LITMIR.BIZ

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      “If this murder is connected to the others, then I think we have at least two people working here, maybe more. This has all the hallmarks of a gang urging each other on. Each murder is more savage than the one before. Each time it gets more personal.”

      “Any idea why there’s a car spread out like a jigsaw in the driveway?”

      “None whatsoever.”

      “We have to find the link between the victims,” Valkyrie said. “What was his name?”

      “Thomas Purcell. Tommy. Twenty years old. Apprentice electrician. Mother absent, father works the nightshift, isn’t home from work yet. Younger brother Doran, seventeen.”

      “Maybe he could help us,” Valkyrie said. “If Tommy had any enemies, anyone who’d want to hurt him, his brother ought to know, right?”

      “Maybe. That is if his brother is in any fit state to talk.”

      “Is he here?”

      “Geoffrey’s talking to him in the garage. See if he can be of any help. I’ll take a look around outside.”

      Valkyrie nodded, walked to the garage and looked in. Geoffrey Scrutinous was sitting on a crate talking to a boy dressed in baggy jeans and a hoody. Geoffrey’s hair was its usual wild and frizzy self, but he looked exhausted. These last few weeks had seen him rushing all around the country, convincing people they hadn’t seen what they thought they’d seen.

      “You can feel yourself calming down,” Geoffrey said. “You’re calm and you’re clear. Oh, hello, Valkyrie. Valkyrie Cain, this is Doran Purcell. Doran lost his brother today.”

      “I’m very sorry,” Valkyrie said.

      Doran looked up at her. Geoffrey’s routine had worked wonders. Doran looked remarkably calm.

      “It’s OK,” he said. “Thank you.”

      “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

      Doran smiled. “You’re my age. What are you doing, acting the detective?”

      “I just want to talk to you, see if you can help us find out who did this terrible thing.”

      “Right,” said Doran. “Terrible. Yeah. Sure, ask away.”

      “Thank you. Do you know who might have wanted to hurt your brother?”

      Doran nodded. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got a good idea. Everyone who ever met him.”

      Valkyrie blinked. “I’m sorry?”

      “My brother was a tool. He was a bully. He’d bully whoever he could get away with bullying. He had loads of enemies. Everyone wanted to hurt him. I’m telling you, there’ll be a load of happy people today once this gets out.”

      “Are you happy, Doran?”

      “Me? No. He may have been a bully but he was still my brother.”

      “Did he ever bully you?”

      “Yeah.”

      “That must have been tough.”

      A shrug.

      “Do you know who did this?”

      “No. I got home late last night, came in the back door, went straight up to bed.”

      “Do you have any suspects?”

      “Like I said, he had lots of enemies. Could have been anyone.” A sliver of a smile played across his mouth, so quick Valkyrie wasn’t sure she’d actually seen it. “You know who it could have been?” he asked, leaning forward. “Mark Boyle. He was Tommy’s best friend, ever since they were little. Boyle was as bad as Tommy. They might have had an argument about something, and it got out of hand.”

      “It got out of hand?” Valkyrie said doubtfully. “Doran, have you actually seen your brother’s body?”

      “What there is left of it, yeah.”

      “And how do you think Mark Boyle would have done that?”

      “I dunno. Knife? Maybe a chainsaw.”

      “That’s a possibility,” Valkyrie said. “Listen, will you be OK here for a moment? I’ll have to start a search for Mark Boyle. If he’s running, we’ll have to act fast.”

      “Go get him,” Doran said.

      Valkyrie walked out, approached Skulduggery.

      “I think we have our killer,” she said quietly.

      Skulduggery’s false eyes flickered over her shoulder, looking back at Doran.

      “He might be in shock,” Valkyrie said, “so I might be reading this completely wrong, but he’s practically dancing with joy now that his brother’s dead. He also smells of soap.”

      “He’d need to have a shower to wash off all that blood,” Skulduggery murmured. “Then it’s another one of Argeddion’s infections, you think?”

      “Only this time the mortal with the magic is a psychopath.”

      “It was bound to happen. We can’t take him down here. Someone that powerful, it’d be too unpredictable in a public place. We need to get him isolated.”

      “What’ll we do?”

      “Let him go, and follow him. Hopefully, he’ll lead us to his accomplices. We’ll assemble a team, take them all down at once, and no one needs to get hurt.”

      “What a lovely plan.”

      “Thank you.”

      “How likely is it to actually work?”

      “With our luck? Not very.”

      Three hours later, her arms were folded and her brow was furrowed. “I hate this car.”

      Skulduggery dropped into a lower gear. “What’s wrong with it?”

      “It’s orange.”

      “But a nice shade.”

      “It’s horrible. It’s an Orange-mobile. We’re driving around in an Orange-mobile trying to be inconspicuous.”

      “We are being inconspicuous,” Skulduggery said. “The Bentley, while the height of good taste in and of itself, is not suited to tailing somebody. This car, with its thoroughly unexceptional bodywork and engine capacity, blends in with the other cars on the road.”

      “Blends in?” Valkyrie repeated, looking around them. “Do you see any other orange cars out there? Do you? I don’t. This doesn’t blend in, it sticks out.”

      “And yet instantly fades from memory.”

      “I doubt it’ll fade from my memory,” she grumbled.

      “Has Doran Purcell noticed us yet? No, he hasn’t. Do you know why? Because the people he passes are not pointing at a beautiful black Bentley as it follows him slowly up the street. You should learn to appreciate the unexceptional, Valkyrie.”

      “But why does the unexceptional have to be such an awful colour?”

      He shrugged. “It amuses me.”

      Doran Purcell walked into a café, and the Orange-mobile pulled in to the side of the road.

      “I could do with some coffee,” Valkyrie murmured.

      “He might be meeting someone in there.”

      “I’ll check,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

      “He knows you,” Skulduggery said. A fresh face covered his head. “He doesn’t know me. Stay here.”

      “Get me a coffee.”

      “No.”

      “Get

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