by Kim M Watt
DI Adams wasn’t quite sure whose dream it was, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t everyone’s. “I see.”
“We offer a new way of living. Real security, happy environments, reliable neighbourhoods.”
“Reliable neighbourhoods?”
“Yes. Ones where you really feel safe connecting to your neighbours, because they’ve got the same values as you.”
DI Adams wished she could imagine that he was talking about sharing similar tastes in fence paint, but she rather doubted it. “So we’re not talking affordable housing here.”
He made a startled little gesture, as if to push away the very idea. “No. Not our area.”
DI Adams nodded, glancing at Dandy. He was on his back in the middle of the office, wriggling enthusiastically while dust rose off him in a cloud. “I see.”
“Well, it’s a question of appeal, isn’t it? People who want the sort of houses we sell don’t want to live next to … those sorts of people.”
DI Adams smiled. “Those sorts of people.” She expected she bore a strong resemblance to what Gary would term those sorts of people, with her skin and her hair and her TK Maxx clothes.
“Umm.” Gary’s face had taken on a suddenly florid tone, and he looked at his watch rather desperately. “Is that the time? I’m terribly sorry, but I’m going to have to cut this short. I have an appointment. That I have to go out to.”
“Of course.” DI Adams stood up. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Oh no, I mean, I have to get the paperwork together first.” Gary waved at his empty desk, and nodded. “Yes, paperwork.”
“Terribly busy, all this exclusive housing stuff.”
“It is. Yes, it is.”
“I wouldn’t mind a brochure,” DI Adams said.
“Of course. Yes! An officer of the law. Perfect. Perfect.” Gary stared at her as she waited expectantly, then said, “Ah, give your details to Tom and he’ll email you a prospectus.”
DI Adams smiled, and held out her hand. Gary grabbed it, his palm slick against hers. “Wonderful,” she said, and held on just a little too long.
“Always a pleasure to help the police,” Gary said. His face had gone a strange blotchy colour, and she wondered about mentioning the letters. But she thought he was just snobby, rather than guilty. She’d keep that card a little longer.
“Thank you for your time,” she said, and headed for the door. Dandy lingered a moment longer, and when she glanced back he was weeing on the plastic palm in the corner. She thought she might buy him a bacon butty of his very own for that gesture of solidarity.
She called Collins as she eased her way out of the city, just on the edge of rush hour traffic.
“Any news?”
“Spoke to the councillors I could get hold of. No one’s saying anything about BelleVue.”
“What about Alice’s buddy Len and that whole ‘we all got envelopes’ thing?”
“Denying it entirely,” Collins said. “Says she’s an old busybody sticking her nose into what doesn’t concern her.”
“Well, it’s accurate, if a bit harsh.”
He snorted. “How about you?”
“Not much to report, except that social divides are alive and well, and Dandy disapproves strongly.”
“Good dog,” Collins said. “Fancy a curry tonight?”
DI Adams glanced at the time. It’d be getting on for seven by the time she got back, and she really couldn’t be bothered with shopping, especially at that time. “Is it any good?”
He made a sound that could only be described as a scoff. “You southerners know nothing about curry. Nothing. Give me a shout when you get back and I’ll pick some up.”
“Deal.” She hung up and settled back into the seat, nudging the cruise control up slightly. She was oddly eager to get away from the mass of cars, the hulk of the buildings. The green hills, already visible to the north, looked wild and alive and full of promise, and she suddenly craved the silence. “Oh God,” she said, and looked at Dandy, sitting bolt upright in the passenger seat. “Do you think this place is catching?”
Dandy whuff-ed softly, and she wondered if she’d maybe not had enough coffee today. She couldn’t actually like it out here. Despite the lick of new paint, the office looked like it hadn’t been done up since the seventies, and the rooster was still living in her backyard, and the place had an annual sheep festival. It wasn’t her sort of place at all.
