by Helen Harper
‘Rachel,’ I said, wishing I could conjure up some sort drum roll or dramatic music to add wonderful emphasis to this moment, ‘your wish is granted.’
She frowned. ‘Huh?’
‘Here,’ I said. ‘Take Mikey.’
A fearful expression crossed her face. ‘Can’t you keep him for a little bit longer?’
‘Nope.’ I beamed.
With obvious reluctance, she lifted him from my arms. Once I was free from my temporary burden, I reached into my sleeve and drew out my wand. With one sweeping swirl, I waved it around the pair of them. Mikey’s sobs subsided. He let out a small hiccup and then looked round, clearly confused. He knew something had changed. He just didn’t know what.
‘I don’t understand,’ Rachel said. ‘What did I do to make him stop?’
‘You’re his mum.’ I leaned over and smiled at him, gently chucking him under the chin. His blue eyes, with the traces of tears still collecting in their corners, blinked up at me. ‘Things will be better for you now,’ I promised. I glanced up at Rachel who was staring at her son in frank astonishment. ‘He’ll still cry. It’s how he communicates with you. But it should be easier now for you both.’
She didn’t look up. She remained absorbed in the miracle that was her now quiet baby. ‘Hey Mikey,’ she cooed.
I grinned. ‘I’ll let myself out.’
‘Mmm.’
I strolled out, pausing at an elaborate sculpture of a dancer. I gave her outstretched hand a high five. ‘I did it,’ I told her. ‘I did this.’ I winked at her and then all but skipped back out.
Although it was yet again beginning to rain outside, and I was standing in a puddle, I remained thrilled enough at my own achievement that I completed a full Wonder Woman spin. My entire body buzzed with adrenaline and delight. This was why this job was worth all the trouble. This was why I wanted to be a faery godmother. Then I caught sight of another faery on the other side of the road, hastily dipping out of view. Ah, piss off, I thought to myself. Even a stark reminder of my impending doom wasn’t enough to ruin my current mood. I glanced around for signs of any evil kidnappers. But unless the rosy cheeked health visitor now bustling towards Rachel’s house had a secret fetish for severed ears, I appeared to be safe. At least for now.
Chapter Seventeen
I’d have built on my success with Rachel and gone off to visit more clients but it took so long to navigate the report system and write up what had occurred that in the end I didn’t have time. It didn’t help that I lost my work twice when I clicked onto the next screen, even though I’d been sure that I’d pressed save. It took me three times as long as to write my report as it had to actually visit her and grant her wish. The joys of bureaucracy. I was only just finishing up when Jasper reappeared, his looming presence filling the entire office. I supposed I should be pleased that almost everyone else had already vanished, and only Billy remained to send me an arch look as I joined Jasper before we headed out together.
‘Maybe we should take the stairs,’ I said, eyeing the lift doubtfully.
‘Lightning doesn’t strike twice.’
I scratched my neck. ‘You know that’s not true.’
‘We’ll be fine.’ He strode into the lift without any further hesitation. Then he beckoned towards me. ‘Come on. I’ll fill you in with what I discovered along the way. I should warn you though. There’s not much to tell.’
I followed him in, pretending to myself that I wasn’t holding my breath all the way down. Strange that I hadn’t felt nervous when the lift had actually broken but that now the thought of it doing the same again made me anxious. Anticipation, I decided. It could either be the most delicious thing in the world or the most terrifying.
In any case, we made it down to the ground floor without incident. Mrs Jardine, who was in the process of packing her own stuff up, looked up as we exited. I thought I detected a glimmer of disapproval in her eyes but whether it was directed at Jasper or me, I couldn’t have said.
‘None of Lydia’s recent clients,’ Jasper told me, ‘had anything to do with St Clements Park. None of them live even remotely in the vicinity. In fact, she’s not had a client in this city for some time. There’s no documented reason why she would have been there at all. But the blood I found there is definitely hers. I’m convinced it’s where she was abducted from. If we can find out why she was in the park, then we might be able to discover who she was meeting and then who took her.’
