Loved Up Page 3

  I sat back, regarding him. There were dark rings under his eyes, and he had that same look he’d been wearing for months – like he was bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. ‘Tell me about Nancy,’ I said.

  ‘Tell you what, exactly? It’s like my mam told you. Nancy had no enemies. I’m telling you, Wanda, she was killed as a warning. It’s those old goats at Crooked College who are responsible.’

  It definitely seemed like an avenue worth investigating, but I could hardly dismiss all other lines of inquiry on his say so. ‘You might be right. But I’d still like you to tell me everything you can about your cousin. What was she like? Who were her friends? What did she do? Did she work for one of your coven’s companies?’

  Will nodded. ‘Yeah – well, in a way. We own a large share of Mutual Magic Bank, and she worked there. She was the assistant to Heber Montrose, the bank manager. She was popular at the bank, too. She had lots of friends there, and in our coven. I can give you a list of her friends, but it’ll be an incredibly long one. And she ... oh, Wanda, she was so full of life. She was always dragging me to some concert or art gallery. She loved flying, and dancing, and travelling and ... anything that made her feel alive. And you know the best thing about her? My dad murdered her dad, and she never once let it stand in the way of our friendship. She knew what I knew – that we didn’t have to be who our parents were, or who our coven was. She–’ He broke off suddenly, clearing his throat and looking away from me once again.

  I decided to give him a minute to collect himself. And seeing as he looked so vulnerable just then, I figured I’d be better off keeping my eyes on other things while he did his collecting. I glanced around at the rest of the tavern. Dennis, the department healer, was leaving the scene with Nancy’s body, and a few Wayfairs and Peacemakers were leaving along with him.

  My coven was busy questioning customers, taking notes and gathering evidence. One of the people gathering evidence was Gabriel, my boyfriend. I hadn’t seen him arrive, but right now he was working along with Gretel, a Peacemaker, photographing the area around where Nancy’s body had been. He looked up from the camera, and gave me a little wave.

  I waved back quickly, trying to quash the uncomfortable feeling that arose when I saw him. My kiss with Will might have been accidental, but that didn’t stop me feeling bad about it. If I wasn’t afraid it would destroy Will’s relationship with Mandy, I would have told Gabriel long ago.

  It hardly helped matters that right now, as per usual, Will was reminding me of all the reasons why I could never get him out of my head. He was an enigma. A gorgeous, hard-bodied enigma that I wished to the goddess I could forget about.

  ‘How come Nancy went into banking?’ I asked, forcing my mind back to the murder investigation. ‘Your coven has entertainment businesses, travel businesses ... it seems like there were a lot more suitable jobs you could have found for her within the fold.’

  As Will shrugged, a veil seemed to fall over his face. ‘I dunno. Sometimes people like a boring day job, don’t they? Just to make enough money so they can pursue their other interests in their spare time.’

  I felt my eyes begin to narrow. ‘You’re holding something back, Will.’

  ‘No. I’m not.’ He swallowed. ‘And even if I was, would it matter? I’m telling you, Wanda – this was those old farts at Crooked College. They killed Nancy. You need to go and talk to them. Now.’

  Yeah, he was holding something back. Something big. ‘I’ll talk to who I want and when I want,’ I said. ‘And if you don’t tell me what it is you’re being so cagey about, then I’ll be talking to you a lot more. I think I can say with confidence that neither of us wants that. So just tell me, Will. Why was Nancy working at the bank?’

  ‘Drop it, Wanda. I’m telling you everything you need to know.’ His jaw grew tight, and I could see a vein begin to pulse as he stood up. ‘I’ll send you a list of Nancy’s friends and acquaintances as soon as I can,’ he said over his shoulder, before walking over to his mother and Mandy.

  ≈

  A couple of hours later, we had questioned everyone in the tavern. The sun had long set, and the weredogs and werewolves had been allowed to leave before anyone else, seeing as the last thing we needed tonight was even more carnage.

  Dennis had given us a preliminary cause of death, but he promised to tell us more as soon as he was finished the autopsy. I shuddered at the thought of his initial – and probably accurate – assessment. Nancy had literally been punched to death. Three swift and hard hits: two to shock her, and a third that killed.

