Unofficial Detective

by Kathryn Wells

  'Do you have any evidence of this plot?' the wizard demanded, his muscles bulging threateningly. Thordric ignored it. He fished through his pockets again and produced one of the copies of the paper that the Inspector had instructed him to make. He pushed it across the table to the wizard.

  'Where did you get this?' he demanded; his eyes wide and his muscles now sagging.

  'The High Wizard's chambers, before High Wizard Vey transferred his belongings. It was lying on the desk. That is the late High Wizard Kalljard's handwriting, is it not?' Thordric asked, realising that no-one had actually confirmed it yet.

  'It is…I used to carry notes between departments for him. He never sealed them…'

  'And did any of them suggest how foul a wizard he really was?' Thordric said.

  'No, young sir,' the wizard said, dropping all his remaining aggressiveness. 'There was nothing to suggest this…this foulness of mind.' Thordric signalled to the constables to take him away, but the wizard stayed in his chair. 'If anyone knew about it…I suppose that would have been incentive enough to kill him, wouldn't it?'

  'I don't know, but it certainly wouldn't help anyone's case,' Thordric said slowly. The wizard sighed deeply and stood up, holding out his arms for the constables to lead him away. Thordric got up and stretched, wincing as the feeling came back into his buttocks. There was a knock on the door, and he opened it to find the Inspector there.

  'Hold the interrogations for a moment, boy. You mother is here with some interesting news.'

  He followed the Inspector back up to his office, where his mother was already waiting. She had straightened her hair since last time he had seen her, and from the rose petal aroma around her, she had sprayed on some perfume too. 'Ah, there you are Thordric,' she said as he entered. 'I've just finished analysing Kalljard's blood. It seems that our theory was correct.'

  'He was injected with Winsome Sunbeam?'

  'Yes,' she said, straightening up. The Inspector sat down with a fresh pot of tea, and poured her a cup. She gave him a smile that made Thordric think he might vomit.

  'There is one thing, though. The amount in his blood wouldn't have been enough to drive him mad enough to kill himself, only to make him see things that were slightly out of the ordinary.'

  'So, we still don't know what actually killed him?' the Inspector said, picking up a Jaffa cake.

  'No, there's still nothing conclusive,' she said.

  'What about the mirror we found?' Thordric said, deciding to show off and pour himself some tea by magic. The Inspector swallowed his Jaffa cake whole.

  'What do you mean, boy?' he said, coughing so much his eyes watered.

  'If you were imagining things and looked in a mirror, might you not think that you were staring at someone else?' Thordric said.

  The Inspector looked at him as though seeing him properly for the first time. 'You know, boy, that's a jolly good theory! Would that be possible, Maggie?'

  'Very possible. I still don't see why that would make him attack himself.'

  Thordric looked from her to the Inspector. The Inspector shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 'Haven't you told her yet, Inspector?'

  Chapter Sixteen: A Convincing Disguise

  'Well,' his mother said, swallowing. 'Given those circumstances, he would likely have been very paranoid. Giving him Winsome Sunbeam would only have made it worse.'

  She trembled, and looked at Thordric as though she couldn't bear to lose him. He felt his face grow hot. If his theory was true, then it wasn't a case of outright murder. Someone had set it all up so that Kalljard would kill himself. Now he knew the truth, he couldn't help but sympathise with whoever had done it.

  High Wizard Kalljard, head of the Wizard Council, was the most important person in the country aside from the royal family. Nearly everyone had respected and revered him, ignorant of the monster that he really was. Now they would all know the truth.

  Thordric had no doubt now that Kalljard had been the one to kill Lizzie's husband, if not personally, then by directing another. Who knew how many other half-wizards he had already deposed of before drawing up the official plans they had found?

  He got up from his chair, ready to continue with the interrogations, but then turned to his mother, having a sudden thought. 'Is there a way to prove he killed himself?'

  The Inspector and Thordric's mother looked at each other and then slowly shook their heads. 'This is the world of magic, boy,' the Inspector said. 'Unless you can find a way to prove it with magic, then we have no way of knowing for sure. Except if someone confesses, of course.'

