Wrapping Up

by A. A. Albright

  ‘We’re working on that,’ I said, looking at the suit behind the counter. It was incredibly well cut, and it looked like the sort of thing Gabriel would wear on his TV show. ‘How much do your suits go for, anyway?’

  ‘That one would fetch a hundred gold rounds,’ she said. ‘But I have suits that start at as little as ten.’

  ‘Ten. Ten gold rounds. So ... five hundred quid?!’ Okay, so Gabriel was going to have to like the watch I’d bought him or lump it, because he wasn’t going to be getting one of those suits.

  She bit her lip, suppressing a laugh. ‘Quid? Oh, that’s right – you spent a lot of time in the human world, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did. And it wasn’t half bad, as it happens. Same silly issues, same smarmy politicians, only when they fight they do it with guns and exploding bombs instead of wiggling fingers and exploding spells. I imagine suits probably go for just as much there, too, but I never had reason to check, so I can’t be sure.’

  Why was I babbling? Oh, that’s right – because I hadn’t slept the night before and had knocked back four cups of coffee and a couple of energy drinks to compensate. ‘So, Gráinne, there is a reason I came to speak with you. When you spoke with Christine and I the other day, you mentioned your mother didn’t get along with your husbands?’

  Her head snapped up. ‘What do my husbands have to do with anything?’

  ‘Quite a lot, actually.’ I heard a harsh tone creep into my voice, and I did nothing to counter it – because if anything happened to my mother, I wouldn’t be getting snippy with the people who were trying to help. ‘We need to speak with anyone who might have had a grudge against your mother, and according to your own words, that could include your husbands.’

  Her eyes darted about like a cartoon baddie. ‘You don’t need to talk to them,’ she insisted. ‘One is dead. The other is long gone. And ... they had nothing to do with this.’

  I decided to take a punt – one I sincerely hoped would come to nothing. ‘What about your third husband though, Gráinne?’

  She swallowed, and her animated eye darting turned into animated lash fluttering. ‘I don’t have a third husband.’

  ‘Really? But you applied for a marriage licence. I saw it with my own eyes in your file at the Licensing, Records and Registry Department.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head emphatically – and animatedly. ‘I didn’t. I don’t know what you think you saw, but it was a mistake. Someone over in that place made a mistake.’

  I tried to look her in the eye, but I found my nose twitching again. Another sneeze was coming, and I couldn’t stop it. ‘Sorry,’ I said after I sneezed four times in a row. ‘But I can’t help it. There’s a really strong smell of cologne in here.’

  ‘Yes. Well, my gentlemen do like to buy themselves the best.’

  ‘The best?’ My eyes were as wide as they were watery. ‘Jeez, if that’s the best I don’t want to smell the worst. Anyway, Gráinne ...’ I sighed. ‘You have to help me out here. Because much as I want to believe you, I have the feeling you’re holding something back.’

  Now she was doing the whole deal – eyes darting, lashes fluttering, head shaking. ‘I’m holding nothing back!’ she shouted. ‘You need to get out there and find my mother’s killer, that’s what you need to do – instead of coming in here and sneezing all over me while I’m grieving. Go on. Leave me in peace.’

  I stood at the counter just a moment more – long enough to get another three sneezes out of my system, and then I walked away, saying, ‘I’m doing everything I can on that score, Gráinne. Believe me.’

  ≈

  I didn’t know how to feel after my conversation with Grainne. I was sure she was keeping something back from me, and I was even more certain that she was lying about the marriage licence application. But did it have anything to do with the case? And, if so, then what did that mean for Mrs Dove?

  Finn had texted me while I was busy sneezing all over grieving relatives, and I knew he was already at Wayfarers’ Rest. He would be one of our dinner guests this year, and I was looking forward to having yet another friend at the table. Finn himself probably wasn’t looking quite as forward to it, seeing as the whole reason he was coming was because he was on the outs with his mother. Mizz Plimpton was an idiot, as far as I was concerned. She should be thanking her lucky stars that she had a son as upstanding as Finn – not throwing a hissy fit because he had put her evil sister in jail.

