by Kim M Watt
“That would be rather unnecessary. And Miriam’s already worried because the jumpsuits won’t be organic cotton.”
The inspector emptied her mug, looking like she was trying not to laugh. “Just start behaving, alright? I don’t want to fill our jails with meddlesome women of a certain age, so don’t make me.”
“Of course, Inspector.”
“Right then. I’ll take you back and tell James to intercept Miriam.” DI Adams got up, and waved Alice away as she tried to pay. “I’ve got it.” She shrugged her jacket back on as she went to the counter, and Alice smiled. She hadn’t promised to stay out of it. She’d only said she understood.
They were through the traffic and back on the A59, the inspector sipping at another giant cup of takeaway coffee that the young woman had passed her before they left, and muttering about wanting to be past Harrogate before it got too bad. Alice could feel the tight bands easing from around her chest more and more the further they got from the city, feel the weight that had been trying to crush her shoulders lifting. Even the darkening afternoon felt lighter than the morning had on their way in. She took a surreptitious breath, filling her lungs, trying not to seem too relieved. It didn’t do to give too much away.
“Oh, and Alice,” DI Adams said, and Alice turned toward her with an amiable smile. “What’s this?”
Alice looked at the item the inspector was holding out, glittering and alive with light even in the dull day, running with golds and greens and blues, full of the promise of magic and hidden, mythical things.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she said, trying to hold onto the smile but feeling it becoming something stiff and fixed. “A guitar pick, perhaps?”
The dragon scale glittered at her, calling her every sort of liar in the world.
“Honesty, Alice,” DI Adams said, and rolled the scale in her fingers. “That’s our word of the day.”
Alice folded her hands together in her lap and watched the road.
19
Miriam
“Someone’s following us,” Mortimer said. Beaufort had wriggled his way into the front seat, where he’d spent the first twenty minutes of the drive examining the cracked dashboard and asking what things did, leaving the younger dragon crouched on the back seat, peering anxiously out the windows.
“Why would anyone be following us?” Miriam asked, checking the rear-view mirror. Beaufort had bumped it at some point, so all she could see was Mortimer’s tail. She adjusted it, but that didn’t help. Now it just showed her Mortimer with his nose pressed to the tiny back window of the Beetle. “I can’t see anything, Mortimer.”
“It’s a grey car. It’s been behind us since we left Toot Hansell.”
Which was almost an hour ago. Miriam didn’t like to push her old car too much, and she absolutely refused to take it on the motorway. Too many trucks, too many people going far too fast, and just too many cars in general. Which meant it was going to take them well over two hours to get to the address Mortimer had found, and also meant that they were sticking firmly to quieter, less travelled roads. It was a bit strange that the car was still with them and hadn’t overtaken them. Miriam would be the first to admit that she wasn’t at any risk of speeding tickets.
“Are you sure it’s the same one? There are a lot of grey cars about. And all these modern ones look the same.”
“Of course I’m sure,” Mortimer said indignantly. “I’ve been watching it.”
“Oh dear,” Miriam said, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. “Oh, I don’t like this! What if it’s the murderer?”
“We should confront him,” Beaufort announced.
“No!” Miriam almost yelped the word.
“That does sound like a terrible idea,” Mortimer agreed. “We should hide.”
“Where are we going to hide a car?” Beaufort demanded.
“I don’t know. Under a tree.”
“Be sensible, lad. He’s not approaching by air.”
Miriam sighed and rolled her shoulders, trying to make herself relax her grip on the wheel a little. She didn’t like driving all that much, and she certainly didn’t like driving long distances. Driving long distances with two arguing dragons wasn’t exactly top of her list of things to do on a bright spring day. Not that it was looking all that bright now, with those lurking clouds getting lower and more threatening at every moment.
“I’m pulling over,” she announced.
“What?”
“But he’ll catch us!”