‘Maybe she went out there for lunch,’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘You know, to take in the fresh air and have a change of scene.’
Jasper shot me a wry glance. ‘You did the see the same park I did, right? It’s hardly a picturesque peaceful haven of nature.’
True. And I could also attest to the fact that the one and only sandwich shop in the vicinity was not worth travelling any distance for. My cheese and pickle had been repeating on me all afternoon as an unpleasant reminder that I should stick to the staff canteen.
‘In any case,’ Jasper continued, ‘if Lydia DuChamp wasn’t actually visiting a client when she was taken, then the memory magic wouldn’t have worked. Anyone who witnessed her abduction would remember it. And there have been no reports made to the police, no remarks on social media. There’s nothing to suggest she was ever there at all.’
‘Apart from her blood.’
His mouth flattened. ‘Apart from that.’
I considered his words. ‘So,’ I said, ‘you reckon she was there at night time. She wandered into that dodgy park under cover of darkness and then she was kidnapped. Unless she was looking for illicit drugs from the boogeyman, someone else lured her there.’ I breathed out. ‘That means that you can stop pointing fingers at everyone in the faery godmothers’ office. It’s not an inside job after all.’
‘That’s highly likely. Whoever is behind all this wanted us to blame each other.’ He continued to watch me. ‘Until now, we believed that Lydia had vanished some time late afternoon while meeting a client in Oxford. We believed the same of the others who’ve gone missing. That they all disappeared when out working. But if that was part of the kidnapper’s plan and each victim was lured out instead of being abducted while on the job then he also wanted to spread considerable dissension in the ranks. He wanted us to think that it had to be another faery godmother who was responsible.’
‘Which is why I’m being followed whenever I go out to nearby locations,’ I interrupted, unable to help myself. ‘If the others were supposedly taken while they were working then the same will happen to me. If I’m actually targeted at all, that is.’
He gave me a curt nod. ‘Regardless of what happened to the other faery godmothers, there’s no trace of Lydia at the location of her last job and her client’s wish wasn’t granted.’
‘Luke Wells, you mean.’ At Jasper’s glance, I raised my shoulders. ‘He’s one of my clients now too.’
Jasper hissed through his teeth. For some reason that pleased me. ‘In any case, this new evidence from St Clements Park doesn’t support the theory that she was abducted while at work. No-one saw her after lunch on the day she disappeared. Perhaps that was deliberate on the part of the kidnapper to mislead us. Everything I’ve found indicates Lydia DuChamp was taken violently from that park.’
I sighed. ‘Except you don’t want us to go to the park, do you? You want us to go and talk to the boogeyman. He might not have had anything to do with her actual disappearance but he might have been the reason why she was there in the first place. If he wasn’t, then we know to look harder for who might have arranged to meet her there.’
Jasper smiled. ‘You’re really are smarter than you’ve been given credit for. If your boogeyman spends as much time as he seems to in that park, he might have seen Lydia getting kidnapped.’
‘Hmm. Given his proclivities, he wouldn’t want to report what he saw either to the police.’ It did make some sense. A brief thrill ran through me. Maybe we were onto something.
Jasper sensed my excitemen
t. ‘Ready to play detective, Saffron?’ His fingers twitched in my direction.
I grinned at him. ‘Suit me up.’
***
The Devil’s Advocate was no ordinary faery. Whereas I could rarely perform a glamour upon myself, even with the magical boost I was granted when I was on duty, he managed to conjure one up for the pair of us with ease. It wouldn’t fool another faery – no glamour could manage that. It would, however, be more than anything to serve our purposes in getting past the local human police so we could talk to the boogeyman.
‘I don’t know his real name,’ I cautioned. ‘But he’ll definitely have been taken to the Goddard Street station. It’s the main police station for this area and it has a large number of cells where people are held.’
Jasper crooked up an eyebrow. ‘Dare I ask why you know so much about local incarceration tactics?’
