pretending to be a Third Grade wizard. I was under the impression you were supposed to be an occasional thaumaturgical contributor, not a permanent fixture. So what’s going on?”
It was a very good question-and he had no answer. “Tired of having me around, are you? Eager to see me off the premises for a while?”
“Don’t be silly,” she snapped. “Even pretending to be a common or garden not terribly special locum you’re as much an asset to the firm as Bibbie’s blue eyes or my soppy brother.”
“I am? You mean as a mere male I’m good for something after all? Aside from taking out the rubbish, I mean.”
“Target practice, if you’re not careful,” Reg muttered from the back seat.
Melissande tossed her plait off her shoulder with an impatient shrug. “Of course you are. Because even though it pains me to admit it, you’re right. Sometimes the best woman for the job is a man. Mr. Arfenbacher’s little embarrassment, remember? He was never going to talk to a witch about that. And Lady Grune? A total stranger to the concept of sisterhood, that bloody woman. You saved the day there too, Gerald.”
“Oh,” he said, and was surprised to find himself ridiculously pleased. “Well. You know. Just doing my bit.”
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” said Melissande. “Because the more you keep doing your bit the more clients are going to ask for you to work on their case. You’ll turn into your own walking billboard and we won’t need to mention you in our advertising even as a footnote. Which is going to make running the agency that much harder, if I can’t say for certain whether you’re going to be available. What if I give you a terribly important job and then in the middle of it Sir Alec whisks you away? What happens to us then? To our reputation?”
“You’d manage,” he said. “And Melissande, Sir Alec did explain that-”
She slapped the jalopy’s dashboard. “Yes, Gerald, I know what he explained. I was there, remember? I signed the paperwork. In triplicate. But the plain unvarnished truth is that we’re a better agency with you than without you so just answer the question, would you? Please? When are you likely to be sent away on Department business?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, Melissande, I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s not good enough!”
“I’m afraid it’ll have to be. Sorry.”
She snatched up her plait and bit the end of it, savagely. “Well, it’s not. I’ve a good mind to make an appointment with your precious Sir Alec and-”
“No! No! Melissande, you can’t!” Horrified, he stared at her. “Really, you can’t. You promised you’d stay out of Department business, remember? Don’t you know how close-run a thing it was, you and Reg and Bibbie and Monk getting mixed up with the Wycliffe affair? The favors Sir Alec called in to protect all of us-to keep the agency open and you from being sent home to Rupert in disgrace-Melissande, please. You can’t.”
“I didn’t know there’d been that kind of trouble,” she said after a long silence. Then she tilted her chin, and behind her spectacles her eyes glittered dangerously. “Why didn’t you tell me there’d been that kind of trouble? Is that why you’ve not been sent on an assignment yet? Are you being punished because of what happened with Wycliffe’s?”
“No, of course not,” he said, even though there were moments when he had his suspicions. “It’s just the way things go in the janitor business. The right kind of assignment hasn’t come along, that’s all.”
“Good,” said Melissande. Then she frowned at her lap. “Although, to be honest, Gerald, I hope it never does. I don’t want you disappearing into the underworld of black market thaumaturgics or international skullduggery or whatever catastrophe comes along next.”
“But that’s my job, Melissande,” he said gently. “My real job. The agency-it’s just camouflage.”
Staring out of the passenger window, she sighed. “I know.”
“And when that Sir Alec does get around to sending you on another mission, even if you could turn him down you wouldn’t,” said Reg. “Would you?”
“Is she right?” said Melissande, when he didn’t answer.
Reg hopped from the back seat onto the back of the driver’s seat, behind his left shoulder. “Don’t be a tosser, madam. Of course I’m right. Our Gerald’s getting antsy-aren’t you, Gerald? You’re starting to feel cooped up. Bored. And even though that Sir Alec’s got you jumping through hoops once a week out at Nettleworth, it’s not the same. It’s not enough. You’re as bad as that Markham boy, drat you. You don’t like having your wings clipped any more than he does. You, Gerald Dunwoody, are pining for action.”
Melissande raised an eyebrow at him. “Exactly. What she said.”
Rats. “Well, she happens to be wrong,” he retorted. “I’m not pining for anything and I don’t have wings, clipped or otherwise.”
“Oh, pishwash, Gerald,” said Reg. “Pull the other one. With any luck it’ll come off and then I can smack you over the head with it.”
Scowling, he let himself slump until his knees hit the dashboard. “Fine. So you’re right. But what difference does it make? I can’t force Sir Alec to send me out on assignment, can I? And anyway…”
This time it was Melissande’s turn to prompt. “Yes? And anyway what?”
At this time of night Daffydown Lane was as silent as the grave. As he stared out at the darkness the drifting drizzle hardened, turning into proper rain. The sound of it drumming on the jalopy roof and the lane’s cobbles was oddly comforting. A childhood sound of warm blankets and steaming hot cocoa and his mother tucking him in with a kiss.
“The problem is,” he said at last, “that I’m neither fish nor fowl. I never have been, really. When I was a Third Grader I scraped by as a compliance officer, just, but I was never going to climb the ladder of bureaucratic success. And then came Stuttley’s, and New Ottosland, and suddenly I’m the most powerful wizard in the world, apparently, which means I’m too dangerous to be let loose without supervision. The thing is, I’m starting to suspect it’s not that there aren’t any missions Sir Alec could send me on. There are. The problem is he’s afraid to.”
“Sir Alec? Afraid?” Melissande shook her head. “Sorry, but he doesn’t strike me as the fearful type.”
“Fine. Then not Sir Alec, but the men he answers to. He’s got clout, a lot of it, but he’s not autonomous.”
“Told you that, did he?” said Reg. “Over crumpets and a nice cup of tea?”
Not in so many words. Sir Alec had turned being cryptically circumspect into an art form. But there had been some hints, since the Wycliffe affair-some gaps in the conversation he’d been able to fill. And once or twice Mr. Dalby had given away more than he realized.
And then of course there’s how the other janitors look at me, when they think I’m not looking. The truth is I don’t bloody well belong anywhere.
“Something like that, Reg,” he said, shrugging. “The point is they really don’t know what to do with me. I think if I accidentally fell under a bus tomorrow there’d be a lovely funeral and sighs of relief all around.”
“Oh, Gerald, surely not!” said Melissande, genuinely shocked. “ Surely they appreciate your immense value to Ottosland. To the world. Certainly to thaumaturgics. They can’t be so short-sighted as to let their fear of the unknown override what they’ve got in you?”
Reg cackled. “Of course they can, ducky. They’re politicians, aren’t they? And bureaucrats. The most dangerous combination of criminals in the world.”
“Do you mind?” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “ I was a bureaucrat, remember?”
“And I was a politician,” added Melissande.
“Ha,” said Reg smugly. “And so I rest my case.”
Melissande pulled a horrible face at her, then gave up. “So what are you saying, Gerald? That this whole idea of seconding Witches Incorporated into his Department was a ruse? Sir Alec’s way of-of-hobbling you? Containing you? Keeping you out of mischief?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I didn’t think so at first, but every time I turn around lately someone else is on a job and I’m still here.”
She chewed at her lip. “Well-what does Monk think?”
“I haven’t talked it over with him.”
“Why not?”
He gave her a look. “Why do you think? Because he’s got his own problems to worry about. And because if I
