Once again the food was surprisingly great, and Hamish somehow managed to finish his two bowls of stew before I was done with my wrap. Once I’d finished eating, I absentmindedly spilled three sachets of sugar into my tea and took a sip. As soon as I swallowed, I felt warm from my head to my toes.
‘Why do you look so happy?’ Hamish wondered. ‘It’s just tea.’
‘But it’s not though. Almost everywhere I go, people make weak, crappy tea. Even when I’m very clear about wanting it strong, the stuff they serve up isn’t strong. It’s just slightly less weak. But this … this is the kind of tea a spoon could stand up in.’ To demonstrate, I grabbed the spoon I’d used to stir in my three sugars. As it stayed upright in the tea, I gasped.
Hamish laughed, and the spoon fell over. ‘Got you! I put a spell on your spoon. You’re going to be so easy to mess with.’
Just as I was giving him my very best glare, Cullen returned. ‘Anything for afters?’
‘No.’ Hamish let out a long, sad sigh. ‘We’re a bit too heartbroken to eat much today, what with Donal and Bradley having being murdered.’
‘You had two servings of stew,’ said Cullen.
‘Yes, but I’d normally have more.’
‘True,’ Cullen agreed.
‘So you heard about Bradley, then?’ I asked.
‘Of course I heard about Bradley. Nice little shop, so it was. I once bought a cuckoo clock there. His murder’s been on the news all day.’ He leaped over the bar in a way that made my heart race, then sank into a seat next to me with a grunt. ‘I’ve had those stupid Wayfarers questioning me about it this morning.’
‘You?’ I tried to look innocent. ‘Why on earth would they question you?’
‘Don’t act like you don’t know, Katy Cakes. Everyone knows I’ve done time. Not for murder, though, so I’m more than a little irritated that they questioned me. Still, I had an alibi. I was at a Warlock Society meeting when it happened.’ He pointed to a poster next to the bar. ‘See? It started at lunchtime yesterday, and I was there for hours. I mean, you know how long those things go on for.’
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘But seeing as you have all of those women to complain about, probably a very long time.’
He gave me a small smirk. ‘And now I have another annoying female to add to my list,’ he said as he hopped back over the bar and disappeared out the back.
‘Aw, I see you’ve made a friend,’ said Hamish.
I forced a smile on my face. ‘I’ve always been a popular girl. So what do you think? Was he telling the truth?’
‘Seems like it, unfortunately. The Wayfarers would have checked his alibi out, so there’d be no point in him lying. I’m beginning to think that we’ve spent the entire morning doing nothing but chasing our tails.’
‘Maybe,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Anyway, I’m going to pop to the loo, okay? And then maybe we can head over to Jonathan’s and check on Diane.’
I left him staring into his empty bowl and ran to the loo. The toilets were situated near Derek Carey’s tiny office, the room in which I’d been questioned after Donal’s death. As I was on my way back to the bar, the door was open just a crack, and I could hear Cullen and Derek talking in the office.
‘I’m glad the Wayfarers didn’t come in again this morning,’ said Derek. ‘Maybe it means they’ve finally stopped hassling you. I mean, it’s hardly likely that you’d kill anyone. They have to know that.’
‘I doubt they do know it,’ Cullen replied. ‘They’ll be in sooner or later. Anyway, here’s the coffee you asked for.’
There was a slurping sound, before Derek said, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Cullen. Really I don’t. You’re an amazing cook, a great barman, and you’re a warlock, just like me. Two peas in a pod, you and me. Speaking of being a warlock, I’ll take over the bar for the afternoon so you can head to the meeting. I know you’ll be keen to catch up, seeing as you weren’t at yesterday’s powwow.’
Cullen was saying something in response, but I didn’t stay to listen. Instead I ran back to the bar and said, ‘Come on Hamish. Let’s get going.’
22. Part of the Furniture
Ned had closed the shop for lunch, and all of us sat gathered around her kitchen table. Well, all of us except Cleo. She was busy munching a plate of chicken on the floor.
‘What?’ she said as Diane looked her way. ‘I’ll help brainstorm once I’ve eaten.’
Diane yawned, then said, ‘Whatever. I just can’t believe it could really be Cullen behind all of this. I mean, isn’t he far too good-looking to need to resort to murder?’
