The Accidental sorcerer

CHAPTER TWO

Desperate, Gerald tipped back his head and stared through the nearest hole in the factory ceiling.This was no time for pride; he'd take help from anywhere.

'Reg? Reg] Are you out there? Can you hear me?'

No reply. Did that mean she was just refusing to answer or was she really not there? Was this the one time she'd actually done what he asked and was keeping her beak out of his business? Typical.

'Reg, if you're out there I'm sorry, all right? I apologise. I grovel. Just — help]'

Still no answer. Breathing like a runner on his last legs he ignored the howling pain in his shoulders and wrists and battled the gold-filigreed staff to a temporary standstill. Like a wilful child it fretted and tugged, still trying to join its blazing siblings.

A glimmer of an idea appeared, then, an iceberg emerging out of a fogbank. Staffs were both conduits and reservoirs of power. They were attracted to it like flies to honey Yes, this staff was already charged — but not completely. And everybody knew that Stuttley's staffs absorbed higher levels of raw thaumic energy than any other brand in the world. So if he could just coax some more of that untamed pulsing power into this activated staff and perhaps one or two others — maybe he could prevent the imminent enormous explosion.

Summoning the last skerricks of his strength, he inched closer to the indigo firestorm. Immediately the staff began to fight him again. He hung on grimly: letting go would be the worst, last mistake of his life. When he was as close to the writhing thaumic energy as he could get without being sucked in, he stopped. Raised the statf above his head. Focused his will, and plunged it end-first into the factory floor. Where it stuck, quivering.

A questing tendril of thaumic energy licked towards it and, amidst a sizzling crackle, fused with the staff's intricate gold fretwork. More power poured into the tall oak spindle. Gerald watched, the stinking air caught in his throat. If it held… if it held… The transfer held.

Staggering, he picked up another partially activated staff and plunged it into the floor two feet along from the first. Within moments it too was siphoning off the lethal, undirected thaumic energy. He did the same to a third staff, then a fourth. A fifth. A sixth. By the time he'd finished, he was looking at a whole row of crackling, power-hazed First Grade staffs and his legs could barely hold him upright. His lungs were a pair of deflated balloons. Indigo spots danced before his eyes. But he'd done it. He'd averted disaster. The suburb of Stuttley and its famous staff factory were saved.

Holly Devree had kept his handkerchief, so he smeared the sweat from his face with one shirtsleeve and watched, exhausted, as the ferocious thaumic firestorm faded. Smiled, shaking, as the ear-battering roar of untrammelled power abated.

Saint Snodgrass's trousers. Had anything like this ever happened before? A Third Grade wizard managing to successfully stymie a major thaumatur-gical inversion? He'd never heard of it. As he stood there, gently panting, he let his imagination off its tight leash.

This could be it, Dunwoody. This could be your big chance, finally.

Mr Scunthorpe would have to take him seriously now. Let him off probation early. Possibly even approve a transfer to a different department altogether. Even ¦- miracle of miracles — Research and Development.

The thought of reaching such an exalted height made him dizzy all over again.

With a final whimpering sputter the last randomly dissipated etheretic energies discharged into the staffs he'd plunged into the floor. The benches and staffs still trapped in their conductive cradles disintegrated in a choking cloud of indigo ash.

Despite his exhaustion and his myriad aches and pains, Gerald did a little victory dance. 'Yes! Yes! R and D boys, here I come!'

Then he stopped dancing, because it was that or fall over. Instead he just stood there, eyes closed, heart pounding, revelling in his moment of unexpected triumph.

Breaking the blessed silence, a sound. Thin. Sharp. Dangerous — and escalating. Nervously he opened his eyes. Stared at the militarily upright staffs plunged into the floor. Before he had time to blink, the first one transformed into a narrow blue column of fire. Moments later the second followed suit. Then the rest, one by one, like a row of falling dominoes. The air began to sparkle. The factory floor began to smoke.

