The Song of the Quarkbeast

In pursuit of lost stuff

The Rolls-Royce was one of the top-of-the-range six-wheeled Phantom Twelves. It was as big as a yacht, twice as luxurious and had paintwork so perfect it looked like a pool of black paint sitting in the air. The chauffeur opened the rear passenger door and a well-dressed girl climbed out. She was not much older than myself, but from a world far removed from the upbringing of a foundling – a world of privilege, cash and a sense of entitlement. I should have hated her, but I didn’t.

I envied her.

‘Miss Strange?’ she said, striding confidently forward, hand outstretched. ‘Miss Shard is glad to make your acquaintance.’

‘Who’s she talking about?’ asked Tiger under his breath, looking around.

‘Herself, I think,’ I said, smiling broadly to welcome her. ‘Good morning, Miss Shard, thank you for coming. I’m Jennifer Strange.’

This was our client. She didn’t look old enough to have lost something badly enough to call us, but you never knew.

‘You must call one Ann,’ she said kindly. ‘Your recent exploits of a magical variety filled one with a sense of thrilling trepidation.’

She was talking in Longspeak, the formal language of the upper classes, and it seemed that she was not fluent in Shortspeak, the everyday language of the Ununited Kingdoms.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It was a singular display of inspired audaciousness,’ she replied.

‘Is that good?’ I asked, still unsure of her meaning.

‘Most certainly,’ she replied. ‘We followed your adventures with great interest.’

‘We?’

‘Myself and my client. A gentleman of some knowledge, position and bearing.’

She was undoubtedly referring to someone of nobility. By long tradition royals in the Ununited Kingdoms employed others to do almost everything for them; only the very poorest did anything for themselves. It was said that when King Wozzle of Snowdonia tired of eating he employed someone to do it for him. After the inevitable weight loss and death, he was succeeded by his brother.

‘I can’t understand a word she’s saying,’ whispered Tiger.

‘Tiger,’ I said, keen to get rid of him before she took offence, ‘why not fetch Dennis and Lady Mawgon, hmm?’

‘Were they of a disingenuous countenance?’ Miss Shard asked, smiling politely.

‘Were who of what?’

‘The Dragons,’[7] she said, ‘were they . . . unpleasant?’

‘Not really,’ I replied in a guarded fashion. Almost everyone wanted to know about the Dragons, and I revealed little. They valued discretion more than anything. I said nothing more, and she got the message.

‘I defer to your circumspection on this issue,’ she replied, with a slight bow.

‘O-kay,’ I said, not really getting that either, ‘this is the team.’

Tiger had returned with Full Price and Lady Mawgon with Perkins bringing up the rear in his ‘observing’ capacity. I introduced them all and Miss Shard said something about how it was ‘entirely convivial’ and ‘felicitous’ to meet them on ‘this auspicious occasion’, and in return they shook hands but remained wary. It pays to distance oneself from clients, especially ones who use too many long words.

‘What do you want us to find?’ asked Lady Mawgon, who was always keen to get straight to the point.

‘It’s a ring that belonged to the mother of my client,’ she said. ‘He would be here personally to present his request, but finds himself unavailable owing to a prolonged sabbatical.’

‘Has he seen a doctor about it?’ asked Tiger.

‘About what?’

‘His prolonged sabbatical. It sounds very painful.’

She stared at him for a moment.

‘It means he’s on holiday.’

‘Oh.’

‘I apologise for the ignorance of the staff,’ said Lady Mawgon, glaring at Tiger, ‘but Kazam sadly requires foundling labour to function. Staff can be so difficult these days, wanting frivolous little luxuries like food, shoes, wages . . . and human dignity.’

‘Please don’t worry,’ said Miss Shard politely, ‘foundlings can be refreshingly direct sometimes.’

‘About the ring?’ I asked, feeling uncomfortable with all this talk of foundlings.

‘Nothing remarkable,’ replied Miss Shard, ‘gold, plain, large like a thumb-ring. My client is keen to return it to his mother as a seventieth birthday gift.’

‘Not a problem,’ remarked Full Price. ‘Do you have anything that might have been in contact with this ring?’

‘Such as your client’s mother?’ said Tiger in an impish manner.

‘There’s this,’ replied Miss Shard, producing a ring from her pocket. ‘This was on her middle finger, and would have clicked against the lost ring. You can observe the marks, look.’