  'Lizzie didn't teach me any spells for killing people, so there's no way I can tell…' His mouth spread into a grin as he just realised what the idea was that had been circling about in his mind. 'Inspector, I've interrogated two wizards so far, both of whom I believe are innocent of both Kalljard's death and of his plotting. Why not let them examine the body and see if they can tell us what happened?'

  The Inspector stood up too, eye to eye with Thordric. 'I have to say, I would fully encourage your plan…if it wasn't for the small detail that the entire Wizard Council believes we buried him days ago.'

  Thordric slumped down again. 'Then we're never going to know what happened.'

  It was his mother's turn to speculate. She smoothed down her hair and looked at them both. 'What if the body is disguised?' she said. 'We could say it was another half-wizard who tried to experiment.'

  'They'll know if I use magic to disguise it. It gives off too strong a smell,' Thordric complained.

  'Not everything has to be done by magic, Thordric. Inspector, send a constable to fetch your sister, I could use her help with this,' she said. She got up and breezed out of the door, hardly sparing them a glance goodbye.

  Thordric and the Inspector sat in silence for a moment.

  'They'll see through a normal disguise too, if it's anything like her fancy dress costumes,' Thordric muttered.

  The Inspector heard him, and with one smooth movement, smacked him on the side of his head with one of the books that had been lying on the desk. 'Have some faith in your mother, boy, she's very skilled.' Thordric raised an eyebrow at this, but the Inspector ignored it and called in a constable to go and get Lizzie. Then he and Thordric made their way back down to the interview rooms to deal with the next lot of wizards.

  Three or four wizards later; all of whom had known nothing; there was another tap on the interview room door. There was a constable there with a message from Thordric's mother.

  'The pathologist wishes you to know that everything is ready, small fry,' the constable said.

  Thordric ignored the jape. 'Tell her I shall be there momentarily,' he replied. He turned back to current wizard he was interrogating, and calmly told him of Kalljard's plot, ready for the usual shocked reaction. He wasn't disappointed.

  When he was done, he made his way back to the cells and requested the two wizards he had interviewed first- the young gardener and the bearded muscle bound one. They had been sent up to wait in one of the offices in case they told the others about Kalljard's plot.

  By the time he got there, the tiny office was crammed full of wizards, for the Inspectors' ones had been sent there too. He squeezed his way in and managed to stand on a chair so he could see all their faces. The ones he wanted were at the back, on different sides of the room. He called for them to come with him, feeling terribly rude for not knowing their names.

  They came without a fuss, still quieted by the revelation that Kalljard had been truly monstrous and they walked silently next to Thordric all the way to the morgue. When they got there, they found Lizzie and his mother both dressed in white aprons and surgical gloves, standing around the body on the table. Thordric tried not to show his surprise at how it now looked.

  Kalljard's beard and hair had been trimmed and coloured a deep red, and they had put various tattoos on his arms and chest, somehow making them look as though they had been there for years. Even Thordric found it hard to recognise him. The
skin was still sunken and leathery though, which was what he had wanted the wizards to see. It had been safe to bring these two, as he knew they had not seen the body at all and, wouldn't have recognised the condition it was in.

  'Good evening, gentlemen,' his mother said. 'I have requested your presence here to help me with the post mortem on this poor fellow.'

  The two wizards glanced at each other. 'We-we would be g-glad to help,' the younger one said.

  Thordric's mother smiled. 'Excellent. Now, as you can see, the poor man has suffered some form of extreme dehydration and decomposition.' She paused, indicating the state of the skin. 'We knew he was a half-wizard, and so have presumed that he was trying to use his own magic and, as always, it backfired on him. But I need to be certain of that so I can confirm it in my report. I need you two gentlemen to help me discover what the true cause was.'

  'I-I see,' the young wizard said. He looked closely at the body. 'I-I would say that your th-theory was c-correct, madam. Would you agree, Wizard Myak?' he said, turning to the tall wizard. The tall wizard leaned in too, and extended a finger to prod the body several times.

