Wizard for Hire
Chapter Four — A Murder by Magic

Another 20 minutes passed of incessant questioning, but Felix seemed to be in a dull mood now. His mood seemed so delicate that one insult could throw him into a stupor. I was struggling to keep up with the questions, but it went that they suspected Felix of stealing some jewellery last night from a safety deposit box in Covent Garden, that a witness saw someone of his description running away.

Wracking my brains, I tried to recall the time that I withdrew from his room to bed, it was likely a little before 3am, but I couldn’t confirm it, not even to myself. Did the wizard have time to get from Canning Town to Covent Garden in 15 minutes? I doubt he used public transport, so maybe, with some magical device. If indeed he was a wizard and not some madman who had taken me in.

You see how knotty this situation was?

The wizard, in one day, had already cost a parking ticket, an afternoon from work and a possible blight to my impeccable criminal record. Now I had at least six more months of it. Unless I forfeited my deposit.

Either I had made friends with a wizarding thief, or the police were mistaken. Whichever way, it felt like an ominous position to be in. And if I didn’t continue to play along as his lawyer, a charge for perjury would most likely be on the cards.

But things were to develop.

A short, sharp knock at the door and in walked two people, an air of high rank about them, for they barely acknowledged Jena and Rasheed, who stood.

“Mam,” said Jena with a respectful nod.

The lady she called Mam, was a silver-haired lady with an air of importance and high stature, like she could smell the bullshit in a cow shed. She reminded me a mixture of Judy Dench and Helen Mirren.

Felix perked up, and sat straight in his chair. This was who he seemed to be waiting for. She held herself with all intents and purposes like a woman not to be messed with, her eyes fell to me and I felt a wave of anxiety. What if she found me out?

“You must be William Norton, the wizards lawyer?”

I stood and shook her hand. “Yes. But only recently.”

She gave me a look, like she already knew, her emerald green eyes seemed to tinkle with a strange sense of all-knowingness. The sort of person you feel like you want to impress. “I am Chief Inspector Karen Magdalen.”

Felix stood in a dramatic flurry. “Am I under arrest?” To which Karen replied with a scripted answer telling him he wasn’t but they appreciate his help on this matter. “Happy to help,” said Felix sitting down with a big smile.

He was an odd one.

“This is my right hand-man on this case, Inspector Bob Bennett.”

In behind her, just at the right moment, stepped Bob Bennet. A big lumbering northern powerhouse. Thick set and stubby with a face used to frowning, he glowered round at us, with air of wanting to be anywhere else. The suit he squeezed himself into threatened to split as he sat down to face us. I could see Felix out the corner of my eye scanning Bob from head to toe, a wry smile danced his lips.

“Thank you for taking the time to speak to us today,” said Karen cordially. “We would like your help in something that happened yesterday, that my colleagues have already briefed you about. However, it’s become a dam-site more serious, now that it’s also a double murder investigation.”

The air in the room tightened.

“Christ,” said Felix opting for serious. He did have some decorum then.

“And…” Karen said winding up to something big, with a cursory glance at Bob who continued chewing his gum. “We think, that it is a… murder by magic.”

Felix’s eyebrows raised and I swear I saw him lick his lips.

Bob kept his gaze fixed upon Felix with absolute un-trust. “And you know who did it.”

The wizards head turned ever so gently to Bob. “Do you now?” he said soft as a gentle breeze.

I cleared my throat wanting some clarification. “When you say, murder by magic, could you just clarify that definition.”

Karen shot Felix a look of disappointment. “Did you not brief your brief?”

The wizard passed the disappointed look to me and said he did, but that I must have forgotten.

Bob chuckled. “Thought he had a photographic memory?”

They had been listening to us. Sneaky.

Karen opened her file, and slid some pictures towards us, of a safety deposit holding in Covent Garden that had been broken into that morning. It looked to be a professional job, the steel doors somehow cleaved apart, the safety deposit boxes jammed open, the nearby sewer tunnel used for entry.

“So?” said Felix pushing the pictures back. “What am I looking at?”

Karen explained that they suspected a local gang, highly organised, with insider help, carried the robbery out. “One of the security guards was shot, a second killed by…” Bob seemed at pain to say the last word: “Magic.”

“We’ve had it verified independently that it was magic that was used to kill the guard,” said Karen, she didn’t pause. “And not some, god awful new gun.”

