‘We don’t want any colours,’ said Mr Pin. ‘We don’t want noises. We don’t want cheerfulness. We just want you to do what you’re told.’
‘Perhaps you would like to take a moment to fill in your registration card?’ said the imp desperately, holding it up.
A knife thrown at snake speed snapped the card out of its hand and nailed it to the desk.
‘Or perhaps you would like to leave it until later . . .’
‘Your man here–‘ Mr Pin began. ‘Where did he go?’
Mr Tulip reached behind the counter and hauled up the wizard. ,
‘Your man here says you’re one of those imps that can repeat everything you hear,’ said Pin.
‘Yes, Insert Name Here, sir,’ said the imp.
‘And you don’t make stuff up?’
‘They can’t,’ the wizard panted. ‘They have no imagination at all.’
‘So if someone heard it, they’d know it was real?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘Sounds just the thing we’re looking for,’ said Mr Pin.
‘And how will you be paying?’ said the wizard.
Mr Pin snapped his fingers. Mr Tulip drew himself up and out, squared his shoulders and cracked knuckles that were like two bags of pink walnuts.
‘Before we –ing talk about paying,’ said Mr Tulip, ‘we want to talk to the bloke that wrote that –ing warranty.’
~blk~
What William now had to think of as his office had changed quite a lot. The old laundry fixings, dismembered rocking horses and
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other rubbish had been spirited away and two desks stood back to back in the middle of the floor.
They were ancient and battered and to stop them wobbling they needed, against all common sense, bits of folded cardboard under all four legs.
‘I got them from the secondhand shop along the road,’ said Sacharissa nervously. They weren’t very expensive.’
‘Yes, I can see that. Er . . . Miss Cripslock . . . I’ve been thinking . . . your grandfather can engrave a picture, can he?’
‘Yes, of course. Why have you got mud all over you?’
‘And if we got an iconograph and learned how to use it to take pictures,’ William went on, ignoring this, ‘could he engrave the picture that the imp paints?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And do you know any good iconographers in the city?’
‘I could ask around. What happened to you?’
‘Oh, there was a threatened suicide in Welcome Soap.’
‘Any good?’ Sacharissa looked startled at the sound of her own voice. ‘I mean, obviously I wouldn’t wish anyone to die, but, er, we’ve got quite a lot of space
‘I might be able to make something of it. He, er, saved the life of the man who climbed up to talk him down.’
‘How brave. Did you get the name of the man who climbed up after him?’
‘Urn, no. Er, he was a Mystery Man,’ said William.
‘Oh, well, that’s something. There’s some people waiting to see you outside,’ said Sacharissa. She glanced at her notes. ‘There’s a man who’s lost his watch, a zombie who . . . well, I can’t make out what he wants. There’s a troll who wants a job, and there’s someone who’s got a complaint about the story of the fight at the Mended Drum and wants to behead you.’
‘Oh, dear. All right, one at a time
The watch-loser was easy.
‘It was one of the new clockwork ones my father gave to me,’ said the man. ‘I’ve been looking for it all week!’
‘It’s not exactly–‘
‘If you can put in the paper that I’ve lost it, maybe someone
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who has found it will turn it in?’ said the man, with unwarranted hopefulness. ‘And I’ll give you sixpence for your trouble.’
Sixpence was sixpence. William made a few notes.
The zombie was more difficult. For a start he was grey, shading to green in places, and smelled very strongly of artificial hyacinth aftershave, some of the more recent zombies having realized that their chance of making friends in their new life would be greatly improved if they smelled of flowers rather than just smelled.
‘People like to know about people who are dead,’ he said. His name was Mr Bendy, and he pronounced it in a way that made it clear that the ‘Mr’ was very much a part of the name.
‘They do?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Bendy emphatically. ‘Dead people can be very interesting. I expect people would be very interested in reading about dead people.’
‘Do you mean obituaries?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose they would be. I could write them in an interesting way.’
‘All right. Twenty pence each, then.’
