‘I’m certain that I would remember seeing a cat like that,’ he said faintly.
I was beginning to wonder if the Maine Coon was some sort of ghost. He certainly wasn’t like any other cat I’d ever come across and I’d met thousands during the course of my lifetime.
‘It’s not important.’ I smiled reassuringly. Alan seemed much more relaxed here than he’d been in the classroom. I felt a trace of sympathy for him; he must have felt very out of place above ground and that was doubtless why he’d kept to himself.
As if to give credence to my thoughts, another vampire wandered past and called out,
‘Alan! Good to see you, old chap!’
I watched Alan wave and smile. I had always assumed that vampires were solitary creatures but that wasn’t actually true. They had friends, it was simply that those friends were other vampires. As I glanced at Penelope, who was occupying herself at one of the clothing stalls, I was beginning to understood why. Their motto was ‘Trust in the fang and the fang alone’, I reminded myself.
‘I should go,’ I said. ‘Penelope is waiting for me.’
‘Penelope?’ Alan sounded surprised.
‘She’s agreed to help me find the worms. I think she’s rounded up some witnesses.’
‘People who saw the worms disappear?’
I shook my head. ‘No, but she’s found the last people to see the worms alive.’
‘That could be useful.’
I crossed my fingers and held them up. ‘Here’s hoping.’
‘Captain Montgomery would be proud of your diligence.’
I offered a mock grumble. ‘He’d better be.’
Alan chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. ‘We shouldcatch up later. Maybe when I get back from Danksville tonight, if you are still around?’
I nodded. ‘It would be good to compare notes and share ideas.’
‘Good. I’ll come and find you.’ I must have looked blank because he smiled again. ‘You have been marked,’ he said gently. ‘As long as you stay within the mapped boundaries, we can always find you.’
I’d forgotten that little detail. ‘I thought it was only the Bureaucratic Suite that could track me,’ I said, thinking about how the monster conjuror might have found me yesterday.
‘That’s true. But all we have to do is visit the suite to find your current location. There’s an active spell that tracks marked visitors at all times, and all vampires are allowed to see it.’
Interesting. I made a mental note to talk to William again because it was possible that my attacker had left a trail of their own when they’d gone in search of me. It was a satisfying thought; it would be poetic justice when I finally tracked down the conjuring bastard.
I bade farewell to Alan and looked at She Without An Ear. ‘We’ve got this,’ I told her confidently. She sniffed dubiously. ‘You’re the best attack-cat a lady could ask for.’ I wasn’t above bolstering my cat’s confidence when the situation demanded. ‘How could we fail?’
She blinked up at me then, pleasingly, she graced me with a purr.
It only tooka few minutes of interviewing the first witness to recognise that Captain Montgomery’s wise words about the importance of keeping interviewees on your side was the most useful thing I’d learned during his two-week training course. Ittook even less time to realise that it was far harder than it looked, and that speaking to potential witnesses who had little to offer was depressing and time-consuming scutwork. Even when I was on my very best behaviour.
‘Talk me through your journey from beginning to end,’ I said to the florid vampire who had been Fields’ last passenger.
‘I walked out of my house and into the Understream at exactly three minutes past four. I know it was three minutes past four because the grandfather clock in my hallway was chiming four and it runs three minutes fast. I have employed many different people to address the clock’s deficiencies, but none of them have achieved success. I believe that the inner mechanism needs to be taken apart and rebuilt from scratch, but there is a vexing protection spell that has been placed on the clock to preclude any such intervention. I intend to petition the witches’ council to find out if any of their more experienced members can help. I doubt that they can. When I first turned vampire, the council was a force to be reckoned with and their skills were unparalleled. These days they appear to lend those skills to politicking and pointless bickering and…’
Save me now. Interrupting a witness in mid-flow wasn’t the best way to win hearts and minds but there were only a limited number of hours in the day, and if he didn’t focus I’d be there all night. I cleared my throat. ‘So you left home at 4.03pm. Was that your usual routine?’
‘No, not at all.’
Immediately interested, I raised my eyebrows. Anything out of the ordinary could have impacted the worm – or anyone who attacked it.
‘Usually I leave at 4pm on the dot. On this occasion I was running very late.’
