Pure Dead Wicked (3 page)

The Tincture Topples

S
o close to midwinter, darkness fell at StregaSchloss around three o'clock with an almost audible thud. The wind began to gather momentum, peppering the windows with rain and causing the house's fifty-six chimneys to resonate in a manner that was both eerie and mournful. Clustered round an enormous log fire in the library, the clan Strega-Borgia were not inclined to be cheerful.

“I'm
freezing,
” moaned Pandora for the umpteenth time.

“Put another log on, then.” Titus barely glanced up from his laptop.

“For heaven's sake,” groaned Signora Strega-Borgia, muffled in mohair blankets, pashminas, serapes, sheepskin slippers, and woolly gloves, “we're supposed to be economizing. D'you think that stuff grows on trees?”

The library door opened and Mrs. McLachlan entered, balancing a tea tray on one hip as she herded Damp into the room. “Careful, dear,” she warned the baby. “Mind the fire. HOT HOT BURRRRRNY.”

“
Not,
” muttered Pandora, huddling closer to the flames and nudging Tock with her toes. “Move over, you brute, you're hogging all the heat.”

The crocodile ignored her, inching closer to the fire in a determined search for warmth.

“Now then.” Mrs. McLachlan propped the tea tray on a fireside table and peered into the depths of the teapot. “Bearing in mind that we're all a bit down in the dumps today, I've made some scones, a fruitcake, some lemon drench cake, and a few wee meringues, just to tide you all over till suppertime. . . .”

Damp beamed up at her nanny in absolute adoration. Since Flora Morag Fionn Mhairi ben McLachlan-Morangie-Fiddach's arrival at StregaSchloss the previous summer, the baby had fallen deeply in love with her baking, her lullabies, and her comforting pillowy chest.

Titus brightened at the thought of all that food and abandoned his laptop in favor of calories.

“What a pig,” muttered Pandora, trampled underfoot by her brother in his haste to be first with the meringues. “Look at him, Dad,” she said disgustedly. “He always grabs the biggest one before anyone else has a chance.”

Signor Strega-Borgia looked up from the pages of his book. “Oh, Lord,” he sighed, gazing up at the ceiling, “was that a drip? On the back of my neck?”

“No, Dad.” Pandora cut herself a modest sliver of fruitcake and put it on a plate. “The drip's sitting beside you, stuffing its face with meringues.”

“Dripshh don't haff fashes,” Titus said indistinctly, swallowing hard and helping himself to seconds. “Mind you”—he stared at his sister—“neither do you. You've got pimples. Lots of them.”

“That's ENOUGH!” yelled Signor Strega-Borgia. “Be quiet, both of you, and listen. . . .”

From the room above came a faint percussive sound, a rhythmic
plink plunk plink
. Signora Strega-Borgia shivered and drew her blanket closer round her shoulders. The tapping grew louder, more insistent, faster . . .
plink-plunk, plink-plunk, plinkplinkplink, plunk
.

“I'm going upstairs to see what's going on.” Signor Strega-Borgia stood up and promptly tripped over the slumbering Tock. He fell to the floor with a crash as a large chunk of plaster dropped off the ceiling and embedded itself in the chair he'd recently vacated. The descent of the plaster was followed by a deluge of cold brown water, pouring down through the hole in the cornice and soaking the furniture beneath.

“Oh, NO!” wailed Titus. “My laptop!” And he dived to rescue it from the flood.

“Typical.” Pandora rose to her feet and glared at her brother. “Not ‘Oh-Dad-are-you-all-right-gosh-that-was-a-lucky-escape,' but ‘Oh-laptop-oh-heavens-what-a-near-miss.' ”

“I think we ought to continue this discussion somewhere else, don't you, dear?” said Mrs. McLachlan, hoisting Damp into her arms and handing Titus the dish of meringues. “And perhaps you'd like to carry these to the kitchen?” Her voice brooked no argument. “And, Pandora, could you manage the tea tray with the rest . . . ?”

“QUICK! OUT! NOW!” yelled Signor Strega-Borgia, pushing Mrs. McLachlan and Damp toward the door. “The whole ceiling's about to come down.”

