Derek Landy - Death Bringer

“Normal questions? Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, like if Lynch had any enemies.”

“ Did Lynch have any enemies?”

“Well, not that I know of, no.”

“Then there really was no point in me asking that, was there? Unless you wanted to distract me. You didn’t want to distract me, did you, Kenny?”

“No, that’s not—”

“Are you playing a game with me, Kenny?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

Inspector Me leaned forward. “Did you kill him?”

“No!”

“It’d be OK if you did.”

Kenny recoiled, horrified. “How would that be OK?”

“Well,” Me said, “maybe not OK , but understandable. Perhaps he said something that annoyed you. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?” He looked back at the girl. “Haven’t we?”

“I’ve been there,” said the girl.

“We’ve all been there,” said Me, looking at Kenny again. “We know how it goes. He says something that annoys you, you get angry, all of a sudden he’s lying dead and you’re wondering where did the time go.”

“I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill anyone!”

“Anyone? You mean there’s more?”

“What?”

Me sat back, tapped his chin with a gloved hand. “You know what, Kenny? I believe you. You have an honest face. You have honest ears. So who do you think killed him?”

“I had thought it was just a mugging.”

“And now?”

“Now … I don’t know. Do you think someone killed him because of the Passage? Are there people out there who really believe in this stuff?”

“People are strange,” said the girl, then started humming a few bars from the song.

“Did Lynch talk to anyone else about this?” Me asked. “Did he have any friends? Any family he still spoke to?”

“No, no one.”

“So he only talked about his visions to you?”

Kenny hesitated.

“He’s hesitating,” said the girl.

“I see that,” said Me.

“There’s an old woman,” Kenny said, “Bernadette something. Maguire, I think. She helps out at one of the shelters. She used to be a teacher, or something. She’s retired now, lives in the country somewhere. He talked to her. She hasn’t been around that much lately. I think she’s just too old. The first time I’d seen her in months was a few weeks ago. She was talking to Lynch.”

“You think he told her about his visions?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“You think Bernadette Maguire killed him?”

“Uh … no. She’s, like I said, she’s old.”

“Old people can kill people too.”

“I know, but …”

“She could be a ninja.”

“She’s not a ninja, for God’s sake. She’s somebody’s great-grandmother.”

“I want you to think carefully about this, Kenny. Have you ever seen her with a sword?”

“What?”

“How about throwing stars?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Have you ever seen her dressed up as a ninja? That would have been my first clue.”

The girl sucked in her cheeks so she wouldn’t laugh out loud.

“What kind of cop are you?” Kenny asked, resolutely unamused.

“I am the kind that is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery,” said Me.

The door opened, and a boy with blond hair poked his head in. Kenny was so startled by the way the boy’s hair stood on end that he completely missed Inspector Me getting to his feet.

“Thank you for your co-operation,” Me said, quickly following the girl out the door. “My colleague will be in to see you shortly.” Out in the corridor, the girl held the boy’s arm and reached for Inspector Me as he closed the door. It clicked shut, and all was suddenly quiet for a very brief moment.

The door opened again. A middle-aged man walked in, carrying a notebook. Inspector Me and his two teenage students were gone.

“Mr Dunne?” said the man. “My name is Detective Inspector Harris. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kenny said, a little doubtfully. “The other Inspector kept me busy.”

Detective Inspector Harris smiled good-naturedly as he sat down. “Other Inspector?”

“The one who just left.”

“Hmm? Who was that, then?”

“Detective Inspector Me.”

“Detective Inspector You?”

“No, Me. That’s his … He said that’s his name. You just passed him. He was with a girl on work experience and a boy with spiky hair.”

Harris blinked at him. “I didn’t pass anyone, Mr Dunne, and I’m the only Detective Inspector on duty right now.”

Kenny stared at him. “Then … then who the hell was I just speaking to?”

alkyrie Cain cradled her little sister in her arms and hoped to God she’d get through the day without being splattered with regurgitated baby milk. She’d barely made it home from the police station in time to get changed, and one top had already been rendered unwearable before they’d even left the house. It had been a nice top, too. It had really gone with her jeans.

“Please,” she whispered to little Alice, “do not throw up on me.”

Alice watched her with big blue eyes, but wasn’t promising anything.

Squinting slightly against the sun, Valkyrie glanced back into the church. Alice wasn’t the only one who had just been christened today, so the place was full of chatting, laughing families with camcorders, saving every gurgle and wail. She may have been biased, but it was Valkyrie’s sincere opinion that none of the other three babies were half as cute as her three-month-old sister. They just didn’t measure up where it counted. It was sad, really. Those babies had already lost the cuteness war and they wouldn’t even know it for years to come. A real tragedy.

She looked down at her sister. “You don’t do much, do you? You’re fairly limited, as far as most things go. Mum says I have to keep talking to you, to get you used to my voice. So, well, I suppose I’ll keep talking. There are two of me, you know. There’s me, the real me, and then there’s my reflection. The reflection looks like me, and talks like me, and acts like me, but it isn’t me. It steps out of my mirror and goes to school and does my homework and, yes, sometimes it babysits you. And I don’t like that. I don’t like leaving you in the care of something that has no emotions, but I’m a busy girl. Yes I am.

“When you’re a bit older, we’re going to read you stories about princesses and wizards and magic, and we’re going to let you believe, for a few years, that some magic is real. And then, this is the sucky bit, we’re going to tell you that most magic isn’t real. We’re going to tell you that people can’t fly and they can’t turn each other into toads and that there are no magical, mystical monsters. Between you and me, though, that’s the big lie. There is magic, people can fly, there are monsters … I’m not sure about the turning each other into toads bit, though. But who’d want that anyway? That’d be gross.”

Valkyrie started swaying the top half of her body slightly as she walked in a circle. “Who’s a cutie? Who’s a cutie? You are, that’s who. You’re a cutie. And who’s sounding pretty dim-witted right now? That’d be me, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would.”