by Mark Hayden
‘Do you really think that Princess Birkdale would do something like that?’
‘If she thought she could do it without her Queen finding out, she would. It’s certainly stirred things up. I’ll call Mina and see if they’ve made any progress.’
She picked up straight away and said, ‘How was it? I didn’t want to call because you might be busy.’
I brought her up to date and finished by saying, ‘Please give me some good news.’
‘Conrad. I’m so sorry. You have done everything for the best, and now this happens. And I have no good news about the wolf pack yet. We’re waiting for a few people to call us back, and I’m afraid that I have something worse to tell you.’
‘What could possibly make things worse?’
‘Stacey has just called me. Guess who’s coming into the Fairy Gardens tonight for a rehearsal?’
I groaned out loud. ‘Not Fae Klass. Please tell me it’s not her.’
‘I wish I could. And they are expecting a replacement for the Count by the end of the week.’
I swore. Graphically and in German. The Princess now knew exactly what had happened to the Count. When she found out could be crucial.
Mina dropped her voice. ‘Remember, Conrad, Ganesh does not close one door without opening another. You just have to look for it.’
‘Are you anywhere near discovering anything?’ I said, and I wasn’t able to keep the pleading out of my voice.
‘Perhaps a couple of hours.’
‘I’m going to take a gamble. I’m going up the Ribble Valley so we’re nearer.’
‘Take care. I’ll go as fast as I can, and so will Evie. I shall make her.’
She said the last bit quite loudly, and I guessed that Evie had heard most of the conversation. We said quieter goodbyes and I broke the news to Karina. She was happy that we were keeping going, and agreed to mind Scout while I went for a stroll.
Once I was out of sight, I called Kirk Liddington. ‘You got me there, Kirk. Completely fooled me. When did they get in touch.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m in Bolton. Penwortham is about fifteen minutes away. I’ll drop Karina off and let her question you, shall I? Just tell me the truth and I’ll leave you alone.’
‘You would, wouldn’t you? You’re not as nice as you look, Conrad, and I didn’t think you looked very nice to start with. They came round the same day you did. Late on Thursday evening. Auntie Iris and Tara Doyle herself, completely incognito. She was absolutely lovely to me. Completely understood what I’d been through.’
‘And she had some forest manna, didn’t she?’
He drew in a sharp breath. ‘How did you know that? Even I’m not supposed to know that’s what they call it. The Count told me it’s not illegal.’
‘It isn’t. Neither is smoking, but they’re both bad for you. Anything else to add?’
‘Will the trolley dollies or their boyfriends come after me? Tara said they wouldn’t, but I think you know who they are.’
‘I wish I did. No, they won’t come after you.’
I got back to the car and said, ‘I’m afraid that the Princess is firmly in the frame for Drake Blackrod’s murder now. And if I ever speak to Tom Morton again, I will want strong words about what he put in his report. Someone accessed it before we’d got back to Middlebarrow. She had plenty of time to get her pets and plan the ambush.’
We got in the car and I started the engine. ‘I’d say that this day couldn’t get any worse, but that would be tempting fate.’
Tom found Elaine waiting outside, sheltering from a thin wind that promised rain sooner or later. Probably sooner. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve started smoking,’ said Tom. ‘You’re lurking outside like That Man.’
‘You mean Clarke, sir?’
‘I do.’
‘How did it go?’
He stared glumly at the car park, then turned to look at the building he’d just come out of. The headquarters of South Lancs Police was very similar to the people inside it: grey, low and undistinguished. No, that wasn’t fair. The chief constable was popular and well known for standing up for his rank and file officers. It wasn’t the Chief, it was Assistant Chief Constable Nick Schofield who really got up Tom’s nose.
‘Badly,’ said Tom. ‘Very badly.’ He started walking towards his car, just as the rain made itself felt.
‘How come?’ said Elaine.
‘Clarke must have been owed a lot of favours, and I dread to think how he accumulated them. I went in expecting to hear that this was going to be declared a major incident and that Serious Crimes were taking over. Ha. How wrong a man can be.’