‘I know a lot about national incarceration tactics,’ I told him. ‘I was a dope faery, remember? I could tell you about most of the different police headquarters up and down the country.’ I paused, my thoughts darkening. ‘We work all across the United Kingdom. All faeries do. It can’t be a coincidence that Lydia went missing right on our own doorstep.’
‘No,’ he agreed grimly. ‘It can’t. Whoever is behind all this snatched her from under our noses for the same reason that they sent us her ear. They’re taunting us.’ His lip curled. ‘Showing off.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘let’s hope that makes them more likely to trip up and make a mistake.’
We exchanged glances then, in focused silence, headed for Goddard Street, marching abreast and causing various passersby to scoot out of our way. Under other circumstances, I’d probably have enjoyed myself. It wasn’t every day you got to pound the pavements with the Devil’s Advocate by your side. I checked my surroundings, part of me hoping that I was being followed so that the spy faeries could take note of my new companion and be suitably admiring. Alas, however, the coast seemed clear. I was no longer officially at work and therefore no longer at supposed risk. Then I told myself that five faery godmothers were either dead or in dire peril and the last thing I should be worried about was how I looked to others. I grimaced and pushed those sorts of self-involved thoughts away. There were far more important matters in hand.
The station on Goddard Street was a large, rambling sort of place. From the outside it appeared almost pokey but once you entered it was a labyrinthine maze of corridors and rooms. To reach that inner sanctum, however, you first had to get past the front desk. With Jasper’s glamour in place, I didn’t think it would be a problem.
‘Good evening,’ I said to the uniformed officer scribbling at something on a clipboard from behind the glass at the front desk. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Sawyer and this is my colleague PC Advocate. We are to speak to a gentleman who was arrested earlier today at St Clements Park.’
‘Name?’
‘I don’t know his name,’ I answered honestly. ‘We’ve not been given that information. It’s possible, however, that he may have knowledge of another case we are investigating. It’s imperative we speak to him as quickly as possible.’
The police officer, whose blonde hair had been gelled to within an inch of its life, looked from me to Jasper and back again. ‘You got ID?’
‘Of course.’ I pulled out my wallet and showed him my gym membership card. He peered at it for a long moment before nodding. ‘Let me check the records.’ He turned away and began to tap at a nearby computer.
I nudged Jasper. ‘Look at that,’ I marveled. ‘Your glamour held up.’
‘Of course it held up,’ he muttered. ‘Tell me. Why do you get to be the DI while I’m the lowly PC?’
I smirked.
‘Vincent Hamilton,’ the police officer said. ‘He’s in the holding cells before his court appearance tomorrow morning. I’ll buzz you through.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No problem.’
I dipped my head at him and waited for the door to be opened. Then Jasper and I strolled through. It was as easy as that.
The cells, which were in the eastern wing of the building, smelled strongly of cheap bleach. A second officer unlocked Hamilton’s cell door and gestured in towards him.
‘Hamilton! You’re up. This way.’
There was a muffled grunt then the boogeyman himself shuffled out, an expression of bored disgust on his face. Then he caught sight of me waiting at the end of the corridor and his mouth twisted into something far uglier. ‘You!’ he spat. ‘I knew this was down to you all along. What are you? Some kind of undercover pig chick?’
I raised my voice. ‘Let’s save it for the interview room, Mr Hamilton.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Bitch.’
Yeah, yeah. If he thought I was a bitch, he should come and meet more faery godmothers. I reckoned I was remarkably sweet by comparison.
He grumbled all the way behind us and then grumbled some more when he was deposited in a chair in the drab interview room. Jasper and I took our seats opposite him.
‘I want a lawyer. I ain’t saying nuthin till I’ve seen my lawyer.’
‘He’s on his way, Mr Hamilton.’
He glared at me. ‘My lawyer’s a woman.’
I cursed inwardly. It was galling when even I made sexist assumptions. ‘I’m glad to hear you’re an equal opportunities drug dealer.’