  Somebody really had punched her lights out.

  ≈

  With Three Witches Brew closed for the evening, the men had gone off to the community hall to pass the time, while the women had gone home. I was surprised that people still wanted to go through with the usual Imbolc rituals, but the longer I worked as a Wayfair, the more I saw people behave similarly – after the initial shock of discovering or witnessing a murder, people needed to return to normal, and the sooner the better.

  The only people remaining in the tavern were my mother, me, and the three brother-landlords.

  My mother and I were just gathering the last of our things when Ronan approached. His face was a mixture of worry and concentration. ‘Wanda, Beatrice,’ he said. ‘I think ... I think the two of you should follow me. I want to show you something.’

  He led us towards a section of the floor that I knew all too well. A rug had been pulled back, and a trap door was open. I had once arrived in Three Witches Brew through that very door, after finding my way there via a maze of underground passageways. On that occasion, I was rushing to stop a mass murder taking place. You know – just an average day. Since becoming empowered, dramatic events really were the norm. Maybe once I headed to college next autumn, things would settle down. Although seeing as I loved being a Wayfair so much, I wondered how long I would be able to endure settled.

  My mother and I stared into the hole below the trap door, where Ronan’s two brothers were waiting.

  They had already dropped down a small rope ladder, and we climbed quickly down, with Ronan following behind. Casks and crates were strewn around, and it looked just as messy and unused as it had the last time I was there. But seeing as, on that occasion, Ronan had referred to the area as his secret brewing cave, I knew there had to be more.

  Sure enough, Fiodóir was drawing a dusty crate aside, and revealing a door behind. As he pulled the door open, it creaked in protest. He issued a few Solas spells, and the space lit up. As we walked into the secret room, I shivered. There it was again – that far-too-familiar feeling. Someone, or something, had been in this room very recently, and I wasn’t altogether sure that they were gone.

  Fiodóir was shivering too. ‘Does it feel colder in here than usual?’

  Ronan nodded. ‘And a little bit like we’re being watched?’

  As always, when I had that feeling, I did some pointless looking around. If the cause of my jumpiness was what I thought it was, then I was unlikely to see a thing. Vampires could vaporize themselves, getting in and out of the tiniest spaces unseen. They wouldn’t have even had to pull aside the crate that hid this room’s door – not since they could slip through hairline cracks.

  ‘We know you’re there,’ said my mother. ‘And we know who you are, too. The Dark Team, right? Well, feel smug, if that’s what you want to do. Feel just as smug as you like. But mark my words, we’re onto you. And we’re coming for you.’

  I felt a rush of cold air, flying past my right shoulder. I reached out a finger and said, ‘Conáil,’ hoping to freeze whoever it was in the act. But I caught nothing. Whoever it was, they were gone – I was sure of that, because the air in the room felt different.

  ‘They’re gone,’ my mother said darkly, pulling a small scanner from her bag. The light was blinking madly. ‘Telekinetic energy,’ she muttered. ‘Why amn’t I surprised?’ She looked at the brothers. ‘Is that what you wanted to show us? You sensed someo
ne was in here?’

  The brothers looked at one another, then shook their heads. ‘Well ... no,’ said Fiodóir, raking a hand through his blue-black hair. ‘I mean, we only just came in here at the same time as you. We wanted to show you something that we’d forgotten all about.’ He approached a wall filled with brewing apparatus. He pulled what looked like a pipe, and the wall moved aside. ‘Another hidden room,’ he said. ‘With old-school mechanisms rather than a room within a room spell, or a bigger on the inside one. Sometimes, the easiest ways of hiding things are the hardest to detect. Witches are always scanning for magic. They’re not so often looking for the obvious.’

  I found myself curious at his choice of words. The brothers were witches, that much I could sense. But I’d never looked much further than that. I’d never had much reason to. They were trustworthy, and that was all I needed to know. But now that I pushed my senses harder, I could feel something unusual about their power. It had a firmness to it that I’d not encountered in other witches.

  Right now, though, what was behind the wall was even more fascinating than the brothers. It was just another wall, bare except for a golden switch. It was on a round backing plate, and the switch itself was a large, old-fashioned toggle.