He frowned. 'Oh.' Apparently he'd found the thaumaturgical limit of a Stuttley Superior Staff. How clever of me. Research and Development, indeed. 'Right. So this would be a good time to run away, yes?'

His wobbly legs answered for him. He had just enough time and wit to grab up his poor little cherrywood staff and reach the nearest door. The blast wave caught him with his fingers still on the handle, tumbled him through the air like so much leaf litter and dropped him from a great height into the middle of an ornamental rose garden.

The last thing he saw, before darkness claimed him, was the irate face of Harold Stuttley.

'You bastard! You bastard! I'll have your job for this!' Mr Scunthorpe folded his hands on top of his desk and shook his head. 'Gerald… Gerald… Gerald…'

Gerald winced.'I know, Mr Scunthorpe,' he said contritely. 'And I'm very sorry. But it wasn't my fault. Honestly.'

It was much later. The ambulance officers from the district hospital had fished him out of the rose garden then transported him, over his objections, to the emergency room, where an unsympathetic doctor extracted all the rose thorns from various and delicate parts of his anatomy and pronounced him sound in wind and limb, if deficient in intelligence. Which meant he was free to catch a taxi back to Stuttley's and drive at not much above snail's pace home to the Department of Thaumaturgy so he could make his report.

Unfortunately, Harold Stuttley's tongue had travelled a damned sight faster.

'Not your fault, Gerald?' echoed Mr Scunthorpe, and looked down at the paperwork in front of him. 'That's not what the people at Stuttley's are saying. According to them you barged into the middle of a highly sensitive First Grade thaumaturgical transfer, ignored all reasonable warnings and pleas to leave before there was an accident, used your Departmental authority to evict the personnel from their lawful premises and then caused a massive explosion which only by a miracle failed to kill someone, or reduce everything within a radius of three miles to rubble. As it is you totally destroyed the factory, which is going to put back staff production by months. I have to tell you Lord Attaby is profoundly unamused. One of the staffs you blew up had his nephew's name on it.'

It took a moment for Gerald's brain to catch up with his ears. When it did, he almost choked. 'What? But that's rubbish! Yes, all right, the factory did blow up, but I'm telling you, Mr Scunthorpe, that wasn't my fault! Harold Stuttley caused that! The etheretic conductors failed due to a lack of proper maintenance. They were on the brink of inversion when I got there! Ask the technicians! They'll tell you!'

Mr Scunthorpe tapped his fingernails on the open file. 'What I just told you, Gerald, is a summary of their testimony. Theirs and, of course, Mr Harold Stuttley's. He's threatening all kinds of trouble. Lord Attaby is very unhappy'

'But — but — ' He clenched his fingers into fists. 'I went there in the first place because there was a protocol violation. Overdue safety statements. That proves they — '

Mr Scunthorpe's round face was suffused with temper. 'All it proves, Mr Dunwoody, is that even the best of companies can fall behind with their paperwork. You were sent to Stuttley's to deliver a polite reminder to this nation's most valuable and prestigious staff manufacturer that the Department of Thaumaturgy looked forward to their prompt provision of all relevant documentation. You were not sent there to cause international headlines!'

Mr Dunwoody. Gerald leaned forward, feeling desperate. 'But there was a woman! I spoke to her! She said things weren't being done right, she said there was trouble.' He scrabbled around in his post-explosion memory. 'Devree! That was her name! Find her. Ask her. She'll tell you.'

Mr Scunthorpe rifled through the sheets of paper in front of him.'Holly Devree?' He extracted a statement, picked up his glasses on their chain around his neck, placed them on his nose and read out loud: 'I don't know what happened. I was on my tea break. I never saw the man from the Department. This means my job, doesn't it? What am I going to do now? I've got a sick mother to support. Signed: Holly Devree.'

'No,' he whispered. 'That's not how it happened, Mr Scunthorpe. My word as a compliance officer.'

