Witch Silenced in Westerham

by Dionne Lister

  “I reckon Angelica would make a good patient.” I snorted. She’d be the worst patient ever. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when that horrible Queen Elizabeth lookalike locked horns with her.

  He imitated my Australian accent, “I reckon.” He resumed his normal sexy British accent. “She’d make a fantastic patient, as long as the carers enjoy bossy, stubborn patients.” We laughed.

  Instead of dropping me home, Will turned down the road that led to PIB headquarters.

  “Why are you taking me to work?”

  “If this thing with my gran needs to be investigated, we’ll want to chase as many leads as possible. I’d like to interview you about everything that happened with the staff and what you remember Gran saying. I need descriptions of staff and patients you’ve seen, especially from last night.” He drove into the PIB entry and buzzed security.

  “Great to see you, Agent Blakesley,” said the voice through the intercom.

  Will gave a quick wave to the security camera as the gates slowly swung open. We passed through, and he parked in the outside parking lot near the building entrance. Doing this the non-witch way was so much more involved and tedious. We’d have to go through a security check. I hadn’t realised exactly how much I enjoyed having witch privileges.

  “Hey, how come there aren’t any security checks when someone comes in via the reception room?”

  We hopped out of the car, and he locked it with his fob. “We have facial recognition surveillance in there. If you’re not programmed into the system, you won’t be admitted without a full security check.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Glad you approve.” He smirked, and I gently punched his arm.

  “Smart arse.”

  “You know it.”

  After the rigmarole of going through the metal detector and checking in weapons—Will, not me—my name was recorded in the book as a visitor, and we made our way to the lift. “Why don’t they computerise sign ins here too?”

  “When you came in through the reception room, you were always here for a work meeting. You’re here as a witness today.”

  I didn’t see there was much difference, but whatever. It wasn’t necessary to understand bureaucracy to be inconvenienced by it. And I’d spent enough time going through their motions today—my brain wasn’t going to waste any more effort on the whys.

  Will led me two floors up to his office, which was a cosy room. Eggshell-blue walls complimented the charcoal-grey carpet and white timber bookshelves. Two framed degrees hung on the wall to the left of his desk. The wall to the right had three framed photos. I wandered closer to have a good look while he sat at his desk and watched quietly. He had switched his face to poker mode, so I had no idea what he was thinking.

  There was a photo of a forty-something-year-old Edith with a dark-haired man. They both wore formal clothes and gentle smiles. The man in his dark suit and white shirt reminded me of Will, except he had bright-blue eyes. They shared the same defined jaw and straight nose, even the way the man in the picture held his head with chin tipped slightly up was familiar. “Your grandfather?”

  He nodded and smiled. “He was a kind, gentle man. Me, my sister, and brother used to stay with them in school holidays. He always took time off work to do things with us. He died about ten years ago. Gran was never the same. They were as happy as you could expect to be after fifty-five years of marriage.”

  “Wow, that’s a long time.” Hang on. Had he said “siblings?” My gaze shifted to the other pictures. A young Will, his sister, and a boy who was a bit bigger than Will stood in front of a man and woman who must be his parents. “How old are you here?”

  “Seven. That’s my older brother, Ian. He was nine there. He died two years later.”

  “What happened?”

  “Drunk driver. We were walking to school, and this guy mounted the grass verge and ploughed into him. Missed Sarah and me by inches.” He hung his head for a moment, then met my gaze. “He’d been dawdling behind us, and I gave him a hard time, told him to hurry up, so being the cheeky sod he was, he ran ahead. That’s when it happened.” The pain in his eyes eclipsed what I’d seen at the nursing home.

  My heart broke for him the second time that day.

  I walked to his desk and cupped his face in my hands. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault, you know. You weren’t driving that car drunk. It was just stupid bad, terrible luck—wrong place at the wrong time. I bet if Ian were around now, he would tell you the same thing.” He shut his eyes, and a tear wobbled down his cheek and onto my hand. I pulled him to me and cradled his head against my stomach. We stayed that way for a few minutes.

