CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sir Alec made him wait in an interrogation room. For hours.
Gerald didn’t think it was funny.
But then he was too tired to have much of a sense of humour left. If he wasn’t so tired, he might have been… nervous. Apprehensive. Be feeling some concern about what must be his uncertain future. After all, he had played fast and loose with the rules on this, his very first official janitorial assignment. It had been a watching brief, but instead of sedately watching he’d been running around doing. And now there were two dead bodies, an exploded boot factory and an entire labful of wizards who’d heard things they doubtless were never meant to hear. There was Errol, who now knew the truth about him. And Eudora Telford, discreet as a goose.
There were Monk and Melissande and Emmerabiblia and Reg.
True, there was also Permelia, but from what he could tell she’d come more or less unhinged, so who knew how much use she was going to be in foiling the Jandrians and their nefarious plans?
That’ll be a job for some other janitor. Maybe the one who’s still in Jandria, looking over his shoulder. Risking his life.
But that didn’t answer what was going to happen to him, now that he’d completed his first assignment-sort of. With a lot of unauthorised assistance. And a great deal more fuss than he’d ever anticipated.
He tried to feel sorry that Ambrose was dead, and couldn’t. That worried him a bit. Yes, Ambrose had been a criminal. Very nearly a murderer. And Haf Rottlezinder was dead because he’d worked with Ambrose. Although, really, Haf Rottlezinder had been bound to end up dead sooner or later. Haf Rottlezinder had lived that kind of life. But Ambrose hadn’t been evil, not like that. He’d been selfish and misguided and driven to a desperate act. In a way, Ambrose Wycliffe was a man to be pitied.
Yes, he’d definitely be happier if he could feel sad about Ambrose.
I’m sure I’ll feel sad when I’m not quite so tired.
One of the interrogation room’s two doors opened, and Sir Alec walked in. “Mister Dunwoody.”
Probably the polite thing to do would be to stand, because Sir Alec was a “sir,” after all, and older, and his superior, but he was just too damned tired for standing. Besides. He was sitting in an interrogation room, and really, honestly, he’d done nothing wrong.
Well. Nothing illegal.
“Sir Alec,” he said, and stayed where he was.
Sir Alec considered him for a moment, then quietly closed the interrogation room door. Crossed to the table. Sat down in the other chair. Clasped his hands in his lap and stared in silence with those cool, pale, unfathomable eyes. Gerald stared back, too tired to be intimidated.
“Well, Mister Dunwoody,” said Sir Alec at last. “And what the bloody hell am I supposed to do with you?”
He shrugged. “Pat me on the head and send me home for a good night’s sleep?”
Sir Alec’s cool eyes flared with unexpected temper. “You think this is funny? You think this is a joking matter, Mister Dunwoody? You think Department protocols, our secrecy, are things you need never be concerned with? You think the rules don’t apply to you?”
He sat a little straighter. The interrogation room’s air had taken on a nasty taste. In the invisible ether, fury was burning… “No, Sir Alec. Of course I don’t.”
“Really?” said Sir Alec. “Given the evidence at hand I find that hard to believe.”
“Sir Alec-”
“You will be silent, Mister Dunwoody. I am speaking,” snapped Sir Alec. “It occurs to me, sir, that you, by virtue of your-unusual-status, feel you can flout all propriety with complete impunity. In short, Mister Dunwoody, you appear to be labouring under the impression that you are untouchable. Unstoppable. A law unto yourself. That your rogue thaumaturgic capabilities release you from the restrictions and obligations endured by other, lesser mortals. Well?”
He was so tired. And he wasn’t in the mood for being scolded, like a child. Perhaps his methods had been unorthodox, perhaps it was true that in the end their victory owed more to Witches Inc. than Gerald Dunwoody-but did that really matter? Surely only the outcome was important. And the outcome had been good, this time.
He folded him arms, feeling reckless. Defiant. “Oh. I can speak now, can I?”
Sir Alec placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Do not attempt to cross swords with me, Mister Dunwoody. I am warning you: do not.”
Gerald met Sir Alec’s pitiless gaze and held it… but it was hard. On the inside, he was shaking. “The answer to your question is no. I don’t consider myself any of those things.”
“Do you recall,” said Sir Alec, sitting back again, “what I said to you at our first meeting, in New Ottosland?”
“You said a lot of things, Sir Alec.” He swallowed. “You said there were people who thought the world would be a better place if I… didn’t exist.”
Sir Alec’s lips thinned. “Essentially, yes. I did say that, though perhaps not quite as melodramatically. And you should know, Mister Dunwoody, that those people have not changed their opinion. And you should also know that recent events will do nothing to persuade them that their opinion is erroneous.”
Oh. Well. That could prove… inconvenient, couldn’t it? In which case perhaps antagonising Sir Alec wasn’t the smartest of strategies. Perhaps the smart thing right now would be to keep the man on side.
“I’m sorry, Sir Alec,” he said, discarding all defensiveness. “I never meant to cause the Department trouble.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Sir Alec retorted, “and yet trouble there is. The extent of Witches Inc.’s involvement- and Mister Markham’s-in our business is causing no little excitement, Mister Dunwoody.”
Oh, lord. Monk. The girls. No. Just no. I can’t have them punished for being my friends. “ Sir Alec, you have to know that without help from Monk and Her Highness and Miss Markham we would never — ”
“I’m sorry,” said Sir Alec, eyebrows raised. “Aren’t you forgetting someone? I believe your list of extracurricular assistants is short one queen in a feathered headdress.”
Gerald felt some heat touch his face. “Oh. Yes. Reg. Actually, Reg was a lifesaver.”
“Literally, as I understand it,” said Sir Alec. “Mister Dalby is having some little trouble convincing the former R amp;D wizards at Wycliffe’s that they did not, in actual fact, hear a bird scream: ‘ Get your bloody hands off him, you harpy.’ ”
Gerald touched his fingers to the tiny pinprick in his throat. “Is that what she said? I couldn’t really hear her, I was too busy thinking a hexed hairpin was about to be plunged into my carotid artery.”
“ Mister Dunwoody — ”
“Look,” he said, as the stresses and strains of the past days caught up with him in one fell and blinding swoop. “Sir Alec. You have to believe me, I never meant for it to happen like this, all right? Things just sort of-got away from me. I mean, it wasn’t my fault the girls ended up at Wycliffe’s at the same time I was there!”
“I never said it was, Mister Dunwoody.”
Encouraged, he plunged on. “And I had nothing to do with them working for Permelia. But if you know the story already-if you’ve already bullied it out of Monk-or the girls-then you know it was bloody lucky they were there. Because if Reg hadn’t overheard Errol and Kirkby-Hackett, if she hadn’t overheard Permelia and Ambrose, if Melissande and Bibbie hadn’t followed Eudora Telford all the way to South Ott, if Melissande hadn’t been able to-to princess that foolish old lady into telling us the truth and giving us those fake gemstones and Permelia’s note to Haf Rottlezinder-well, for starters you’d still be looking at Errol for this and you’d be bloody well wrong, wouldn’t you?”
Sir Alec’s stare was unblinking. “It’s possible.”
It was more than bloody possible, but he didn’t press the point. “Well, then. As it stands the case is all wrapped up, the right people are arrested, and the day’s been saved. Again. All right, maybe I should’ve been the one to save it-but I wasn’t. And if that’s embarrassed you or the Department, Sir Alec, then I’m very sorry. Really. I am.”
There was a long and uncomfortable silence. Then Sir Alec nodded, the merest, miserly tip of his head. “I
