Enchanted Glass (16 page)

“No one called Adam Gray has ever come to this house,” he said.

“Are you sure?” the policewoman demanded. “It’s against the law to harbour a criminal.”

“Criminal?” Andrew said. “What crime?”

“The boy absconded from London with a wallet containing at least one hundred pounds,” WPC92 replied, in a toneless, official voice.

Stashe spoke up suddenly from behind Andrew. “What
are you
talking
about? We don’t harbour criminals here. Your computer’s gone down again,” she added significantly to Andrew.

“And I’ll thank you to get off my clean doorstep and stop pestering the professor!” Mrs Stock said. She came up on the other side of Andrew, swinging a large iron ladle.

WPC92 winced back from the ladle. “You’ll be in trouble,” she said, “threatening a member of the police force in pursuance of her duty.”

Stashe said sweetly, “Then if you go away, she won’t need to threaten you, will she?”

Large boots clumped noisily from either side of the house. Shaun loomed up from the yard, saying, “Is it lunch yet, Auntie? Something wrong?”

And from the garden side of the house came Mr Stock, walking much more loudly than usual. “What’s going on here? Need some help, Professor?”

“I think so,” Andrew said. “This person claims to be a policewoman, but I’m pretty sure she’s a fraud.”

“Now
that’s
against the law,” Mr Stock said. “Impersonating the police.”

The blurred face of WPC92 turned a fierce red. “I am here,” she intoned, “to arrest Adrian Cork for the theft of a wallet containing an estimated hundred pounds.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, woman!” said Mrs Stock. “Don’t
you use that toneless official voice at me! It won’t make you any more real.”

“Or your nonsensical accusation!” added Stashe.

Shaun’s face wrinkled under his hairstyle as he tried to make sense of this. “I know what,” he said, unwrinkling. “I can run her off for you, Professor.”

“You dare!” said WPC92.

“I’m stronger than you,” Shaun pointed out. “So’s Mr Stock. He’s all, like, wires. And Auntie’s got an iron ladle.”

WPC92 eyed the ladle nervously and backed away from the doorstep. As she moved, Tarquin O’Connor came up the drive behind her, helping himself speedily along with his one crutch. Andrew nearly laughed. It was ludicrous the way everyone seemed to have turned up to help him. But he was impressed — almost honoured — all the same.

Tarquin took in the situation with one piercing look. “You’d better leave,” he said to WPC92, “before things get ugly. It took you quite a push to get in here, didn’t it? I felt it from my car. So now you get out, before we all push back.”

WPC92 tossed her head. “I’m going to prefer charges against all of you,” she said haughtily, “for obstructing the police when in hot pursuit.”

“You do that,” Tarquin said. “But you just do it as far away from here as you can get.”

They all watched WPC92, so called, turn and stump away down the drive. Mrs Stock said, “I don’t like that strange way she walks, feet apart. It’s not natural.”

T
arquin had arrived, it seemed, in hopes that Andrew could firm his missing leg up before he took Stashe home to lunch. “Got her some real delicacies today,” he said. “I do love to cook. What was that woman after? Aidan?”

Andrew nodded.

“Thought so,” Tarquin said. “She’s one of those that don’t use iron. Funny how you can tell. I’ve thought all along that it was those kind after the boy. You’d better give your wards a boost. You can do it on the computer these days. Get Stashe to show you how. She did it for Ronnie a while back when there was talk of someone trying to nobble his horses. Where is Aidan anyway? Did the woman get a sight of him?”

Andrew shook his head, concentrating on Tarquin’s leg.
“He went out. I think his grandmother’s death has just hit him and he wanted to be alone.”

“Poor lad.” Tarquin propped his missing leg up along a sofa and chatted cheerfully away. “Grief’s a funny thing, so it is. I swear Stashe didn’t seem to notice her mother was gone for good until two weeks later when she ran across an egg cup my wife liked to use. Hidden in a cupboard it was. Then there was no consoling her. I thought she’d never get over it, to tell the truth.”

He chatted on. Shortly he was telling Andrew of further problems in the Fête Committee. It seemed that the famous cooking celebrity who was supposed to open the Fête had cancelled. “Got invited to go to America and it seemed he liked that idea better,” Tarquin said. “Left them all in the lurch, so he did. Looking everywhere for a replacement, they were, until someone said that Ronnie Stock was enough of a celebrity these days to do the job. So they asked him. And Ronnie’s that vain,” Tarquin said, “he’s agreed like a shot. It’s York Races that weekend and he’s got horses running at Bath and Brighton too, but he’s so darned flattered to be asked to open our little tinpot Fête that he’s sending his wife off to York in his place. Madness! Needs his head examined. But then, it always was a little swelled. Are you going to tell Aidan that these people have traced him here?”