  He pulled back. “Thanks, Lily. The guilt will never leave. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t—”

  “Please don’t say that. I won’t ever think differently. It wasn’t your fault.” I bit my tongue to stop my own tears. The stuff people carried around that you couldn’t even guess at, stuff that could never be fixed or changed, stuff that could weigh a heart down so much that it almost stopped beating. I knew how that felt, when each step was like walking through molasses, when you couldn’t get enough air, when each moment of joy was tempered with melancholy.

  Somehow, I’d find a way to heal him, take away the guilt. I couldn’t bear to see him suffering.

  Even with my good intentions, it was time to change the subject. I looked over at the third photo—Beren and Will standing next to each other grinning and holding out their PIB badges to the camera. “Graduation day?”

  “Yep.” He was understandably still subdued.

  “I didn’t know you carried a badge. It’s not like you can show it to everyone.”

  “Would you like to see my badge?” He smirked. Ah, there he was, the Will I lov— ahem, adored.

  “Is it a big badge?”

  “Big enough. It’s impressed all the witches I’ve ever shown.”

  “I’d like to make up my own mind. Whip it out. Let me see.” I tried to keep a straight face, but it was no use. I snorted.

  He reached into his drawer, took it out, and handed it to me. I hefted the black triangle in my palm. “Weird shape. It is nice and smooth though.” I ran my finger over the slick metallic surface that had his name engraved into it in golden script with the words “Agent of the PIB” after it. I grinned. “It is kind of pretty, with the sparkly golden writing.”

  “No one’s ever called it pretty before.” He pulled a mock-offended face, then grinned.

  I handed the badge back, and he stuck it in his pants pocket. “Do you want to get the interview done now?” I sat in one of two black guest chairs that faced his desk.

  “Good idea.” He took a small black square out of his middle desk drawer. The object was about the size of a fancy make-up compact. “This is a recording device. I’m going to turn it on and confirm your name and date of birth, then give you a disclaimer about the evidence being used in court and that giving us false information is a crime. We’ll get into the questions after that. Any questions?”

  I shook my head. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter 4

  Sitting between James and Will at James’s dining table, I yawned. It had been a long day, starting with the visit to the care home and ending in a meeting for our little group. We’d just started. Everyone sat with a notebook in front of them and either a cup of tea or glass of water.

  Angelica created a bubble of silence and brought the meeting to order. “First on the agenda is naming this secret operation. I’ve made an executive decision and called it Operation Snakecatcher.”

  “Nice!” I couldn’t help but voice my approval. Those evil witches were snakes, and we were definitely going to catch them.

  Angelica had the hint of a smile. “I’m glad you approve, Lily. We’re going to go through the roles and chain of command. I’m the boss, obviously, and I will be making all the important decisions, with consultation, of course.” She nodded at James. “James is second in charge, and he’ll keep me
updated with the more important details as he sees fit. We’ll have a meeting here once a week where we’ll go over the information we’ve found and assess how to continue. Millicent and Olivia are going to be collating information from the office and doing any research, setting up any special support we may need. Our agents on the ground are William, Beren, James, and Lily.”

  I put up my hand.

  “Yes, Lily?”

  “I’m not an agent, Ma’am.”

  “Do you want to join the PIB?”

  “No, sorry. Other than helping out sometimes and getting to the bottom of what this group is up to, I don’t have any desire to be doing this 24/7. I really would prefer to work in my photography business.” I’d had a few good jobs lately with two weddings, an engagement, and various corporate photo shoots. I’d even worked for large companies based in London. I loved that every assignment was different and temporary. I didn’t have to like the people I was photographing, and I’d never have to see them again if I didn’t want to. Not that I hated anyone in the PIB. I knew I definitely didn’t want to be married to the job, which everyone else around this table was.