Lady Mawgon took the ring and stared at it intently for a moment before she clenched it in her fist, murmured something and then opened her hand. The ring hovered an inch above her open palm, revolving slowly. She passed it to Full Price, who held it up to the light and then popped it in his mouth, clicked it against his fillings for a moment, then swallowed it.

‘Meant to do that,’ he said in the tone of someone who didn’t.

‘Really?’ asked Miss Shard dubiously, doubtless wondering how she was going to get it back and in what condition.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Full Price cheerfully, ‘amazing how powerful cleaning agents are these days.’

‘Why did you ask us to meet you here?’ asked Lady Mawgon, thankfully changing the subject.

It was a good question. We were on an unremarkable lay-by and rest area on the Ross–Hereford road near a village called Harewood End.

‘This is where she lost it,’ replied Miss Shard, ‘she had it when she got out of a car here, and when she left she didn’t have it any more.’

Lady Mawgon looked at me, then at our client, then at Dennis. She smelled the air, mumbled something and looked thoughtful for a moment.

‘It’s still around here somewhere,’ she said, ‘but this ring does not want to be found. You agree, Mr Price?’

‘I do,’ he said, rubbing his fingers together as he felt the texture of the air.

‘How can you know this?’ asked Miss Shard.

‘It’s been lost for thirty-two years, ten months and nine days,’ murmured Lady Mawgon thoughtfully, ‘am I correct?’

Miss Shard stared at her for a moment. It appeared this was indeed true, and it was impressive. Mawgon had picked up the lingering memory that human emotion can instil in even the most inert of objects.

‘Something that wants to be lost is lost for a good reason,’ added Full Price. ‘Why doesn’t your client give his mother some chocolates instead?’

‘Or flowers,’ said Lady Mawgon. ‘We can’t help you. Good day.’

She turned to move away.

‘We’ll pay you a thousand moolah.’[8]

Lady Mawgon stopped. A thousand moolah was serious cash.

‘A thousand?’

‘My client is inclined towards generosity regarding his mother.’ Lady Mawgon looked at Full Price, then at me.

‘Five thousand,’ she said.

‘Five thousand?’ echoed our client. ‘To find a ring?’

‘A ring that doesn’t want to be found,’ replied Lady Mawgon, ‘is a ring that shouldn’t be found. The price reflects the risks.’

Miss Shard looked at us all in turn.

‘I accept,’ she said at last, ‘and I will wait here for results. But no find, no fee. Not even a call-out charge.’

‘We usually charge for an attempt—’ I began, but Mawgon cut me short.

‘We’re agreed,’ she said, and made a grimace that I suspect may have been her version of a smile.

Miss Shard shook hands with us again and climbed back into her Rolls-Royce, and a few seconds later the limousine moved off to park opposite the snack bar. Class was no barrier to the allure of a bacon sandwich.

‘With the greatest of respect,’ I said, turning to Lady Mawgon, ‘if it gets around that we’ve been fleecing clients, Kazam’s reputation will plummet. And what’s more, I think it’s unprofessional.’

‘How can civilians hate us any more?’ she asked disdainfully and with some truth, as despite our best efforts, the general public still regarded the magic trade with grave suspicion. ‘More importantly,’ added Lady Mawgon, ‘I’ve seen the accounts. How long do you think we can give our skills away for free? Besides, she’s in a Phantom Eight. Loaded with moolah.’

‘It’s a Phantom Twelve,’ murmured Tiger, who, being a boy, knew precisely the difference.

‘Shall we get a move on?’ said Full Price. ‘I’ve got to move a walrus in an hour, and if I’m late David will start without me.’

‘The sooner the better,’ said Lady Mawgon, dismissing Tiger and me with a sweep of her hand so she and Full could have a meeting. I leaned against the car with Tiger, took several deep breaths and watched them talk.

‘I lost my luggage once,’ said Tiger thoughtfully, eager to contribute something relevant to the ‘losing stuff’ conversation. ‘On an orphanage trip to the steel mills of Port Talbot.’

‘What was it like?’ I asked, glad of the distraction and never having been to the industrial heartland of the Ununited Kingdoms myself.

‘Red with castors and an internal pocket for toiletries.’