Ned rolled her eyes. ‘Sure, because only ugly people commit crimes. Look, it is Cullen. It has to be. You turned him down, which gives him a motive. He had the opportunity, too. He poured Donal’s drink, which means he had a better chance than anyone to poison it. And we know he wasn’t where he said he was when Bradley was killed. I bet we’d find the same if we went back through all of the other murders.’ She looked expectantly my way. ‘What do you think, Katy?’
I pulled at my hair, thinking. What did I think? I thought that Cullen really did have the means, motive and opportunity. But if that was the case, then why weren’t the Wayfarers all over him?
‘I don’t get it,’ I admitted. ‘I mean, I thought that Wanda and her boss suspected him, but according to the conversation I overheard between Cullen and Diane’s dad, they haven’t even questioned him yet about the latest murder. I was sure they’d look closer at him.’
Jonathan swilled his coffee around his mug. ‘When you’ve been here a bit longer, things like that won’t surprise you. They’ve already made up their mind that it’s Diane, possibly in cahoots with one of us. I reckon they think it’s Hamish, given the way you said Finn and Todge laid into him at poor old Bradley’s shop. They’re not going to waste their energy looking at other people – even if there are more likely suspects. No, we’re on our own on this one. We need proof that it’s Cullen.’
‘But how do we do that, short of catching him in the act?’ asked Diane, following it up with another yawn.
I stood up, hands behind my back, doing my best impression of someone who knew what they were talking about. ‘We set him up, that’s what we do. Look, if he is doing this because he’s crazy for you, Diane, then we should give you to him. And why not make it even more tempting? Why not give him one of your boyfriends, too?’
She gawped at me. ‘I don’t have any more boyfriends, Katy, and I’m not about to go out and get one just so Cullen can kill him too.’
I did my best to keep smiling. I’d given Jonathan a lecture about victim blaming, so I wasn’t about to start myself. But if she’d given up dating a bit sooner, a lot of guys would still be alive. ‘Yes,’ I said patiently, ‘but Cullen doesn’t have to know that, does he? All we need to do is make him think you’re going on a date. Maybe with Jonathan. And if we also let him know where that date is, then I’m betting we could catch him in the act.’
Diane frowned, then yawned, then frowned again. ‘But how do we let him know? And when you talk about catching him in the act … I mean, how are you going to stop him before Jonathan gets all cold and murdered?’
Ned gritted her teeth. ‘Good goddess, Diane, I love you and everything, but you’re being a bit thick right now.’
‘Hey!’ Jonathan glared at Ned. ‘Don’t call Diane thick!’
‘Sorry.’ Ned stood up and joined me, looking down at the others. ‘You’re not thick. You’re just … a bit slow and yawny today. Look, we all have magic here. Well, everyone but poor old Katy. So we can be lying in wait for Cullen, can’t we? Invisible. So when he thinks he’s about to break up your date, murder Jonathan and kidnap you so the two of you can live unhappily ever after, we’ll pounce and take him down. We’ll film it all too, so the Wayfarers will have to believe us.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘Look, it’s only quarter to two. So Jonathan, me and you will go over to the Bank for a spot of lunch, and make sure Culle
n overhears us talking about your big date tonight.’ She looked at me. ‘What do you think, Katy?’
I put an arm around her slim waist. ‘I think you’re a genius.’
She grinned. ‘No, you are.’
Cleo, having finally finished her chicken, said, ‘Fools seldom differ, do they? Anyway, let’s get to it.’
≈
Just under an hour later, Ned returned. Cullen, it seemed, had taken the bait. He’d hovered awfully close to their table when they spoke about Jonathan’s eight o’clock dinner date with Diane. And just in case it didn’t seem obvious enough, Jonathan had hung back to buy a bottle of Diane’s favourite wine.
‘So,’ said Ned. ‘We have a lot to do between now and then. We said that the date is happening in Jonathan’s apartment, so he’s heading home to handle the booby traps over there – we want to make sure once Cullen goes in, he can’t get back out again. And I want to make sure I can do a powerful enough invisibility spell to keep Katy covered, too. We’ll want something that disguises any noises we make, too, seeing as we’ll be recording the whole thing.’ She looked at Diane, who was standing up and yawning again. ‘Where are you off to?’