  “Then you’re a consultant and support staff in the field. You will defer to any agent you’re in the field with at the time. You must follow orders, Lily. Am I understood?” She raised a brow. I couldn’t blame her for making the point. I tended to operate on gut instinct, and I’d ignored requests before. I never intended to, but it sometimes just happened. Kind of like when you expected the day to be sunny, and the rain came. Maybe I was English weather in a previous life. I snorted.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  She gave me a beady-eyed look. I must have snorted at the wrong time.

  I straightened my face further and put my right palm, fingers pointing to the ceiling, in the air. “I promise on my coffee machine.” She had to know I was serious.

  “Hey, I gave you that machine. I'm not getting you another one. Just so you know.” Will was so cute when he was cranky.

  “Yes, I know. I will do as ordered.” I almost said, “No questions asked,” but that would be a lie, and they’d never believe it anyway.

  “Next item on the agenda is where we’re at today. What evidence do we have? I’m going to hand out information sheets. Once you’ve read them and you don’t need them, you are to touch the paper—it doesn’t matter if it’s a whole hand or just a finger—and direct a trickle of magic to the paper. It will set off a return-to-file spell. This sensitive information is held in a secret location protected by numerous spells. If you want to access these papers again, you’ll need to put in a request with either Olivia or Millicent, and they’ll see that you receive the papers, which you can only read whilst here. We’ve created additional protection spells around this house. It would take a witch army to get through. If there is ever an attack, you are to come here immediately. Am I clear?”

  We all nodded. Beren said, “Yes, Ma’am.”

  I turned to Millicent. “Are you okay with people popping in whenever? I mean, the baby’ll be here soon, and you’ll need privacy.”

  “This situation is temporary, so don’t worry. Angelica and James are scouting out locations for a more permanent base. We would use the PIB offices, but we may not have weeded out all of Dana’s informants yet. If things get too crazy, I can go to my parents’, but to be honest, I feel safer here with all the extra protections, and I love you guys. You’re always welcome. Once the baby comes, if we’re still operating out of here, we’ll arrange something for when I’m asleep or feeding the baby.” She smiled. It was so true that pregnant women glowed. Apparently, the hormones did awesome stuff to their skin. There had to be some benefit to carrying a parasite, didn’t there? Just joking. I already loved this baby, and it wasn’t even mine.

  A small pile of paper appeared in front of each person. It took me ten minutes to read through it. It had a profile report on Dana, her history, everything the PIB knew about her. A breakdown of the key points of the tea-and-violence incident. Interviews conducted with the witch caught and imprisoned for the crime. (He was yet to stand trial, but the judge declined bail, which was common with witch cases since witches could disappear with the wave of a hand.) It even included pictures of the snake tattoos found on both men I’d killed, photos of those two men, the limited information we had on them, and printouts of the photos I’d taken at the warehouse of Dana’s partner. The label under the photo said, “Name Unknown.”

  So this was our starting point. We had a ton of work to do.

  As daunting as it seemed, a little tumbleweed of excitement rolled through my stomach. I could accomplish a lot with my Nikon and witch-given talent.

  Angelica waved her arm. A massive whiteboard appeared. It hovered in the air to the right of Angelica. She got up and stood next to it. A photo of Dana’s gorgeous but ugly—because someone that evil would never be beautiful in my eyes—face was in the centre of the board with lines drawn outwards. One line went to the man we thought was her partner, and another line went to a picture of Gabriel’s face—the witch who would spend life in prison for his crime of poisoning Kent’s tea. A line went from the guy with a snake tattoo to a picture of the other thugs with the same tattoo.

  Angelica swirled her finger in a circle, and a red circle appeared around the picture of Dana’s tattooed friend. “His image hasn’t shown up in any international PIB or UK police records. We’ve been in touch with the New York office, and they said Dana was single, as far as they knew. We couldn’t send them the photo because we shouldn’t have any photos of him, and if she has accomplices over there, they’ll know we’re onto them.”

