‘So, what’s the problem, Pat?’ I asked.
‘Problem?’ came a voice behind us. ‘Problem? I expect no problems, only solutions!’
We turned to find the colonel, who, despite being retired, still wore a military uniform, with his chest an impressive array of brightly coloured ribbons, each representing a military campaign he had somehow missed owing to some unforeseen prior engagement.
‘Gadzooks!’ he said when he saw me. ‘A girlie. Bit young for this sort of work eh?’
I ignored his comment and stared at his florid features. He had a large moustache, and his eyes were wide and very blue. Oddly, they seemed to have no real life to them – looking into them was like staring at a creepily lifelike waxwork.
‘Mr Perkins and I are here to ensure the oak-moving goes as planned. It goes without saying that this is all within the price we quoted.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘right. Do you take tea?’
I thanked him and said that we did, to which he replied that he was only asking me, and after persuading him that tea for all of us would get the job completed that much more quickly, he trotted off indoors.
‘So,’ I said, turning back to Patrick, ‘what’s the problem?’
Patrick beckoned me across to the colonel’s arboretum, a small spinney of trees surrounding a lake. He indicated two large circular holes in the ground fifty yards apart. One presumably from where the oak had been, and another where it was meant to end up.
‘Everything was going as planned,’ said Patrick, indicating the half-done job, ‘but just as I’d got the oak halfway from one place to the other, I had a surge and . . . well, can you see over there?’
He pointed to the far shore of the lake. Sitting on the lakeside was the oak tree, roots and all.
‘That’s about half a mile away,’ said Perkins.
‘I surged,’ said Patrick simply, ‘and then every time I tried to move the oak closer, the power just leapt and I dumped it even farther away.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘this is what we’ll do: Patrick, I want you to walk around the lake, lift the oak and bring it back. If you get another oversurge, I want Perkins to channel the excess into anything he wants. Questions?’
‘What should I channel the oversurge into?’
‘See how many fish you can lift out of the lake.’
Perkins looked at the lake, then at his fingers. Levitation was something he could do. There were no more questions and they began to walk off around the lake. I stood and watched them for a moment, then heard a noise on the wind. Something odd and familiar that I couldn’t quite place. I walked across the lawn and towards a rusty battle tank that the colonel had transformed into a tasteless garden feature by the addition of several pot plants and a Virginia creeper on the gun barrel.
‘Who’s there?’ I asked, and heard a rustling.
I pushed aside the azaleas and walked behind the armoured vehicle, where I found a pile of grass clippings and a compost heap. Nothing looked even remotely unusual, but as I was leaving I noticed that one of the tank’s heavy tracks had been chewed, and recently. I peered closer at the toothmarks on the torn section of track, then searched the soft earth near my feet. I soon found what I was looking for: several dullish metal ball bearings of varying size. I picked them up and moved farther into the scrubby woodland, but after searching for five minutes and finding nothing more, I returned to wait for Patrick and Perkins to bring the oak back, which they did without any problems at all. The oak fitted snugly in its new hole, and the earth was soon moved in.
‘Easy as winking,’ said Patrick, ‘without any surging at all. I guess you guys had a wasted journey.’
‘Never a waste, Patrick,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Call us any time.’
‘Sorry for the delay,’ said the colonel as he returned with the tea things. ‘I made some scones. Good show with the oak. Have you time to move the silver birch twelve feet to its left?’
‘You’ll have to rebook, sir, we have quite a full—’
‘Where did you get those?’
The colonel was staring at the ball bearings I had found behind the tank. I knew what they were, but I hadn’t expected him to as well. They were cadmium-coated cupro-nickel spheres with a zinc core.
‘Quarkbeast droppings!’ exclaimed the colonel. ‘I’ve been after a Quark for years. I must fetch my dart gun.’
And he was off, running surprisingly fast for a seventy-year-old.
‘A Quarkbeast?’ said Perkins. ‘The same one that was nibbling the plinth outside the Towers?’
I shrugged and told him I had no idea, then suggested they return to Kazam and lend their minds to the depetrification of Lady Mawgon.
‘Where’s the odd-looking fella and the young one with the sticky-out ears?’ asked the colonel when he had returned with his gun.
‘The next job,’ I replied, but the colonel wasn’t listening. With his hunting instincts all a-quiver, he had already reached the tank, examined the gnaw marks, and loaded the weapon with two large tranquilliser darts.
‘Tipped with carbide steel,’ explained the colonel, ‘to penetrate their hide.’
‘While I applaud your efforts to not kill it,’ I said, ‘might I ask what you are thinking of doing with an unconscious Quarkbeast?’
‘Do you know how much people will pay to hunt for Quarks?’ he said with a grin. ‘The King’s deer park over at Moccas would be an admirable base from which to run hunting trips.’
‘They’ll be hard to catch,’ I said.
‘I’m counting on it.’ The colonel grinned. ‘I might get ten or more hunts out of it before the blighter is finally bagged. Now listen, girlie,’ he continued, ‘I need to know all about Quarkbeasts. What they like, what they dislike. Best way to sneak up on one, favourite colour, that kind of stuff.’
‘Why don’t you speak to Once Magnificent Boo?’ I replied. ‘She runs a Quarkbeast rescue centre in the west of town.’
‘I tried, but Miss Smith is somewhat . . . angry,’ admitted the colonel. ‘I thought I might get more sense out of you. And don’t pretend you know nothing about them. Your affection for the little beasts is well documented. There’s a bronze statue outside Zambini Towers, for goodness’ sake, raised by you and your wizardy chums.’
I could have told him many things. About how they like to chew on scrap metal and aren’t particularly fussy – except about lead, which gets stuck between their teeth, and cobalt, which gives them the runs. I could have told him how they change colour when they get emotional, or how they need linseed oil to keep their scales shiny, or how they like a walk twice daily. I might have told him that they were loyal, rarely ate cats and, despite appearances, were warm and faithful companions that it would be an honour to walk alongside. I could have said all that, but I didn’t. I said this:
‘They can chew their way through a double-decker bus lengthwise in under eight seconds, and know when they are being tracked. If threatened, they will launch a pre-emptive attack with a degree of savagery that would make a Berserker faint. You don’t want to be hunting Quarkbeast, Colonel.’
‘Yes, yes, whatever you say. Now be quiet. I don’t want to lose it.’
And so saying, he began to track the Quarkbeast, and I with him. If there was a chance to put him off his aim or alert the beast, I would take it. The tracking was quite easy, as beasts can rarely pass any metal without a quick bite to see whether it would make a good snack or not. In this manner we passed a sheet of nibbled corrugated iron, a bitten wire fence and an abandoned car with the chrome licked off the bumpers. The colonel dropped to one knee and peered around carefully.