  Seeing as he was probably sitting by the fire with his feet up and a brandy in his hand round about now, I should have just gone home to join him. But I couldn’t get Mrs Dove’s over-zealous confessions out of my mind, so I decided to bring my visit to her forward.

  I walked by the holding pen, where the warlock was now telling a male witch all about the benefits of joining the Warlock Society. Apparently, swift legal counsel wasn’t included in those benefits.

  I went to the vending machine, doing my best not to listen to the man’s strident voice, and bought some tea and a sandwich for Mrs Dove. When I reached the interrogation room and opened the door, her face lit up with relief.

  ‘Thank the stars. I thought you were going to leave me in here all night.’

  I sat down across from her, and passed her the sandwich and tea. ‘Yeah, I had the feeling that you don’t like being alone.’

  ‘Of course I don’t like being alone. Who does? But I always am alone, anyway. That’s the way it’s been my whole life long.’

  ‘Is it, though?’ I sipped at my own tea. ‘I know that your husband died when Mark was young. But you still had your little boy. And now you have your grandchildren. And the Crafty Ladies, too.’

  ‘Yes, but they don’t like me. No one likes me.’ Her hands were shaking so much that her tea began to splash over the rim of her cup. ‘Except Winnie. She liked me. Even when I ... even when I did something really stupid, she still tried to be my friend.’

  ‘So then why did you kill her?’

  She looked away from me, tracing circles in the spilled tea on the tabletop. ‘I ... I ... I can’t tell you why.’

  My stomach was beginning to rumble. I should have bought myself a sandwich as well. Actually, no, I shouldn’t. If my mother found out I ate a sandwich this close to Solstice dinner, my life wouldn’t be worth living.

  ‘I have to say, Mrs Dove, I find all of this very strange. You keep saying she was your only friend. If I only had one friend, the last thing in the world I’d want to do is kill them.’ I paused. ‘Unless it has something to do with whatever the two of you were fighting about. That thing that you wanted Winnie to give back to you.’

  Her hands began to shake again, and she pushed the cup over, spilling tea all over herself and me. ‘I’ve told you, I’m not going to talk about that. It was a big mistake, and it doesn’t even matter anymore. Just send me to Witchfield. Please. You might as well just get it over with, because I’m not going to tell you what you want to know.’

  I waved my fingers, creating a quick spell to dry her clothes and mine. ‘Mrs Dove, here’s what I think. I think that if I charge you right now with killing Winnie, I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Because there are way too many things that just don’t add up. I mean, you were seen running away from her house! You’re a witch, Mrs Dove. There are far better ways for you to leave a murder scene. Ways that wouldn’t get you seen by witnesses.’

  ‘I ... I was upset. I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘Oh, I believe that. I believe that you were very upset, Mrs Dove. I believe you probably went over there to make things up with Winnie after your argument the day before. And when you got there, you saw her dead body and ran away.’

  She went absolutely still for a moment. Bingo. ‘I know that there’s something else you’re not telling me. Something that you’re so ashamed of, you’d rather admit to murder than tell me what it is. Whatever you and Winnie were fighting over, it must have been really bad. Seeing as you’d prefer to go to Witchfield than tell me the truth. What was it, Mrs Do
ve? You can tell me.’

  She stared down at her hands. ‘Maybe I deserve to go to prison. Did you ever think of that?’

  ‘Maybe you do. But unless you tell me why you seem to think so, I’ll never know. Once you go to trial and plead guilty, that’ll be it, Mrs Dove. You’ll go to Witchfield, and whoever really did kill Winnie will get away with it. So I’m going to put that off as long as I can, in the hope that you come to your senses. I can hold you for twenty-four hours before I have to charge you with anything. So that’s what I’m going to do, Mrs Dove. If you feel like you want to tell me anything else, ring the bell by the door, and you’ll be given access to a telephone.’

  I heard her begin to sob, but I didn’t look at her. I just stood up and left the room.