Hamilton’s nostrils flared. ‘Yeah. I got female lawyers. Female customers. Female pigs.’ He leaned forward. ‘I also help out the odd female faery.’
Beside me, Jasper stiffened. I didn’t miss a beat. ‘You’re a helpful sort, Vincent. So why don’t you help us out again now?’
‘Why the fuck would I wanna do that?’
‘You help us, we help you,’ Jasper said.
Vincent Hamilton jerked his chin sharply upwards. ‘You’ll get me out of here?’
‘We can’t promise that. But we can perhaps mitigate your current circumstances.’
He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. ‘How?’
I smiled. ‘I’ll forget that you tried to sell me some of your ... wares. You can argue they were for personal use only rather than possession with intent to supply.’ Considering how much his pockets had been bulging, I very much doubted that sort of argument would wash with anyone. Mr Hamilton was going away for a very long time. He didn’t need to know that though.
‘I had too much on me,’ he sneered. ‘I’m going down no matter what. Unless you do for me.’
Fuck a puck. I’d under-estimated his knowledge of the system. I flicked a side glance at Jasper. ‘Will he remember this?’ I asked. ‘Or will your magic cover us?’
‘He wouldn’t have remembered a thing,’ Jasper said tightly. ‘Except for the fact that you already told him directly that you’re a faery yourself. You neglected to mention that part. I thought you’d just discussed the idea with him. That was a dick move, Saffron. You knew you weren’t covered by memory magic at the time. What you’ve done is incredibly dangerous and foolhardy. You have no idea what the consequences might be.’
‘He didn’t believe what I told him,’ I protested, feeling my cheeks grow irritatingly warm. ‘Anyway, it was the fastest way to find out if he had anything to do with the abductions. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.’ I gestured helplessly. ‘What does it matter?’
‘His subconscious believes it. It will interfere with the memory magic. The CCTV is automatically covered by my magic because I’m here on official Devil’s Advocate business. The police officers’ memories are covered by me for the same reason.’ He pointed at Vincent. ‘But because you already told him you’re a faery, you’ve blown any chance that he’ll forget about this. You’ve also blown any chance we had to manipulate this situation to our favour.’
Oh. My shoulders sagged slightly. ‘I didn’t know that was a thing.’ It had never come up before. Let’s face it, I’d never introduced myself as a faery to a human before unless I was working. Why would I? It simply wasn’t the done t
hing. Any human I told would have thought I was looney.
Vincent was staring at both of us as if we were crazy. ‘What the fuck are you two on about?’
‘If I’d known about this beforehand,’ Jasper muttered under his breath, ‘you’d have stayed outside.’ He shook his head, unable to believe how stupid I’d been, and raised his voice. ‘My colleague here is a faery godmother. She will grant you a wish in return for your cooperation in answering a few questions with full and honest detail.’
Vincent laughed derisively and folded his arms. ‘Yeah, yeah. I didn’t believe her the first time around. Why would I believe you?’
‘Because you want to,’ Jasper said simply.
Vincent’s mouth curved into a mocking smile. ‘Sure. Well, then I wish to be released without charge. Do that and I’ll answer any questions you’ve got.’
I glared at Jasper. ‘I’m not granting him any wishes. Certainly not that one. I’m not even on the job right now. The magic probably won’t work.’
‘It’ll work. You’ve got your wand, don’t you? And unless you have a better plan as to how to get him to talk, this is how it’s got to happen.’ His expression hardened. He was very pissed off with me. ‘The lives of several faery godmothers are on the line.’
‘Fuck a puck.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Fine,’ I said to Vincent. I took out my wand and gave it a quick swish. ‘Your wish is granted. But if you ever tell anyone about this, it will immediately be rescinded.’
‘Re-what?’
‘The wish will stop working and you’ll be taken back into custody.’ I frowned at him. ‘And if you commit any more crimes you’ll also end up here. Got that?’
