“Which means you’re late,” said Mister Dalby. “Mister Scrimplesham’s waiting. Run along.”
Errol swallowed. “Yes. Of course.”
Heedless of Mister Dalby, watching, still inclined to make his point, Gerald didn’t shift quite far enough out of Errol’s path. Forced to brush against him, Errol hissed a sharp breath between his teeth. With a smile, Gerald pulled his spiky potentia back into himself. His burning nerves extinguished. The misted corridor faded from scarlet to clear. As he watched Errol out of sight, he felt a tickle of surprise.
Mister Scrimplesham? But he was Nettleworth’s expert in matters of disguise. Best obfuscatory hexman in the entire Department, it was said. Better even than Monk, and that was saying something. Why the devil would Errol be needing to see old Scrimpy?
Behind him, Frank Dalby sniffed. “Think you’re clever, do you, Dunwoody?”
A moment, then he turned to meet the senior janitor’s unimpressed stare. “Sorry, Mister Dalby. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah, you bloody do,” said Dalby, and sighed. “Now just you listen up. Personally, I could watch you smear that little ponce into raspberry jam and not turn a hair. No great loss. World’s full of rich tossers. But if you did you’d cause trouble for the guv’nor, and I won’t be having that. So you mind your p’s and q’s with Errol Haythwaite, understand? Or you and me, Dunwoody, we’ll have ourselves a problem.”
Frank Dalby’s fierce loyalty to Sir Alec, his former fellow janitor, was no secret around Nettleworth. Nor was it a secret that his mission success rate was second only to Sir Alec’s, and that his kill count was higher by at least three. Not that such things were openly discussed. They were just… known. And taken into account.
The last thing Gerald Dunwoody needed was a problem with Frank Dalby. He stood on cracked ice with the senior janitor as it was. Prudently, he backed down.
“Sorry, Mister Dalby. I let my temper get the better of me.”
Dalby’s stare softened a trifle. “Like I said. Haythwaite’s a tosser. Do yourself a favour and forget him.”
With Frank Dalby so out of character chatty, Gerald decided to chance a question, even though the matter was none of his business. “What’s he doing here? Errol’s a domestic agent. I thought his lot and ours weren’t meant to cross paths.”
Metaphorical shutters slammed down behind Frank Dalby’s weary eyes. “I’m a busy man, Dunwoody. I can drive you home now, or you can stand about chatting to yourself as long as you like and leg it home under your own steam later. Up to you.”
He felt his jaw drop. “You’re driving me home? But-”
“Fine,” said Dalby, turning. “Suit yourself. Just don’t you bloody go telling the guv’nor I didn’t try.”
“No-no-wait,” said Gerald, leaping after him. “Wait, Mister Dalby. I’m coming.”
And because he wasn’t stupid, no matter what Errol said, he kept his mouth shut all the way back to Chatterly Crescent.
Afterwards, alone in the kitchen because Monk was busy inventing things in Research and Development and Reg had taken herself off for the day, exploring her new home, he sat with a cup of tea and tried very hard to ignore how the grimoire hexes still tangled in his potentia, promise and poison…
… and how sickeningly satisfying Errol Haythwaite’s fear had felt.
“Oh good, Alec. You waited,” Ralph Markham said, coming into his Department of Thaumaturgy office as burdened as a mule. With a groan of relief he dumped the over-stuffed files he was carrying onto his already cluttered desk. “I was afraid you’d give up.”
Sir Alec raised his glass, half-full of best Blonkken brandy. “If not for this, I might have. Shall I pour you one?”
“Please,” said Ralph, closing the door.
Obliging his sometime friend, sometime foe, Sir Alec rose from the comfortable leather armchair reserved for special guests and poured a second glass of brandy. There were those who’d say, disapprovingly, that it was far too early in the afternoon for alcohol. But given what he’d sat through at Nettleworth, and the frustrated exhaustion stamped into Ralph’s heavy face, it wasn’t an opinion he shared.
