‘Six.’
‘Preston, I don’t think this creature could ever find its way into your head. Quite apart from anything else, it seems pretty crowded and complicated to me.’
‘Miss Tiffany, you need a rest, a proper rest in a proper bed. What kind of witch can look after everybody if she’s not sensible enough to look after herself?
She gave in.
* * *
The fog of the city was as thick as curtains when Mrs Proust hurried towards the dark, brooding shape of the Tanty, but the billows obediently separated as she approached and closed again after her.
The warden was waiting at the main gate, a lantern in his hand. ‘Sorry, missus, but we thought you ought to see this one before it gets all official. I know witches seem a bit unpopular right now, but we’ve always thought of you as family, if you know what I mean. Everyone remembers your dad. What a craftsman! He could hang a man in seven and a quarter seconds! Never been beat. We shall never see his likes again.’ He went solemn. ‘And may I say, missus, I hope I never see again the like of what you will be seeing now. It’s got us rattled, and no mistake. It’s right up your street, I reckon.’
Mrs Proust shook the water droplets off her cloak in the prison office and could smell the fear in the air. There was the general clanging and distant yelling that you always got when things were going bad in a prison: a prison, by definition, being a lot of people all crammed together and every fear and hatred and worry and dread and rumour all sitting on top of one another, choking for space. She hung the cloak on a nail by the door and rubbed her hands together. ‘The lad you sent said something about a breakout?’
‘D wing,’ said the warder. ‘Macintosh. You remember? Been in here about a year.’
‘Oh yes, I recall,’ said the witch. ‘They had to stop the trial because the jury kept throwing up. Very nasty indeed. But no one has ever escaped from D wing, right? The window bars are steel?’
‘Bent,’ said the warder flatly. ‘You’d better come and see. It’s giving us the heebie-jeebies, I don’t mind telling you.’
‘Macintosh wasn’t a particularly big man, as I recall,’ said the witch as they hurried along the dank corridors.
‘That’s right, Mrs Proust. Short and nasty, that was him. Due to hang next week too. Tore out bars that a strong man wouldn’t have been able to shift with a crowbar and dropped thirty feet to the ground. That’s not natural, that’s not right. But it was the other thing he did — oh my word, it makes me sick thinking about it.’
A warder was waiting outside the cell recently vacated by the absent Macintosh, but for no reason that Mrs Proust could recognize, given that the man had definitely gone. He touched the brim of his hat respectfully when he saw her.
‘Good morning, Mrs Proust,’ he said. ‘May I say it’s an honour to meet the daughter of the finest hangman in history. Fifty-one years before the lever, and never a client down. Mr Trooper now, decent bloke, but sometimes they bounce a bit and I don’t consider that professional. And your dad wouldn’t forego a well-deserved hanging out of the fear that fires of evil and demons of dread would haunt him afterwards. You mark my words; he’d go after them and hang them too! Seven and a quarter seconds, what a gentleman.’
But Mrs Proust was staring down at the floor.
‘Terrible thing for a lady to have to see,’ the warder went on. Almost absentmindedly Mrs Proust said, ‘Witches are not ladies
‘It makes you wonder what got into him, aye?’
Mrs Proust straightened up. ‘I don’t have to wonder, my lad,’ she said grimly. ‘I know.’
The fog piled up against the buildings in its effort to get out of the way of Mrs Proust as she hurried back to Tenth Egg Street, leaving behind her a Mrs Proust-shaped tunnel in the gloom.
Derek was drinking a peaceful mug of cocoa when his mother burst in to the strains, as it were, of a large fart. He looked up, his brow wrinkling. ‘Did that sound like B-flat to you? It didn’t sound like B-flat to me.’ He reached into the drawer under the counter for his tuning fork, but his mother rushed past him.
‘Where’s my broomstick?’
Derek sighed. ‘In the basement, remember? When the dwarfs told you last month how much it would cost to repair, you told them they were a bunch of chiselling little lawn ornaments, remember? Anyway, you never use it.’
‘I’ve got to go into the … country,’ said Mrs Proust, looking around the crowded shelves in case there was another working broomstick there.
Her son stared. ‘Are you sure, Mother? You’ve always said it’s bad for your health.’
‘Matter of life or death,’ Mrs Proust mumbled. ‘What about Long Tall Short Fat Sally?’
‘Oh, Mother, you really shouldn’t call her that,’ said Derek reproachfully. ‘She can’t help being allergic to tides.’
‘She’s got a stick, though! Hah! If it’s not one thing it’s another. Make me some sandwiches, will you?’
‘Is this about that girl who was in here last week?’ said Derek suspiciously. ‘I don’t think she had much of a sense of humour.’
His mother ignored him and rummaged under the counter, coming back with a large leather cosh. The small traders of Tenth Egg Street worked on narrow margins, and had a very direct approach to shoplifting. ‘I don’t know, I really don’t,’ she moaned. ‘Me? Doing good at my time of life? I must be going soft in the head. And I’m not even going to get paid! I don’t know, I really don’t. Next thing you know, I’ll start giving people three wishes, and if I start doing that, Derek, I would like you to hit me very hard on the head.’ She handed him the cosh. ‘I’m leaving you in charge. Try to shift some of the rubber chocolate and the humorous fake fried eggs, will you? Tell people they are novelty bookmarks or something.’
And with that, Mrs Proust ran out into the night. The lanes and alleyways of the city were very dangerous at night, what with muggers, thieves and similar unpleasantnesses. But they disappeared back into the gloom as she passed. Mrs Proust was bad news, and best left undisturbed if you wanted to keep all the bones in your fingers pointing the right way.
The body that was Macintosh ran through the night. It was full of pain. This didn’t matter to the ghost; it wasn’t his pain. Its sinews sang with agony, but it was not the ghost’s agony. The fingers bled where they had torn steel bars out of the wall. But the ghost did not bleed. It never bled.
It couldn’t remember when it had had a body that was really its own. Bodies had to be fed and had to drink. That was an annoying feature of the wretched things. Sooner or later they ran out of usefulness. Often, that didn’t matter; there was always somebody — a little mind festering with hatred and envy and resentment that would welcome the ghost inside. But it had to be careful, and it had to be quick. But above all it had to be safe. Out here, on the empty roads, another suitable container would be hard to find. Regretfully, it allowed the body to stop and drink from the murky waters of a pond. It turned out to be full of frogs, but a body had to eat too, didn’t it?
26 Witches always made certain that their hands were scrupulously clean; the rest of the witch had to wait for some time in the busy schedule — or possibly for a thunderstorm.
27 There was no tradition of holy men on the Chalk, but since the hills were between the cities and the mountains, there was generally — in the good weather, at least — a steady procession of priests of one sort or another passing through who would, for a decent meal or a bed for the night, spread some holy words and generally give people’s souls a decent scrubbing. Provided that the priests were clearly of the decent sort, people didn’t worry unduly who their god was, so long as he — or occasionally she and sometimes it — kept the sun and moon spinning properly and didn’t want anything ridiculous or new. It also helped if the preacher knew a little something about sheep.
28 If not through actual
Chapter 13: The Shaking Of The Sheets