  17. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

  The kitchen at Wayfarers’ Rest smelled better than ever – and looked it, too. The fire in the stove had been lit with the remainder of last year’s yule log, and it seemed to glow all the warmer for the fact.

  My parents both had rosy cheeks and glittering eyes, and though copious amounts of wine might have had something to do with it, I think that they were also incredibly happy to be spending the holiday together. They were constantly looking at one another, or sharing brief touches and kisses any time they could.

  Christine and Melissa would be leaving the following evening to spend the rest of the holiday period with Melissa’s human father, but for tonight they were stuffing their witchy faces with the rest of us.

  Finn was doing his best to pretend that he wasn’t upset to be spending Solstice with another coven, and Mischief was certainly attempting to make the lie a reality. He had never been so playful in all his life, bringing pieces of string and little plastic balls to Finn throughout the meal. Finn had brought his own familiar along, of course, a female tortoiseshell cat who was busy chatting with Princess and Queenie. They were all being surprisingly nice to the three blind mice. They even let the mice into the cat bed, and brought snacks over for them every few minutes. It seemed the Solstice spirit had inhabited even the animals.

  Dizzy was flying around the room, hyped up on mango juice. Every time he got close to the chess board on the coffee table, Max and my dad would keep a careful watch. They had yet another chess game going, and I knew that as soon as they got the chance, they’d be making their next moves.

  We had invited Lassie, too, but she told us she had something unavoidable to do. She promised that she’d come as soon as she was finished, and for Finn’s sake, I hoped it was soon.

  For the time being, everyone was far too busy eating to worry. The meal tasted better than anything I’d eaten all year. My dad cooked a goose, but most of it went to the cats while the rest of us feasted on the enormous veggie roast that Max had made.

  We set a pudding on fire afterwards and served it with coconut cream. By the time we finished it off, I felt fit to burst, so I just sat back and looked around, smiling at the people I loved most in the world. Most of them looked just as full and happy as I did, but when my eyes fell on Melissa, I saw that she was far from content. Her pudding was barely touched, and she looked like she was eager to spring out of her chair any moment.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked her quietly.

  She sighed. ‘I have work I need to finish by midnight. I’m just so irritated about it. I couldn’t even stomach a roast potato – and you know how I feel about roast potatoes.’

  ‘For Mr Rundt?’

  She nodded glumly.

  ‘Come on.’ I just about managed to heave my stuffed body from the chair. ‘I’ll help you. It’ll be a while before we open the pressies. Dad and Max are itching to get to the chess board, and Mam and Christine have just opened another bottle of wine, so no one’s going to miss us.’

  ‘What about Finn? He looks about as wretched as I feel.’

  I looked over at him, pouring himself a brandy and dangling a string in the air for Mischief. ‘He won’t look that way much longer,’ I said, nodding to the back door at the same time as Lassie walked in.

  Finn’s face lit up brighter than the Solas lights on the garland. To my delight, Lassie made straight for him, and gave him a shy little smile.

  ‘Okay, then,’ Melissa said decisively. ‘I suppose we can slip upstairs for a while. But when you see all the work I have to do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ≈

  When we got to Melissa’s room, she marched across to her desk and thumped an enormous pile of papers. ‘Welcome to my misery. Do you know what this is? This is Mr Rundt’s end of year expenses, and it has to be filed by midnight. Everything here is what he bought this year, except that he hasn’t recorded a single thing so far. I’m supposed to go through it all. I mean, I’m not an accountant, Wanda. I’m a Magical Law graduate. Why did he give it to me to do? And how the hell am I supposed to file it all in the next two hours?’

  I began to leaf through the pile of receipts. ‘Yeah, Mam told me you’d been stuck with doing this. But it’s okay. You might not be an accountant, but I am – or at least I used to be, anyway. I can figure it out. But I do think we need to talk to Agatha about this. There’s no point in your clerking for a lawyer unless you get to learn from them. And it looks like all you’re learning from Mr Rundt is how to charge an incredibly expensive steak dinner to the Wyrd Court.’

