The cabbie made the turn, then slammed on his brakes. ‘Jeez!’ he gasped. ‘Don’t give us any warning, will you, mate?!’
The road ahead was closed, with no fewer than three police cars parked beside the barricade. A uniformed constable broke away from a group of his colleagues to stroll across.
‘What’s the problem, Guv?’ the driver asked.
The constable bent down at the driver’s window, checked out Blue and Henry, then told the driver, ‘Can’t get through, I’m afraid.’
‘I can see that. What’s the problem?’
The constable glanced back at Blue and Henry. ‘Either of you two live here?’
Henry shook his head at once. ‘No. Neither of us.’ He thought Blue might be about to say something and squeezed her leg to shut her up.
The constable seemed to relax a little. ‘House came down further up,’ he told the cabbie. ‘Debris all over the road. There’ll be nothing getting through until they clear it.’
‘Strewth,’ the driver muttered. ‘They’re not building houses like they used to.’
‘Didn’t just fall,’ the constable told him. ‘There was an explosion. Boys from the fire brigade think it might have been a gas main, but I never saw a gas leak could do that sort of damage. The whole house is just a pile of rubble. Like a bomb hit it.’
‘What about my fares?’ the cabbie asked, indicating Blue and Henry with a backwards nod of his head. ‘Can they get down on foot? They’re visiting one of the houses on the road.’
The constable stuck his head through the window. ‘Which one?’ he asked Henry.
‘ Chatleigh,’ Henry told him. He swallowed. ‘It doesn’t have a number.’ He had a bad feeling about this, a very bad feeling indeed.
‘Do you or the young lady have friends in Chatleigh, sir?’
‘My mother lives there,’ Henry told him. ‘Why the questions, Officer?’
‘Would you mind terribly stepping out of the cab, sir? The two of you.’
Henry grabbed Blue’s hand and opened the taxi door. ‘Come on,’ he murmured. He knew for a certainty what the policeman was going to say, but he stopped himself from even thinking it.
The policeman looked at them soberly. ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir. Chatleigh is the house that came down. They’re searching the rubble for bodies at the moment.’
Fifteen
The security spells on the approaches to Lord Hairstreak’s weather-beaten Keep were set to discourage hawkers, messengers and casual callers by means of lethal force, teleporting the resultant corpses to the bottom of a disused, and now somewhat smelly, quarry. But an exception was programmed in for the engineers of Consolidated Magical Services who serviced Hairstreak’s Body in a Box, every six months as per contract, and who required free access in the event of an emergency.
The man in the reception hall was clearly no engineer. He wore a tailored suit in place of overalls and smelled of cheap aftershave rather than oil. Hairstreak could only assume the spell card had been confused by the CMS logo on his blazer pocket and permitted him entry in error.
The man stood up politely as Battus Polydamas trundled Hairstreak into the room. ‘Good morning, My Lord. May I say what a pleasure – indeed honour – it is to meet you.’
‘What do you want?’ Hairstreak growled. His tolerance of unexpected visitors, always low, had dropped to zero since he lost his natural body. This man looked like an accountant – he had flat, black, oiled-down hair and a pencil-slim moustache – which probably meant he’d come to try to raise the leasehold on Hairstreak’s Body. Not that he had any chance. Hairstreak’s lawyers had gone over the contract with a fine-tooth comb.
‘My name is Sulphur, Lyside Sulphur,’ the man introduced himself, ‘and it’s not so much what I want as what I can do for you, Your Lordship.’ He smiled and maintained firm eye-contact.
Oh Gods, he was a salesman! How had he made it past the mastiffs? They should have sniffed him out a mile away, even if he’d fooled the security system. But then Hairstreak should have spotted him himself. The moustache was a dead giveaway.
‘Have him fed to the alligators,’ he instructed Batty. ‘After you wheel me back to my study.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Battus began struggling to angle the barrow.
‘We can give you back your body,’ Mr Sulphur said.