“The murderer may be Violet,” she pointed out, “and if it is her, then we may as well confront her now as drive all the way to Manchester.” It’d also save some wear on both the car and Miriam’s nerves.
“I’m not sure about this,” Beaufort said, as Miriam put on the indicator and pulled into an abandoned, dilapidated garage. There was a large folding table piled with unwashed vegetables just outside the boarded-up door, and hand-lettered cardboard signs showed the prices.
“Neither am I,” Miriam admitted. “But I’m going to go and buy some tomatoes, so you two keep an eye on that car, okay?”
“Okay,” the dragons said, not sounding particularly okay with the plan at all. Neither was Miriam, if she was honest about it, but she couldn’t think of what else to do.
She clambered out of the car and went to examine the vegetables. They weren’t very healthy-looking, certainly not as good as the ones she got from her own garden. But now she was looking she felt too awkward to leave without buying anything, so she selected the least anaemic tomatoes and dropped a couple of pounds into the honesty box.
“Here she comes!” Mortimer hissed from the car, and Miriam managed not to look around as a grey car cruised past at the same sedate pace she’d been maintaining earlier. Her back twitched as it went by, as if she expected to be suddenly assaulted – by a carefully aimed kitchen knife, perhaps. A fancy one. She turned back to the road with her tomatoes and tried to read the license plate before the car was too far away, but she was too late. She should have kept her driving glasses on.
“Did you see?” she asked the dragons. “Was it her?”
“I couldn’t tell,” Beaufort said. “She had her hand up.”
“It was kind of a big hand,” Mortimer said. “I think. You know, for a female human.”
Miriam tried to remember if the woman who had chased the vicar from the village hall had had unusually big hands, but she couldn’t. She might not have noticed, though, considering she was more concerned with the fact that anyone was chasing the vicar at all.
“Well, they’re gone, anyway. Maybe they weren’t even following us.” She put the tomatoes in a bag and popped them in the footwell of the back seat. “Don’t stand on those, Mortimer.”
He regarded them suspiciously. “We should have brought the biscuits.”
The little green Beetle purred steadily down the road, and Miriam felt quite proud of her, with her load of dragons. She wasn’t used to either distances or passengers, so she was really running terribly well.
“Good girl,” she said, and patted the steering wheel. Beaufort looked on with interest.
“You talk to the car?”
“Oh, yes. She’s called Bessie.”
“Does she talk back?”
“Well. No. She’s a car.”
“I see,” Beaufort said thoughtfully. “Like we talk to trees, I guess. They don’t talk back, only dryads do that. But we know they’re listening all the same.”
“Um. Yes. Like that.” Miriam felt slightly vindicated for all the times she’d talked to her plants.
“She’s back!” Mortimer yelped.
“What?” Miriam jammed the brakes on, sending Beaufort crashing into the dashboard, and Mortimer into the footwell. “Sorry!” She hit the accelerator again, and the dragons fell back into their seats.
“I say,” Beaufort protested. “That was a bit rough.”
“Sorry, sorry. Mortimer surprised me. She’s back?”
“Yes! Same g
rey car.”
“She must have waited in a side road or something for us to go past. Oh dear! Oh, this is no good at all!”
“Can’t you go faster?” Beaufort suggested. “I’m sure these things go faster.” He patted the dashboard encouragingly, raising a small cloud of dust.
Miriam nudged the speed up a tiny bit, clutching the wheel so tight her fingers hurt.
“Still there,” Mortimer announced.
“Should I pull over again?”
“Not if it’s the same car,” Beaufort said. “We already tried that.”
“But is it the same? What if it’s another grey car? You know, the same kind?”
“I’m sure it’s the same,” Mortimer said.
Miriam took a deep, shaky breath. Tailed. She was being tailed. It was a horrible feeling, like knowing someone was peering through your curtains in the night. Or she thought she was being tailed. She had to be sure.