  I went through the pile quickly, separating it into months. ‘Pass me your laptop,’ I said. ‘Do the lawyers use the same expense forms Wayfairs do?’

  She nodded and pointed to the icon on her screen. ‘Yeah. I’ve already opened up a form, but all I’ve filled in so far is his name. I mean, how can we type all this and email it in by midnight? I might have to miss the bonfire and the ball, but I’m not letting you miss out, too.’

  ‘Well, maybe neither of us will have to miss out. We can come up with a quick spell. And we don’t have to key in December or most of November – they go on next year’s report. Okay ...’ I held my hand over the first month’s worth of receipts, and thought of an incantation.

  ‘Month by month onto this screen, words and numbers type. Keep in line and separate, by each new page alike.’

  As the spreadsheet began to fill itself in, Melissa gasped. ‘How do you do that? Every incantation you come up with works. You know how weird that is, right?’

  ‘Weird, and handy,’ I said as the spreadsheet kept on going. ‘But maybe my skills aren’t quite so nifty when I’ve had a couple of glasses of red. I forgot to leave November and December out. Never mind – we can cut and paste them over for his next year accounts when we’re done. Get you a head start in case you’re stuck with the creep any longer. Hey ...’ I peered closer. ‘He sure does buy some incredibly expensive suits. He gets to count those as expenses?’

  ‘He wears them to court, so yeah.’

  ‘Pish! No one needs to wear a hundred gold rounds suit to court. Or a two hundred rounds watch. How does he get away with this nonsense?’

  ‘They all do it,’ Melissa said resignedly. ‘I mean, I didn’t have to do the last Minister’s accounts, but I did see them. She even charged home improvements as work expenses. I’ve always had half a mind to send some of the stuff I’ve seen to the papers, but for all I know they’re in on the same racket themselves.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe that’s what Agatha wanted? For you to see all of this? Have physical proof of it.’

  Melissa looked down at her desk, her dark red hair hiding her face. ‘Actually, I’ve already spoken with Agatha about why she placed me with Mr Rundt. I kind of confronted her in her office this morning. I told you she said she wanted me to clerk for a lawyer so that I could get extra credit when I go for the LOL? Well, that’s true. But she didn’t just go and stick me with Mr Rundt for the fun of it. She asked every other lawyer first, but no one else wanted me. Mr Rundt didn’t even want me working for him but his last clerk quit so he got stuck with me.’

  I stroked her hair, hugging her close. ‘That makes no sense, Melissa. You came out of
Crooked College with the best grades out of your entire class. The lawyers in the Wyrd Court should all be fighting over you.’

  ‘Well, turns out that Wayfairs aren’t quite as popular as we thought. All of the publicity lately might have made a few more witches join up with us. But as far as the establishment goes, it’s business as usual. Wanda ... I don’t think Agatha is going to win this election next year. She said ... she said that the reason people didn’t want me wasn’t just because they think Wayfairs are all irritating do-gooders. She said ... she said it was as much to do with her. She’s Acting Minister because she won the popular vote last time, making her second-in-line to Justine. But when the actual election comes around, it’ll be just like it was then. Even if the people vote for Agatha, the board on Crooked College still get the last say. We’re popular with the people right now, Wanda. But I don’t think it matters how popular we are with the people. Because at the end of the day, it’s not the people who get the last say.’

  I swallowed, looking at the screen, trying to calm myself down. ‘Let’s not think about that just now, Melissa. The vote isn’t happening for months. Let’s just enjoy the time we do have with Agatha as Minister for Magical Law. After all ... it’s the most wonderful time of the year.’

  ≈

  As soon as we finished up, Melissa’s demeanour lifted, and we returned downstairs to open our presents. We didn’t have a tree in our house, we just piled them in front of the fire, opening them on the rug.

  ‘What do werewolves celebrate?’ asked Dizzy, nibbling on the organic mango slices I’d bought for him. ‘Christmas or Winter Solstice?’