After a while, he slid from his chair, drifted to his office window and stared into the streetlamp-pricked darkness that was Nettleworth asleep. He’d seen too much, and done too much, to harbour any illusions or even much hope that the simple religious teachings of his childhood could ever stand against the evil he confronted every day of his adult life. But even so, he found himself harking back to that kinder, simpler time.
Gerald Dunwoody’s a good man, faced with a hard task. If there is a God in this sorry world of ours, He’d do well to keep that young man safe.
With a rattling chug-chug-chug the jalopy coasted to a halt in the deep kerbside shadows between lamp posts along the hushed, exclusive suburban Ott street. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Monk turned off the engine then squinted through the open driver’s side window. Please, please, let him have found the right place. Dodsworth had given him copious directions, but even so, having never been to the Blonkken embassy in broad daylight, let alone in the practically pitch dark, a mistake was entirely possible. And he couldn’t afford any mistakes.
Tickling at the edge of his potentia, a tug of familiar thaumaturgics. It felt like the hex he’d given Dodsworth to leave behind so he could get into the embassy undetected. To make sure though, because it was late and he was knackered and couldn’t be certain his potentia wasn’t playing him tricks, he took his little box of special hexes from the jalopy’s glove department and held it lightly in his hand. After a moment’s concentration he had his answer. Yes, the thaumaturgical signatures matched. He was in the right place.
And now that his eyes were accustomed to the fitful gloom, he could see in the distance the embassy’s back garden, tree-fringed and barricaded behind a high brick wall. Beyond that, if he squinted even harder, he could just make out the ambassadorial residence. It was well past midnight, and from the lack of lamplit windows in the ambassadorial residence it seemed fair to assume the occupants were by now conveniently asleep.
Perched on the back of the passenger seat, Reg chattered her beak. “All right then, sunshine. I’ve been wonderfully patient, but now I think it’s time you told me where we are and what we’re doing here.”
Holding up a finger, Monk continued to squint into the darkness. According to Dodsworth, his expert consultant, the Blonkken embassy wasn’t a big building. Two storeys only. For his purposes, its modesty was both good and bad. Faster to get around in, but not so much space to act as a cushion between the offices and the bedrooms. Probably fewer handy hiding places, too, should things go pear-shaped. Still, with any luck “Oy!” said Reg, and thumped him with her wing. “Have you gone suddenly deaf, or what?”
He glared at her, rubbing his head. “I wish you wouldn’t do that! How am I supposed to hex my way in there if you give me a concussion?”
“Hex your way in where? Monk Markham, where are we lurking?”
He couldn’t delay the moment of truth any longer. If he could’ve left her behind altogether he would have, because he knew, he just knew, the bird was going to kick up a stink. Except if he’d tried to leave her out of this she’d only have followed him. Like it or not, for as long as Gerald was off janitoring in Splotze, he and Reg were stuck with each other.
“Outside the Blonkken embassy.”
“The Blonkken embassy? Why in the name of-” And then Reg’s dark eyes widened. “Monk Markham, do you actually think we’re going to break into the Blonkken embassy?”
“Yes,” he said, torn between apprehension and defensiveness. “Well, I am. But don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”
“Don’t worry?” The bird spluttered. “When it comes to you and your antics, ducky, all I ever do is worry! We can’t go staggering about a foreign country’s embassy in the middle of the night! What about the guards? If your Blonkken are anything like mine, then they’re very big on guards. You can bet your last bottle of brandy they’re tramping over the garden beds right now, looking for someone illegal to clap in irons!”
“Reg, I told you, it’ll be fine.”
“I beg to differ,” Reg retorted. “Now just you drive this jalopy back to Chatterly Crescent quick smart, before someone marches out here with a flaming torch, a pointy pike and a lot of bloody awkward questions!”
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “But I can’t go home until I’ve had a good poke around in there. I need to see if I can find some incriminating documents that will prove they’re the ones up to no good in Splotze.”
