‘It has marvellous possibilities,’ Mayhew argued.
Kevin nodded. ‘The crims don’t stand a chance.’
Alan, who almost never spoke out, cleared his throat. ‘Is that true, Captain?’
Montgomery sucked air through his teeth. ‘As I have already stated, the limitations are obvious. And anything revealed by the echo spell won’t stand up in a court of law – it is not admissible evidence.’
He smiled. ‘But it can certainly lead an investigator in the right direction.’ He clasped his hands together. ‘I have a sample for each of you that you may utilise during your fieldwork assignment. You may not find the echo spell of much use, given its fourteen-hour limit, but perhaps if you are clever you can still cast it in a way that will help.’
‘We only get one sample?’ I asked. I’d have liked several.
‘For now, yes. If you prove yourselves, and the MET decides that you are trustworthy, you may get access to more.’
‘No wonder they’ve been solving so many crimes lately,’ Ruth muttered.
Ralph took a more cynical approach; doubtless he was still smarting from the revelation of his affair with Matty. ‘It won’t last,’ he dismissed. ‘Even though we can’t breathe a word about the echo spell’s existence, people will still find out about it. They always do.’
I nodded. A simple masking spell would probably counter its effects, so no wonder the echo spell wasn’t admissible evidence; it would be easy to bypass, especially if you knew it existed. Even so, I hastened up to the front to nab my sample pouch from Montgomery. It could still prove useful, and if not useful then both sneaky and guilty fun.
‘Now,’ Montgomery said, once we’d settled down again, ‘you have already submitted your fieldwork proposals to me to indicate what you think needs to be investigated within your own communities. With some tweaks, I have approved all of these proposals.’ He bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile. ‘However, there is one change that will affect all of you that I have not yet told you about.’
A ripple of discomfort ran through the room and I eyed him warily. There was an edge of undisguised glee in his voice. He was definitely up to something.
‘You will not investigate your own proposals,’ he said. ‘You need to be properly tested, which means taking you out of your comfort zones.’ He grinned. ‘Therefore you will investigate each other’s suggested crimes. You will all be partnered up and you will swap cases. Only then can I judge what you have truly learned from this training.’
Despite my sinking stomach, I knew it was a smart idea. It was one thing to ask questions of your friends and neighbours and to look into a problem that you already understood inside out; it was something else to be thrown into the deep end in a section of Coldstream society that you didn’t understand. I felt sorry for whoever ended up looking into Danksvillegraffiti – and I certainly wanted no part of Marie Wicker’s fraud investigation.
‘Do we get to choose our own partners?’ Marie asked.
Captain Montgomery had clearly been anticipating that question. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have chosen for you.’
‘Then who?—?’
‘You will be paired with Fetch Mayhew,’ he interrupted her. ‘It will be useful for you both to learn something more about how the different segments of your witch community work.’
‘What?’ Mayhew blustered.
‘Would you rather have someone other than a witch looking into council business?’ Montgomery enquired.
‘No, of course not!’
‘Well, then.’ He smiled beatifically. ‘Ruth, you will swap with Randolph. Matty, you will swap with Kevin.’
I looked at the only other person left: Alan, the silent vampire. Great. Just peachy.
‘That leaves Alan and Kit,’ Montgomery finished.
I spoke up, although I was certain it would be a wasted effort. ‘There are constraints against someone like me working with the vampire community,’ I began.
‘Cats like the night, don’t they, Ms McCafferty? And you like cats?’
Marie Wicker wasn’t the only one of my classmates to snigger. I ignored them. Cats aside, the vagaries of daytime versus night-time hours weren’t what concerned me.
‘Also,’ Montgomery added casually, ‘all usual geographical constraints have been temporarily lifted for the purposes of this exercise.’
I was surprised. Did Captain Wilberforce Montgomery know about the Understream, the underground network of tunnels that was hidden from almost all of Coldstream andforbidden to anyone but vampires? I’d only recently had their existence confirmed.
His expression gave away little and his attention was quickly diverted by Randolph, who was unhappy about the swap and wanted to complain.