Although it was nice to run without thinking about how much air pollution she was breathing. And to be able to sit on her back step with a cup of coffee and hear birdsong. Even to see that hulking fell beyond town every time she turned around, like an anchor to the land. Of course, the flip side of that was Collins spent half his time chasing sheep, which wasn’t what she’d joined the police to do. Not that she could accuse the Skipton police of being slow or behind the times when it came to actual cases. They were terribly efficient, in fact, but in the most relaxed way possible. It was annoying.
She sighed, turned the radio up, and said to Dandy, “I think it is catching.”
He snorted and looked hopefully at the window.
18
Mortimer
“The dryad was super worried,” Gilbert insisted. He had a slice of carrot cake in front of him but was ignoring it, which Mortimer considered to be rather a waste.
“But Beaufort’s right,” Amelia said. “They are drama queens, and besides, you can’t just go around slashing tyres!”
“They were probably scheming on how best to destroy the forest!”
Amelia made the sort of noise someone does when they’ve exhausted every argument they have, and would rather like to hit their opponent over the head with something heavy.
“Now, you two,” Miriam said. “Gilbert may not have gone about things in the best way, but he’s quite right to be worried, in my mind. Two other empty farms?”
“We can’t be sure,” Beaufort said. “For one thing, dryads aren’t exactly reliable. And even if the farms are empty, it might be as simple as someone rebuilding the farmhouses. You know, like on that show.” He waved vaguely at Miriam’s cottage, presumably meaning the TV inside.
“But what about the animals?” Gilbert asked. “Why would they get rid of them? I’m telling you—”
“You’re telling everyone!” Amelia snapped. “You know all Rockford needs is half an excuse to go try and eat someone! And that Isobel’s no better.”
“At least she listens to me.”
“Only when you’re spouting rubbish.”
“I don’t think eating anyone is a good solution,” Miriam said, sounding as if she’d given it some thought.
“Mortimer,” Beaufort said. “What do you think, lad?”
Mortimer had just taken a large mouthful of quiche, and he froze, staring at the three dragons and Miriam. He’d been trying very hard not to get involved, which was actually quite easy when Gilbert and Amelia were around. It was, in fact, very easy to stay out of conversation altogether with those two. He swallowed, choked on a pea, and went a rather lovely lilac shade as he tried not to cough quiche all over the lawn. “Um,” he managed, once he’d got his breath back, then took a gulp of tea.
“Morts, come on,” Gilbert said. “You know this is important!”
Amelia shoved him. “Leave him alone! He can make up his own mind without you nagging him!”
Beaufort gave a sudden, rather alarming growl. “Both of you stop it. If I wanted to talk to squabbling hatchlings I could have stayed back in the grand cavern.”
The two young dragons fell silent, and everyone looked at Mortimer.
“Um,” he said again, feeling the lilac colour spreading. “Well, obviously we need to avoid any action that might draw attention to ourselves.”
“You see?” Amelia hissed at her brother, drawing another growl from Beaufort.
“But,” Mortimer continued, “it’s not just the potential threat to the mount. The dryads are our Folk, just like Nellie. If we can protect them, we need to.�
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“Hah!” Gilbert said, and Beaufort stood, drawing himself up to his full height, almost as tall as the table.
“I fought wars,” he told the two young dragons. “I fought against dragons, and goblins, and knights with swords and lances, and I made peace with queens and princesses, who were much more sensible than their counterparts. I have led the Cloverlies to battle and to peace. I have outlived clans and cities and the fall of the Folk. And I’ve kept the Cloverlies safe for centuries. So would you please stay quiet when I tell you to?”
“Sorry,” they mumbled together, and Beaufort glared at them a moment longer before sitting down again.
“Do go on, Mortimer.”
“Well, that’s kind of it. I mean, you know, I can see both sides.” There was silence for a moment, and Mortimer could see Amelia and Gilbert looking at each other, both of them obviously desperate to say something, but not daring.
“Well,” Miriam said. “You’d make a terribly good politician, Mortimer.”
“Would I?” he asked.
