‘Did she also tell you that people here call her Mrs Fay?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I heard it for myself. Everyone loves her here. She charges practically nothing in rent, and helps the people find their way to … well, to whatever it is they need. And she seems to do it while wearing normal clothes. It’s kind of weird, but also kind of amazing.’

  ‘Yeah. That sums up Mrs Fay, I’d say.’

  We just stood there for a moment, grinning and laughing, but suddenly the door of the restaurant opened from within.

  ‘Will?’ A woman I recognised stood in the doorway. ‘Will, are you finished doing whatever it is you’re doing with your phone yet, because our food’s just arrived? Oh, hello, Wanda.’

  ‘Wanda, you remember Sandra?’ said Will, moving closer to her.

  Of course I remembered Sandra. She was a member of the new and improved Berry coven, a woman everyone seemed to think bore a resemblance to me. A woman Will was now dating. And a woman who, I hoped, made him happy.

  ‘Sure.’ I mustered up a smile. ‘Nice to see you again, Sandra. But I’d better go off now, and let the two of you enjoy your meal.’

  22. My Monday Jeans on a Wednesday

  The lights were low, and the tables were laid with red tablecloths. Candleholders which looked like crystal balls flickered in the centre of each table. Along with the stone walls, it gave the feeling of being in a comfortable cave.

  Close to the club’s entrance, there was a shrine to Hattie. There were flowers, and a book of condolence, but the most striking thing was a screen atop a table, playing a silent recording of one of Hattie’s performances. In the recording, Hattie was on the stage in the Magic Hat, her red hair in braids, her eyes aglow with happiness. She wore black trousers and a ruby-coloured sparkly tuxedo, and she had a black top hat on her head. She removed the hat, and began spinning it in the air. As she did, a second hat came out of the hat.

  She placed the first hat on her head, and spun the second, until yet another hat came out. She repeated this until she was spinning a dozen hats, with absolute control over them all.

  ‘Wow,’ said Gretel. ‘She was amazing. No wonder so many people came tonight.’

  I cast my eye over the club’s patrons. The place was packed, it was true, with most people milling around the bar, clutching drinks, and talking in hushed, shocked voices. Every now and then, snatches of their conversations reached my ears:

  ‘I can’t believe it …’

  ‘Gavin couldn’t have done that …’

  ‘Gavin deserves to rot in Hell for what he did to Hattie …’

  ‘And she was so crazy about him, that’s the worst thing about it all …’

  In my arms, Flopsy shivered. ‘Gavin’s not a killer,’ he whispered.

  ‘Come on,’ I said softly. ‘Most people are too busy drinking to have taken up many of the tables yet. There’s a good one over there.’

  We wound our way to a table at the left of the stage, with a good view of the entire club. Servers rushed around with menus and drinks. Neither Gretel nor I had dinner yet, so we shared a platter of cauliflower wings, fries and onion rings. I had some pellets in my bag for Flopsy.

  As we ate, act after act arrived on the stage, and the red curtain rose and fell. There were card tricks and illusions aplenty, and a very handsome man had his legs chopped off by a pretty female magician. One or two of the performers were lacking in excitement, and I got the impression (by listening to the conversation around me) that they were usually a lot better than this. Even Theo, one of the Freaky Five, failed to impress.

  Theo was dark-haired, like Gavin. He had brown eyes, and he was about average height. He wore a black suit with an old-fashioned cape over it. He also wore a silver pocket watch, and a top hat. He looked a little corny, but maybe that was what this crowd liked. He did mostly card tricks, as well as making Houdini appear and disappear a few times. He didn’t make any mistakes, but his show was just … lacking in something.

  In between the acts, we had time to talk to the performers and the servers, but none of them had much to tell us. They were edgy and frightened, and they were shocked that Gavin could have killed Hattie, but they didn’t want to talk about the fact that people were, mysteriously, losing their mojo.

