“I do. They’re on the second page of the document—stop! What are you doing?” I swipe for his hand, but he sidesteps me and takes a second bite out of the witchlock root. “Don’t eat that.”
Witchlock is a hybrid my mother invented. I use it in hair regrowth potions, and an even smaller amount in rejuvenation meads. It’s a useful plant, but also dangerous because around ten percent of the population find the smell and taste utterly irresistible, and it seems that Douglas is one of the unlucky ones.
Douglas munches happily on the witchlock. As I watch in horror, he scratches at his face. “I feel strange.” He burps.
Long, thick hair grows from his skin – on his cheeks, his arms, his ears. Tufts poke from the collar of his shirt. “What have you done to me?” he shouts as he tugs at the locks on his cheeks, which now brush his shoulders.
He fists a handful and yanks, and manages to pull off a chunk, but he brings a bit of skin with him. He howls with agony. Rafe thinks it’s a game and leaps up on the bench to howl with him.
This isn’t going well.
“I did tell you not to eat that,” I say.
Komal covers her mouth with her hands, but I hear a giggle escape. He does look absurd, like Cousin It taking a job at a law firm. The hair keeps growing.
“Why would you have such a dangerous plant in your garden?” Douglas unbuttons his shirt as the hair strains the fabric. Cascading honey-brown curls flop down to the ground. A couple of bees circle him in curiosity. Even as he fights against the hair, he lifts the root to his lips to take another bite. I wrestle it from his fingers and shove it into my pocket.
“All plants are dangerous if you eat enough of them. The dose makes the poison. In small doses, that root is a medicinal remedy for baldness. It’s very effective, but it’s not meant to be eaten. You’vehad far too much. Eventually, the hair will stop growing and if you shave regularly and take an infusion of dandelion root?—”
“Have you come to arrest her?”
Not him. Please, this day couldn’t get any worse.
Harry leans over the fence like a sadistic Wilson Wilson, his eyes scrunched up like two raisins. My stomach lurches.
“Why would we be arresting Mrs Abernathy?” Councillor Ahuja asks between giggles.
“Aside from the dangerous plants she keeps in her brewing area?” Douglas tugs on the mane of hair growing out of his chest.
“She’s a cheater! She’s just like her mother and grandmother, winning the garden competition with magic! I saw her out here last week, muttering all sorts of spells to her flowers and enchanting her compost.” He glares at my compost pile, whichislooking particularly lush.
Douglas turns to me like an enraged Wookiee. “Enchanted compost?”
I shrug. “I think Harry’s referring to the compost dance. I come out on a misty morning and do a little jig to mix up the layers and make sure the microbes are microbing. I may sing a few silly nonsense words, and Isupposeto an outsider it might look like I’m performing a compost spell. But surely what I choose to do in my garden is my business?”
“Arrest her!” Harry jabs a wrinkled finger at me. “Get her on charges of witchcraft! She probably knocked off that husband of hers, too! He was up to some dodgy things.”
“We can’t arrest people, Harry,” Komal says.
“More’s the pity,” Douglas mutters.
“Witchcraft isn’t a crime, and neither is dancing on your compost.” Komal holds up a bunch of flowers she’s picked. “Thank you for showing us around, Mrs Abernathy. I think we’d better be going. You’ll have a letter this afternoon with our decision.”
“I think it went well,” Rafe suggests as we perch on overturned paint cans, eating our lunch pies.
“Oh yes, turning Councillor Douglas into a Wella commercial is absolutely going to get us our licence. At least you didn’t pee on him?—”
“Hello, Mrs Abernathy.”
Hayes appears at the door. A bee crawls along his earlobe. I’m relieved to see that DS Wilson isn’t with him.
I leap to my feet, my chest constricting.Did someone see me kiss Rafe last night? Did they report it to Hayes?“Do you have an update on my husband?”
“I’m afraid not. We still haven’t been able to locate his vehicle, either in the woods or elsewhere. We’ve determined that Veronika Madden was his mistress, and Wilson is currently digging into her movements over the days before and after his appearance. They were planning to run away together, but so far it looks as though he might have been misleading her, too. We still haven’t been able to trace the source of that money, but we’re now wondering if there might be organised crime connections.”
I should be more surprised. Hayes is talking about some stranger, not my straight-laced, gym-obsessed, health-food scoffing, traditional family values husband. I guess that’s true – Warrick was a stranger to me. We’ve been married for fifteen years, and I don’t know him at all.
“Thank you for all you’re doing,” I say. “I appreciate it.”