'Probationary compliance officer,' said Mr Scunthorpe, still frowning. "Very well then, Gerald. What's your version of today's unfortunate events?'

Haltingly, feeling as though he'd wandered into somebody else's insane dream, Gerald told him. When he was finished he sat back in his chair again. 'And that's the truth, sir. I swear it.'

Mr Scunthorpe closed his mouth with a snap. 'The truth?' 'Yes, sir.'

Mr Scunthorpe's face was so red he could have found work as a traffic light. 'You expect me to believe that a Third Grade wizard from Nether Wallop, who got his qualifications from some fourth-rate correspondence course, who got fired from his first job for insubordination and his second for incompetence, not only managed to single-handedly prevent a Level Nine thaumaturgical inversion but did so, moreover, by using the most expensive, the most finely calibrated, the most lethal First Grade staffs in the world? Is that what you expect me to believe?'

'Well,' he said, after a moment. 'When you put it like that…'Then he rallied.'But sir, far-fetched or not that's exactly what happened. I can't explain how, or why, but that's precisely what I did.'

'Dunwoody, what you're saying is impossible!' said Mr Scunthorpe, and pounded a fist on his desk. 'No Third Grade wizard in history has ever used a First Grade staff without frying himself like bacon. To suggest you managed it is to stretch the bounds of credulity across five alternate dimensions!'

The urge to punch Scunthorpe in the nose was almost irresistible. 'Are you calling me a liar?'

'I'm calling you a walking disaster!' Scunthorpe retorted. 'A carbuncle on the arse of this Department! Do you have any idea of the phone calls I've been getting? Lord Attaby! The Wizard General! Seven prime ministers and two presidents! And don't get me started on the press!'

Gerald stopped breathing. Scunthorpe was going to fire him. The intention was in the man's glazed eyes and furious, scarlet face. If he was fired from another job it'd be the end of his wizarding career. No-one would touch him with a forty-foot barge pole after that. He'd have to go home to Nether Wallop. Beg his cousins for a job in the tailor's shop his father had sold them. They'd give him one, he was family after all, but he'd never hear the end of it. I'd rather die.

'Let me prove it, Mr Scunthorpe,' he said. 'Fetch me a First Grade stall" and I'll prove I can use one.'

'Are you madV shouted Scunthorpe. 'After this afternoon's little exhibition do you think there's a wizard anywhere in the world who'd risk letting you even look at his First Grader, let alone touch it? And do you think I'd risk my job to ask them?'

'Then how am I supposed to show you I'm telling the truth?'

It was a fair question and Scunthorpe knew it. He snatched a pencil from his desktop and twisted it between his fingers. 'I'm telling you, Dunwoody, you won't be let anywhere near a First Grade staff. But — ' The pencil snapped. With enormous forbearance, Scunthorpe placed the two pieces on the blotter.'- if you can use a First Grader then a Second Grader shouldn't pose the slightest difficulty.' He stood and crossed to the closet in the corner of his office. From it he withdrew four feet of slender, silver-bound Second Grade staff. Holding it reverently, he turned. 'Lord Attaby gave me this staff with his own hands, Dunwoody. In recognition of my twenty-five years impeccable service to the Department. If I give it to you, here and now, will you promise not to break it?'

Gerald swallowed, feeling ill. 'I can't do that, sir. But I can promise I'll try.'

Pale now, and sweating, Scunthorpe nodded. 'All right then.' 'What do you want me to do?'

'Nothing spectacular!' said Mr Scunthorpe, darkly. 'Something simple. Noncombustible.' He nodded at the painting on the wall beside him, an insipid rendition of the first opening of Parliament in 1142.'Animate that.'

He swallowed a protest. Animation might be noncombustible but it was hardly simple. All right, for a First Grade wizard it was child's play and for a Second it was unlikely to cause a sweat. For a Third Grade wizard, though, animation required a command of etheretic balances that tended to induce piles in the unprepared.