Andrew nodded absently, although he was not sure at all. For one thing, he knew it would scare Aidan horribly. For another, Mabel Brown and/or WPC92 had sown seeds of doubt in Andrew’s mind. Aidan, according to Aidan’s own story,
had
absconded from London and
did
possess a wallet. It could well be that it was through this wallet that Mabel WPC92 had traced Aidan. It must give off a fair surge of power when it filled itself with money. So there was no doubt that
someone
was after Aidan. But there was no way of knowing who was in the right and who was in the wrong. Andrew had only Aidan’s word for most of it. He
thought
Aidan was honest, but he didn’t
know.
It seemed to Andrew that he might have been rather too trusting. He decided to ask Aidan a lot more questions when Aidan came in for lunch.

But when Aidan did come in it was nearer teatime than lunchtime, and he was accompanied by a large, gladsome dog, with a tail like a propeller that knocked things down all over the house. Everything everyone was doing had to stop while Mrs Stock made her feelings plain.

“I have enough to do without picking up after a great dirty dog!” she said, over and over. “I’m not
used
to dogs. Hairs and muddy feet! I can’t be
doing
with it! Is it house-trained?
Is
it? And you expect me to feed it, do you?”

Mixed in with this were Mrs Stock’s complaints about the time Aidan had come in. “
And
your lunch thoroughly spoilt! The nicest plate of liver and bacon you ever did see completely spoilt! Ruined! Look at it!
Look
at it!” She wagged the offending lunch under Aidan’s nose. It looked like a black shoe sole and some dog chews. “Just look at it!” Mrs Stock proclaimed.

“Rolf can eat it,” Aidan suggested.

“What a waste!” Mrs Stock retorted. “Feeding it to stray dogs because you treat the professor’s house like a hotel and come in at any time you please! And is he house-trained?
Is
he?”

By this time, Andrew and Stashe had arrived in the kitchen and Shaun and Mr Stock were looking in through the window over the sink. Aidan began to hope that there would be a severe earthquake soon, to open a hole in the floor and swallow him and Rolf up. He knelt down in front of Rolf. “
Are
you house-trained?” he whispered urgently. Rolf stared pleadingly and gave a very slight nod. “He
is
house-trained,” Aidan said. But his voice was drowned out by the others’.

Shaun said, “It’s a
lovely
dog, Auntie.”

Stashe said, “I know he isn’t wearing a collar, but he’s in beautiful condition. He must belong to someone. You simply can’t keep him, Aidan.”

And Mr Stock said to Mrs Stock, “Oh, stop your noise, woman. Old Mr Brandon had his two spaniels for years. You never minded those dogs, not like I did. Used to bury their bones under my tomatoes, both of them.
You
used to give them the bones.”

Mrs Stock objected so loudly at this that Andrew took Aidan and Rolf out of the clamour and shut his study door behind the three of them. “Now look here, Aidan,” he said, “I know this is a lovely dog, but he almost certainly belongs to someone else and—”

“He doesn’t,” Aidan said. “He’s not a dog. Show him, Rolf.”

Rolf nodded, shook himself and briefly chased his tail. Next moment he was a billow of yellow mist swirling across a pile of history pamphlets, and the moment after that he was a small boy, staring at Andrew with big, anxious dog eyes. “Please keep me!” he begged in his growl-like voice.

Andrew took his glasses off and stared back. “Oh,” he said. “I suppose that does make a difference.”

“He’s a were-dog,” Aidan explained. “He can’t belong to anyone because he’s a person really. But he wants to stay here and I want to keep him. Please?”

“Do you prefer being a dog or a boy?” Andrew asked Rolf.

“Dog,” said Rolf. “It’s easier.” He dissolved into mist again and became a dog, pleadingly scraping at Andrew’s leg with one large, damp paw.

Well, Andrew thought, dogs were easier to explain than boys. He remembered suddenly that the second horse in the racing results had been called Dogdays. They were probably fated to have Rolf. And the third horse, Heavy Queen, had to refer to Mabel WPC92. Stashe’s method of foretelling really worked! “All right,” he said, resigned to Rolf. “I’ll go and settle Mrs Stock. If I can.”