‘Belay that order,’ Hairstreak said to Battus. He waited while his retainer manoeuvred him so he was facing the salesman again. ‘What did you say?’
Sulphur started to smile, caught Hairstreak’s expression and changed his mind. He swallowed audibly. ‘Well, obviously not your old body – that’s gone for good. Unfortunately. Or perhaps not. But we can give you a body.’
‘We?’
‘Consolidated Magical Services.’ He pointed at the logo on his jacket.
‘I know who you represent,’ said Hairstreak quietly. ‘I already have a CMS body.’
‘I’m not talking about a Body in a Box, sir – I mean a body. One that can walk and lift things.’ Sulphur was watching Hairstreak apprehensively, but clearly thought he’d grabbed an advantage because he pasted on the phony smile again and launched directly into his sales patter. ‘What’s more, sir, we have a special offer, one day only, for our existing customers. Trade in your present Body in a Box against our new, updated, stylish, fully automated BodyFree model and you will not only cover the down payment, but also qualify for an astounding twelve per cent discount on the overall purchase price, plus free head transfer and installation. What’s more, sir, should you elect to buy the deluxe model – which I’m sure a man of your discernment and stature would certainly consider – you qualify for our new two-year-guarantee no-cost after-sales service and the gift of a free fountain pen that will write with green ink under water.’
‘It can walk?’ Hairstreak said.
Sulphur frowned. ‘The pen?’
‘The body, you blithering idiot!’
Sulphur nodded enthusiastically. ‘Sir, this is one of the breakthroughs of the aeon. My company has taken the basic Body in a Box technology and revolutionised it. Our new entry-level model can not only support life just as effectively as the old-style cube, but walk under its own power, grip and lift objects with its mechanical arms and generally perform the motor functions of a normal human body.’
‘I could walk?’ Hairstreak said.
Sulphur was grinning broadly now. ‘Walk, dress yourself, feed yourself… with practice, of course. Could I interest you in a demonstration?’
‘Yes,’ Hairstreak said shortly.
Lyside Sulphur opened the briefcase he’d left beside his chair and took out a small, brightly coloured box. He cracked the sealant with his thumb, set it on the floor and flipped the lid. A stream of silver vapour poured out to form itself into a headless humanoid robotic shape which then solidified. ‘We have an artificial head,’ Sulphur explained as he fished in the briefcase again. ‘It runs on a chicken’s brain, so it’s very limited, but it’ll give you an idea of the unit’s capabilities.’ He unfolded a silver sphere and screwed it expertly on to the body. ‘Walk!’ he commanded.
The silver body lumbered across the room in Hairstreak’s direction, did a smart about-turn before it reached him and lumbered back again.
‘Pick up the vase on the table!’ Sulphur glanced reassuringly at Hairstreak. ‘Don’t worry, sir, we’re insured for breakages.’
The creature – now it had a head of sorts, Hairstreak was beginning to think of it as a creature in its own right – clumped over to the table and picked up the vase with surprising ease.
‘Now watch this,’ Sulphur instructed excitedly. ‘Toss the vase and catch it!’
Hairstreak wouldn’t have bet tuppence on the fate of his vase, but the thing threw it several feet in the air and caught it expertly on the way down.
‘Impressive or what?’ Sulphur exclaimed.
‘Impressive,’ Hairstreak grunted grudgingly.
‘Of course,’ Sulphur said in that irritatingly informal way salesmen always seemed to adopt when they were circling for the kill, ‘if you’re concerned with looks, then the unit leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a little better when you put clothes on it, but – and my boss would jail me if he knew I’d told you this – I don’t like the design at all. The technology – wonderful. The design – well…’ He shook his head sadly, then brightened suddenly. ‘The deluxe model makes up for a great deal in that department.’ He batted his eyelids in Hairstreak’s direction and asked innocently, ‘Would you like to see a demonstration of our deluxe model, Lord Hairstreak?’