The Poisoned Crown (27 page)

“Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just—an old friend of your mother.”

“What?”

“So your name is Nathan. I didn’t know. I wish I could stay around to find out what happens next, but I have other commitments. Beware
of the werewoman: she won’t give up.” He turned to Hazel. “That was clever. The simple charms work the best, after all.”

“Why did you help us?” Hazel said. “You’re not—not—”

“Not human? No. This was … my good deed for the century. I’m growing a soul. Maybe, after tonight, it will put forward a new shoot.” His eyes narrowed, gazing back toward the river. “Go quickly now. No doubt the dog will take care of you. And tell him not to bark at me—I eat dogs.”

Hoover gave a low-key
ruff
, just to show his indifference.

Nathan said: “Thank you. But—”

The shadow had gone, vanishing into the night from whence he came.

They took Romany to Thornyhill, though Riverside House was probably nearer; both of them thought she would be the better for one of Bartlemy’s tisanes. Annie called Ursula as soon as they arrived to give her the good news, and Romany revived sufficiently to complain she wanted to go with the lady even though she had funny eyes, and learn to swim like a mermaid. Bartlemy gave her chocolate in various forms, possibly enhanced with a natural soporific, and by the time they got her home she was warm and dry and almost asleep. Ursula sobbed over her daughter, over Annie, over Nathan and Hazel—heroes of the hour—and swore undying gratitude. When Pobjoy insisted on hearing the whole story Bartlemy suggested he come back to Thornyhill and they left the Rayburns in peace.

“We could all do with a restorative,” he said. “Annie and I haven’t heard what happened yet, either. Come to breakfast. We can sleep in the morning.”

“He won’t believe us,” Hazel said, eyeing the inspector scornfully. “He never does.”

“He’s learning,” Bartlemy said.

hen you have spent half the night partying, and the other half in a potentially disastrous confrontation with the forces of evil, there is nothing like the prospect of a good breakfast. They sat down about six in the dining room at Thornyhill—a long room with a big oak table that Bartlemy, who preferred small-scale entertainment, rarely used—to eggs fried and scrambled, buttered mushrooms, sausages, bacon, tomatoes. On the side there was toast and honey, toast and marmalade, porridge and cream, coffee, tea, fruit juice, beer. They ate, talked, ate some more. “Now,” said Pobjoy, unavoidably mellowed, “I want the whole story. From the beginning.”

“Ah, but where is the beginning?” said Bartlemy. “The entire life of mankind is only a tiny part of the history of this planet, and this planet is only one of millions in a vast universe, and this universe is merely a handful of atoms spinning through the endless wastes of infinity.”

“Never mind that,” said Pobjoy. “Start with the party.”

“It was a good party,” Annie offered. “You should have come.”

“I don’t go to parties.”

“Get in the habit,” Annie said. “Then you can be on the spot for all
the crimes that invariably happen when people get together in large numbers to have fun and drink too much.”

“Can we keep to the point? When did you first realize Romany was missing?”

“I didn’t,” Annie said. “It was Hazel.”

Pobjoy duly turned his interrogation technique onto Hazel, who launched into an account of everything that had occurred from the moment she saw Nenufar in the mirror, culminating in the appearance of the mystery rescuer to save Romany. Pobjoy’s expression grew increasingly skeptical as the story progressed, but his accusatory questions— “How could you have seen her reflection if she wasn’t standing behind you?” —ran down, as if he felt himself defeated by her matter-of-fact tone and the others’ equally matter-of-fact acceptance of all she said. He knew much of the tale was preposterous, perhaps not a direct lie but some sort of bizarre juvenile exaggeration; Harry Potter syndrome, perhaps—there was bound to be one—a condition where children imagined they were living in a magical world populated by wizards and monsters. At the same time he, too, had seen the white ship, more than a year ago—he had run from the gnomons—he had felt the fear of that which is beyond science, beyond reason. He didn’t want to believe because it would overthrow his whole view of the world—a world he saw as dark and disorderly but at least rational, subject to fixed laws, the laws of physics, the laws of nature, the laws of men. That was a world where he had some control, if not much. But in a world of magic and demons a policeman was as helpless as anyone else.

“This … person,” Annie was saying as Romany’s rescuer entered the story. “Describe him.”

“I didn’t see much,” Hazel said. “It was too dark. He had a long tail, maybe horns. He moved a bit like an ape. But after we got away, when Nathan shone the flashlight on him, he just looked human. Except for his eyes.”

“What sort of human?” Bartlemy asked. “Tall? Short? Skin color— hair color?”

“Quite tall.” Nathan frowned with the effort of memory. “Not
short, anyway. Dark hair, brown skin. Not actually brown like mine, more sort of tanned and roughened and weathered. There was something wrong with his forehead, like scarring: the flesh looked all red and kind of scrunched up. And he had a really cool jacket, leather, very worn and wrinkled.”

“And his eyes?” said Pobjoy, like someone probing a wound.

“They were red,” Hazel said with a certain malicious satisfaction. “Not bloodshot, before you ask. Just red. Dark red. No whites at all.”

“Kal.” Annie was looking at Bartlemy. “I knew it.”

“He said he was an old friend of yours,” Nathan recalled. “I thought he must be joking. Do you—do you really know him?” He stared at his mother as if she had just revealed a previous association with a leading Mafioso or international terrorist.

Pobjoy’s face wore a curiously similar expression.

“He came to see me the other night,” Annie said. For once, her son’s reaction had passed her by. “He’s kind of part demon, part human— which is meant to be impossible. He says he’s growing a soul.”