Mr Bendy nodded. It was clear that he would have done it for nothing. He handed William a wad of yellow, crackling paper.
‘Here’s an interesting one to start you off,’ he said.
‘Oh? Whose is it?’
‘Mine. It’s very interesting. Especially the bit where I died.’
The next man to come in was in fact a troll. Unusually for trolls, who usually wore just enough to satisfy humanity’s mysterious demands for decency, this one actually wore a suit. At least, it was largely tubes of cloth that covered his body, and ‘suit’ was about the only word.
‘ ‘m Rocky,’ he mumbled, looking down. Til take any job, guv.’
‘What was your last job?’ said William.
‘Boxer, guv. But I wasn’t happy wiv it. Kept getting knocked down.’
‘Can you write or take pictures?’ said William, wincing.
‘No, guv. I can do heavy liftin’. ‘n’ I can’whistle tunes, guv.’
‘That’s . . . a good talent, but I don’t think we–‘
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The door flew open and a thick-shouldered, leather-clad man burst in, flourishing an axe.
‘You got no right putting that about me in the paper!’ he said, waving the blade under William’s nose.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Brezock the Barbarian, and I–‘
The brain works fast when it thinks it is about to be cut in half.
‘Oh, if it’s a complaint you have, you have to take it up with the Complaints, Beheadings and Horsewhippings Editor,’ said William. ‘Mr Rocky here.’
‘Dat’s me,’ boomed Rocky cheerfully, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. There was only room for three of his fingers. Brezock sagged.
‘I. . . just. . . want to say,’ said Brezock, slowly, ‘that you put in I hit someone with a table. I never done that. What’d people think of me if they heard I go around hitting people with tables? What’d that do to my reputation?’
‘I see.’
‘I knifed him. A table’s a cissy weapon.’
‘We shall certainly print a correction,’ said William, picking up his pencil.
‘You couldn’t add that I tore Slicer Gadley’s ear off with my teeth, could you? That’d make people sit up. Ears aren’t easy to do.’
When they had all gone, Rocky to sit on a chair outside the door, William and Sacharissa stared at one another.
‘It’s been a very strange morning,’ he said.
‘I’ve found out about the winter,’ said Sacharissa. ‘And there was an unlicensed theft from a jewellery shop in the Artificers Street. They got quite a lot of silver.’
‘How did you find that out?’
‘One of the journeyman jewellers told me.’ Sacharissa gave a little cough. ‘He, um, always comes to have a little chat with me when he sees me walking past.’
‘Really? Well done!’
‘And while I was waiting for you I had an idea. I got Gunilla to set this in type.’ She shyly pushed a piece of paper across the desk.
‘It looks more impressive at the top of the page,’ she said nervously. ‘What do you think?’
‘What are all the fruit salads and leaves and things?’ said William.
Sacharissa blushed. ‘I did that. A bit of unofficial engraving. I thought it might make it look . . . you know, high class and impressive. Er . . . do you like it?’
‘It’s very good,’ said William hurriedly. ‘Very nice . . . er, cherries–‘
‘–grapes–‘
‘Yes, of course, I meant grapes. What’s the quote from? It’s very meaningful without, er, meaning anything very much.’
‘I think it’s just a quote,’ said Sacharissa.
~blk~
Mr Pin lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the still damp air of the wine cellar.
‘Now, it seems to me what we got here is a failure to communicate,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s not like we’re asking you to memorize a book or anything. You just got to look at Mr Tulip here. Is this hard? Lots of people do it without any kinda special training.’
‘I sort of . . . I-lose my bottle,’ said Charlie. His feet clanked against several empty ones.
‘Mr Tulip is not a scary man,’ said Mr Pin. This was flying in the face of the current evidence, he had to admit. His partner had bought a twist of what the dealer had sworn was devil dust but which looked to Mr Pin very much like powdered copper sulphate, and this had apparently reacted with the chemicals from the Slab which had been Mr Tulip’s afternoon snack and turned one of his sinuses into a small bag of electricity. His