‘I meant Port Talbot.’

‘Oh. Hot and very noisy.’

‘The steam hammers?’

‘The steam hammers were fine. It’s the singing.’

We watched as Perkins circled Mawgon and Price, attempting to hear what was going on.

‘Is Perkins going to get his licence, do you think?’

‘He’d better. We need him for the bridge job. Fumble that and we’ll all look a bit stupid.’

‘And on live TV, too.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

Our concerns about Perkins will become only too apparent when you consider that the person we had to get the licence from was the one person more boneheaded and corrupt than our glorious ruler King Snodd – his Useless Brother, who was the Minister for Infernal Affairs, the less-than-polite term used to describe the office that dealt with all things magical.

‘You swallowed it?’ we heard Lady Mawgon demand angrily. ‘Why in Snorff’s name would you do something like that?’

She must have meant the ring, and since there wasn’t any real answer to this, Full Price just shrugged in a lame manner. I walked up, ready to mediate if required. Mawgon put out her hand.

‘Hand it over, Dennis.’

Full Price looked annoyed, but knew better than to argue. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then made a series of odd facial expressions and huffy-exertion noises before rolling up his sleeve. We saw the shape of the ring beneath the skin as it moved down his forearm, and as it migrated he sweated and grunted with the effort. I had seen this done several times before, the most recent to expel a bullet lodged perilously close to a patient’s spine, the result of a shooting accident.

‘Ah!’ said Full Price, as the ring-shaped lump moved across the top of his hand. ‘Ow, ow, OW!’

The ring travelled down the tighter skin of his finger, rotated around his fingertip and, after a lot of swearing, he succeeded in expelling it from under his nail-bed.

‘That is so gross,’ said Tiger.

‘I agree,’ replied Perkins, ‘but it’s sort of impossible not to look, don’t you think?’

‘There,’ said Full Price, wiping off the ring and handing it to Mawgon. ‘Happy now?’

But Lady Mawgon was already thinking of other things. She took the ring, murmured something around it and handed it back to Dennis, who held it tightly in his fist.

‘I don’t like the feel of this,’ he said. ‘Something bad happened.’

‘I agree,’ replied Mawgon, taking out a small crystal bottle with a silver stopper. We had stepped back to allow them to work, and Perkins, now fully mystified by what was going on, had joined us.

‘They’ll try to animate the memory,’ I said.

‘Gold has a memory?’

‘Everything has a memory. Gold’s memory is quite tedious – got mined, got crushed, went to the smelters, got banged with a hammer – big yawn. No, we’re looking for a stronger memory that has been induced in the gold – the recollections of the person wearing it.’

‘You can transfer your memories to inanimate objects?’

‘Certainly. And the stronger you feel for something, the longer it will stick around. Some people think that objects like jewellery and paintings and vintage cars actually have a soul, but as far as we know they don’t – just the memories of the people who have been around them. The more something is loved, enjoyed and valued, the stronger the memory, and the more we can read into it.’

‘And the crystal bottle?’

‘Watch and learn.’

Lady Mawgon placed a single drop on the ring that Full Price was holding, and in an instant the ring had morphed into a small dog that was sitting on the floor wagging its tail happily. It sparkled slightly, indicating that it was not real, and seemed to be made of solid gold.

‘Good boy,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘find it.’

The small memory-dog[9] gave a low bark, then scuttled off happily, sniffing the ground this way and that as it tried to remember where the ring might have gone. Lady Mawgon and Full Price followed the terrier away from the road, opened a gate to let it in and then chased the small dog across a field, much to the amusement of several cows. Mawgon and Full Price stopped occasionally as the memory-dog paused to think for a while or scratch its ear with a hind leg, then carried on as it chased off in another direction. It would often double back on itself as it tried to catch the memory-scent, all the while with Lady Mawgon’s index finger steadily pointed at it. Once, it thought its tail was the quarry and snapped at it, then realised and moved on.

‘I wonder what did happen to it?’ said Tiger as we followed the sorcerers and the dog across the field, over a stile and a smaller road, then into a small wood.

‘Happened to what?’

‘My luggage,’ replied Tiger, who wasn’t yet done on his missing luggage problem. ‘Luckily, it didn’t have anything in it. I don’t have any possessions. In fact, the luggage was my only possession. It was what I was found in.’