“Yes.” She clasped her hands together and leaned forward to hold his gaze. “Now what do you think we should do?”
Mortimer swallowed hard, wanting to protest. Miriam was meant to be the one person who’d back him up in not doing things! She just smiled at him encouragingly, so he looked pleadingly at Beaufort instead. The High Lord was watching him with bright eyes, and there was clearly no help coming from that direction. This was ridiculous! What did he know about any of it? He sighed, then said, “Well, I think we need more information. I think we need to see what’s actually happening. I mean, we’re just guessing at the moment, aren’t we? We haven’t seen if the other farms are actually empty, or even checked the first farm properly.”
Gilbert was nodding, if a bit reluctantly, and Beaufort grinned at him. This wasn’t so bad.
“And, well, I think we do need to be ready to take some sort of action if they’re really up to something awful, like putting horrible stuff in the water, or chopping down trees. But that should be a last resort, only if we think we can’t get the police to stop them in time. And it should all be things that could be done by humans, like Gilbert slashing those tyres.”
“See?” Gilbert exclaimed, unable to stay quiet any longer. He’d gone a delighted orange.
“I didn’t say that was a good idea,” Mortimer said. This whole speaking up thing was getting much easier the more he talked. “We don’t know who that was. But yes, that sort of thing. We could do it to those machines in the shed, so they can’t use them. But this is really a human matter, and we should only get involved if we have to.”
“Lad, I think you have it,” Beaufort said. “Miriam’s quite right, you’re very good at this.”
Mortimer went even more orange than Gilbert. “Well, I don’t know about that.”
“And I actually meant he was like a politician in that he’d said a lot without really saying anything,” Miriam said. “But you’re wonderful once you get started, Mortimer!”
“Oh.” His orange flush faded slightly.
“Really. Much better than a politician.”
“More like a lord,” Beaufort said, and grinned again.
Mortimer grabbed his last piece of cake, the orange fading rapidly. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“So,” Miriam said, “we need to take a look at those other farms, then keep an eye on things.”
Beaufort nodded. “We’ll talk to the dryad ourselves first—”
“But I already—” Gilbert started, and his sister tweaked his tail hard enough to make him yelp.
“Don’t interrupt, you toadstool.”
“Ow,” he said sulkily.
“Then check the farms,” Beaufort continued. “Shall we see if Alice can drive us?”
Miriam wrinkled her nose. “No, I don’t really think she can,” she said.
“Why not?” Beaufort asked, and Miriam launched into the quite astonishing story of sabotaged cars and threatening letters and corrupt land developers, while Mortimer sank lower and lower to the grass and wished he’d said absolutely nothing about going to look at farms or being defenders of the Folk.
“And so Alice is under police protection, and has no car,” Miriam finished finally. Her voice had gone a little shaky as the story went on, and Mortimer had a feeling she’d been able to forget about it a little while dealing with dragonish issues. He put a paw on her knee gently, and she smiled at him.
“How awfully frightening,” he told her, and meant it.
She sighed. “It was. I’m not very good at these things.”
“Me either,” Mortimer admitted.
“You’re both quite wrong, of course,” Beaufort rumbled. “You’re marvellous at this sort of thing. We couldn’t do without you.”
Miriam frowned at him. “But it’s just so silly. Why do these things keep happening to us?”
“Because sometimes that’s just the way things work,” Beaufort said. “It could have been the next village along. It could have been ten years ago, or ten years from now, and the whole situation could have been different. But it’s here, now. With us. So we can stay out of it and hope things will somehow fix themselves, even when we know they won’t, or we can try and do better. That’s the choice. One that must be made one way or another.”
Mortimer looked at his claws, carving small divots out of the soft ground, and wished Beaufort weren’t so right. But he supposed that was what came of a millennium of watching, of keeping his clan alive through the rise of humanity and the crumbling of the magical Folk. Of not just surviving, but adapting, learning, changing, over and over and over. No one could do that and not learn how to see things clearly.
But it was still annoying.