  'I do indeed, Wizard Batsu,' he said gruffly. 'Although this is very strong magic indeed. Are you sure he was only a half-wizard?'

  'It's what I was told, sir,' Thordric's mother said, without a hint of concern.

  'Then he could have been a wanderer. That would be a more logical explanation, since I do not believe the magic of a simple half-wizard could do this much damage. No, this man was a wanderer.'

  'How is it you can tell, sir?' Lizzie said, stepping in. She looked Wizard Myak in the eye, commanding an answer.

  'Wanderers are deserters from the Wizard Council Training Facility,' he replied, staring at her with equal intensity. 'As such, they are highly trained wizards, capable of everything that the members of the Wizard Council are. If I am correct, then the spell this man used required a high level of training, and is notoriously hard to control. Only high level wizards such as myself can control spells like that, although we never use them. They are for defensive purposes only.'

  'Then, based on that, you could equally say that a member of the Council such as yourself could have used it on him in a defensive situation?' Thordric challenged.

  Wizard Myak flexed his muscles, but Wizard Batsu cut in before he could do anything.

  'Ah, no, actually. Th-there is a rule that any wizard who uses high level defensive spells must report them and go in front of the High Wizard to state the reason why it was used. No one has had to do that in over fifty years. Check our records if you like.'

  'What if someone just didn't report it?' Thordric pushed.

  'We-we are bound by o-oath—' Wizard Batsu started.

  'But that is not your problem,' rumbled Wizard Myak. 'Your problem is that this spell would not have killed him. Made him weak, yes, but not killed him.'

  Thordric deflated. If that wasn't what killed him, then what was? He squeezed his lips together, trying not to say the long list of curse words streaming into his mind. He had gotten absolutely no-where. 'Do you have any idea what did?' he said at length.

  'No, young sir,' Wizard Myak said. 'I do not.'

  'Nor-nor I,' Wizard Batsu added.

  Thordric took them back to the station, where he saw several more wizards had been filed into the cramped office. The Inspector certainly was going through them at a fast pace. He left them there and went down to the cells, where only a dozen or so remained. He spoke to the constable standing guard and asked him to get the Inspector for him. The constable hesitated, but Thordric saw High Wizard Vey make a small motion with his hand and the constable soon hurried off.

  'Why did you do that?' Thordric asked him, walking closer to the cells so he didn't have to shout. The other wizards watched him and Wizard Rarn, now awake, muttered something under his breath.

  'I thought I'd help you out. The Inspector has given you a hard job here, Thordric, expecting his men to follow the orders of what they believe to be a mere boy. They should respect you, clearly you are very insightful and intelligent- a quality, I fear, that most of them do not possess.'

  Thordric couldn't help grinning. 'I'm sorry we had to lock you up like this, Vey,' he said.

  Wizard Rarn riled at this. 'Show his reverence the proper respect, boy!' he shouted. 'He is High Wizard, and you would do well to remember that!'

  High Wizard Vey looked at him and raised an eyebrow, then with one small surge of magic put him to sleep again. 'I'm afraid Wizard Rarn cares too much about status and official procedure. Personally, I find my title a little tiresome.'

  Thordric would have liked to have spoken to Vey for a bit longer, but the constable appeared again with the Inspector behind him, the remains of his moustache curling out in all directions. 'Inspector, I need to speak with you privately,' Thordric said quickly, before he was shouted at.

  They went back up to the Inspector's office, not bothering with tea this time. The Inspector stood up behind his chair, too agitated to sit. 'I hope you've got good news, boy. I'm not getting anything out of those wizards.'

  Thordric took a deep breath, and told him what Wizard Myak and Wizard Batsu had said. When he finished, the Inspector was silent. He sat down and opened his drawer, taking out a small, ornate glass bottle, filled with a blue green swirly liquid. He placed it on the desk in front of Thordric. Thordric licked his lips nervously.

  'Do you know what this is, boy?' he said, indicating the bottle.

  'A-a potion, Inspector?'

  'Yes. It helps to calm my nerves after a long day. Have you any idea who might have given it to me?'

