunting the makers of nightcoal will find him at the bottom of the chain, and finding the top of it will cost more than he can be made to say.

In person

Twenty-five, very large and heavy-set, with a shaved head, a broad jaw, hard eyes and rough stubble; a charcoal overcoat, or a dark waistcoat over a coarse shirt and massive forearms.