He slumped in his seat, deflated and defeated. Even taking the keys out of his coat pocket seemed like too much effort.
‘It can’t have been that bad, Tom,’ said Elaine.
‘Don’t you believe it.’ He turned to face her. ‘First, the hospital have had a Security Order slapped on them. As far as they’re concerned, there never was a body in the first place.’
‘And they’ve put up with that?’
‘I doubt Michael Jepson will be happy, but he’s like me: he doesn’t have a choice. These gangsters, these Calabrese or whoever they really are, they’ve done us up like a kipper. Not only did the morgue fail to check the body that was dropped off with them, there is clearly a mole in South Lancs Police. How else did they know where to look? They even went straight to the right boxes in the evidence store.’
He thumped the steering wheel and hurt his hand. ‘Ow. Blast. As a direct result, South Lancs are dropping the murder investigation. Not completely. Oh no, they’re assigning it to the Ongoing Enquiry Team.’
Elaine looked suitably appalled. ‘The Abandon Hope brigade?’
‘The one and only.’
Elaine looked worried. ‘But Tom, what about the gang war? If the body’s been stolen, doesn’t that make further retribution more likely?’
‘It does. John Lake admitted as much. Clarke is off the case and will be investigated. Hannah Rothman is taking over on Wednesday.’ He smiled. ‘Funny that. John Lake referred to Hannah as The Constable as if it were a senior rank. Lake has also been on to Leonie, and we’ve been allocated the job of finding the mole. Again. I hate that.’
Tom often felt that he and Elaine were like a see-saw: whenever he was up, she was down, and right now she looked far more positive than she had a right to.
‘That’s good news,’ she said. ‘It means we can sort it out.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘This Hannah Rothman person isn’t coming up for two days. The service from Euston to Manchester is very good. She could be here in time for a late lunch if she wanted to. I think she’s up to something, and if she is, you can bet that Clarke is, too.’
‘Could be.’
‘You know him better than me, sir. Do you think he had anything to do with the phantom pig?’
He thought about it, as he’d been thinking all morning. ‘No, because he was really rattled when we spoke this morning. I’ve never seen him rattled before, not even flying a helicopter into a snowstorm.’
She nodded. ‘This is what I think. I think that MI7 are losing control, and that they’ve told Clarke to sort it out. Under the radar, as it were. By Wednesday.’
‘You could be right. We’ll never know.’
‘We will if we activate Karina Kent’s tracker. He doesn’t trust her to work alone, so wherever she is, he’ll be there too. And so will we.’
‘That could be very dangerous, Elaine.’
‘What else are we going to do? Go through all the access records for HOLMES and do background checks on everyone who accessed the files? I vote we follow our noses. Or Clarke’s nose, anyway.’
‘You could have come up with a better image than that, Elaine. I don’t think he has much of a sense of smell. On the other hand, I have absolutely nothing to offer that’s any better. Go for it.’
She twisted around
and grabbed her laptop from the back seat. Tom tried to keep in shape; Elaine made it look easy. She had once been a champion rock climber, and could twist into all sorts of shapes if she had a reason to get something.
‘I’ll nip back inside and get on the HQ Wi-Fi. Won’t be a tick.’
Tom thought about following her and getting a coffee, but he didn’t want to set foot over the threshold again. He fumbled for his keys and brought the car’s electronics to life. When his phone had bonded, he called Lucy, just to hear her voice.
‘I was going to call you,’ she said. ‘I’ve just had the weirdest conversation with Mina Desai.’
Tom sat upright. ‘How long ago?’
‘Just after nine o’clock, why?’
‘I’ll tell you later. Go on. What did she want?’
‘It was weird. She started asking about recommendations for coffee shops and restaurants in central Manchester because she’s doing some work there, then she somehow got round to Tara Doyle. I didn’t even realise that she’d changed the subject until I found myself telling her who handles Tara’s PR and which limousine company she uses. I only realised she might have an ulterior motive when she asked about lawyers.’