Bob slammed a fat fist on the table. “Blew a hole straight through him!” Then with relish: “And you are our only suspect.”

Felix tutted, “Oh Karen, after all we’ve been through? I feel spurned.” He put his fist to his mouth, imitation how hurt he was, but it just came off as ham acting. “Anyway,” he said. “I’m the only suspect because you only know two wizards. I suppose it was Alister at PI Wizz, who was your source to get it verified independantly? You see, I am the only wizard you know. I can name plenty. What it doesn’t mean is that I broke into a bank, shot one man and killed another with magic.”

“Never said ya’ did!” cried Bob. “But we know you’re for hire… and broke. I bet you got a call from a rather shady collection of people who asked if you wanted in on a lucrative operation. You go along, help them break in with ya’ magic and what-not, but things take a turn for the worst, two security guards catch ya’ at it. One of the gang shoots one, and you… kill the other with ya’ magic in a mad panic. You all leg it, you get seen running away chucking the loot out ya’ pockets!”

I piped up in my best lawyerly voice. “That’s conjecture.”

Bob shot me the dirtiest look I had ever had, like I had just insulted his mother.

“Norton is right, you’re talking bollocks Bob,” Felix said gaily, pointing a long finger at him. “Yes, I am wizard for hire, I do… odd jobs.”

“Odd jobs?” Karen repeated.

Felix felt himself on the ropes and replied in a fast voice. “Finding things, retrieving lost goods, getting rid of poltergeists Karen.”

Karen bristled and pursed her lips. From the intimation, I assumed Felix had done work for her in the line of a poltergeist. “Things that normal people can’t do, but are easy peasy to me and I get paid a moderate amount for them, seeing as work is shy — people don’t seem to think I am a real wizard — I take it as it comes.”

He brushed his hair back behind his ears and re-adjusted the baseball cap he had on backwards (I noticed it had Cocaine and Caviar written upon, it looked like a drug dealers cap). “If you needed help with this case, why didn’t you just ask Alister and his agency? They’re Wizards and PI’s.”

Karen looked sheepish. “They’re too busy.”

Felix looked incredulous, and for once, lost for words. I sensed a spot of rivalry between himself and this Alister character. After a second of puffed-up-ness he sniggered. “So, just because I am the only non-busy wizard you know, that makes me the prime suspect in a break in of a bank?”

“Pretty much,” said Bob facetiously, knowing it would wind the wizard up.

Karen fixed her emerald eyes upon Felix. “Where were you between the hours of 2.30 and 4am this morning?”

A few seconds elapsed before I said something. I had to. “He was with me,” I said. Bob’s eyebrow raised. “Not like that, we just stayed up talking, until about 3.30am” Slight exaggeration, but it was around that time.

Bob maintained the raised eyebrow, passing it to Felix. “You live with ya’ lawyer?”

“It’s a… temporary arrangement,” I said.

That was the worst of it, I don’t think they really suspected the wizard too strongly. What followed on was an admission from Karen that they needed help of an occult angle and seeing as the specialists at the Wizarding Private Investigation company (PI Wizz), a team of which this Alister character ran, were busy, then they needed Felix to help clarify a few things.

Felix negotiated more information out of them, needing it for ‘context’. They went on to say that this break in was the third in two weeks around the capital. Of which all had a strange angle to them. One bank with safety deposit boxes near Regents Park had been broken into and searched, but nothing was taken except several rings. A trait which followed to the next break in days later at Belgravia. No cash or other jewellery was taken, again, only rings. The other strange aspects included how no power tools were used to break in, by all accounts it was as if the thief just walked in and locked the doors behind him on his way out. It was alerted to the police when the CCTV was spotted to be on a loop. Finally, the death of the security guard last night had been picked up by the media, which meant they had to act fast.

Karen read aloud from the Daily Express. “… killed by a shot of electric so powerful it must have been done by a home made weapon. This can’t get out.”

Bob grinned like a weasel that caught it’s first prey. “If it does leak out, then we know who’s leaked it.”

Felix agreed to help them straight away and go to the site with them. Then followed a short interchange in which he said he wouldn’t come unless I did too. Karen relented.

“The car is waiting round the back,” she said ushering us out the room. Felix followed Bob smartly up the way as Karen turned on me with her piercing green eyes. “If you really are Felix’s lawyer, I’d quit. That man is more trouble than he is worth, it’s not worth getting involved with. And that’s coming from a friend.”

5

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