Scunthorpe bared his teeth in a smile. 'I take it you do know an appropriate incantation?'

Sarcastic bugger. Yes. As it happened he knew all kinds of high-level incantations, and not all of them entirely… legal. Reg had insisted on teaching him dozens, even though his cherrywood staff was totally inadequate when it came to channelling them. Even though he, apparently, was equally inadequate. Learn them, she'd insisted. You never know when one might come in handy.

Maybe she'd been right after all. Maybe this was one of those times. And anyway, what did he have to lose?

He held out his hand for Scunthorpe's staff. Reluctantly Scunthorpe gave it to him. Closing his eyes, he took a moment to centre himself. To rummage through his collection of interesting but hitherto irrelevant charms and incantations until he found the one that would rescue him from his current predicament.

'Hurry up, Dunwoody,' said Scunthorpe. 'I've an appointment to see Lord Attaby. Somehow I've got to explain all this.'

'Yes, sir,' he said, still rummaging. Then he recalled a small but effective binding that would set the picture's painted crowd politely clapping.

The silver-chased staff in his hands felt heavy and cool. He couldn't detect the smallest sense of latent power from it. When was the last time Scunthorpe had used it? Or sent it out to be thaumically recharged? God help him if the damned thing had a flat battery -

'Hurry up, Dunwoody!' snapped Scunthorpe. 'I'm running out of patience!'

'Right,' he said, and settled his shoulders. Extended the staff until its tip touched the painting's frame, closed his eyes and in the privacy of his mind uttered the animation binding.

Nothing happened. No burning surge of power through the staff, no giddy-making roil of First Grade thaumic energy in his veins or repeat of that strange torqueing tearing sensation he'd felt in Stuttley's factory. Not even his usual Third Grade tingling. And no sound of tiny painted hands, clapping. No sound at all except for Scunthorpe's stertorous breathing.

He cleared his throat. 'Um. Why don't I just try that again?'

Before Scunthorpe could refuse he attempted to animate the painting a second time. Nothing. A third time. Nothing. A fourth ti-

'Forget it!' shouted Scunthorpe, and snatched back his precious silver-filigreed staff. 'You're a fraud, Dunwoody! After a performance like that I'm at a loss to understand how you even got your Third Grade licence! My Aunt Hildegarde's geriatric cat has more wizarding talent than you!'

Stunned, Gerald stared at the uncooperative painting. Then he fished inside his overcoat and pulled out his slightly singed cherrywood staff. Turning, he snatched the broken pencil pieces from Scunthorpe's desk, tapped them with his staff and uttered a joining incant, a task so simple it wasn't even included in the Third Grade examination. The pencil stayed stubbornly broken.

Oh God. 'I don't understand it,' he muttered. 'I've got nothing. Nothing. How can that be? Unless — ' Horrified, he stared at Scunthorpe. 'Do you think I burned myself out when I short-circuited the inversion? Do you think channelling all that raw thaumic energy through those First Grade staffs somehow used up all my power?'

'All what power?' roared Scunthorpe. 'You don't have any power, Dunwoody! You're the worst excuse for a wizard I ever met! I must've been mad the day I took pity and gave you a job! I must've been ravingl Get out! You're fired!'

Gerald felt his throat close. Fired. Again. His stomach heaved.'Mr Scunthorpe, I protest. I didn't do anything wrong. Harold Stuttley's the criminal here, not me. I don't care what he says, I contained that thaumic inversion, I didn't cause it. The resulting explosion was unfortunate but — '

'Unfortunate'?' Scunthorpe wheezed. 'You mean catastrophic! Are you really this naive, Dunwoody? Stuttley's is demanding a parliamentary enquiry! They're threatening to sue the government! They want this entire Department disbanded!' 'But — but that's ridiculous — '

'Of course it's ridiculous!' snapped Scunthorpe. 'But that's not the point! The point is that if your head's not rolling down the Department staircase in the next five minutes we will lose control of this situation!'