‘Did she now?’
‘Have I done something wrong? What’s she up to?’
‘It’s him I worry about. Then again, they’re as bad as each other. The original definition of thick as thieves. The only thing good about the Clarke / Desai alliance is that it saves two innocent people from being involved.’
‘Tom! Mina seemed really nice. And she gave me a really good tip for a place to look at in Chester. I’m going to follow it up later. Have I dropped you in it?’
‘Never, love. They’re up to something, but I don’t know what. There’s been a lot going on. I’ll tell you later. Elaine’s coming.’
He disconnected and waited impatiently. Elaine dashed across the car park, holding her laptop under her coat against the rain. She chucked it in the back and climbed into the front. ‘Buckle up, sir,’ she said. ‘We’re off to the Ribble Valley.’
20 — All You Can Eat
‘What makes you think this is the right place, sir?’ said Karina as we left the tiny village of Newton and headed further into one of England’s most underappreciated wildernesses, the Forest of Bowland.
‘Because this piece of land is owned by the Vesta Tilley Trust.’
‘I would have gone for the one near Pendle Hill. Why else would they call the business Sheep’s Clothing?’
Mina had given me half a dozen likely spots in and around the Ribble Valley that might be associated with Tara Doyle in one of her many incarnations, and we were on our way to one now.
‘I think you’ll find that Sheep’s Clothing is run by a shepherdess or a farmer’s wife. It’s a desperate business, hill farming. As soon as Mina told me who Vesta Tilley was, it had to be that one. She was a massive music hall star in her day, and a male impersonator, to boot.’
‘Isn’t that a bit obvious?’
‘Only if you know that Tara Doyle is Princess Birkdale. These sort of things aren’t meant to fool the magickal community. All I need now is for my contact at Lunar Hall to get back to me.’
‘But they’re an enclosed order. How will they know?’
I slowed down and risked a proper look at Karina. ‘Because when you have little magick, survival depends on cultivating those that have a lot.’ I looked back at the road. What little of it there was. I forced myself to slow down. ‘Mother Julia used to be the magickal teacher at Stoneyhurst, the boarding school I pointed out on the way here. Five gets you ten that the resident Witch will be known to her. She may even have taught her.’
We lapsed into silence for a while, until I reckoned we were near enough to the target. I found a small gateway with enough room to get the Volvo off the road and pulled in. I checked for a mobile signal and turned the engine off. ‘I’ll take Scout for a walk for a bit. Coming?’
‘We could be face to face with a pack of Mannwolves soon. If you don’t mind, I’ll set up my bow.’
Since she arrived at Middlebarrow, Karina has said that she’s gone for archery practice on several occasions. Either that or communing at Nimue’s spring. ‘Of course. I should have thought.’
Because of the narrow road, I put Scout on the lead and strode out. The whole of the Forest of Bowland is quite hilly and full of sudden dips rather than the big valleys of the Pennines or Lakeland. We were towards the bottom of what poets might call a shady vale, with a low hill in the distance. Much beyond that, the view was obscured by the beginning of woods. I gave it half a mile, then turned back and crossed the road to give Scout a different set of smells. In that whole time, I’d seen not a single car, walker or any sign of life beyond sheep.
I was two hundred yards from the car when Mother Julia called. ‘It’s always good to hear from you, Conrad, but I’m not an informer. Why do you want to know this information?’
‘Lives are at stake, Julia, or I wouldn’t bother you. I’m trying to stop Clan Blackrod and the Fae tearing lumps out of each other.’
‘So what are you doing up here?’
‘That I can’t tell you. Not yet, partly because I might be making an arse of myself. Again.’
‘Very well. I think I might know someone who can help – she was one of my pupils a good fifteen years ago. She came from London and she went back there. I saw her a few years ago at a Stoneyhurst Mage reunion and she said she’d settled at a place on the Dunsop to Botton road.’