Owning very little or even being found in a red suitcase with castors and a separate internal pocket for toiletries was not unusual when you consider Tiger’s foundling heritage. He had been abandoned on the steps of the Sisterhood of the Blessed Lady of the Lobster, the same as me, then sold into servitude with Kazam Mystical Arts until he was eighteen. I still had two years to run before I could apply for citizenship; Tiger had six. We didn’t complain because this was how things were. There were a lot of orphans owing to the hideously wasteful and annoyingly frequent Troll Wars, and hotels, fast-food joints and laundries needed the cheap labour that foundlings could provide. Of the twenty-three kingdoms, duchies, socialist collectives, public limited companies and ramshackle potentates that made up the Ununited Kingdoms, only three of them had outlawed the trade in foundlings. Unluckily for us, the Kingdom of Snodd was not one of them.

‘When we have some surplus crackle we’ll retrieve your luggage,’ I said, knowing how valuable any connection to parents was to a foundling. I had been left on the front seat of the Volkswagen Beetle that I drove today, and little would part me from my car.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, demonstrating the selflessness and humility with which most foundlings comforted themselves. ‘It can wait.’

We followed Mawgon, Full Price and the memory-dog out of the small wood and through a gate into an abandoned farm. Brambles, creeper and hazel saplings had grown over many of the red-brick buildings, and rusty machinery stood in abandoned barns with dilapidated roofs. No one had been here for a while. The memory-dog ran across the yard and stopped at an abandoned water well, where it wagged its tail excitedly. As soon as Lady Mawgon caught up with it she made a flourish and the dog started to chase its tail until it was nothing more than a golden blur, then it changed back to the ring again, which continued spinning on a flagstone with a curious humming noise.

Lady Mawgon picked up the ring and gave it back to me. It was still warm and smelled of puppies. Full Price pulled an old door off the wellhead, and we all gazed down the brick-lined well. Far below in the inky blackness I could see a small circle of sky with the shape of our heads as our reflections stared back up at us.

‘It’s in there,’ she said.

‘And there it should stay,’ replied Full Price, who still wasn’t happy. ‘I can feel something wrong.’

‘How wrong?’ I asked.

‘Seventh circle of Wrong. I can sense the lingering aftertaste of an old spell, too.’

There was silence for a moment as everyone took this in, and a coldness seemed to emanate up from the well.

‘I can sense something, too,’ said Perkins, ‘like that feeling you get when someone you don’t like is looking over your shoulder.’

‘It doesn’t want to be found,’ said Full Price.

‘No,’ said Perkins, ‘someone doesn’t want it to be found.’

They all looked at one another. Missing objects are one thing, but purposefully hidden objects quite another.

‘I can think of five thousand good reasons to find it,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘so find it we shall.’

She put her hand above the well in order to draw the ring from the mud below, but instead of the ring rising, her hand was tugged sharply downwards.

‘It’s been anchored and resists my command,’ she said with a voice tinged more with intrigue than concern. ‘Mr Price?’

Full joined her and they both attempted to lift the ring from the well. But no sooner had they started the lift than a low rumble seemed to come from the earth beneath our feet and the bricks that made up the low wall started to shift. Tiger and I took a step back but the others simply watched as an old and long-forgotten enchantment moved the bricks into a new configuration, sealing the wellhead tight. Within a few seconds there was only a solid brick cap.

‘Fascinating,’ said Lady Mawgon, for this was in effect a battle of wits between sorcerers – just separated by thirty years. Whatever enchantment had been left to keep the ring hidden, it was still powerful.

‘I vote we walk away now,’ said Full Price.

‘It’s a challenge,’ retorted Lady Mawgon excitedly, ‘and I like a challenge.’

She was more animated than I had seen her for a while, and within a few minutes had formulated a plan.

‘Right, then,’ she said, ‘listen closely. Mr Price is going to prise open the wellhead using a standard Magnaflux Reversal. How long can you keep it open, Mr Price?’

Full Price sucked air in through his teeth thoughtfully.

‘About thirty seconds – maximum forty.’

‘Should be enough. But since the ring is resisting a lift we will have to send someone down to get it. I will levitate them head downwards to the bottom of the well, where they will retrieve the ring. You, Mr Perkins, will channel crackle to Mr Price and myself. Can you do that?’