A brown and white sign showing a picnic table and toilets appeared ahead, and she put the indicator on. “I’m pulling over. We need to be certain it’s the same car.”
“Miriam, I’m not sure—” Beaufort began, but she was already slowing, and she shook her head.
“No. I’ll go into the loos, and you watch the car. Make sure it’s the same one. If it is, we’ll detour, or turn around, or do something to lose her.” She said it with more confidence than she felt. She had no idea how one was meant to shake a tail.
“I suppose.” The High Lord sounded doubtful, but there was no time to discuss it further, because Miriam was already pulling into the parking. She could still see the road, but the toilets were further back than she’d have liked, more isolated. There was no going back now, though. There was only one way in or out, and she certainly didn’t want to pull out again right in front of the murderer and give herself away.
She put the handbrake on and looked at the dragons, hoping she looked more confident than she felt. “Keep a good eye out, okay?” They both nodded vigorously, and she got out and headed into the old toilet block, smelling disinfectant and damp.
“Miriam! Miriam!” She was washing her hands when Mortimer called her from the doorway, and she jumped so badly that she almost came out of one of her clogs.
“What? What are you doing out of the car? What if someone sees you!” She hurried out to him, drying her hands on her skirt. “Where’s the grey car? Did it go past?”
“It came in! It’s on the other side of the toilets,” he whispered, already scampering back to the car. “Hurry!”
Miriam ran after him, trying not to slip in her loose shoes and figuring that all this detecting really meant she should work on her fitness a little more. And rethink her footwear.
Mortimer piled into the car as Miriam jerked her door open and stared at the interior. “Where’s Beaufort?”
“He’s coming! Get in!”
Miriam swung herself into the seat, wondering what the old dragon was up to with a tight knot of misgiving in her stomach. “What’s he doing?”
“Hang on, hang on – now! Start the car now!” Mortimer was almost bouncing with excitement, and Miriam turned the key as Beaufort came galloping around the corner with his wings tucked against his sides.
“What have you been doing?” Miriam demanded as the High Lord scrambled into the front seat.
“Go! Go on, drive!” He was flushed red with excitement, and shut the door on his own tail, yelped, and tried to reorganise himself. “Drive, drive!”
“Shut the door first! You’ll fall out!”
“I won’t, quick, go before he gets here!”
“Hurry up!” Mortimer wailed, leaning out of the back seat to try and help Beaufort in. The big dragon buffeted Miriam with one wing as he tried to get himself organised, and she squeaked, but got the car into first and headed toward the main road. Beaufort had his tail in, but one wing still out, and Mortimer was trying desperately to pull him into the car.
“Ow! Be careful, Mortimer!”
“Sorry, I’m sorry!” He dropped back into his seat and wriggled around to peer out the back window. “Oh, do hurry up!”
“Beaufort! Get in, we’re almost at the road!”
“I’m trying!” One flailing dragon leg hit the gear stick, knocking it out of gear, and the car gave a juddering roar of alarm. Beaufort roared back, scorching the headlining.
“Beaufort!” Miriam slammed the brakes on, even though they were barely crawling along. “Get out and start again! This is not working.”
“No, don’t stop!” Mortimer shouted. “He’s coming, he’s coming!”
“Beaufort, now!”
The High Lord threw open the door, half-fell out onto the road, then launched himself back into the car, making sure to tuck his tail in tidily. He slammed the door and grinned at Miriam. “There we go!”
“Go!” Mortimer was shouting. “Oh, go, go, go!”
Miriam shoved the car into gear and floored the accelerator, pulling back onto the road with only the quickest glance to make sure it was clear. The little car laboured down the road, revving wildly and leaving a cloud of black smoke behind them, until Miriam recovered herself enough to start working her way up through the gears. Mortimer still had his head stuck in the back window, but she couldn’t see anything in the wing mirrors.
“Is she there?” she demanded. “Is she still following us?”
“He,” Beaufort said. “And it’s unlikely.”