“He said that to us,” Hazel averred. “Like it was a plant. Weird.”

“Why
did he come to see you?” Nathan demanded.

“It’s a bit complicated,” Annie said. “Bartlemy drew the circle—to find out something—and Kal showed up unasked, and disappeared, and then came to see me later at the shop. I don’t know why. He wanted me to invite him in.”

Nathan understood the dangers of that. “You didn’t, did you?”

“Yes, I did. So he told me some things—”

“What things?”

“It’s not important now. He told me things, he left, and now he’s helped us by saving Romany. Which proves that inviting him in wasn’t a bad idea.”

“Do you often invite strangers into your home?” Pobjoy said, back in accusatory mode.

“Only if they’re very sinister,” Annie retorted. “Getting friendly with demons and murderers is my specialty.”

“You’re all living on Planet Zog,” Pobjoy declared, desperate to hold on to what he hoped was reality. “All this crap about spells and
monsters—it’s a delusion. Did you take Romany yourselves”—he meant Nathan and Hazel—“then pretend to search for her and bring her back?”

Annie gave a cry of protest, but Nathan responded with unexpected coolness. “We never left the party till long after she went missing,” he said. “You can check that. It’s called an alibi.”

“Up yours,” said Hazel. “Why can’t we get rid of him? He’s so stupid he’s no use to anyone.”

“We may need his help in the future,” said Bartlemy. “I suggest we call a halt to this conversation—before it implodes. We’ve had a long night. Unless you wish to arrest someone, Chief Inspector, I think we should all go home to bed.”

“Not right now,” said Pobjoy, trying for menacing, and only succeeding in sounding grumpy.

“Can I make a pipe-cleaner figure of
him?
” Hazel muttered.

Bartlemy called a taxi and sent her, Nathan, and Annie back to Eade. To Pobjoy, he said: “Have some more coffee. Another piece of toast?”

The inspector, who lived alone and rarely ate a proper meal, succumbed with little hesitation. After all, a crime had happened, or might have happened, or was probably happening somewhere, and after a fashion he was investigating. Sitting at the table with more toast, all oozy with honey from the beehives in the garden, he struggled to convince himself that Bartlemy was a lunatic, but it was no good. His host looked peculiarly and disturbingly sane. So sane, Pobjoy found himself wondering if the world was inside out, and he was the one going quietly around the bend.

“Do
you
believe it?” he asked abruptly.

“Believe what?”

“The kids’ story.”

“Oh, that. Yes, of course. It’s so much easier believing things than doubting them. And it was very coherent; I’m sure you noticed. All the bits fit together. Successful liars—and there are very few—have to construct such elaborate structures to support their deceits. They always make a few minor mistakes, and only get away with it because the
generality of people are amazingly inobservant. But you are a trained observer; you would always be difficult to fool.”

“They haven’t fooled me,” Pobjoy said stubbornly. “I know that rigmarole can’t be true.”

“Naturally. You’re a policeman: you believe in the evidence. The evidence of your own eyes, your own ears. You have seen the white ship and the woman on board. You have—er—failed to see the gnomons. Do you believe
your
story, James?”

Pobjoy had forgotten telling Bartlemy his Christian name. He said: “Not really.”

“I see. I’ve always understood that as well as evidence, policemen go in for hunches. Do you have a hunch about all this?”

“Yeah, I have a hunch. I have a hunch as big as”—he groped for literary parallels with the uncertainty of someone who hasn’t read enough of the right books—“as the phantom of the opera.”

“Quasimodo,” Bartlemy supplied. “The hunchback of Notre Dame.”

“Yep. Him. I have a hunch about this village. It’s a quiet, sleepy little place with robberies and murders and kidnappings and serial killings, strange disappearances—stranger reappearances. I have a hunch there’s something
big
going on here, some crime so huge that nobody can see it, and all these bits and pieces are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, the tiny visible part of this major unseen crime. But whenever I try to get a closer look, it all turns into fantasy, wisps of magic— ghosts—dreams. Like snatching at smoke. You can’t arrest smoke.”

“You’re doing pretty well,” Bartlemy said. “There is indeed something going on here, something big—it may even be a crime, though I doubt if you’ll ever get to charge anyone.”

“It’s a crime,” Pobjoy insisted. “I can
feel
it.”

Bartlemy smiled the smile of someone with superior knowledge; he was to remember this moment, much later. He said: “Maybe. Whatever happens, trust to hunches. And when you see the smoke, don’t snatch— just watch where it goes. And try not to inhale.”

Pobjoy didn’t laugh. “What do I say to Annie?” he asked.

“Well,” Bartlemy said, judiciously, “it would be a good idea not to tell her she’s delusional. The rest is up to you.”

“But…”

“But?”

“What if she
is
delusional?”

“What if she isn’t?” Bartlemy said.

B
ACK IN
Eade, Nathan and his mother headed straight for bed. Although she was exhausted, Annie found she had passed the point where she could sleep easily; her brain was still in overdrive, the events of the night running and rerunning in her mind as she struggled to work out what it all meant. Pobjoy’s attitude—
He quite liked me once
, she realized, too late for the knowledge to do any good,
but now he just thinks I’m a total fruitcake
—and the behavior of Nenufar, and above all, Kal. Was he good? Was he evil? Whose side was he on? Werefolk, Bartlemy had told her, were mostly neither all good nor all evil, and took no side but their own, yet she felt Kal was different, or trying to be different, though she didn’t know why. Sleep crept up on her in the middle of her deliberations, and when she awoke it was lunchtime.