  After Theo’s act, though, we managed to have a word with him, while he gobbled down a steak and drank a glass of wine. ‘Sorry, but I’m going to have to talk and eat,’ he gasped, draining his wine before moving to his food, cutting into the steak and eating ravenously. ‘I can never eat the day before I perform, so I’m starving now.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Gretel. ‘Most people are reluctant to talk about what’s going on here, Theo, so I get it if you are, too. But–’

  Before she could say more, Theo shook his head and said, ‘No, no, I want to talk.’ He was speaking through a mouthful of meat, but it was still easy enough to understand him. ‘I mean, I feel like I have to, right? Because this is mad altogether, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘I think the maddest thing is the fact that Hattie disappeared once before though, right? Recently?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Theo replied with a sigh. ‘And when she came back she could barely juggle a pair of balls, let alone do what she used to do with her hats. She wasn’t the first, though.’

  ‘Oh?’ I looked at his steak. He liked it rare. There were chips on the plate, too, but he didn’t seem interested in them. ‘And how many people would you say, exactly, have lost their talent?’

  ‘Well, it’s hard to be sure,’ he said. ‘A couple of others, maybe three or four, tops. But I think maybe the most talented person – other than Gavin and Hattie, I mean – was Marge the Magnificent.’

  Gretel caught my eye. Flopsy had mentioned Marge.

  ‘She did something with knives, right?’ Gretel prompted.

  ‘And scissors,’ said Theo. ‘She’d throw them at people, that kind of thing. And she had this trick where she could show someone a magazine, ask them to pick out a haircut, and by the time they’d closed the magazine she’d already done it. To be honest, we didn’t even know she’d been missing, not until her act went haywire. Typical Fifi, forgetting to mention something like that.’

  Gretel sat forward. ‘What do you mean? You’re suggesting Fifi knew Marge had gone missing and didn’t tell anyone?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting. It’s just a fact. But there was no malice in it. Nothing weird about it. It’s just Fifi – she doesn’t think much about anyone but herself. Anyway, the reason she should have known about it, and told us all, was because Marge was her hairdresser. And we found out ages after that Fifi had been to the salon, and the salon owner told her Marge hadn’t shown up for days. Anyway, when she showed up for her act – she only performed every other weekend, but she was a big draw – everything went wrong. First, she accidentally clipped the top of an audience member’s ear. It was awful. It was like she didn’t know what she was doing. She switched to her knife-throwing bit instead, and that was even more disastrous. Fifi was helping her out, acting as her assistant, and she managed to dodge away quickly, but I reckon if anyone else was standing there when Marge threw her knives that night, they would have wound up dead.’

  ‘And Fifi didn’t notice anything off at rehearsal?’ I asked.

  ‘You’d have to ask her about that,’ Theo answered. ‘Hopefully it’ll all end now that Gavin’s been arrested but … I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t?’ asked Gretel. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well it’s just … it’s weird, right? Never mind what happened with Marge and the others. Everything about this feels off to me. I mean, I’d been looking for Gavin and Hattie, and they were supposedly at that house all along? If that’s the case, then how could I have missed them? And now Gavin just owns up and says he murdered her?’ He shook his head. ‘Nah. I don’t think so. Not Gavin. And I didn’t even see that kiss Fran swears he and Hattie had, either.’

  He shivered and looked nervously around. ‘Although I’ve never really been in the loop with the rest of the gang. I’m more of a hanger-on, really. At least it feels that way, sometimes, when I walk into a room and they suddenly stop whispering, y’know? I think the real fifth member of the Freaky Five is Laurence. He’s more up to speed with the rest of the gang. Or he was, until he lost his mojo, too.’

  Theo had been eating the whole while, but he’d now finished the steak, and he pushed the plate away. ‘You know he took off before he lost his talent too, right?’

  ‘Did he?’ I asked. ‘We don’t know too much about it.’

  In my arms, Flopsy nodded. ‘He did,’ said the rabbit. ‘I remember now. He suddenly announced he was going on a golfing trip. When he got back, that’s when his act started to go wrong.’

  Theo was looking at Flopsy. ‘That’s Gavin’s little rabbit, isn’t it? Y’know, I always think he’s talking, isn’t that crazy?’

  ‘A lot of people seem to think that,’ I said, stroking the rabbit. ‘So you were saying? About Laurence?’

