LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Why?”

      Stephanie’s father walked out of the house, shoes on, and closed the front door after him.

      “I think he was more like Gordon than he liked to let on,” her mother said quietly, and then her dad got into the car.

      “OK,” he said proudly. “I’m ready.”

      They looked at him as he nodded, chuffed with himself. He strapped on his seatbelt and turned the key. The engine purred to life. Stephanie waved to Jasper, an eight-year-old boy with unfortunate ears, as her dad backed out on to the road, put the car in gear and they were off, narrowly missing their wheelie bin as they went.

      The drive to the solicitor’s office in the city took a little under an hour and they arrived twenty minutes late. They were led up a flight of creaky stairs to a small office, too warm to be comfortable, with a large window that offered a wonderful view of the brick wall across the street. Fergus and Beryl were there, and they showed their displeasure at having been kept waiting by looking at their watches and scowling. Stephanie’s parents took the remaining chairs and Stephanie stood behind them as the solicitor peered at them through cracked spectacles.

      “Now can we get started?” Beryl snapped.

      The solicitor, a short man named Mr Fedgewick, with the girth and appearance of a sweaty bowling ball, tried smiling. “We still have one more person to wait on,” he said and Fergus’s eyes bulged.

      “Who?” he demanded. “There can’t be anyone else, we are the only siblings Gordon had. Who is it? It’s not some charity, is it? I’ve never trusted charities. They always want something from you.”

      “It’s, it’s not a charity,” Mr Fedgewick said. “He did say, however, that he might be a little late.”

      “Who said?” Stephanie’s father asked, and the solicitor looked down at the file open before him.

      “A most unusual name, this,” he said. “It seems we are waiting on one Mr Skulduggery Pleasant.”

      “Well who on earth is that?” asked Beryl, irritated. “He sounds like a, he sounds like a… Fergus, what does he sound like?”

      “He sounds like a weirdo,” Fergus said, glaring at Fedgewick. “He’s not a weirdo, is he?”

      “I really couldn’t say,” Fedgewick answered, his paltry excuse for a smile failing miserably under the glares he was getting from Fergus and Beryl. “But I’m sure he’ll be along soon.”

      Fergus frowned, narrowing his beady eyes as much as was possible. “How are you sure?”

      Fedgewick faltered, unable to offer a reason, and then the door opened and the man in the tan overcoat entered the room.

      “Sorry I’m late,” he said, closing the door behind him. “It was unavoidable I’m afraid.”

      Everyone in the room stared at him, stared at the scarf and the gloves and the sunglasses and the wild fuzzy hair. It was a glorious day outside, certainly not the kind of weather to be wrapped up like this. Stephanie looked closer at the hair. From this distance, it didn’t even seem real.

      The solicitor cleared his throat. “Um, you are Skulduggery Pleasant?”

      “At your service,” the man said. Stephanie could listen to that voice all day. Her mother, uncertain as she was, had smiled her greetings, but her father was looking at him with an expression of wariness she had never seen on his face before. After a moment the expression left him and he nodded politely and looked back to Mr Fedgewick. Fergus and Beryl were still staring.

      “Do you have something wrong with your face?” Beryl asked.

      Fedgewick cleared his throat again. “OK then, let’s get down to business, now that we’re all here. Excellent. Good. This, of course, being the last will and testament of Gordon Edgley, revised last almost one year ago. Gordon has been a client of mine for the past twenty years, and in that time, I got to know him well, so let me pass on to you, his family and, and friend, my deepest, deepest—”

      “Yes yes yes,” Fergus interrupted, waving his hand in the air. “Can we just skip this part? We’re already running behind schedule. Let’s go to the part where we get stuff. Who gets the house? And who gets the villa?”

      “Who gets the fortune?” Beryl asked, leaning forward in her seat.

      “The royalties,” Fergus said. “Who gets the royalties from the books?”

      Stephanie glanced at Skulduggery Pleasant from the corner of her eye. He was standing back against the wall, hands in his pockets, looking at the solicitor. Well, he seemed to be looking at the solicitor; with those sunglasses he could have been looking anywhere. She returned her gaze to Fedgewick as he picked up a page from his desk and read from it.

      “‘To my brother Fergus and his beautiful wife Beryl,’” he read, and Stephanie did her best to hide a grin, ‘“I leave my car, and my boat, and a gift.’”

      Fergus and Beryl blinked. “His car?” Fergus said. “His boat? Why would he leave me his boat?”

      “You hate the water,” Beryl said, anger rising in her voice. “You get seasick.”

      “I do get seasick,” Fergus snapped, “and he knew that!”

      “And we already have a car,” Beryl said.

      “And we already have a car!” Fergus repeated.

      Beryl was sitting so far up on her chair that she was almost on the desk. “This gift,” she said, her voice low and threatening, “is it the fortune?”

      Mr Fedgewick coughed nervously, and took a small box from his desk drawer and slid it towards them. They looked at this box. They looked some more. They both reached for it at the same time, and Stephanie watched them slap at each other’s hands until Beryl snatched it off the desk and tore the lid open.

      “What is it?” Fergus asked in a small voice. “Is it a key to a safety deposit box? Is it, is it an account number? Is it, what is it? Wife, what is it?”

      All colour had drained from Beryl’s face and her hands were shaking. She blinked hard to keep the tears away, then she turned the box for everyone to see, and everyone saw the brooch, about the size of a drinks coaster, nestled in the plush cushion. Fergus stared at it.

      “It doesn’t even have any jewels on it,” Beryl said, her voice strangled. Fergus opened his mouth wide like a startled fish and turned to Fedgewick.

      “What else do we get?” he asked, panicking.

      Mr Fedgewick tried another smile. “Your, uh, your brother’s love?”

      Stephanie heard a high-pitched whine, and it took her a moment to realise it was coming from Beryl. Fedgewick returned his attention to the will, trying to ignore the horrified looks he was getting from Fergus and his wife.

      “‘To my good friend and guide Skulduggery Pleasant I leave the following advice. Your path is your own, and I have no wish to sway you, but sometimes the greatest enemy we can face is ourselves, and the greatest battle is against the darkness within. There is a storm coming, and sometimes the key to safe harbour is hidden from us, and sometimes it is right before our eyes.’”

      Stephanie joined in with everyone else as they stared at Mr Pleasant. She had known there was something different about him, she had known it the first moment she saw him – there was something exotic, something mysterious, something dangerous. For his part, his head dipped lower and that was the only reaction he gave. He offered no explanations as to what Gordon’s message had meant.

      Fergus patted his wife’s knee. “See, Beryl? A car, a boat, a brooch, it’s not that bad. He could have given us some stupid advice.”

      “Oh, shut up, would

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