Signora Strega-Borgia shot to her feet, shook the sleeping crocodile awake, and hurried to the door in a tide of cashmere. Above her head, a vast gray patch spread like ink on blotting paper across the damaged ceiling. Around the newly created hole a bulge began to develop, growing and sagging as if something massive were pressing into the library from the room above. With all his family safe in the hallway, Signor Strega-Borgia shut the library door. From behind it came a rending crash followed by the deafening roar of gallons of pent-up rainwater pouring through a large hole.

Latch, the Schloss butler, appeared on the landing above. He was dressed informally since he'd been enjoying a rare afternoon off duty, and consequently was sporting an alarmingly small green dressing gown, from which his long limbs sprouted like pale potato shoots.

“There appears to be some problem with the roof,” he said redundantly, since the sound of water pouring into the library could clearly be heard through the closed door. “Can I be of some assistance? Phone a plumber? Fetch more buckets? Sandbags? Try to salvage some books from the library . . . ?”

Pandora noticed that water was beginning to seep into the hallway from under the door.

“Phone Pylum-Haight,” said Signor Strega-Borgia.

His wife flinched. “But, Luciano . . . ,” she whimpered. “The expense . . .”

“I'm sure we can come to some arrangement with Mr. Pylum-Haight.” Signor Strega-Borgia wrapped an arm round his wife. “Let's not worry about that right now, shall we? And, Latch: if you'd give me a hand taking the books down to the kitchen to dry out? Later—when the floods have stopped?”

“Oh, the books—the poor
books,
” wailed Signora Strega-Borgia, realizing the full extent of the damage. “My magic books, the children's picture books . . . the family books. . . .” She began to cry, her head buried in her husband's shoulder.

“Now, dear—don't you fret about that right now,” Mrs. McLachlan soothed. “A nice cup of tea in the kitchen, with a wee dram for the shock.” She shifted a wide-eyed Damp to her other hip and took her employer by the arm to lead her downstairs.

Their voices faded away as the nanny led Signora Strega-Borgia toward the kitchen. The door closed, muffling any further discussion. Tock gave a mournful honk and waddled off in the direction of his mistress's bedchamber.

 

Two hours later, a rusty white van and a sleek black BMW were parked outside the front door, and a tribe of men in yellow oilskins headed by Mr. Pylum-Haight had invaded StregaSchloss. Books adorned every available surface in the kitchen. Soggy paperbacks, drenched calfskin, and pulpy wet hardbacks dripped in every nook and cranny. The family sat round the kitchen table, their spirits lightened somewhat by Mrs. McLachlan's carrot and ginger soup, roast chicken, potatoes and broccoli, and Sussex Pond Pudding. The room was warm, the children full and sleepy. From overhead came the sound of banging and hammering as Pylum-Haight and his emergency team effected a temporary roof repair.

“The roof appears to be far worse than we'd suspected. Mr. Pylum-Haight was being horribly gloomy about how long he thought the work would take, not to mention how much it would cost. . . .” Signora Strega-Borgia sighed and pushed her plate away.

“He says we can stay here tonight,” said Signor Strega-Borgia, watching in amazement as Titus spooned out a fourth helping of pudding onto his plate, “but tomorrow we have to move out.”

“But Christmas is only three weeks away,” moaned Pandora, curled up in an armchair by the range.

“And where are we going to move out
to
?” Titus had paused with his spoon arrested in midair. “We don't
have
another house.”

“We don't even have
this
one right now,” said Signor Strega-Borgia gloomily.

“We could use my tent,” said Pandora. “Or rent a caravan. . . .”

“NOT!” bawled Ffup. “If you think I'm sleeping under canvas in December, you can think again.” The dragon banged on the table for emphasis and glared at the assembled company.

No one noticed as a small glass vial bounced off the tabletop and smashed on the stone floor below. No one noticed as its contents spilled out and seeped into the cracks in the floor. Oblivious to the appalling chain of events unleashed by his teenage tantrum, Ffup carried on: “And how exactly d'you think
I
am supposed to cope with being cooped up in a tin box? Caravan?
Phtui
. . . I spit on it.”

Mrs. McLachlan fixed the dragon with her basilisk stare. “Ffup . . . ,” she warned.

The dragon blushed pink and seemed to shrink inside his scaly carapace. “Um . . . yes,” he bleated. “Caravans . . . mmm,
lovely
. What
fun
. Come to think of it, I rather like tinned humans, actually. . . .”