  Hmm. “He looked kind of rich. He had that arrogance, and his clothes could pass for designer. I wonder if he’s ever appeared in social pages or on the Internet?”

  “Great idea, Lily.” Angelica turned to Olivia. “That’s a job for you, dear. I want you to scour the Internet for any images.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Liv grinned. It was awesome that she was enjoying the job so far.

  “Millicent, I’d like you to search PIB records for any other hotspots for witch crime in the world. Make a note of the places and crimes and report back to James, please.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Does anyone have anything they’d like to add?”

  We were supposed to have told Olivia about my mum’s diary ages ago. In fact, it had been planned for the night the violence in Westerham started, but we had to cancel because James and Millicent were called into work, and Olivia had to help her father transport her mum to hospital after she’d taken a violent turn. Now was the time to dive in. Who knew: the diaries could be crucial to this investigation.

  “I do.”

  Angelica sat and flicked her hand. The whiteboard disappeared. “Yes, Lily?”

  I looked at everyone in turn, James last. He gave me a small nod. This was the last private thing we had of Mum’s. Once I tossed it into the ideas pile, it would never truly be ours again, and her words wouldn’t be private anymore, but she wouldn’t have minded—I was sure of it. I acknowledged the tingle of potential tears in the back of my nose and mouth but pushed on. “My mother left James and me her diaries. There are four. They have some mundane stuff, like normal daily things”—I smiled, remembering some of the days she’d chosen to record—“but there are also entries that paint a picture of where she and my dad were whenever they came here.”

  Angelica interrupted to clarify. “Lily’s parents worked for us—her father as her mother’s bodyguard. Sorry, please continue.”

  “In the last few weeks, I must have read them each a hundred times.” James and I shared a smile. He’d read the diaries over and over again too, and many of the memories were good ones. “When I first went through them and figured out my witch talent with the camera, I decided to go to places Mum had mentioned in the diary. So when I went to the National Gallery and had that meltdown, Liv, it was because I’d seen my parents through the lens, standing in front of the Ca
naletto.” Everyone but Olivia knew about what happened that day.

  Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, my goodness! No wonder you were a mess.”

  “Yeah.” I half laughed. “I couldn’t tell you the truth, or you would’ve thought I was a nutter. I took photos again when we went to Churchill’s house. So far, I haven’t come up with much, but there was a Porsche they’d driven. I took a photo of the number plate. Then, the other week when I felt like we’d been followed to the tea place your mum had been to, I got you to read out the number plate on the other Porsche. They’re different numbers, but I’m wondering if we can get them checked, see who they’re registered to.”

  Angelica pursed her lips. “Hmm, that’s a bit of a long shot, but Millicent can run them through the system.”

  “Anyway,” I continued, “I’ve narrowed down a list of places I’ll need to photograph. Maybe I’ll see what happened to them or pick up a trail that’s been cold for ten years.”

  Will slipped his hand around mine and gently squeezed. “I know that can’t be easy, Lily. You don’t know what you’re going to see. I’ll be with you every click of the shutter button, okay?”

  He really was a sweetie. My gut had been right. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” I was scared of what I might find, but this needed to happen. James and I craved answers, and whoever took my parents should be punished. The price I’d pay would be worth it. And who knew how many other people we’d save by taking them down?

  James’s gaze was kind—he knew more than anyone how hard this was for me. “Where do you plan on going next?”

  “The Ritz Restaurant at the Ritz Hotel.”

  James nodded, likely recalling Mum’s diary entry that had described having lunch there with Dad the year before they disappeared. They’d been to London that March for two weeks.

  “I’m going to have to book a table. I can’t see any other way I can get inside and have time to take enough photos otherwise. They’re likely to not let me in, in the first place, or kick me out before I’ve been able to get anything.”