Page 57 of Slouch Witch
‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ Winter argued, once we were back in the privacy of my flat.
‘Of course it does! You said how desperate Diall was to get more power. He stole the Manuscript. Someone else came along, saw he had it and took it from him, killing him in the process.’ I dusted off my palms. ‘I think our work is done here.’
Winter folded his arms across his chest. I pretended not to notice the way his muscles bulged. ‘Except we don’t know who killed him and we don’t know where the missing Manuscript is.’
I held up my index finger. ‘If I recall, our task was to find out who stole the sceptre and recover it. We’ve already achieved far more than that. I think it’s time we passed this to someone else. It’s a murder investigation now, not stolen property.’
‘We have a long way to go yet, Ivy. Don’t you want to know who tried to kill us?’
‘Diall, of course. And now he’s dead. I’d call that a win.’
‘It might not have been him. Diall is just one piece of the puzzle.’
I opened my mouth to argue but the expression on Winter’s face stopped me. I supposed it had been worth a try. ‘If we recover the Manuscript,’ I asked hopefully, ‘do you think we’ll get a holiday as a bonus?’
‘You’ve only been working for three days. Why on earth would you need a holiday?’
Given what we’d been through, that was an inane question. ‘If you have to ask then you’ll never understand.’
Winter arched an eyebrow in my direction. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
‘Hell, yes. Getting half-drowned and seeing dead bodies is the most fun I’ve had inyears.’
Amusement flickered in his eyes. ‘I mean pretending to be lazy and needing a break.’ He leant forward. ‘Secretly, you love this. You just don’t want to admit it.’
‘I don’t love it,’ I declared, a tad too loudly. ‘I love sleeping and watching TV and reading books and occasionally getting up to make a cup of tea.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’
I tutted. He was being utterly ridiculous. I did shift my gaze away from his knowing blue eyes, however.
With a mutter, I left Winter where he was and went into the bathroom. Only then did I pull out the jar containing Diall’s ossombe root. For one brief moment, I examined it carefully. Then I gave a shrug. I didn’t have to use it now. There wasn’t a sell-by date. I opened the bathroom cabinet and carefully placed it behind an old bottle of shampoo. As far as anyone knew now, it didn’t even exist.
Chapter Seventeen
Despite Winter’s admonitions, it was obvious he was of the same mind as I was: Diall had to be involved in this somehow, even if he wasn’t the sole culprit. There was no chance that he was simply an innocent party or that his death was unrelated. Solve Diall’s murder and we’d find the missing Manuscript. It sounded easy when I thought of it that way.
‘We’ll start with the other people in Diall’s department,’ Winter declared decisively as we headed back to the car. I was starting to feel like a yo-yo with all this going in and coming out again. ‘We already know he sent two of them to commit a crime against Ms Harrington. Perhaps he has done the same to others and they will lead us to more clues.’
‘Great!’ I beamed. ‘Can we stop along the way? I want to pick up a magnifying glass.’
‘No.’
‘But all the best investigators use them. It’ll help us hunt for clues. I was thinking perhaps I should get a gun as well.’
‘This is not a television episode. And it’s obvious that you have the skills to defend yourself if you need to.’
I thought mournfully of the gun used by my would-be taxi mugger. I could have used that but the police would have impounded it by now. That’s what I got for trying to stay on the right side of the law. I could magic up something into a gun but it wouldn’t be like the real thing. Transmogrification was never perfect, especially when technology was involved.
‘A gun takes less time to use than magic.’ I formed my forefinger and thumb into an imaginary weapon. ‘Bang. You’re dead.’ I grinned. ‘I win.’
‘That is not necessarily true.’ Winter glared at me. ‘I’ll prove it. You be the bad guy with the gun.’
I clapped my hands in delight. ‘Role-play? Do I get to dress up?’
‘You’re fine as you are.’
‘But…’