Full-on Vadette

T
he hour was way past midnight when Mr. Pylum-Haight drove across StregaSchloss's uninhabited moat and edged his BMW through the open gates and out along the pitted drive that wound back to Auchenlochtermuchty. Pylum-Haight lit a foul-smelling cigarillo and sank back into the black leather of his seat. He pressed a keypad on the dashboard and the display on his car phone promptly lit up. A muted dial tone began to trickle from all eight of the concealed speakers in his car. “Come on, pick up, pick up,” he said, exhaling a mouthful of evil brown smoke that temporarily obliterated the reek of aftershave clinging to his person.

The dial tone stopped, and a woman's voice spoke. “Bella-Vista residence, Vadette speaking.”

Not
Vadette,
groaned Pylum-Haight to himself. Oh, please let her develop instant laryngitis. . . . Bracing himself, he replied, “Hello, love. Is the man himself around? It's Hugh—Hugh Pylum-Haight.”

On the other end of the line, he could hear the rattle of ice cubes as someone took a large gulp of their drink. “Oh, it's you, Huey . . . ,” came the reply. “
Huey
. Wee Huey. Now, why don't you just bog off, wee man, and phone the office instead? Vincent is not available to take calls tonight.”

“Look, love . . .” Pylum-Haight discovered that he'd chewed the end off his cigarillo in an effort not to scream out loud, hurl his car phone out the window, and drive straight into the nearest available tree. “I know it's late, but I've got to have a word with Vinnie. Something urgent's come up.”

Another rattle of ice cubes. “What? What's up, Huey? Why don't you tell
me
, and if
I
think it's important enough, then I'll let him know. . . .”
Clink, chink, rattle.

Breathing deeply, Pylum-Haight swerved round a corner and almost succeeded in avoiding a particularly deep pothole. “Vadette, pet, I don't think you need bother your vacant—sorry, your
pretty
head about this. Just tell the man to come to the phone—
please,
” he begged.

Clink, tinkle, glug
.

Vadette appeared to consider this for as long as it took for whatever she was drinking to slide down her throat and then, with no warning whatsoever, she screamed, “VINNIE! It's that WEE POSER again!”

“Aaargh, my
ears,
” moaned Pylum-Haight, deafened by the eightfold onslaught of Vad-the-Mad at full throttle.

“Yer what? That you, Huey? What's the problem? It had better be important—I'm missing the darts.” In the background came a roar of applause and a voice calling, “One hundred and
eighty
!”

“I'll be brief, Vinnie.” Pylum-Haight slowed to a crawl behind a police patrol car that had nosed out into the road ahead. “It's that site you had your eye on—you know, the big old castle by the lochside—”

He was interrupted by Vinnie yelling, “Leave it out, Vadette, would you? Stop dancing in front of the screen—I can't see the
game.
”

Pylum-Haight rolled his eyes. He could imagine the scene in Vincent's hilltop house. The vision of Vadette obscuring the picture on Vincent's wide-screen television as she gyrated and wobbled in front of it was the stuff of which nightmares were made. Poor Vincent, he thought, such appalling taste in girlfriends.

“Come and sit on my lap, then, that's a good girl.”

Pylum-Haight choked on his cigarillo, and tried to turn it into a cough. Sit on his lap? Vincent would be asphyxiated—Vadette must weigh . . . a hundred and fifty kilos? Two hundred?

“That house with the weird name?”

Vincent was evidently still breathing. Pylum-Haight failed to imagine how. “The same,” he said. “But I think it might just be about to fall into your lap. . . .”

There was a loud thump and a wail from the other end. He must have dropped her onto the floor, Pylum-Haight thought in amazement.

“Are you straight-shooting, Huey?” Vinnie's voice was harder now, closer, as if his mouth was pressed up close to the eight car speakers.

“Cross my heart, Vinnie. By the new year, I'll have done so much damage to the roof I can guarantee that the present owners will be desperate to sell StregaSchloss to Bella-Vista Developments Inc. In short, to you.”

“Five hundred chalets . . . ,” the voice murmured reverently, as if Vinnie were running his hands through priceless gems. A thousand caravans, leisure complex, bowling alley, games arcade; knock down that boring old castle, build a multistoried car park. . . .”

“Don't forget the fish farm
and
the nuclear power station,” added Pylum-Haight. “And the abattoir, the rendering plant, and the animal research facility. . . .”