Smith?”
He nodded.
“Inspector Grimsby and Constable Gripe. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“I don’t know anything.” Pete unlocked the door, but Grimsby put his arm across the doorway. He pushed his ugly nose into Pete’s face. “Ah, but we think you do,” the inspector said.
“I don’t!” Pete ducked under Grimsby’s arm and tried to slam the door behind him, but the inspector had his foot in the doorway.
He smiled an ugly smile. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”
“I said, I don’t know anything!” said Pete.
“Look here, you snot-nosed brat, if you don’t let us in this instant, I’ll arrest you for obstructing a police investigation.” Grimsby forced his big body through the door. Gripe followed and closed the door behind them. Pete moved to the other side of the table.
The inspector looked under the bed. “So, where’s Daddy?” he asked.
Pete kept quiet, and kept the table between him and the two policemen. Gripe opened the fridge. It was empty. He banged it shut.
Grimsby smirked. “Your daddy and I, we go back a long way.” He lit a cigarette, went into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet. “We were buddies in high school.” He peered into the toilet bowl.
Gripe looked into the dustbin. “Hey, Boss, we’ve got some evidence here,” he announced. He took his handkerchief and used it to lift something out of the bin.
“Good. Put it in a plastic bag.” Grimsby grinned. “Funny how two buddies can grow apart. Here I am, a successful police inspector, and your daddy’s nothing but a drunk.”
“My dad’s a famous lawyer!”
Grimsby laughed. “A famous failure!” He opened the closet and started pulling out the drawers, spilling their contents all over the floor. When he pulled out Pete’s drawer, the secret compartment got dislodged, and the scrapbook with the newspaper clipping fell out. The inspector stooped and picked it up.
“Leave that alone!” shouted Pete. He tried to grab it from Grimsby who gave him a shove, making him fall backwards onto the bed.
“What have we here?” The inspector examined the newspaper clipping. “A photograph of the suspect. Peter and his lovely bride. Pity he couldn’t make her happy.” Grimsby put the clipping in his pocket. “I always said she was too good for him.” He turned to the door. “Come on, Gripe, let’s go!”
A wild rage possessed Pete. He rushed after them, leaped onto Grimsby’s back and pelted the man’s head with his fist. The inspector turned. With all his strength he crushed Pete between his back and the wall and knocked the wind out of his chest. Pete lost his grip and fell, stunned. Gripe laughed as he stepped over him and followed Grimsby outside. He slammed the door behind him.
Peter Smith came home much later, when Pete was already in bed. He was a mess. His hair and beard were caked with mud. His clothes were wet and torn. He cursed when he saw the fridge was empty, banged the door and then fell, unconscious, on the big bed. As soon as he started snoring Pete got up, took his dad’s shoes and clothes off, and pulled the blankets over him. He hated the smell of tobacco smoke and stale liquor that surrounded his father. Pete lay in bed looking at his gargoyle, which seemed angry and red in the flickering neon light from the bar across the street. It felt like ages before he finally fell asleep.
The next morning Pete went to look for Maggie. It was she who had discovered the body. Her shop was locked, so he went to her flat on 21st Avenue. He found her at her kitchen table. Her face was as white as her doughnut dough, with black mascara rings under her baggy eyes.
“I’ve found something to eat at last,” she said. “Vegetables. It’s the only food that doesn’t turn into butterflies when I come near it.” She sniffed at a Brussels sprout as if it had been fished out of a drain, put it in her mouth and started to chew.
“That’s great, Maggie. At least now you won’t starve to death.”
She didn’t think it was funny. “This Brussels sprout is the first thing I’ve eaten in thirty-six hours, Pete. Yesterday, I couldn’t eat because those idiotic police officers kept me busy the whole afternoon.” Maggie sighed the mother of all sighs, and started chewing on a piece of broccoli.
“What did you tell them?”
“Well, I went to Humperdinck’s just after eight in the morning. I figured that he might know something about this thing with the butterflies. The lock on the front door was broken. I found him lying face down in a pool of blood. Dead.” She shivered. “So I called the police.”
“What did the shop look like?”
“It was a mess, especially the back room. Everything was pulled from the shelves. The desk was smashed to bits.”
“Why did you think Mr Humperdinck would know about the butterflies?” Although he hadn’t thought of it before, Pete suspected what her answer would be.
“I think someone’s put some kind of magical curse on me. And the only person I know who may be involved in something like that is, well, was Mr Humperdinck. You know that doorbell of his? The other day it stuck its tongue out at me. And he kept talking to my cat as if it could understand every single word he said. And this blasted curse started right after he shouted at me. The old geezer puts a curse on me, and then he goes off and dies! How am I supposed to get rid of the curse now?” she sobbed and picked up a piece of spinach. “I HATE VEGETABLES!”
Pete left as soon as he could. Maggie wasn’t good company when she was in a bad mood, and it was evident that she didn’t know anything more about the murder. But she had a point: In some way or other, Mr Humperdinck had something to do with her problem. Two days ago, Pete didn’t believe in magic. Now he had seen it with his own eyes and suddenly all those odd little things about Mr Humperdinck started to make sense. His doorbell, for instance. Pete had never noticed that the doorbell had a face, but when Maggie said that it had stuck its tongue out at her, he knew he had seen its face before. He just didn’t notice it. And then there was the back room. Pete went in there once to call Mr Humperdinck. It was dark and dusty, with shelves filled with books and assorted pieces of junk all around. A kind of electricity in the air made his hair stand on end, like the generator in the science lab at school. Mr Humperdinck was busy at his desk, heating something that glowed with an eerie green light in a little glass cup over a gas burner. A thick, leather-bound book lay open on his desk.
Pete cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mr Humperdinck, there’s a customer in the shop.”
“Tell him to come back tomorrow. And please don’t come in here again. It’s private,” the old man mumbled and turned to concentrate on what he was doing. At that moment, Pete thought he saw something disappear behind a book. It looked like a doll, only about three inches high. And it was alive. It had to be the darkness and the shadows of the gas burner playing tricks on his eyes. But now he thought otherwise. There had been something there that day.
Suddenly he could think of many other instances that confirmed his growing belief that Mr Humperdinck was in some way involved in magical things. But even if he were the prime suspect for jinxing Maggie, why would he have done it? What had she done to deserve it? And why had he been murdered?
