Page 13 of Familiar of the Witch

Inspector Stacy Wise studied me with her green eyes. ‘You definitely didn’t move the body?’ she asked evenly.

I shook my head. ‘No. It was obvious that Melva was dead. We didn’t touch her at all – there was nothing to be done.’

Frogmatch had made himself scarce before the Connection Inspector arrived. ‘I’m allergic to the Man,’ he’d explained. ‘I’ll be around, Ellie, don’t you worry. I’ll always find you.’ With that slightly sinister promise, he’d scurried into the bookshelf behind Melva’s body and disappeared from sight. I couldn’t help keeping an eye out for him but I hadn’t seen so much as a flicker of his pronged tail.

‘Why were you visiting her so late?’ Wise asked, notepad ready to jot down my response.

I gave a one-shouldered shrug, ‘We were going to have a cup of tea and a catch up,’ I lied smoothly.

‘I didn’t know you were friends withMel.’ Her eyes were cynical; she wasn’t buying it.

The best defence is a good offence, so I went on the attack. ‘Were you friends?’ I demanded.

She folded her arms. ‘Yes, as it happens.’

‘Then isn’t it a conflict of interest for you investigate her death?’

Wise shook her head sharply. ‘No. I’m highly motivated to find her killers.’

‘You’ll be emotional.’ I kept my voice even. ‘You’ll make mistakes.’

‘Did you make a mistake when you located the Crone’s killer?’ Wise batted back.

I tried hard not to react. Hilary’s death hadn’t been officially notified to the Connection, so that meant that Wise had an informant in the Covens.

‘Besides,’ she raised an eyebrow, ‘do you see me sobbing?’

I looked at Bastion. ‘Toxic toughness. She might need a tear-jerker movie, too,’ I murmured in an aside to him. His lips curved up in response.

Wise glared. She’d heard my whisper. Oops.

‘I’m a woman,’ she snapped. ‘If one tear rolls down my cheek when I’m on the job, my colleagues say I’m on my period or that I’m “just” an emotional woman. Most women in most work places have to work ten times as hard to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts. And yes, in this day and age there isstilla pay disparity, even in the Inspectors’ wages. Do you know how many female Inspectors there are in the UK? Ten. That’s it.

‘You’re a witch. Although there are male witches too, you’ve been raised in a largely matriarchal system. You honour the Coven mothers and the Triune – and there are no Covenfathers.But for the rest of us? The glass ceiling is still there and I refuse to enforce it by letting one iota of emotion show while I’m working.’ She glared. ‘That doesn’t mean I’m dead inside.’

She said that with the same force I used when I protested that, even though I didn’t have a familiar, I still had a soul. Clearly it was a common refrain.

I blinked at her vehemence; I’d obviously hit a nerve. I didn’t point out that she was letting her emotions show at that moment – she was brimming with anger, and anger is one of the stages of grief. We don’t all trot through the stages of grief in the same order; personally, I was still snuggling down with denial.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. ‘Of course not. Bastion pointed out to me that I have difficulty in crying.It’s a “me” problem. I didn’t mean to offend you.’ Sometimes I wasn’t the most sensitive soul but I was working hard on getting better.

‘I can cry,’ Wise muttered a shade sulkily. ‘But I don’t – not on the job.’

‘Sure. That’s fine.’

She glared. ‘Thank you for your acceptance of how I deal with my emotions.’ Her tone was heavy with sarcasm.

When we’d met in Liverpool she’d seemed nicer but I guessed standing over the corpse of your friend would make anyone crabby.

I looked at Melva’s body and sighed. Of course I was sorry she was dead – she’d been a nice woman and a well-respected Seer – but I’d fibbed to Wise. We hadn’t been friends, though we had respected each other and worked well together for a couple of decades. Before Jinx, Lucy and Bastion had wormed their way into my heart, she’d probably been the closest thing to a friend that I’d had. Certainly I’d considered her a colleague, or perhaps more an equal since she was a Seer to my witch. Still, I could admit to myself that I would miss her.

And worse, now that Melva was dead the prophecy had died with her.

Chapter 12

We spent a further half an hour with Wise, each of us giving a brief statement about what we’d seen – all of which amounted to three statements that said little. We hung around long enough for the crime-scene investigation team to arrive and then Wise cut us loose.

‘I’ll be in touch after the forensic pathologist has examined the body and has an idea of cause of death.’ She offered the olive branch grudgingly, but she was a smart woman and she knew she needed connections and allies to get ahead.

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