‘To the best of my ability, ma’am,’ replied Perkins happily. Lady Mawgon had never asked him to assist her before.

‘He doesn’t have a licence,’ I said, ‘you know what the penalty could be.’

‘Who’s going to snitch on him?’ she retorted. ‘You?’

‘I can’t allow it,’ I said.

‘It’s Perkins’ call,’ said Mawgon, looking at me angrily. ‘Mr Perkins?’

Perkins looked at me and then Lady Mawgon.

‘I’ll do it.’

I didn’t say anything more as we all knew the consequences of operating without a licence were extremely unpleasant. The relationship between the populace and Mystical Art Practitioners had always been one of suspicion, a relationship not helped by a regrettable episode in the nineteenth century when a wayward sorcerer who called himself ‘Blix the Thoroughly Barbarous’ thought he could use his powers to achieve world domination. He was eventually defeated, but the damage to magic’s reputation had been deep and far reaching. Bureaucracy now dominated the industry with a sea of paperwork and licensing requirements. Reinventing sorcery as a useful and safe commodity akin to electricity had taken two centuries and wasn’t done yet. Once lost, trust is a difficult thing to regain. But I said nothing more. I was there to remind them of the rules, not to police them.

‘Good,’ said Lady Mawgon, ‘then let’s begin.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Tiger, who had just figured out that the ‘going down a well head first’ plan doubtless included him as he was lightest, ‘it’s going to be as dark as the belly of a whale down there.’

I passed him a glass globe from my bag, just one of the many useful objects that I liked to have with me on assignment.

‘It runs off sarcasm,’ I said, handing it to him.

‘Great,’ he replied, and the globe lit up brightly.[10]

‘You’ll also need this,’ I told him as I tied a toddler’s shoe around his neck. When done, I spoke into the matching shoe I held in my hand.

‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I can hear you. Do I have to go down a well upside down while being sarcastic with a shoe tied around my neck?’

‘You could use a conch[11] to talk,’ said Perkins helpfully, before he added less than helpfully: ‘only we haven’t got any.’

‘And you’d look pretty daft with a conch tied to your head,’ added Full Price.

‘Like I am so not worried about looking a twit,’ said Tiger, and the globe went up to full brightness again.

‘You’re going to have to find the ring within thirty seconds,’ announced Lady Mawgon, ‘and since it might be tricky to find in the rank, fetid, disease-ridden muddy water, you’ll need my help.’

‘You’re coming down too?’

‘Good Lord, no. What do you think I am? An idiot?’

‘I’m not sure it would be healthy to answer that question,’ replied Tiger carefully.

‘Answer it how you want – I’d ignore you anyway. Here.’

She handed him a neat leather glove and told him to put it on while she placed its pair on herself. Like toddlers’ shoes and conches, gloves have left-and-right symmetry and can thus be amicably linked to one another to work together while separated by physical distance. Lady Mawgon clenched and unclenched her fist as Tiger’s hand did the same. She revolved her arm around in the air and the paired glove copied her actions perfectly while Tiger stared at his arm and hand. He was, to all intents and purposes, now partly Lady Mawgon. Better still, the gloves were feedback enabled. Lady Mawgon would be able to feel what Tiger was feeling.

‘How’s that?’ asked Lady Mawgon.

‘Peculiar,’ he replied. ‘What if I can’t find the blasted ring in thirty seconds?’

‘Then the well will close with you inside and it’s entirely possible you’ll spend the rest of your life at the bottom of a deep well with only bacteria and leeches for company, then utter darkness when your sarcasm runs out.’

‘I’m not so sure I want to do this any more.’

‘Don’t be such a crybaby,’ chided Lady Mawgon. ‘If our roles were reversed and you were the skilled practitioner and I was the worthless foundling with the silly name, I’d be down that hole like an actor after a free lunch.’

Tiger looked across at me and raised an eyebrow.

‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ I told him.

‘Lady Mawgon is relating a worst-case scenario,’ said Full Price in a soothing voice. ‘We’ll call the fire brigade if we can’t reopen the well. The longest you’ll be trapped is an hour.’