  Theo massaged his temples. ‘Was I? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was. That’s the funny thing, though. His act got crappy after he got back from that golfing trip of his, and he stopped doing live performances, but then last night I woke up for some water, and I heard Laurence and Fifi up in Laurence’s flat, talking and laughing. I dunno why, but I crept up there like I was afraid of them hearing me. Like … it was an instinct. Anyway, the door was open, and they were in the lounge, and Fifi was asking her dad to guess what was in a bag she had, and he got every single thing right. A hairbrush, a purse. He knew what was in the purse, down to the cent, and he knew the colour of the hairbrush, too. So maybe he’s got his mojo back?’

  He rubbed his temples again. ‘I wish I could say the same for myself. I’ve been going downhill for a while now. And I don’t just mean the act. I mean … I … I keep thinking about what I’ve done this week, searching for Gavin and Hattie, and …’ He shook his head. ‘Nah, you’ll think I’m mental.’

  ‘No, we won’t,’ Gretel assured him.

  Theo propped his elbows on the table, clasping his hands. ‘Well it’s just … I’m starting to suspect that I was off on some sort of walkabout for a couple of days. I think, I think I was out overnight for like … two nights in a row. I can’t be sure – Fifi disagrees, she says I did come home on and off while I was searching for Gavin and Hattie, and her dad confirmed it. But I really don’t think I did. Because I was still wearing my Monday jeans on a Wednesday, and I have very specific jeans for each day of the week. I know it makes me weird, and fussy, but if I don’t do things a certain way I just get stressed.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Flopsy piped up. ‘Theo likes everything to be just so. Houdini is the same.’

  ‘So … why don’t I properly remember being away, or what I was doing?’ Theo continued. ‘Why, when I describe the places I searched for Gavin and Hattie, do I feel like … well, more like I’m reciting a list than actually remembering? I don’t feel like I did do the things I think I did. I feel …’ He shivered. ‘I dunno. Never mind.’

  He stood up. ‘Look, I’m feeling really unwell right now. And call me a sore loser, but I’m just not in the mood to watch Fifi. I should be happy for her, maybe, but I’m not. She’s finally got top billing because Gavin’s in jail for killing Hattie. It’s just … it’s not something I want to celebrate. But will you still be here in a little while?’

  ‘We’re staying until the end of the show,’ I said.

  ‘Good, good. I’m sure if I have a glass of water and some space to think, I’ll feel better, and I’ll stop saying such crazy, mean things, and be able to help you out some more.’

  He reached out his hands to Flopsy. ‘Wanna come upstairs, buddy?’

  I held on tight to the rabbit. ‘If you’re not feeling well, we’ll keep looking after him.’

  ‘Okay.’ Theo gave us a tired smile. ‘Well, I’ll be back down soon. Just as soon as I feel better.’

  23. Fifi Fantastic

  As we watched Theo make his way up the staircase behind the bar, Gretel said, ‘Do you think he’s okay? The things he’s saying … the lost time, the fact that his act didn’t go very well? I mean, he didn’t mess up, but he was definitely lacking something special, wasn’t he? And with what he said about Laurence … didn’t the Queen say Laurence’s great, great, great granddad was a vampire? And what is it that vampires are especially good at?’

  We returned to our own table as she talked. I sat down, grabbed my drink and took a sip, thinking it over. ‘You’re saying he’s compelling people? Hypnotising them so they’ll lose their talent? I mean, it makes more sense than anything else, I guess. But it’s so unlikely for that much vampire ability to pass down through so many generations.’ It had happened with Melissa, but she was an anomaly. ‘And what would be in it for him? Why would he destroy his own club?’

  Gretel finished off a cauliflower wing, wiping the sauce from her mouth before saying, ‘I really don’t know. And Fifi’s involvement is weird, too. There’s not much point having top billing if there’s no club to perform in, is there? We should grill her after the show. And the show will be very interesting, won’t it? Does she take after her father’s side of the family, or her mother’s?’

  The curtain was beginning to rise once more, and I pulled out the camera in readiness. So far, I’d seen nothing through the aura filter when I looked at the other performers.

  With the curtain up, the beautiful Fifi was revealed. She wore a sequinned leotard, which looked bronze, gold and orange, depending on how the light shone upon it. Her pale gold hair was loose, and glimmering.