“Why?” She gave him a suspicious look. “What did you do?”
“I may have tapped his tyre,” Beaufort said, looking at his claws thoughtfully. “They’re quite delicate things, you know.”
Miriam glanced at his claws too, and thought that a lot of things might be a bit delicate when confronted with them, then looked back at the road. “He? Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” Beaufort said. “He did seem a little familiar, though.”
Reluctantly, Miriam decided that getting on the motorway was their best hope of staying ahead of their mysterious pursuer. He wouldn’t expect it after all the time on the back roads, and hopefully they’d be most of the way to Violet’s by the time he got the tyre changed. Beaufort was quite crestfallen when she explained that everyone carried spare tyres, but she assured him that it had bought them some time, at the very least.
She drove with her hands tight on the wheel and her chin stuck forward like a determined turtle, while the astonished dragons watched the trucks overtaking them.
“Miriam,” Beaufort started.
“Shh!”
The dragons fell silent, and they continued like that until the phone announced brightly that their exit was coming up. Miriam navigated it with grim concentration, and found herself plunged into a wilderness of superstores, roundabouts and traffic lights that was no less intimidating than the motorway had been.
“Miriam?”
“Shh!”
Her shoulders didn’t relax until they were following the phone’s instructions through a maze of semi-detached houses, all very pale and new and bright, some with bright new cars sitting outside, and bright new curtains in the windows, and even bright new grass on the tiny lawns.
“This is interesting,” Mortimer ventured, and Miriam nodded, then gave him a slightly apologetic smile in the rear-view mirror.
“Motorway driving is horrible,” she offered by way of explanation.
“That was a lot of cars,” he said, sounding awed. “A lot.”
“So many,” Beaufort said, his voice slow. “And you can barely breathe the air.” He was very still, coiled into the small front seat, his chin resting on his paws as he looked at the identical houses marching past. “No room for anything.”
Miriam looked at Mortimer, and he gave a little half-shrug, his eyebrow ridges pulled down anxiously. Miriam tried to imagine what the country used to look like, the endless forests and wild lands and rocky fells and clear lakes, and felt an echo of Beaufort’s sadness, something deep and slow that dragged at her bones w
ith the inevitability of it all.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the phone announced, and all three of them jumped. Miriam pulled the car to the kerb between a red BMW SUV and a light blue Audi, and they stared at the house. It didn’t look like the lair of a murderer. There were pale pink curtains on the downstairs windows, and a birdbath in the middle of the front yard, and a child’s mountain bike lying by the front door.
“I suppose we should go in,” she said, suddenly not at all sure this was a good idea.
“Absolutely,” Beaufort said, rousing himself. “Let’s get Alice’s name cleared once and for all!” He hooked the door handle with his claw and poured himself out onto the pavement.
“Should you come in?” Miriam asked. “I mean, what if someone sees you?”
“Well, we aren’t letting you face her alone,” the High Lord said indignantly as Mortimer climbed out after him.
Miriam thought about protesting, then decided that if one were to face down a murderer, one should do it accompanied by dragons, and got out. Her phone started to ring just as she closed the door, but she left it. It could wait.
Miriam rang the bell with a dragon to either side of her, and they waited expectantly. No one answered.
“Maybe she’s out?” Mortimer suggested.
“Or avoiding us,” Beaufort said. “I’ll check the back, make sure she doesn’t try and run.” He headed off around the house, and Mortimer and Miriam looked at each other.
“Try again?” the dragon suggested.
“May as well.” Miriam rang the doorbell again, letting her finger linger on it for a while, and this time when she let go she heard footsteps on the stairs inside. She straightened her back and tried for a stern smile.
The door was jerked open by the woman she’d seen at the village hall, and Miriam swallowed a little gasp of astonishment. She hadn’t really expected that they’d find her, but here she was, in skinny jeans and a floaty tank top, her thick hair piling down over her shoulders.