'And then what? Harold Stuttley gets off scot-free?'

'Never you mind about Harold Stuttley! Forget you ever heard of Harold Stuttley! This isn't about Harold Stuttley, Dunwoody, it's about you. Don't you understand? You've embarrassed the Department and disgraced your staff. You're finished, do you hear me? Finisliedl So don't stand there staring like a poleaxed bullock! Get out of my office. Get out of the building. So that when Lord Attaby demands the privilege of personally kicking you into the street I can put my hand on my heart and say I don't know where you are!' Gerald shook his head. 'This isn't right. I'm not going to take this lying down, Mr Scunthorpe. I'm going to — '

'What?' sneered Scunthorpe. 'Demand an enquiry of your own? Go on record claiming you're a better wizard than the likes of Lord Attaby himself? You: A correspondence course Third Grader? Well, I suppose you can. If you insist. But you'll never work as a wizard again, Dunwoody. That much I can promise you.'

Stung, he looked at his red-faced superior. 'I thought I was already finished!'

Abruptly Scunthorpe's manner softened. 'You are, son. At least around here. But if you go quietly, no fuss, no indignant, outlandish claims and accusations, lay low for a while, well, I'm sure once the dust has settled, in a few months, a year maybe, some little locum agency somewhere will take you on.'

'A year?' He almost laughed. 'And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?'

Scunthorpe shook his head. 'Sorry. That's not my problem. You should have thought of that before you blew up Stuttley's. Now if I could just have your official badge…'

Fingers numb, Gerald pulled his identification wallet out of his pocket and handed it over. In a final act of petulant defiance, he undid his official tie and thrust that at Scunthorpe as well. Then, with as much dignity as his tattered pride could muster, he turned on his heel and marched out of Mr Scunthorpe's pokey office.

Mr Scunthorpe slammed the door closed behind him.

Braving the gauntlet of eyes beyond it, the secretaries and the other inspectors, the visiting bodies from elsewhere in the DoT, he felt as insignificant as a beetle and as conspicuous as an elephant. Not one of his former colleagues said a word, just watched him walk past desk after desk to the lifts in hot, humiliating silence.

Life in the street outside the DoT building continued in blissful ignorance of his latest wizarding debacle. Well-dressed, affluent citizens of the city were smiling, laughing even, as they bustled about their lives, the insensitive bastards. How could they? Didn't they know his lifelong dream had just gone up in smoke right along with Stuttley's bloody staff factory?

No. They didn't. And even if they did, would they care? Probably not. Nobody cared. Not even Reg. She'd flown off and left him. He was all alone. Alone, disgraced and unemployed.

Stop snivelling, Dunwoody, he told himself derisively. Self-pity doesn't suit you.

Maybe not, but wasn't he entitled? After three failed attempts at wizarding hadn't he earned himself at least one small snivel?

All I wanted was to be a wizard. Is that so damned much to ask? Yes. Apparently it was.

The motor he'd driven out to Stuttley's belonged to the DoT carpool.When he wasn't on official business he caught the bus. Well, he couldn't afford to do that any more. He'd have to watch every last penny now until he somehow managed to find another job. Street-sweeping, probably, if he decided he really couldn't face his revolting cousins and the tailor shop his father had loved and toiled in for most of his working life.

With his spirits sloshing about his ankles he headed for home, the Wizards' Club, where he rented a room. But for how much longer he had no idea. At the time of its official opening — October 19, 1274, according to the tarnished plaque by the front doors — the Wizards' Club had been brand spanking new. The wrought iron gates were shiny and silent, the brass-bound front doors undented and scratchless, the windows unwarped, the roof tiles gleaming, and its sandstone bricks clean and creamy white like newly churned butter.

