There was little to be gained from hanging around here so I walked back to Kazam, stopping on the way to buy some liquorice for no other reason than I liked liquorice. The sweetie shop was next to Vision Boss and, mindful of Kevin’s prediction, I went into the shop and looked around. It was a popular chain of opticians with a huge array of frames to choose from. Everything seemed normal enough, and after digging out my Shandarmeter and testing for any wizidrical hot spots and finding none, I wandered out again. That was the problem with precogs. You rarely knew the meaning of their visions until it was too late. Sometimes it was better not to know at all.
‘Ah!’ said a familiar voice as soon as I had stepped outside. ‘Good to see you again, girlie.’ It was Colonel Bloch-Draine. He was dressed for hunting this time, and was carrying his dart gun.
‘You’re very patronising,’ I pointed out.
‘Very clever of you to notice, girlie. Have a look at this.’
He produced an official-looking certificate that told me he had been engaged by Court Mystician Blix as a ‘licensed agent’ to personally oversee the capture of any ‘rogue’ or ‘feral’ magicozoological beasts that were ‘terrorising’ the city or causing ‘public unease’.
‘So you and Blix aim to start Quarkbeast hunting tours?’ I asked, putting two and two together.
‘The tourism sector is an underexploited resource in this Kingdom,’ he said. ‘The Cambrian Empire earns over eight million moolah in Tralfamosaur hunts alone.’
‘And those same hunters get eaten on a regular basis, I’ve heard.’
‘We will insist on payment in advance,’ replied the Colonel, who was clearly of a practical, if callous, frame of mind. ‘Now, where would I find a Quarkbeast?’
‘I can’t help you, Colonel.’
‘You can help me,’ he replied, ‘and will. Failure to assist a royal agent in the execution of their lawful duties is an offence punishable by two years in prison with hard labour.’
I stared at him for a moment and decided to call his bluff.
‘Then you will have to have me arrested, Colonel.’
He looked at me and a faint smile crossed his lined features.
‘You have spirit,’ he said at last, ‘and I respect that. Are you yet lined up for a husband? My third son is still without a wife.’
It wasn’t an unusual question; in the Kingdom of Snodd 95 per cent of marriages were by arrangement. The only benefit of being a orphan was that you were entitled to arrange your own.
‘Three possibles with five in reserve,’ I said, lying through my teeth. I’d had offers, of course, but nothing serious.
‘Can I put my son down as sixth reserve?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘He has six acres and a steady job in waste disposal – and all his own teeth.’
‘How tempting,’ I replied, ‘but still no.’
‘Tarquin will be disappointed.’
‘I dare say I can live with that.’
The colonel thought for a moment.
‘Are you sure you won’t help me find the Quarkbeast?’
‘I would sooner sunbathe in the Tralfamosaur enclosure draped in bacon.’
‘I don’t need your help anyway,’ he said at last. ‘I have what information I need from the All Powerful Blix. Good day, Miss Strange. You’ll regret not considering Tarquin.’
And he hurried off in the direction of the bridge.
‘It’s “the Amazing Blix”,’ I called out after him, but to no avail. I shrugged, and turned for home.
As soon as I stepped into Zambini Towers I knew something was wrong. Wizard Moobin was sitting on a chair in the lobby looking worried.
‘Problems?’ I asked.
‘Full and Half Price have been arrested pending extradition to face charges in the Cambrian Empire,’[30] replied Moobin sadly. ‘It is alleged they were key figures in Cambria’s illegal thermowizidrical explosive device programme in the eighties, as banned by the Genevieve Convention of 1922.’
‘Is that serious?’
‘It’s a Crime against Harmony – the worst sort. It carries a double death with added death penalty.’
‘That’s insane,’ I replied. ‘The Prices wouldn’t hurt a fly. This is all totally trumped up, right?’
Moobin didn’t say anything. He just stood there and bit his lip.
‘Blast,’ I said under my breath, knowing from his look that this was precisely what the Prices had been fleeing when they arrived here twenty years before. The Great Zambini gave shelter to all those versed in the Mystical Arts, irrespective of past histories. I shuddered as I tried to think who else we might have in the building, and what they might have done.
‘We can still win the contest,’ said Moobin. ‘Me, Patrick and Perkins against Blix, Corby and Tchango. Look at it this way: three against three is a fair fight.’
‘With the greatest of respect,’ I replied, ‘Blix is not after a fair fight. He won’t stop until it’s his three against our one – or less.’
We sat in silence in the empty lobby, the only sounds the clock, the rustling of oak leaves and the occasional ‘pop’ as the Transient Moose moved in and out.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last.
‘What for?’
‘For agreeing to this contest.’
‘You didn’t have any option,’ said Moobin, placing his hand on my arm. ‘A challenge is a challenge. The real fault lies with Blix. How long do you think it will be before they arrest the next one of us?’
‘Any minute now, I should imagine.’
Just as I spoke Detective Norton and Sergeant Villiers walked into the lobby. If there was work to be done of a dubious nature that needed a veneer of legality, these two would be doing it.
‘Miss Strange,’ said Detective Norton. ‘How delightful to meet you again.’
I didn’t have time for this.
‘Where are the Prices?’ I demanded.
Norton and Villiers gave me their well-practised triumphant grins.
‘Under lock and key until the hearing on Monday,’ said Sergeant Villiers, who was the physical opposite of Norton – heavily built in body and face compared to Villiers’ almost painful thinness. We often joked that they were the ‘Before and After’ in a weight-gain advert. I’d crossed swords with them in the past, and didn’t like them.
‘Monday? Conveniently two days after the bridge gig?’
‘These are serious charges, Miss Strange. But we’re not here for idle chit-chat.’
‘No?’
I thought they had come about my refusing to help hunt the Quarkbeast, but they hadn’t. Maybe the colonel wanted to keep me sweet for the Tarquin option.
‘Wizard Gareth Archibald Moobin?’ asked Norton in that way police do when they already know the answer is ‘yes’.
‘You know I am.’
‘You’re under arrest for committing an illegal act of magic; for failing to declare said act of magic; for not submitting the relevant paperwork; for plotting to hide said act of magic from the authorities.’
I noticed Villiers take Moobin’s arm. They knew he could teleport and weren’t going to risk losing him.
‘And what act was this?’ I asked, knowing full well that in the four years I had been at Kazam not a single act of sorcery had gone unrecorded.
‘It’s about a bunch of roses produced “from thin air” as a gift for a certain Miss Bancroft,’ said Villiers, ‘on or around 23 October 1988.’
‘Jessica,’ said Moobin in a quiet voice.
‘Yes,’ said Norton, ‘Jessica.’
He looked at me and shrugged while they slipped on the lead-lined index finger cuffs to stop him spelling.
‘Bet you regret trying to impress her now, eh?’ sneered Norton.
‘Oddly, no,’ he admitted with a fond smile. ‘She was quite something. What we call a “refuzic” – possessed of magical powers, but convinced she had none. Get this: she could lick a man’s bald head and tell what he had for breakfast. Don’t tell me that’s not magic. What’s she doing these days?’
30