This interrogation room was identical to the one from Monk’s delerioso incant. Four walls. Two doors. No windows. No sign of the scrying crystal that would be feeding images back to Sir Alec and whoever else was observing this… conversation.
Errol was still staring at him in shock. “Is this some kind of unamusing joke? Or are you under arrest too? Now that I have no trouble believing. I don’t care what I said, you’re responsible for what happened to the new Mark VI prototype. To both prototypes. You’re a walking bloody disaster, Dunwoody. I knew you were trouble the first day I laid eyes on you. And at Wycliffe’s I was convinced. I could smell trouble on you, I could sense it. I could feel there was something very wrong about you.”
Gerald looked at him. Here we go. “Actually, Errol, what you felt was this.”
And he let his full rogue wizard potentia flare all around him like the raging nimbus of a newborn sun.
Every last bit of colour drained from Errol’s face. He scrambled out of his chair and retreated until he hit the nearest wall.
“That’s not possible,” he whispered, his voice hitching with shock. “That’s a trick. What the hell is going on here? You get out, Dunwoody. I won’t share a room with you. I want nothing to do with you!”
“Sorry, Errol,” he said, and pulled his potentia back inside himself. “We’re stuck with each other for a little while yet.” He nodded at the chair. “Sit down. There are some things we need to discuss.”
“Are you bloody deaf, you cretin?” Errol spat. “I’m not talking to you. I don’t know how but you’re responsible for all of this!”
“No,” he said. “Not all of it. Maybe some of it, in a roundabout kind of way. Look… maybe this will be easier on both of us if I put things back the way they were.” And with a snap of his fingers, and the whisper of a few cruel words, he undid what he’d done to Errol’s memory at Wycliffe’s.
It took a moment for reality to reassert itself. And then, as Gerald watched, Errol… remembered.
“I’m sorry about Rottlezinder,” he said, as Errol blindly groped for the chair. “I know you were friends. Used to be friends. And I’m sorry about what I did to you. But you didn’t really give me a choice, Errol.”
Errol thudded into the chair and pressed his hands flat to his face. It was quite astonishing, to see the polished, sophisticated, exquisitely urbane Errol Haythwaite so completely dismayed. Once, he’d have been delighted to see his nemesis brought so low. But witnessing it now, all he could feel was a tired pity.
Errol let his hands drop to the table, revealing a bone-white, ravaged face. “Who the hell are you, Dunwoody? What are you?”
He grimaced. “Yes, well, it seems nobody’s managed to figure that out yet. But I can tell you what I’m not. I’m not your enemy, Errol. I’m trying to help you.”
“ Help me?” said Errol, and wrestled for self-control. “Fine. Then you can answer some questions.”
“Sure. If I can.”
“What is this place?” Errol demanded, looking around the cold, unfriendly room. “What am I doing here? What are you doing here? That man- Dalby, is it? — he said there were one or two things about the lab accident that needed clearing up-and then he took me to see some doctor. Said it was a new DoT policy. Except-” He shook his head, dazed. “There wasn’t any lab accident. You-you faked that. So is this about Haf? About him sabotaging Ottosland’s portal network?” Errol leaned across the table, the closest to desperate that Gerald had ever seen him. “Because I had nothing to do with that! You were there at the boot factory, Dunwoody, God knows how or why. Didn’t you hear what I told Haf, didn’t you hear me-”
“Yes, Errol, I heard,” he said quietly. “We know you weren’t working with Haf Rottlezinder.”
Errol sat back. “Good. That’s good,” he said un-steadily. “Then I can go.”
“Not quite yet,” he said. “There’s something else we need to discuss. But before we do… I have to tell you, Errol, I am curious about something.”
“As if I had the slightest interest in you or your curiosity,” said Errol, sneering. His confidence was seeping back. In his eyes a familiar, icy glitter of dislike. “Get out of here, Dunwoody. I’ve nothing to say to you.”
Oh, Errol. How can you be such a brilliant wizard and such a fool?
“Come on, Errol,” he said, and rested his clasped hands on the table. “Indulge me, just this once. After all, I did save your life. Go on. What can it hurt?”
Errol blew out a hard breath and waved his hand. “Fine. Ask what you like. But that doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
As invitations went, it was hardly gracious-but given that this was Errol Haythwaite, he’d take what he could get. “Okay. So here’s the thing that has me puzzled, Errol. After Rottlezinder first approached you, why didn’t you tell the Department of Thaumaturgy?”
“Tell them what?” said Errol, scathing. “That an old friend contacted me out of the blue and asked if I’d like to work with him on a lucrative project?”
He frowned. “That’s all he said? He didn’t tell you what the project was? Where the money was coming from?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“I wasn’t interested.”
“And why was that, Errol?” he asked quietly. “Because you knew there was a good chance that if Haf was involved the project would be… questionable?”
Errol glared at the table. “This is ridiculous.”
“All right,” he said. “I accept that Haf played his cards close to his chest. I accept that on the face of it there was no reason for you to alert the authorities. Not in the beginning. But Errol… after that first portal accident, and knowing the kind of man Rottlezinder was, you must’ve realised there was a connection. Or at least suspected — but still you kept quiet. And because you kept quiet, scores more people were hurt. For what? So you could protect your precious career? Are you really that shallow, Errol?”
Errol’s pale, bruised face flushed a dull red. “Watch your mouth, Dunwoody. I don’t take that kind of cheek from tailor’s brats.”
“Don’t say things like that, Errol,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m the only friend you’ve got in this place.”
“Ha!” said Errol. “Then I really am in trouble, aren’t I?”
Oh, lord. “Errol, don’t you get it? You’re in so much hot water right now it’s a wonder you can’t feel the steam.”
Errol breathed hard, torn between contempt and uncertainty. Then he dropped his gaze and folded his arms. “Of course I knew something was wrong,” he muttered. “But he threatened me. When I turned him down. He threatened my family. He threatened my friends. He said if I knew what was good for me I’d pay no attention to the newspapers. He said if I didn’t want to spend the next six months attending funerals I’d mind my own business.”
“And you believed him?”
“ Yes, I believed him!” said Errol, violently. “God, you’d have believed him too if-”
“If I’d shared a few youthful indiscretions with him?”
Stark silence, as Errol stared. “You know about that?” he said at last, dully, emptied abruptly of fire and fight. He shrugged. “Well, then.”
Sympathy flickered. Resenting it, Gerald frowned. “Errol, while it’s true you’ve been cleared of involvement in the portal sabotage, we have learned something else. Something very… disquieting. I wanted to know what you thought about it.”
“ You wanted to-” Errol glared, his anger rekindling. “ You?” Unfolding his arms, he shoved to his feet. “ You aren’t fit to polish my shoes, Dunwoody. As far as I’m concerned this conversation is over. I’m leaving. And you can rest assured, you and-” His gaze swept the small room. “-whoever else is party to this charade, that Lord Attaby shall shortly be receiving a visit from my legal counsel. This has been nothing but a farrago of harassment, assault and intimidation. And if you think you can get away with it you are sorely mistaken. I shall take immense pleasure, Dunwoody, in seeing you broken in a very public Court of-”
“Sit down, Errol,” Gerald said softly. “We’re not finished here.”
“We most certainly are!” snapped Errol. “ You’re finished, Dunnywood, you’re-”
“ I said sit down!”
Errol gaped at him, stunned.