Reg opened her beak to argue, had second thoughts, then tipped her head to one side. “And what makes you so sure Blonkken’s the villain here?”
“I’m not. In fact, I’d be shocked if it turned out Blonkken’s behind this wedding mayhem, but I need to keep an open mind.”
“Ha!” said Reg. “Your mind’s already open, sunshine. It’s so open I can hear the wind whistling between your ears!”
He glowered. “By all means, feel free to stay behind if you’re scared. But I’m afraid I have to-”
“Scared?” Reg chattered her beak again, furious. “I’m not scared, I’m dumbfounded. If this mad little expedition of yours goes arse over teakettle, and with you in charge of strategics that’s more than bloody likely, that mangy Sir Alec will personally string you up by your unmentionables!”
Monk winced. “Yes, well, we’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen, won’t we?”
“We? We?” Reg fluffed her feathers in fresh outrage. “Who said anything about we? You never asked my opinion of your mad plan, did you? You haven’t even see fit to tell me what it is!”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think I had to. I assumed you’d jump on board, seeing as how I’m trying to get Gerald and the girls home again in one piece. But if I was wrong…”
Eyes gleaming, Reg rattled her tail so hard she nearly fell off the back of the passenger seat. “Forget it, my boy. That kind of soppy heartstring tugging might’ve worked on the other bird, but you are looking at a woman who let sentimentality fool her once, and won’t ever be fooled again. Got it?”
Swallowing, Monk stared at her. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I just-for a moment there, I forgot…”
“That I’m not her?” Reg snorted. “Well. I suppose if I squint hard, and twist my head upside down, Mister Clever Clogs, I could see that might be some kind of compliment.”
Mister Clever Clogs. Ambushed by unexpected emotion, Monk blinked out of the window. The other Reg had called him that all the time, being sarky. But this was the first time…
Reg gave him another great whack on the back of the head. “Just so you know a therapeutic concussion is still on the cards!”
“Bugger it, Reg!” he protested. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that!”
“Tell me the plan and I’ll stop,” she said, sniffing. “All of it, mind you. Not the edited highlights.”
As plans went, he was pretty proud of this one. Especially considering his lack of janitorial experience. But Reg?
“That’s your plan?” the bird said, once he’d finished explaining. “Draft a geriatric door-opener to totter about what’s technically foreign soil slapping hexes in places you hope won’t get noticed, so you can slink in afterwards using your highly dubious counter-hexes and rummage through the privy paperwork of important men who don’t give a fat rat’s fart if your name ends with Markham? That’s your plan?”
Squashed as far away from Reg as he could get, which wasn’t anywhere near far enough, Monk cleared his throat. “Ah… yes? Yes, that’s it. Pretty much. Although I’m not sure slink is the right word. And I don’t see that it’s fair to call Dodsworth geriatric, either, when you-”
“Hell’s bells, you mad bugger! You don’t need me to concuss you, it’s clear as mud you’re concussed already!”
“Look-Reg-”
The bird flapped her wings like a scarecrow in a storm. “Don’t you Look, Reg me, you daft-you demented-I can’t believe you’d-without even discussing it? What raving loony let you out of the lab?”
“Blimey, Reg,” he said, deflated. “All right, so as plans go it might be a little bit tatty round the edges, but I didn’t think it was as hopeless as that.”
More dramatic wing flapping. “Ha! Says the man who thought opening a portal into another dimension was a nifty thing to do on a wet afternoon!”
Well, that was just plain mean. “All right!” he said hotly. “If you’re so bloody clever, Reg, if you’re such a janitoring mastermind, how would you go about uncovering secret information about the people on the Splotze- Borovnik wedding list when you don’t have a single solitary reason to go barging in asking pointed questions? Eh? Come on, then. Enlighten me. I am all ears.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry?” He leaned sideways. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch your answer, seems I’m a bit deaf from all that shouting and wing flapping. Or maybe it’s the concussion I didn’t realise I had. You’d do what,