Miriam obviously thought so too, because she gave an enormous sigh and said, “Well, it’s not really a choice, then, is it? If it’s do something or risk Folk dying and land being destroyed and these horrible people just getting away with it all.”
“You’d be surprised how many people do think that’s a choice,” Beaufort said, and his voice was so quiet Mortimer wasn’t sure if the High Lord was talking to them or himself. He could taste sadness in the garden, like the colour of fading daffodils.
Miriam pulled the kitchen door shut behind her and marched over to the waiting dragons. She’d changed into baggy green combat trousers with flowers on the sides, a jacket and some hiking boots. She was also carrying a cricket bat.
“I’m ready,” she announced. There was a new and unusual set to her shoulders. “This is just ridiculous. Alice locked up and me half-afraid to drive, and you all worried? I’ve had quite enough of it!”
Mortimer had been in a car with Miriam before, and he wasn’t entirely unafraid of her driving himself, but before any of them could say anything a new voice said, “Enough of what?”
Miriam squeaked and raised the bat, then dropped it again, going pink. “Hello, Gert.”
“Hello, love.” She examined Miriam’s outfit with her hands on her hips, and said, “Where are you off to, then?”
“Well—” Miriam was interrupted by Jasmine, who popped her head around the side of the house, yelled, “They’re here!” and trotted to join them. She had a bag slung over one shoulder that was yipping and growling.
“Wonderful!” Beaufort exclaimed. “All my favourite people in one spot.” Jasmine gave him an enormous grin, and now Mortimer could see more members of the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute appearing around the house, Rose being towed by Angelus, and Teresa and Pearl doing some strange little skip and dance as they came, singing in not very tuneful voices, “Pop, goes the weasel!”
“Please would you stop that?” Priya said. “Honestly, I’m never getting it out of my head.”
Teresa burst out laughing, and Pearl said, “I’m sorry. It was the way that nice detective popped out of the car when we got to Alice’s. She looked so worried!”
“You’ve been to Alice’s?” Miriam asked. “Is she alright?�
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“She was fine,” Gert said, squeezing Miriam’s arm. “She said you’d had a bit of a hard day, though, and we should come see you.”
Miriam frowned. “She didn’t want company?”
“No, she said she had a headache,” Carlotta said. “Said we’d be better off seeing you and you’d catch us up on everything.”
“I hope she’s not up to anything foolish,” Miriam said. She had rested the cricket bat on the ground and folded both hands over the top of the handle, like a knight with a sword. “That would be just like her!”
“Are you alright, Miriam?” Rose asked, squinting up at her. “You look like you want to hit someone with that.”
“No,” Miriam said, then paused. “Yes. Yes, I’m so sick of this! We always end up caught up in these silly things, and I’m always scared, and I’m just sick of it!”
Mortimer thought that this was a rather new type of scared for Miriam. She was gripping the bat hard enough to turn her knuckles white, and glaring at the other women as if daring them to challenge her. He thought he’d quite like to feel the same way, but couldn’t quite muster anything other than an immense anxiety, and a growing concern for his scales.
“Well, then,” Priya said. “You’d better tell us all about it.”
It was the most unusual meeting of the Women’s Institute Mortimer had ever seen. Of course, Alice wasn’t there, which made it strange enough, but there were also no Tupperwares of cake and slices, and no one even put the kettle on. It was all very serious, and he whispered to Beaufort, “Is this wise?”
“I think they’re all terribly wise, in their own ways,” Beaufort replied, which wasn’t particularly helpful.
“And so we were just about to go and take a look at the farms,” Miriam concluded, looking at the women gathered at the garden table. There weren’t enough chairs to go around, and Rose and Jasmine and Teresa were all sitting on the ground. Jasmine had set her bag on her lap, and every now and then her nippy little Pomeranian, Primrose, pushed her teeth against the mesh in a most alarming way. A very decrepit Labrador had also trailed around the house and flopped down next to Pearl, then promptly started snoring. Miriam was still standing, refusing to let go of her cricket bat.