  'No, Inspector,' he replied, wondering where the conversation was going.

  The Inspector looked down, rather sadly. 'It was given to me by High Wizard Kalljard, the day he came to congratulate me on my promotion to Inspector. That was the first time I had met him and I would have sworn then that he was the most generous and understanding person I had ever met. Twenty cases, he gave to me. Enough to last me from then to well into my retirement.'

  'Does it work, Inspector?'

  'Yes. Too well, sometimes.' He paused, shaking his head. 'Lizzie told you about her husband, didn't she? About how I hushed up his death so that the papers wouldn't go after her?

  'She…she did,' he said, as goose pimples rose on his arms. What was the Inspector getting at?

  'It all happened not long after I'd first been given this and I took it every day. It dulled my good sense, Thordric. Made me ignore protocol in favour of casting the well-known stereotype of half-wizards. If I hadn't been taking it, I would have done my job properly and found out what really happened that night when he left the house.'

  He picked the bottle up and smashed it, making Thordric jump.

  'Help me find out who set up Kalljard's death, boy, so I can personally thank them for ridding this world of someone so despicable.'

  Chapter Seventeen: Interviewing Rarn

  Wizard Rarn sat in front of Thordric, breathing heavily and fiddling with the sleeves of his robes. Any shred of his polite demeanour that he had shown the first time Thordric went with the Inspector to the Council was gone. Now he was snide and uncooperative, as Thordric had found out over the past half-hour.

  'Rarn, I will get you to tell me what you know,' Thordric said. He wished the Inspector had taken on Rarn, but since he was one of the younger wizards it had fallen to Thordric to interrogate him.

  'My title is Wizard Rarn, insolent boy!' Rarn shouted.

  'Fine. Wizard Rarn, you will answer all of my questions. Now, how long have you been a member of the Wizard Council?'

  'What concern is that of yours?' Rarn said.

  'Answer me!' Thordric shouted, jumping up to his feet. 'Or I will tell the Inspector that you need to be incarcerated for life.'

  Rarn glared and ran his hand down along the table, scratching it with his nails. The high pitched noise it made had Thordric gritting his teeth and tensing every muscle. 'Very well,' Rarn hissed. '
I've been a member of the Wizard Council for ten years.'

  'And what level are you?' Thordric asked, flattening his hair down.

  Rarn flared his nostrils. 'I am a middle-level wizard, though High Wizard Kalljard hinted that I would be promoted several times.'

  'But he was killed before he could do it?'

  'Obviously, imbecile. I am sure his reverence with go forth with it once he has become accustomed to his office.'

  Thordric almost burst out laughing. High Wizard Vey, promote him? Never; Thordric knew Vey had more sense than that. 'So, how well did you know High Wizard Kalljard then?'

  'Well enough that he personally chose me to clean his chambers every day. I dusted all his bookshelves and changed his bed sheets and I arranged his robes for the next day—'

  'So you had complete access?'

  'Of course. How else would I have completed my duties?' Rarn said.

  'Did you ever notice a mirror in there?' Thordric asked. Rarn raised his eyebrows and fiddled with his sleeves again.

  'There was a mirror,' he said. 'But it was taken away a few days before the…incident occurred. I believe it was replaced by a wardrobe.'

  Now Thordric was getting somewhere. If Rarn knew who had supposedly moved it, then he would be one step closer to solving the case. He asked if Rarn did know, but he said he had been terribly unwell that day and hadn't been there to supervise. Thordric found that awfully suspicious, but Rarn gave the names of six wizards who he shared a dormitory with that could confirm what he said.

  Keeping Rarn in the interview room, Thordric went to find a constable to send down to the Council building to confirm his alibi. Being of only middle level skills, none of the wizards currently bunched up in the spare office knew Rarn that well, so they were of no help.

  While he was waiting, he doubled the security outside the interview room he was using and went along to the larger one where the Inspector was still interrogating the older wizards. There was a small window which he could look through to see how things were going. The old man currently in there was in tears. Thordric didn't have to guess why.