A burly guard got up from a desk and moved over to the counter to greet him. 'Something I can do for you?' he asked.
Henry uttered a silent prayer and drew a breath that still wasn't deep enough. 'Do you have a prisoner here called Fogarty?'
'What if we have?'
I will not be intimidated, Henry thought. The man wasn't really suspicious – it was just his manner. You had to be a bit peculiar if you were a prison guard. For Henry, the trick was to appear confident. 'A prisoner from the Analogue World? The man accu – the man who killed His Majesty the Emperor?'
The guard looked him up and down, but the confident tone seemed to be working. 'Matter of fact we do. You a relative or something?' Henry's heart skipped a beat before the guard suddenly guffawed. 'Relative, eh? Come to see your dear old grandad, what?'
Henry smiled back weakly. 'No, but I have come to speak to the prisoner.' This was the tricky bit. 'Orders of Princess Holly Blue.'
'Got a chitty?' asked the guard.
Henry stared at him. 'No,' he said eventually. A woolly brown rug thrown carelessly to one end of the counter moved suddenly, making him jump.
'Can't let you near a prisoner without a chitty,' the guard said. 'Not if you come from the Emperor himself, God rest him.'
Henry decided to try for sympathy. 'Look, I'm new round here. Nobody told me I'd need a chitty. Can't you make an exception?'
'More than my job's worth,' the guard said reasonably. 'Why don't you just go back and get one from the Princess?'
Good question. He could see the woolly rug out of the corner of his eye and it seemed to be creeping along the counter towards him. 'Thing is,' he said to the guard, 'Princess Blue is indisposed at the moment – the shock. She saw her father and… well, you can understand. So she can't really be disturbed. You can check that if you like.' He swung his head suddenly to look directly at the rug and it stopped moving. Two beady brown eyes peered up at him out of the shaggy surface.
The guard looked at him, chewing his lower lip. 'Not supposed to let you in without a chitty,' he said uncertainly.
'Yes, I understand that,' Henry said. 'But perhaps there's a form I could sign taking responsibility, then later I could bring you the chitty when Princess Blue is feeling a little better. It really is rather urgent.' The rug thing with the brown eyes slid off the counter and on to the floor. Henry found himself glancing towards it uneasily as it edged towards him. The guard paid it no attention at all.
'Maybe if you could tell me what it's all about…?' the guard said thoughtfully. 'I mean, I'd like to help the Princess, but at the same time -' He pursed his lips and shrugged.
At least he'd been expecting this. 'The Princess wishes to find the reason why this man murdered her father. In case there are further plots.'
'Bit young to be questioning a prisoner about stuff like that, aren't you?'
He'd been expecting that one too. 'The Princess thought he might be less on his guard with somebody my age.' He waited, having learned it was always a bad thing to say too much when you were chancing your arm. The woolly-rug creature – it had to be some sort of animal -had reached his feet now and was sniffing round his ankles.
The guard leaned over the counter and looked down at the rug. 'What do you think?' he asked.
Tack of lies,' the endolg said. 'Kid wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in the backside.'
Henry struggled furiously, but the guards were well used to dealing with difficult prisoners and kept clear of his flailing feet. They half dragged, half carried him along the corridor, then held him firm while one unlocked a cell door at the end.
'Don't know why you're making such a fuss,' one said. 'You wanted to see the old coot who murdered our Emperor. Now you're getting the chance.'
They threw him bodily into the cell and slammed the door. Henry picked himself up and hurled himself forward, but the key turned before he could reach it. 'Save your strength,' a familiar voice advised.
Henry swung round. Mr Fogarty was sitting on the top bunk, feet dangling. 'Scrotes know how to make a lock. I've been trying to pick that one since they threw me in here.' He slid down off the bed. 'Didn't expect to see you, Henry.' He sniffed and looked him up and down. 'Specially dressed up like a leprechaun.'
'Mr Fogarty, what happened? What's – '
Fogarty placed his finger to his lips. 'Nice weather for the time of year,' he said. He went over to the bunks and pulled a pad and pencil from underneath the mattress. He wrote something and passed the pad to Henry.
This place may be bugged, it said. Best write down anything important. We can eat the paper afterwards. Meanwhile make small talk.
Henry groaned inwardly, but took the pencil. He thought for a moment, then wrote: What happened to Pyrgus?
'What have they locked you up for?' Fogarty asked loudly. He took the pencil and wrote, Little scrat used my portal before I tested it.
'Some sort of rug testified against me,' Henry said. He took the pad back and got to the heart of the matter: Why did you kill the Emperor?
Not sure I did really.
'Not sure?' Henry exploded. 'You're in here for murder and you're not sure you did it -?'
'Quiet!' Fogarty hissed. He looked around in alarm and thrust the pad back at Henry.
'I'm not writing it down,' said Henry furiously. 'This is too important. I need to know what's going on. You can't do it with notes.' By the sound of things it would be touch and go whether you could do it with a full-length novel.
'All right,' said Fogarty. 'But keep your voice down. If we sit side by side on the bed, we can whisper.' He sat and motioned Henry to the space beside him.
Henry groaned aloud this time, but sat down obediently. Anything was better than passing notes. 'Did you kill the Emperor?' he asked bluntly but quietly.
'No,' said Fogarty in a whisper.
'You didn't shoot him with your shotgun?'
'No.'
'Who did then?'
'A demon,' Fogarty said.
Henry felt like strangling him. The last thing he needed right now was to have to listen to the old boy's batty beliefs. 'Mr Fogarty,' he said patiently, 'there are no such things as – '
But Fogarty cut in with an urgent whisper. 'Listen, Henry, I know you think I'm off the wall, but you'd better get it into that thick head of yours that there are more things in the big wide world than they tell you at school. Didn't believe in fairies, did you, until you caught one in a jamjar? Didn't believe you could open up a hole in space and step into a whole different universe, did you? So where do you think you are now -Blackpool? Know what I was before I took to robbing banks?'
Henry looked at him blankly. After a moment he shook his head. 'No.'
'Particle physicist,' said Fogarty. 'And a damn good one. Think that makes me stupid?'
Henry shook his head again, more urgently this time. 'No, but – '
'Know why I stopped being a particle physicist?'
'No, but – '
'Because they paid me seven grand a year. Seven grand! Even in those days that was peanuts. Could make more selling soapflakes and you don't need a degree for that, let alone a doctorate.'
Henry stared at him in astonishment. 'You're a doctor of physics?' he asked incredulously.
But Fogarty was in full swing. 'So I did what any sensible man would do and took up bank robbery. But I never forgot my physics. There are lots of alternative realities – even that old fool Einstein knew it. And one of them's the reality people used to call Hell. Place is full of demons and their UFOs. Pyrgus is stuck there now, poor little sprog.'
Henry had been about to say something else, but now he said, 'Pyrgus is in Hell?'
'Keep your voice down,' Fogarty hissed. 'Yes, Pyrgus is in Hell.'
'How do you know? How could you know that?'