Half an hour later, Rolf was allowed to eat Aidan’s spoilt lunch, which he seemed to enjoy very much, while Aidan himself ate most of a loaf with honey. Mrs Stock stayed only long enough to make Andrew cauliflower cheese from an old cauliflower that had been forgotten at the back of the pantry, before collecting Shaun and going off to complain to Trixie.

“Wish he was mine,” Shaun said wistfully over his shoulder as Mrs Stock hauled him away.

Mr Stock wagged an earthy finger under Rolf’s nose. “Any bones in my veg,” he said, “and I come after you with a spade. Understand?” Rolf nodded humbly, slightly cross-eyed from the finger.

Andrew then explained matters to Stashe. If anyone had told him a month ago, he thought, that he would be
seriously telling a lovely young secretary that they now had a were-dog staying here, he would have been utterly scornful. And even more disbelieving that Stashe took the information quite calmly. She turned to Rolf. “Does this explain why our visitor always eats the meaty bits from our barbecue?” she asked. Rolf lowered his eyes bashfully and did not deny it. “So it wasn’t a fox after all,” said Stashe. “Well, you’re not living rough now. So behave.”

After that, Rolf and Aidan shared the cauliflower cheese. Stashe went home and Andrew was left contemplating the two immense parsnips.

“Did your grandmother ever teach you how to cook parsnips?” he asked Aidan rather plaintively.

“Oh, yes,” Aidan said, collecting empty dishes. “Creamed parsnip’s lovely. You boil them, then you put them in the mixer with pepper and salt and lots of butter and cream. Shall I show you?”

“Please do,” said Andrew. “Think of it as the way you earn Rolf.”

So Aidan washed the parsnips — which, he thought, was rather like giving someone’s legs a bath — and set one of them aside for Groil. Then he found Mrs Stock’s sharpest knife and tried to cut the other parsnip up. On the first cut, the knife sank into the parsnip and stuck. Aidan pulled and wriggled at the knife but it refused to move. “Can you help
me?” he asked Andrew. Then, rather forgetting that Andrew might not understand things the way Gran did, he explained, “I seem to have excalibured this knife.”

“So I see.” Andrew pulled his glasses down to look. “The Sword in the Parsnip. It doesn’t sound quite as romantic as the King Arthur story, does it?” As soon as he said it, Andrew was hit with the knowledge that he had just said something highly important. He stood very still, thinking about it.

Aidan laughed, delighted that Andrew understood things the way Gran had.

Andrew continued to think, all through the hour it took them to cut up and tame the parsnip — which turned out to be delicious when they ate it — and went on thinking all through the evening and far into the night. He gave up the idea of asking Aidan any questions yet and he did not even mention Mabel WPC92 to him. Aidan was very occupied anyway, rolling about on the floor with Rolf. Andrew watched them and brooded.

There was something quite special about Aidan. Andrew blamed himself for not finding out what this was. He knew he should have made enquiries straight away. He should, at the very least, have
told
someone where Aidan was. Mabel WPC92 had made Andrew realise that social workers — real ones — must be looking for Aidan all over
London. People
worried
when a child disappeared. Andrew blamed himself for simply letting Aidan be. He had, he knew, been behaving as if Aidan was one of his students. If one of his students had decided to go to Hong Kong or San Francisco in their free time, Andrew would not have worried at all — provided they came back with an essay written — and Andrew had been vaguely thinking of Aidan in the same way. He knew this would not do. No wonder Mrs Stock went round muttering, “World of his own!”

Long after Aidan had gone off to bed, Andrew reached a decision. He would have to go to London tomorrow and make some cautious enquiries. The question was, should he tell Aidan? Yes, he decided. It was only fair. He went upstairs and put his head round the door of Aidan’s room to find it full of moonlight. Aidan and Rolf were both asleep in Aidan’s bed, back to back with both their heads on the pillow. Rolf had all four legs braced against the wall, in a way that suggested he would have pushed Aidan out on to the floor before morning. Andrew had not the heart to disturb them. He grinned and went downstairs to leave a note on the kitchen table, saying simply that he had gone to London.

In the morning, he drove into Melton and caught the London train.

He bought a newspaper at the station. As the train moved off, he unfolded it to the racing results, thinking, I’m getting as superstitious as Stashe! He smiled at the thought of Stashe and then stared. The winner of yesterday’s first race at distant Catterick was called Confirmation. The horse that came in second was Careful Careful and the third was Ouch. Knowing he was being very silly to believe in this, Andrew still resolved to be very cautious indeed.