But down the long centuries the club's pale sandstone bricks had acquired a patina of soot and ivy; exotic weeds began a ceaseless war for equal squatting rights amongst the flowerbeds; and a tangled jungle of briars, blackberries and tigerteeth grew up to flourish like living barbed wire around the property's perimeter, guaranteeing privacy without the tedium of having to regularly renew unfriendly incantations.

Now, nearly six hundred years later, all that could be said of the club was that it was still there, defiant in its grimy and time-twisted old age like an ancient relative who refuses to be decently shuffled off to the Sunshine Home for Old Wizards.

Dusk was dragging slow fingers through the tops of the ornamental amber trees as Gerald dawdled his disconsolate, chilly and blistered way along the quiet street. Even the starlings settling in for the night sounded derisive as they commented on his reluctant progress towards the club's now rusty and slightly mangled front gates.

His heart sank as he scanned the visitors' car park. Errol Haythwaite's gleaming silver Orion. James Kirkby-Hackett's scarlet Chariot. Edward Cobcroft Minor's black Zephyr. Oh lord. They were all here? So soon?

Well, of course they were. Haythwaite and Co had probably rushed right over as soon as the news about Stuttley's hit the streets.

He perused the residents' car park, hoping to see Monk Markham's battered blue Invincible, but it wasn't there. Hardly surprising. Monk's current secret project for the Department's Research and Development division had swallowed him alive, metaphorically speaking. He hadn't been home for three days.

Gerald sighed. A pity. Monk was his best friend, and such a genius not even the likes of Haythwaite and Co dared to offend him. What he was doing renting rooms at the club and slaving away as a civil servant when he could name his price anywhere in the world and have his pick of palaces to live in was a mystery.

The lowering sun sank a little further behind the trees. He shivered. Come on, Dunwoody, you gutless worm. You can't loiter out here on the footpath all night. Might as well get it over with.

He stared at the gates. They were shut. To open them, all he had to do was wave his hand and say the word. Except…

What if it didn't work? Walking home he'd steadfastly refused to let himself dwell on that heartstopping moment in Scunthorpe's office when the thaumatic ether wouldn't obey him. But now he had to think of it. What if he really was finished? What if that insane stunt with the First Grade staffs had burned out his meagre talent? What if the only thing in the world he was good for now was tailoring?

Please, no. No. Heart thumping, he scrabbled for his cherrywood staff and waved it at the closed club gates.'Open! OpenV

A spurting fizzle of power. A momentary pause that lasted forever. Then, with a complaining groan and a flaking of rust, the wrought iron gates dragged sluggishly apart. He fell against them, panting. Thank you, thank you, thank you. His abilities, such as they were, had returned.

Straight ahead, at the end of a long brickwork path, squatted six wide stone steps. Above them loomed the club's ancient, imposing front doors. And behind those doors waited Haythwaite and Co, doubtless primed with Bellringer's best brandy and salivating at the thought of dragging that upstart nobody Dunwoody down a peg or two. Because the idea of discretion or sympathy was as foreign to them as a delegation of ambassadors from Katzwandaland. Errol and his friends had tongues like well-sharpened knives and there was nothing they enjoyed more than carving up their social inferiors. Especially when those inferiors made spectacularly public blunders.

On the other hand, perhaps loitering isn't such a bad idea after all.

'Bloody hell,' he said to the fading sky. 'When did I turn into such a coward?'

Heart colliding painfully with his ribs, he walked through the gates.

The club's parquet reception area was blessedly deserted. Blinking in the carefully cultivated gloom Gerald checked his pigeonhole and found a letter from his globe-trotting parents. This one was postmarked Darsheppe. He had to think for a moment where that was. Oh, yes. Capital city of Hortopia. Half-way round the world. Suddenly that seemed even further away than it actually was.

As he stared at his mother's sprawling scrawl he found himself torn between relief that they weren't here to witness his latest disaster, and sharp sorrow-that he'd disappointed them again. That was the trouble with being the only offspring: no sibling shoulders to help carry the burden of familial expectations.