‘Thank you, Julia. If there’s anything I can do…’
‘I know. Take care.’
Damn. I’d picked the wrong road – our target was on the other side of the hill. We’d have to take the long road round. Not a great tragedy in the scheme of things, but annoying.
Karina was testing the load on her compound bow. If you’ve never seen one of these things before, it’s more like the engineering that holds up the power lines on a railway than Robin Hood’s weapon of choice – all carbon fibre struts and wheels. I can’t say it’s my sort of thing, but my life might depend on her ability with that contraption, so I’ve paid attention when she’s been waxing lyrical.
‘All good?’
‘Yes. I haven’t got many Quicksilver arrows, though. Only five.’
‘Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Shall we?’
She placed the bow carefully on the back seat and stared at it. ‘What smells does Scout not find interesting?’
‘I can’t say I’ve done any experiments, but he hates black pepper with a vengeance.’
She moved her hands in the gestures of traditional magick and lowered them over her bow. ‘Don’t want him licking it or biting it. If he chewed through the wrong part, it could snap.’
‘Nasty. Good thinking.’ I opened the tailgate and Scout jumped in. He went straight for the bow, of course, and backed off with a sneeze. When I see Mages doing something on an industrial scale, I don’t feel in the least connected, but when I see them do something simple like lighting a fire or rendering items dog-proof, I really wish I could follow them.
‘Is there any news from anywhere?’
She checked her phone. ‘No. And my battery’s nearly dead. It must be getting old, ’cos it usually lasts much longer.’ She frowned. ‘Didn’t Mina have a charger in here?’
‘She did, but she took it for her car.’
‘I’ll turn it off and save the battery. You’ve got news?’
‘I have. It may be a wild goose chase, but I’ve got nothing better.’
‘She’s disappeared,’ said Elaine. ‘They’ve been at that spot for half an hour, and suddenly they’ve gone.’
‘They’re up to no good,’ said Tom.
He didn’t wait for Elaine to tell him that there might be a hundred innocent explanations. The last word he’d ever use to describe Conrad Clarke was innocent. He started the engine and headed for the country road where Clarke had last been seen.
Mother Julia had bee
n vague about where this Witch might live, so we had no choice but to drive along the narrow lane and look for clues. At least the lack of traffic meant that I could take it slowly and give equal attention to driving and searching. I was getting ready to negotiate a bend when I saw the sign at the entrance to a rutted lane:
Gingerbread House
Small Boys and Girls Welcome!
‘Bit of a giveaway, that,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t look suspicious at all.’
‘What?’ said Karina.
‘The sign.’
She frowned. ‘The one that says No Access. Public footpath 100m further down the road ?’
‘Have another look.’
‘Oh.’
‘Precisely. I must have seen through the perimeter Wards. Can you feel them now?’
‘Yes. They’re quite strong. You didn’t even know they were there, did you, sir? You just saw through them.’
I shrugged. My magickal Sight comes and goes unpredictably, or so it seems to me. I told her as much and turned the Volvo into the track. We bumped up a hill that soon became very steep. Grass had grown in the middle of the lane, but someone had sprayed it during the summer and none of the potholes were actually life-threatening. By country standards, this private road was well cared for.
The track did a switchback to avoid a narrow wood on the crest of the hill and curved round to cross a cattle grid. I almost slammed on the brakes when I saw what was on the other side of the concrete yard.
‘Bugger me.’
‘It is a bit excessive,’ said Karina. ‘Takes a lot of Lux to keep up a Glamour like that. It’s strong, too. I couldn’t see through it without a lot of effort.’
Before us was the promised Gingerbread House.
Gingerbread walls supported a gingerbread shingle roof at a suitably Germanic steep pitch. The eaves were adorned with giant jelly tots and dolly mixtures; a stack of liquorice allsorts formed a chimney that was actually smoking invitingly. The windows were opaque purple glass and giant lollipops stood either side of the chocolate door. I was salivating just looking at it, and there was an added dimension to the illusion: smell.