were students?”
“ Made some mischief…” Sir Alec murmured. “Are you by any chance comparing Rottlezinder to Monk Markham? I wouldn’t. Your friend is flamboyant and frequently thoughtless, but he lacks the cruel streak that marked Rottlezinder’s chequered career.”
Cruel streak? “Are you saying he and Errol-”
Sir Alec shook his head. “I’m not saying anything, Mister Dunwoody. As you pointed out, that record is sealed.”
“Maybe, but whatever’s in it has you believing Errol’s a traitor.”
“No, Mister Dunwoody,” said Sir Alec, his cool gaze direct and impatient. “The fact that Errol Haythwaite signs his design-work has convinced me of that.”
Gerald slumped. “Oh.”
“Yes. Oh.”
So, things were looking pretty grim for Errol. And why do I care? He’s never done me any favours. He’d see me on the scrap heap, given half a chance. Except… he expected more of himself than that.
“But that doesn’t mean he’s the one passing his work to the Jandrians, does it?” he said, thoughts racing despite his crushing weariness. “Couldn’t someone be stealing it from him?”
“If you’re thinking of another Wycliffe wizard, it’s most unlikely,” said Sir Alec. “They’ve all been exhaustively investigated. None of them has access to Jandria.”
“But Errol does?”
Sir Alec nodded. “There are some family connections, which are being investigated as we speak. And you mustn’t forget, Mister Dunwoody-the only wizard at Wycliffe’s capable of breaching Errol Haythwaite’s privacy hexes is you, and I’m assuming you’ve not been passing Mister Haythwaite’s designs to the Jandrian government?”
Oh, ha ha, Sir Alec. Very funny. “Still,” he muttered. “Despite all the evidence, I can’t bring myself to believe Errol’s guilty.”
“Mister Dunwoody, you have me perplexed,” said Sir Alec, and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “There is no love lost between you and Errol Haythwaite. Why are you so determined to defend him in this matter?”
“Because-well, because I don’t like him,” Gerald said at last, goaded. “It’s too easy to believe the worst of someone you loathe and despise. If it was Monk you were accusing I’d never stand for it, because he’s my friend. So what kind of man would I be if I didn’t apply the same kind of rigour to someone I don’t like, for the sole simple reason that I don’t like him?”
“What kind of man indeed?” Sir Alec murmured, leaning back in his chair and staring across his desk with a contemplative, narrowed gaze. “That, Mister Dunwoody, is an interesting question.”
“Where’s Errol now? Is he under arrest? Is he here?”
Sir Alec glanced at the quietly ticking clock on the wall. “Not yet. But he will be, soon. We wanted to make sure he was cleared by a medical specialist before bringing him into the Department for questioning.”
“Dalby’s bringing him?”
Another disapproving pinch of lip. “ Senior Janitor Dalby, yes.”
He pushed to his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets. “You need to let me talk to Errol. Alone.”
“That’s out of the question,” said Sir Alec. “For one thing it’s been determined at the highest levels that you are never to be publicly identified with this Department. And for another, Mister Dunwoody, you are hardly a qualified interrogator. You are barely a janitor at all. I think you’re allowing tonight’s little achievements to overrule your-”
You sanctimonious bastard. “If I’m not an interrogator,” he said, his heart thudding, “then what the hell was that business with Monk’s souped-up delerioso incant?”
Sir Alec’s face hardened. “I don’t recall mentioning a delerioso incant.”
Oh… bugger. Sorry, Monk. “Sir Alec, don’t dismiss me. I can-”
But Sir Alec wasn’t so easily sidetracked. “Mister Dunwoody, am I to understand you have violated protocol and contacted-”
“You made me think I had to torture someone!” he shouted. “And I did. At least, I started to. And then you refused to discuss it afterwards! What did you think I was going to do, Sir Alec? After what Lional did to me, what did you think? Did you think I was going to smile and shrug and laugh it off?”
“What I thought or did not think is irrelevant,” Sir Alec snapped. “Mister Dunwoody, this is a serious breach. You have discussed confidential Department business with a non-Department individual.”
“Oh, don’t give me that!” he snapped. “You’re the one who went to Monk and got him to soup up his incant in the first place! And don’t you go blaming him for this either. He didn’t come to me, I went to him-because what I did in that final test disturbed me and you refused to talk about it.”
For quite some time, Sir Alec said nothing. Then he nodded at the hard wooden chair. “Sit down, Mister Dunwoody. And do make an effort to moderate your tone. I’m not in the habit of permitting subordinates to shout at me in my own office. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
Gerald thudded back into the chair. “I’m sorry. But-”
“I think, Mister Dunwoody,” Sir Alec said, lowering his hand, “that your best course of action is to leave it at ‘I’m sorry’.” He steepled his fingers again, his pale grey eyes coldly intent. “Now. What makes you think you’re qualified to successfully interrogate Errol Haythwaite?”
“I don’t want to interrogate him,” he said tiredly. “I just want to talk to him. I mean, you put me into Wycliffe’s in the first place because you know he doesn’t like me any more than I like him. I get under his skin. I throw him off-stride. So let me throw him off-stride. Let me use what I overheard tonight-” He looked at the early morning sky and shrugged. “Last night. If he thinks I believe him about not being in cahoots with Rottlezinder, maybe I can get him talking about this other thing with Jandria, and one of your real interrogators can maybe catch him in a lie. If he’s lying.”
And I really don’t think he is.
“I’m sure that sounds terribly exciting in theory, Mister Dunwoody, but there remains the matter of your anonymity,” said Sir Alec.
Gerald shrugged. “We both know you can fix that, Sir Alec. This Department’s got access to any number of useful, despicable incants.” He snorted. “Probably we invent most of them ourselves.”
Sir Alec was silent again, one forefinger tapping his lips. “You’d sanction that?” he said at last. No emotion in his voice, no hint of what he was thinking or feeling. “The use of despicable incants against Errol Haythwaite?”
“Given that I’ve already rearranged his memories once tonight, I’d be a bit bloody hypocritical to complain now, wouldn’t I?” he retorted. “Besides… if it means we stop Jandria from starting another war?” Staring at his knees, he thought about New Ottosland. Remembered all those charred, twisted bodies in the streets. Imagined the same kind of bloodshed here… and in other cities… but with a death toll in the thousands. Imagined death raining down from the sky from military airships. Just another kind of dragon. Looking up, he nodded. “Yes. I can live with hexing Errol. Besides, nothing could hurt him worse than being falsely accused of treason and maybe found guilty of something he didn’t do.”
Sighing, Sir Alec passed a hand across his face. “Mister Dunwoody,” he murmured. “What a trial you are proving to be.”
“Um…” said Gerald. “So, would that be a yes?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Pale and dishevelled, his face motley with bruises, its cuts and scrapes covered with sticking plaster, Errol looked up as Gerald entered the small interrogation room. His mouth dropped open and his tired, bloodshot eyes stretched wide.
“What the hell? What is this rubbish? Dunnywood?”
Sighing, Gerald dropped into the other chair at the interrogation room’s table. “Hello, Errol.”