‘I’m knackered,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to head back to Jonathan’s for a snooze before tonight. His beds are amazing. It’s like sleeping on a cloud.’
Ned frowned. ‘But don’t you want to stay and help us prepare our invisibility spells?’
Diane wrinkled up her nose. ‘I don’t need to, do I? I’m the bait.’ With that, she grabbed her handbag, tossed her hair and (after a couple more yawns) swept majestically out of the apartment.
Although Ned seemed a little put out, she soldiered on. For the next hour, she worked hard to keep me, Hamish and herself invisible.
‘No spells necessary for me,’ Cleo informed us. ‘If a cat doesn’t want to be seen, then she won’t be seen.’
I slumped down into a chair, wishing I were a cat. At the moment I was nothing but a liability. Even the video recorder they used – something called a Holovisual Recorder – needed magic to work. With Hamish concentrating on that, and Ned trying to make us all unseen and unheard, I was a bit of a useless addition.
‘Maybe I should stay behind,’ I told Ned. ‘I want to be part of this, but it’s taking a lot of power on your behalf trying to make me invisible as well.’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘You need to be there. I feel it in my bones.’ Her blue eyes widened. ‘I do have a spell that’ll take less energy on my part, actually.’
Hamish grinned. ‘Your Part of the Furniture spell?’
‘Exactly!’ she said triumphantly, pulling me up and moving me to the middle of the room.
‘This here friend I do entreat
To change right now here at my feet
No longer a woman shall she be
A fish tank instead, the eye shall see
When my fingers do snap she shall change back
My friend shall stand in this here flat.’
I felt instantly different, and yet still very much me. A little water-logged and rectangular-shaped, maybe, but I could still see and hear. Hamish picked a mirror up in his mouth, showing me my reflection. I was, indeed, a fish tank.
As I stood there on the floor in my fish-tank form, it was as if the final nail banged its way into the coffin of my uncle’s theories. He worried so much about what witches might do if they had sufficient enough power. Would they destroy all humans and take over the world? Would they enslave us and farm us for food? These were just a couple of the theories I’d heard from him while we studied his manuals the other night. But now I knew that those – and probably all of his other theories – were bullplop of the highest order.
From what I’d seen so far, witches already had more than sufficient power. If they wanted to enslave humans or kill us all, they’d have done it by now.
Nedina snapped her fingers, and I changed back.
‘Wow,’ I said, feeling giddy. I was just about to tell Nedina how amazing she was, when my stomach let out a loud rumble.
‘Told you – you should have had the stew, so you should.’ Hamish looked up from the floor, where he was using his magic to hold his recording device aloft.
‘Actually, I didn’t eat much either,’ Ned said. ‘I was too nervous when Jonathan and me were at the Bank. I could really do with a great big sugar rush around now. Preferably one that contains chocolate. Ooh! A chocolate muffin, that’ll do the job.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Do you think we have time? I still have to practise my freezing and binding spells, just in case Jonathan’s booby-trap spells don’t do the job.’
‘I’ll go,’ I offered.
‘You can’t,’ said Hamish. ‘You’ve no idea where to get Ned’s favourite muffins. Look, I’ll go with you. I fancy quite a large piece of chocolate cake, and I’ll need you to pay for it and carry it.’
‘Yay,’ I said unenthusiastically, following him to the door. ‘See you in a few, Ned.’
≈
As Hamish led me down a set of stone steps and into a dark, misty alleyway, I couldn’t help but shiver. We were in a small area called Hopeless Hollow. And I felt that hopelessness in the air, the moment we arrived. We were never going to manage this. Cullen would kill Jonathan and Diane, and then he’d probably murder all of us, too.
‘Ah.’ Hamish looked knowingly my way. ‘It’s getting to you – the air here. There’s a long and tragic story behind why this place feels so hopeless, but for now let’s just go and get the remedy.’ He nodded to a small place called Dolly’s Café. ‘Her hot chocolate would cheer up the dead.’
As I held open the door for the dog, I gave him a scathing stare. ‘If we hadn’t come to Hopeless Hollow then I wouldn’t need cheering up, would I?’