Mr Pinchgut, the club's retainer and general factotum, emerged from his tiny office set underneath the grand staircase that led up to the private apartments. He saw Gerald and stopped. From the angle of his bushy eyebrows and the particular stiffness of his tail-coated spine it was clear he'd heard all about Stuttley's. Gerald tucked the letter into his pocket and nodded at him. 'Mr Pinchgut.'

The retainer favoured him with a frosty bow. 'Mr Dunwoody.'

He sighed. 'Would it help if I said it wasn't my fault?' Mr Pinchgut thawed, ever so slightly. 'I'm sure it's not for me to comment, sir.' 'Even so. It wasn't.'

Another bow. 'Yes, sir. May I say I hope that's a comforting thought?'

'You may,' he said, heading for the stairs. 'But we both know you'd be wasting your breath.'

The staircase stopped being grand after the first two flights because all the posh apartments were on the first and second floors. For the next two flights it was plain but serviceable, just like the rooms it led to. After that the stairs became narrow, uneven and downright higgledy-piggledy, which was also a fair description of the cheap rooms crammed beneath the roof of the building. Puffing, Gerald staggered on up to his bedsit.

It was tucked away at the rear of the club's top floor. Squashed cheek-to-jowl inside were a saggy-mattressed single bed, a lopsided wardrobe, a narrow cupboard, a three-legged card table, a rickety chair, a very skinny bookcase and a single temperamental gas ring. Mysterious plumbing groaned and gurgled at all hours of the day and night. The bathroom he shared with six other wizards was on the next floor down. This meant a chamber-pot, which added a certain piquancy to the atmosphere. There was one miserly window with a fine view of the noisome compost heap and only two places where he could stand completely upright without cracking his head on an exposed roof beam.

'Reg?' he called softly as he kicked the bedsit door unstuck and shoehorned himself inside. 'Reg, are you here?'

A resounding silence was the only reply. He flicked on the light-switch and looked around, but the room was empty.

Dammit. Where the hell was she? He'd left the window open, just in case. She should be here, all broody and complaining on the tacky, revolting old ram skull she insisted on using for a perch. Eating a mouse and leaving the tail on the floor because tails always get stuck halfway down. Why wasn't she here? They'd quarrelled before. Hell, they quarrelled practically every day. Just because he'd lost his temper and called her a moulting feather duster with the manners of a brain-damaged hen, was that any reason to fly off in high dudgeon and not come back? Had she gone for good?

Scrunching down to avoid the rafters, he crossed to the window and stuck his head out. The last of the daylight was almost gone and the first faint stars were starting to sparkle. A thin rind of moon teetered low on the distant horizon. All in all, it was a beautiful evening. He couldn't have cared less. 'Reg!' he called in the loudest stage whisper he could manage. 'Reg, are you out here?' Nothing.

'Don't be an idiot,' he told himself sternly. 'She's fine. She's only a bird on the outside. Anybody who tries to mess with Reg is making their last mistake. She'll be back. She's just trying to wind you up.' And it was working, dammit.

Defeated, Gerald pulled his head back into the room and slumped on the edge of his horrible bed. Two more springs died, noisily.

His stomach grumbled. Lunch had been hours ago and he'd been a bit busy since then, one way and another. But steak and chips in the club's dining room was an expense he could no longer afford and anyway… Errol Haythwaite and his ghastly friends were downstairs.

He didn't have the heart to face them. Not without Monk Markham as back up, at least. And if that made him a coward then fine. He was a coward.

There was a tin of baked beans in the cupboard, and a can opener, and a spoon, for emergencies. If this didn't qualify as an emergency he didn't know what did. Bloody hell. I hate baked beans.

Morose, disconsolate and feeling more alone than he'd ever felt in his life, he went about eating his pathetic, solitary supper.