Not today, at least.
“Thanks,” said Ralph, taking the glass. “Bloody domestic security meeting ran over. I tell you, if Gaylord was tipped out tomorrow he could earn a decent living blowing hot air into balloons.”
Sir Alec smiled. “Anything I need to know about?”
“Officially?” Ralph swallowed deeply, then belched. “Of course not. Domestic matters are not your concern.”
“And unofficially?”
Perching on the front edge of his heavy mahogany desk, Ralph glowered into his glass. “Unofficially, this black market wizard is kicking our arses. Four more cases of illicit hexes in the past two weeks. One’s a fatality. Lady Barstow.”
“Yes. I heard.”
“I tell you, Alec, if we don’t pinch this nasty piece of work soon
…”
He shrugged. “Well, Ralph, you know what I think.”
“Oh, don’t start,” said Ralph, impatient. “If I thought there was a snowball’s hope in summertime of Gaylord and the rest agreeing to your people and his joining forces then we both know I’d leap at your offer. But those shortsighted fools won’t have a bar of it and I can’t afford to expend political capital on twisting their arms to make them agree.”
“No, you’d rather wait until this criminal wizard brings Ottosland to its knees so they’re forced to come crawling to you, cap in hand.” Sir Alec smoothed his grey tie. “Which might be gratifying, I grant you. But Ralph, is it wise?”
“Alec, what would you have me do?” Ralph demanded. “So far this-this weasel has confined his activities to home soil. As much as I’d like to, I can’t over-ride Gaylord and involve your janitors.” He raised a hand. “And don’t, for pity’s sake, try to use Errol Haythwaite against me. Loaning Scrimplesham’s services to one of Gaylord’s agents is not the same as ignoring the inflexible rules regarding agency territorial purviews.”
Sir Alec topped up his glass then returned to the comfort of the guest chair. “Well, it’s your decision, Ralph. And never fear, I’ll be on hand to pull your chestnuts out of the fire when this blows up in your face.”
“Thank you,” said Ralph, gloomily, and downed the rest of his brandy. “Just don’t gloat too loudly when the time comes, that’s all I ask. You’re not the one who has to put up with Gaylord day in and day out.”
Which, for Ravelard Gaylord’s sake, was fortunate. Repressing a shiver of distaste, Sir Alec sipped more brandy. Let his head rest against the armchair’s high back and enjoyed the smothering glow of fine, fermented peach.
“You look a bit washed up yourself,” said Ralph, shifting from the desk to the office’s other armchair. “How did it go?”
Because he couldn’t make use of Jennings without Ralph being told, and because telling the truth was out of the question, he’d concocted a story about a training mishap that had left Gerald Dunwoody tainted with the wrong kind of magic. Trusting him, Ralph hadn’t questioned the tale.
Now, instead of answering, he dropped his gaze to the amber depths of his brandy. As a man of many and varied experiences, he prided himself on his carefully cultivated self-control. Unexpectedly, though, that discipline was shaken by what Gerald Dunwoody had stubbornly endured at Jennings’s hands.
“Not much point lambasting yourself, Alec,” Ralph said gruffly. “Accidents happen.” He cleared his throat. “Are you going to tell him?”
Sir Alec looked up. “That the extraction wasn’t entirely successful? Unnecessary. I’ve no doubt Mister Dunwoody’s already worked it out for himself.”
“I meant,” Ralph said carefully, “are you going to tell him the extraction failed on purpose.”
On purpose. That had an ugly ring to it. And why wouldn’t it? What he’d done was ugly. But then that was what Sir Alec Oldman excelled at. The dark, dirty, ugly little tasks, performed in secret, shrouded in half-truths and outright lies. He did the things that needed to be done, for the people of Ottosland who wanted them done but didn’t want to know the unpleasant details… and who’d bay for his blood if they ever found out.