‘Then how could I possibly refuse?’ replied Tiger grumpily. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Lady Mawgon and Full Price took up their stances, index fingers at the ready. At the count of three Full Price pointed at the wellhead and the bricks opened again, revealing the deep hole in the ground. At the same time, Lady Mawgon pointed at Tiger and my young assistant was lifted from the ground, turned upside down and plunged head first down the well. We peered over to look in. It was all dark until Tiger said ‘Gosh, what super fun this is’ and the globe lit up to reveal a brick-lined well all the way down. After a few moments Tiger’s voice came through the shoe saying that he was at the bottom and that it was wet and muddy and very smelly and all he could see was an old bicycle and a shopping trolley.

‘They get everywhere,’ I said. ‘Let Lady Mawgon have a feel around.’

Mawgon already was. With one hand keeping Tiger floating a few inches above the water level, the other was grasping, feeling and churning above her head, while her other glove on Tiger’s hand sixty feet below did the same thing. Tiger kept us informed of what was going on while interspersing his speech with some top-quality sarcasm.

‘Fifteen seconds gone,’ I said, staring at my watch.

‘I can feel something odd,’ said Perkins, who was standing to one side, doing little except directing the ambient crackle more efficiently into Mawgon and Price, in the same way as a guttering directs rain into a storm drain.

‘Me too,’ said Full Price, eyes fixed intently on the wellhead and his index fingers beginning to vibrate with the effort. ‘Look at that.’

I looked down the well. Before, only the top course of bricks had closed over to prevent us getting in, but now other bricks were starting to pop out from the well sides all the way down. The well was starting to constrict.

‘We need Tiger out,’ I said to Lady Mawgon, who was still feeling about above her head, eyes closed as she searched the muddy bottom of the well.

‘Nearly,’ she muttered.

‘Twenty-five seconds.’

‘What’s going on?’ came Tiger’s voice over the toddler’s shoe.

‘You’ll be out soon, Tiger, I promise.’

The bricks were starting to move inwards with increasing speed, and brick dust, soil and earwigs were tumbling down the well. Full Price was sweating with the effort and shaking badly.

‘I . . . can’t . . . hold . . . it!’ he managed to mutter between clenched teeth.

‘The walls,’ came Tiger’s tremulous voice, ‘they’re moving in!’

‘Lady Mawgon,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘It’s only a ring. We can leave it be.’

‘Almost there,’ she said, feeling around with her gloved hand in increased desperation.

‘Thirty seconds,’ I said as I stared at my watch. ‘That’s it. Abort.’

She continued, undeterred.

‘Mawgon!’ yelled Full Price, who was now shaking so hard his index fingers were a blur. ‘Get the lad out NOW!’

But Mawgon was unmoved by our entreaties. She was so intent on finding her quarry that nothing mattered – least of all a foundling being crushed to death by an ancient spell sixty feet below ground. The well had shrunk to half its size by now, and Full Price was crying out in pain as he tried to keep the spell at bay. Perkins was shaking with the effort, too, and Lady Mawgon was still wildly looking around with Tiger’s arm below when several things happened at once. Lady Mawgon cried out, Perkins fell over and the well shut with a teeth-jarring thump that we felt through the ground. I looked at my watch. Price had kept it open exactly forty-three seconds. Of Tiger there was no sign; the well was now a solid plug of brick, and down below, somewhere, Tiger was part of it.

There was silence. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Full Price and Perkins were both on their hands and knees in the dirt coughing after their exertions, but Lady Mawgon was just standing there, her gloved hand half open as if clasped around something. She might have found something, but it didn’t matter. The price had been too great.

I felt my head grow hot as anger welled up inside me. I might have boiled over then as I have a terrible temper once riled, but a small voice brought me back from the edge.

‘Hey, Jenny,’ went the voice from the toddler’s shoe, ‘I can see Zambini Towers from here.’

It was Tiger’s voice. I frowned, and then looked up. High above us was a small figure no bigger than a dot free-falling back towards earth. Lady Mawgon had brought Tiger out of the closing well so rapidly that we hadn’t seen him pass, and he had carried on and up, and was now on his way back down. I looked across at Lady Mawgon, who winked at me, and opened her gloved hand wide. She swiftly moved a hayrick twenty feet to the right, where Tiger landed with a thump a few seconds later, and at the same time she caught a muddy object in her gloved hand, which she then passed to me.

‘There,’ she said with a triumphant grin, ‘Mawgon delivers.’