  ‘What does it do?’ my mother asked.

  Once again, the brothers shared a look before replying. ‘First off,’ said Quinn. ‘We need to say that we’d very near forgotten about the thing. That switch is as old as the tavern. Second off ... don’t pull that switch. If you do, you’ll find yourself without power all over again.’

  I gulped. ‘This is ... a power switch?’

  ‘In the most accurate sense of the word, yes,’ said Ronan. ‘It was built along with the tavern, but it was only used once before, that we know of. The switch was supposed to knock off all magical power inside Three Witches Brew. The tavern was meant to be a safe zone, back when coven arguments got a lot more murderous. It was supposed to be a place where witches could go and have a drink and a bite in peace, without worrying that someone might have poisoned their port or sent a death spell to their table. But the switch turned out to be defective. Instead of subduing magical power inside the tavern, it subdued magical power throughout Riddler’s Cove. It proved impossible to destroy, so we – our family – blocked it up and eventually forgot all about it. But when the power went out all over town tonight, we remembered it.’

  Fiodóir nodded. ‘We hoped it wasn’t the switch, but look – you can see that it’s been used. The toggle is dust free. We think someone turned the power off and then back on again, once they’d killed Nancy. Probably that same someone who we all sensed when we came in here first.’

  My mother and I peered closer. They were right. The toggle of the switch looked like it had recently been wiped.

  ‘Someone trying to destroy prints,’ said my mother with a grimace. ‘They’ve probably managed it as well. But it won’t stop me trying.’ She pulled out her fingerprinting kit, and we got to work.

  3. Some Ghostly Presents

  When we arrived back at Wayfarers’ Rest, the moon had long come out, and Max had gone off to howl at it for the night. We had arranged some food and drinks before we went to the tavern, but we decided to help Christine do some scrying before we filled our gobs.

  She pulled out the big guns – the black scrying bowl, the one that displayed through fire instead of water – for herself, and gave the rest of us a selection of other bowls. She was an expert in seeing present and future events, and could sometimes manage a glimpse of the past, too. Once she saw these visions, she was able to capture them in ice-cubes that she called Frozen Stares. She usually kept these recordings of her visions in the freezer at Wayfarers’ Rest, so it was always wise to check you were putting a plain old ice-cube in your drink instead of a recording of a horrific murder. Well, unless there was nothing decent on TV.

  I tried my best to peer into the water, focusing on all that I knew of Nancy, but Envisioning really wasn’t my thing. My mind would get in such a muddle, so desperate to see anything – whether it be past, present or future – that I just couldn’t calm down enough to let what would come simply come.

  Christine’s bowl was filled with leaping flames, and I knew she was trying to look into the past, to see the moments before or during Nancy’s murder. Melissa seemed to have inherited some modicum of her mother’s talent, and tonight she was looking into a bowl of water, trying to see anything that would help. She rarely saw the past but she could sometimes catch a glimpse of the present or future. Right now, she didn’t seem able to make sense of what she was seeing.

  ‘Why am I looking at Barry Plimpton?’ she asked.

  I peered into her bowl, my heart thudding fast. It was Barry Plimpton all right. Seeing as Finn, Gretel and I had been secretly tailing the ex-Minister’s secretary for weeks, I would recognise him anywhere. He was a medium height, medium build, mousey-haired guy with a face that was neither handsome nor ugly. Nevertheless, his nondescript looks had become etched in my mind. He had worked in the Wyrd Court for years, right up until his boss got thrown into prison. In Melissa’s scrying bowl, he was sliding what looked like a plate of fried chicken into the microwave to heat it up.

  ‘What the hell?’ Melissa pushed her bowl away, grunting in irritation. ‘As if it wasn’t bad enough that I had to work with that guy for months. Now I have to see him when we’re trying to solve a murder. I’m clearly not going to be any help.’

  I kept looking at Barry, unsure that Melissa’s vision was quite as useless as she believed. Whenever Gretel had followed Barry back to his flat, the first thing he did, each and every time, was heat chicken in the microwave. Finn, Gretel and I dismissed it for a long time, thinking he really was just a boring, predictable guy. But if Barry’s eating patterns were appearing in a scrying bowl, then maybe the whole chicken thing was far more significant than it seemed.