  To look at her through my eyes was amazing enough, but when I lifted the camera, and looked at her through the aura filter, I saw exactly which parent Fifi took after. Her magic was a glittering orange, like Púca magic. Why hadn’t we seen it before? Was it because of the Queen’s enchantment? Or was it because now, on stage, Fifi was fully herself?

  She’d seemed special when I first met her, but now … now I felt like I was looking at a star. She seemed so at home up there. Her eyes shone with a mixture of excitement and steely concentration. Whatever happened up there, she would be fully in control.

  ‘I’m Fifi Fantastic,’ she told the audience. ‘And tonight, I want to honour my friend Hattie Trick, by giving you the show of your lives. But … I think I’ll need some help with that. So can I get someone from the audience up here?’ Fifi scanned the room, her eyes settling on Gretel. ‘You, the beautiful lady with the long dark hair. Can you come on up here and help me prove that I’m not playing any tricks.’

  With a suspicious face, Gretel ascended to the stage. Fifi knew perfectly well who Gretel was. Gretel had dropped into the club last night, while Paul was here, and Fifi must have seen us questioning people all evening. So what was she up to?

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your date night,’ said Fifi with a wink.

  Gretel gritted her teeth. ‘I think you know that Wanda and I aren’t here on a date.’

  ‘Oh really? Maybe that’s good news for me. Now, you just look so strong and fit, I figured if anyone could find the break point in these rings, it would be you. So. I’m going to ask you to run your hand around. See if you can find any gaps, any weak points, anything I might be able to hide from the audience.’

  As Fifi held some metallic rings out, Gretel ran her hand around them and shook her head. ‘Nothing. The rings are flawless.’

  ‘Good. Now try and pull them apart, just to be sure. A big, strong pull.’

  Gretel did so. The rings remained intact.

  Fifi grinned, and began her show, slipping rings together in beautiful patterns and pulling them apart. It was awesome, how she managed to make an old trick look new, with the way she danced, the way she moved, the way she threw them in the air and caught them. With every move she made, the orange of her aura grew stronger.

  Then, she paused, threw three rings in the air. They joined immediately, linking together with ease. She caught them, and spun them down her right arm, and the rings somehow separated once more, spinning and spinning like small hula hoops. With the three rings still spinning, Fifi said, ‘I dunno, folks. See, this is pretty and all, but … don’t you think it’s kind of boring?’

  More rings appeared, blinking out of nowhere and appearing on her left arm. ‘Gee, where did they come from, I wonder?’

  Gretel’s expression was a mixture of awe, suspicion, and fear.

  ‘Hm. It’s good, sure,’ Fifi mused. ‘But I just don’t think it’s quite as amazing as I’d like this show to be. It’s certainly not fantastic. Hey, beautiful lady.’ She winked at Gretel. ‘Hold your arms out and catch these.

  Gretel did as she was asked. Somehow, even though Fifi twirled and danced as she threw, the rings landed perfectly – three on each of Gretel’s outstretched arms – and began to spin.

  ‘You can stop spinning now, girls,’ said Fifi, and the rings automatically stopped. ‘It’s still not fantastic, even with a beauty like this to help with the show. Hmm …’ Fifi tapped her chin. ‘Let me think, let me think … could I fit my whole body into the rings? You know what, let’s see. What’s your name, gorgeous?’

  ‘Gretel. But you probably know that already.’

  ‘Gretel. What a fabulous name. Do you have a brother called Hansel, Gretel? And are you a witch slayer? Because you’re certainly slaying my heart.’ Fifi grinned. With a flick of her wrist, a measuring tape appeared. ‘Gretel, I want you to do something. I want you to measure my waist, and my hips, and my shoulders. And I want you to write it down on that blackboard.’

  ‘What blackboard?’ Gretel asked.

  Fifi flicked her wrist again. A beautiful piece of material appeared.

  ‘Hmm.’ Fifi tapped her chin once more. ‘That’s not a blackboard, is it? Let’s see what’s underneath.’ She made another movement with her wrist, and the material danced in the air for a moment, almost covering the entire stage. Then, she flicked her wrist again and it disappeared, leaving a blackboard in its place. ‘There. You can write my measurements there for the whole audience to see.’