He gave me an insufferable grin and sauntered into the shop. It was clean, warm, and old-fashioned, with doilies on every single table. ‘A large chocolate cake, two chocolate muffins and three hot chocolates please, Dolly,’ he said to the woman behind the counter. She was a beautiful, curvy woman in her forties, with pale skin and incredibly black hair.
‘No problem, my lovely.’ She leaned over the counter and patted his head. ‘Clarissa’s got a fresh batch coming out of the oven any minute now. Just go and take a seat.’
As we waited at a table by the window, I couldn’t help but notice that something very large and … hairy? … was moving around in the kitchen.
‘Don’t look too hard,’ whispered Hamish, ‘or you might not like what you see. Clarissa is the baker here. She also makes the doilies. She’s a Great Sumatran Muffin Eater.’
I fought the urge to flee. A giant spider that baked cakes? What was unusual about that? ‘Shouldn’t she be a Great Sumatran Muffin Baker?’
‘Whatever you do, do not say that to the spider. Here she is now.’
He looked back at the counter, where the enormous creature was boxing up our order. Not only was she huge, hairy, and a baker, but she was also, for some reason, wearing eight high-heeled shoes and an apron. ‘Order’s up, Hamish!’ she called.
As we walked to the counter (my legs might have been visibly shaking) I noticed that her many eyes weren’t on us anymore. Instead, she was looking out the window. She waved a dish towel around, fanning herself as she said, ‘Oh, I would bake him muffins all night long.’
As I looked to see who she was talking about, I saw Cullen outside the window, moving quickly along the street with his hands in his pockets. He crossed the road and headed to a small alleyway next to a potion shop.
‘Pay up, quickly,’ said Hamish. ‘I think I might know where he’s going.’
As I handed some coins to the spider-woman (yes, her limbs felt both prickly and sticky), Hamish continued. ‘That alley is a shortcut to the Hanging Green. It’s a huge park, and some of the most expensive houses and apartment buildings in this enclave are built over there. Buildings like the one where Jonathan lives.’
23. Snoring Beauty
‘There
’s no time to argue!’ I cried. There was a reason for my shouting, and that was because we had been arguing for at least five minutes, ever since the moment Hamish and I arrived back at the flat. We’d tried phoning Jonathan and Diane, but neither of them were replying. ‘Jonathan could be dead already, so the way I see it is that we have two choices. We call the Wayfarers, or we deal with this ourselves.’
‘No Wayfarers.’ Nedina shook her head emphatically. ‘They’ll find some way to pin this on us, I know they will.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Well then can you do some spell to get us there quicker? Because Cullen has one heck of a head start.’
≈
Ned did have a spell to get us there quicker (yes, I was becoming very envious of her magic). She grabbed onto my hand, while I held onto Hamish and, with a simple click of her fingers, we all arrived at the Hanging Green. But when we got there, Ned didn’t look quite as amazed by herself as I was.
‘What’s wrong?’
Cleo, who had arrived in her own special way, said, ‘We should be inside Jonathan’s apartment, not on the street outside, that’s what’s wrong. Lots of people in Samhain Street have their property blocked to arriving via magical means – you know, because of the interesting nature of some of our activities. But Jonathan usually has his place open to his friends.’
I tried the doors leading into the building’s foyer, but they were firmly locked and, although we could see a doorman hanging around, he completely ignored us.
‘Doesn’t he know you guys are Jonathan’s friends?’
‘We never go through the doors – I’ve only ever gone straight up to visit Jonathan via finger-click. And this isn’t the kind of building where the doormen will allow you to argue with them.’ Ned began to play worriedly with one of her many beaded bracelets. ‘I’ll try his phone again,’ she said.
While she listened to his phone ringing out, I took in my new surroundings. Just as Hamish had told me, the Hanging Green was an enormous park, with a line of old mansions on one side, a line of shops on another, and the rest of the sides lined with fancy new apartment buildings. Jonathan clearly had a very good job. Either that, or a father who didn’t mind sharing his wads of cash with his offspring. Not that I was bitter about the fact that my dad hadn’t sent me a birthday or Christmas present since I was five. He did send me a card one year, but it was addressed to Cathy, whoever she might be.
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