  I shuffled closer, and whispered, ‘I wouldn’t say that, Melissa. Remember how I was telling you I wanted to talk to you earlier on. I–’

  ‘Oh my stars!’ Christine exclaimed, interrupting me. ‘I’ve got something. Come on, everyone, take a squizz.’

  We all made our way to Christine’s bowl and peered into the flames. We were looking at an office I had never seen before. But the fat man who was arguing with Nancy, spittle flying out of his mouth, was someone I’d seen just as often as Barry Plimpton over the last few weeks.

  ‘Heber Montrose!’ I breathed. ‘This must be inside his office at Mutual Magic Bank.’

  My mother eyed me with confusion. ‘How do you know that? We bank at Sickle Sensible.’

  ‘I ... process of deduction. Will Berry told me Nancy’s manager’s name.’ Well, that wasn’t exactly a lie. Will did tell me Heber’s name. I just happened to know it already. ‘And I know that Nancy worked at Mutual Magic, so ...’

  ‘Oh, right.’ My mother seemed to accept the untruth. ‘Christine, can we get sound on this?’

  Christine nodded. ‘I’ll start it from the beginning,’ she said, dipping her hand towards the flames and saying, ‘Reform.’ The images rushed towards her hand, condensing and crystallizing, before forming into a small, snowflake-shaped cube of ice. She added a few more grains of sand and dropped the cube into the bowl.

  The flames leaped larger, enhancing the vision that was playing in front of our eyes. We could see and hear every single word of the argument Nancy was having with her boss.

  ‘I told you, I wasn’t listening at the door!’ Nancy screamed. ‘I couldn’t care less what you do in here with your special customers. I don’t care who you bribe, or who’s bribing you. I just want to come in, do my job and go home, you crazy old goat!’

  More spittle flew from Heber’s mouth, and his chins began to wobble. ‘Little Miss Innocent, as usual. Nancy bloody Berry. Well, I don’t give a rat’s behind how much money your coven has in this bank, or how many shares you own. I know you’re sneaking around here, listening at keyholes.’

  Nancy
let out a frustrated shriek, and pulled her hands through her dirty-blonde hair. Now that she was animated, I could see that her hair colour wasn’t the only similarity she shared with her cousin. Her eyes were the exact same shade as Will’s, too. She even had the same dimples in her cheeks.

  ‘Listening at keyholes!’ she cried. ‘Listening at keyholes!’ She marched to the door and pointed at it. ‘Do you see a keyhole there? Because I sure don’t. And as you’re forever telling me, no one can see through, or hear through, the wood you’ve used. So unless you think I’ve got bionic ears ...’ She shook her head and curled her lip. ‘But never mind how ridiculous your accusations are, Mr Montrose. Just fire me and get it over with.’

  Mr Montrose’s lips formed a tight, scary smile. He took a step forward, moving his big face close to hers. Judging by the look on Nancy’s face, his breath did not smell pleasant. ‘Be careful, Nancy Berry. I’m on to you.’

  The flames began to sway, and Christine moved quickly, catching and recording the vision before it disappeared, palming the ice-cube and shaking her head in wonder. ‘Well, that was a doozy.’

  ‘The dooziest,’ my mother agreed, then looked at me. ‘Has Will Berry sent you that list yet?’

  I checked my phone, and scanned through my emails. ‘Yup,’ I said, trying to hide my disappointment as I opened the email in question. There was no hello, no goodbye. Just three lists. One of Nancy’s friends, another of her acquaintances, and a third list detailing the names and addresses of everyone on the board at Crooked College.

  ‘Good,’ said my mother, looking at my screen. ‘We’ll divide the interviews up among the Wayfairs and Peacemakers. But you and I are going to pay a visit to Mutual Magic, first thing in the morning.’

  I felt a small flurry of excitement. I loved interviewing with my mother. Lately, though, she had been so wrapped up in my dad’s treatment, and in designing our new policing force in time for the election. We hadn’t worked a case together for weeks.