Chapter 23

“How long has The Shroud been missing?” Drakeforth asked.

“Since Professor Bombilate disappeared,” Eade said.

“Could he have taken it with him?” I asked.

“Yes, perhaps he thought it needed cleaning,” Eade said, with acid in her tone.

“And how long has he been missing?” I asked. Surely at least one of us could act like an adult.

“That would depend on your perception of time,” Drakeforth interrupted.

“No,” I said firmly. “It wouldn’t.”

“A couple of weeks,” Eade said.

“Have the authorities been informed?” I could hear myself asking reasonable questions like a proper adult. I wondered how long I could keep it going.

“Yes,” Eade replied.

“And?”

“They said that Professor Bombilate was quite capable of mak­ing his own decisions and maybe I should give him his space.”

“Really?” my left eyebrow sprang into its customary position of surprise.

“Of course not. They gave me a form to complete and said they would look into it.”

“And did they?”

Eade gave me a concerned look. “Charlotte, are all our conver­sations going to be this tedious?”

“Uhm, no? Forget I mentioned it…” I mumbled.

Drakeforth cleared his throat. “The authorities, in any situation, will do as little as possible. Not, I would add, due to any lack of will on their part. It’s usually something like budget cuts, or resources, or an impossible caseload.”

“Wait,” I said, seizing the opportunity to interrupt. “How do you know the perils of police work?”

“I’ve had my share of involvement with the lawn.”

“You obfuscated your way out of a traffic ticket!”

Drakeforth snorted. “Only because if they had investigated further, certain allegations and cases that remain technically open, would have added to the complexity of the situation. In short, once accused of murder and technically not acquitted, one tends to avoid the lawn.”

“What?” I managed.

“Technically open,” Drakeforth repeated.

“You make it sound like you got off on a technicality,” I frowned.

“Yes, let’s say that’s what happened.” Drakeforth nodded with enthusiasm. “We have more pressing matters. Specifically, a fraud­ulent sheet and a missing informist.”

“Well…we could ask his friends and family where he might have gone.”

“Did Bombilate have friends and family?” Drakeforth asked.

“I never asked,” Eade shrugged.

“You worked with the man,” Drakeforth reminded her.

“I couldn’t pick my colleagues’ friends and families out of a police line-up,” I said.

“Exactly. I worked with Professor Bombilate. I didn’t have to get to know him to do that.”

“You could have been married to him,” Drakeforth muttered.

“We could start with where he lived?” Keeping these two on track was harder than herding cotton balls in a wind tunnel.

“Why not?” Eade smiled coldly at Drakeforth. “I’ll check the records office for his home address.” Eade walked stiffly out of the room, leaving Drakeforth and myself in a chilled silence.

“Would you tell me if you had murdered someone?” I asked

“Probably,” Drakeforth replied. His attention focused on folding the Shroud and returning it to its box.

“You didn’t mention that you were married,” I continued.

“It was annulled.” Drakeforth raised his head and thought for a moment. “At least, I think it was annulled.”

“You’re not sure?” I felt an unpleasant sense of familiarity.

“Well, I did have Eade declared legally dead. It seemed cheaper than hiring a hitman to do it for real.”

“Drakeforth, you can’t go around having people declared legally dead. Especially when they’re not actually dead.”

“Makes you think.” Drakeforth closed the lid on the shroud. “If you are legally dead, and are in fact still alive, are you living illegally?”

“It would depend on what you were doing while alive,” I replied. “For example, if you were committing murder, then yes, you would definitely be living illegally.”

“I didn’t murder anyone,” Drakeforth announced gravely.

“Oh, good.”

A crash of glass and splintering of wood broke the silence. We looked towards the hanging weight of the round vault door we had passed through. Out there, the museum waited, empty and still. Except for a rhythmic thudding, that came closer with each thud.

“School group?” I ventured.

“I usually slip away at this point,” Drakeforth said, casting about for an alternative exit.

“It does avoid awkward questions. What about Eade?”

“I’m sure she will be fine and if I’m wrong, then she will have more pressing concerns than being abandoned by us.”

With a scream of metal, the vault door was wrenched off its hinges and tossed into the room.

“Skating skeletons!” Drakeforth cried. We ran for the back of the room. A wall stood as a silent reminder that there was no escape that way.

A murrai ducked through the open doorway. Its massive stone shoulders caught on the steel frame and ripped it out as easily as walking through a spider web.

“Is it malfunctioning!?” I yelled as the walking statue stood up and straightened.

“It shouldn’t be functioning at all!” Drakeforth yelled back.

I ran around the edge of the room, dodging around tables and trying to avoid the lumbering statue that stomped further into the room. The murrai swung an articulated arm and a fist, larger than my head, cracked the stone floor.

“Follow me!” I yelled, and ran for the only exit. I high-stepped over the rubble and glanced back. Drakeforth was not as close behind as I’d expected.

“What are you doing?”

“The Shroud is the key to all of this. Forged or not. We can’t leave it behind.”

The murrai’s head snapped towards Drakeforth as he flipped the lid off the wooden box.

“Look out!” I grabbed a throwable chunk of masonry and proved it. My missile bounced off the murrai’s back with all the devastating impact of a butterfly’s boop.

Drakeforth had the folded cloth under his arm. He jumped aside as the murrai smashed the wooden case and the table with a single blow.

The machine studied the remnants for a second while Drake­forth ran to meet me.

“Why did you stop?” he gasped.

“Oh, you know. I wanted to see what would happen.”

“Thud, splat, most likely,” Drakeforth replied. “Oh look, it’s worked out that the shroud isn’t there anymore.”

The murrai had finished tossing the fragments and had worked its way through the long arc until it faced us again.

We ran through an exhibition hall and skidded into a hard-right turn. I took the lead and raced towards the archway that would take us to the gift shop and exit.

Drakeforth grabbed my arm. “Two!”

“Three!” I replied automatically, and lunged forward.

“There were two murrai,” Drakeforth reminded me. I recoiled from the archway as if it was the stage door to an open mic night.

“What are the chances of both of them coming to life and being homicidal?”

“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Drakeforth suggested and took a careful step towards the archway between the merchandise and us.

“A case of mistaken identity,” I nodded, almost tiptoeing.

“There will be an investigation, of course.”

“A lengthy report will be written,” I replied.

“Public apologies will be issued.”

“Media statements, carefully worded to express regret.”

“Without actually accepting responsibility,” Drakeforth said. He flatted against the wall of the arch and peeped into the foyer beyond.

“Okay, its clea—” Drakeforth scrambled backwards as the second murrai rammed through the wall in a cloud of dust and refrigerator magnets. “Belay that!”

“Just what I was thinking!” Squeezing between two display cabinets with my back pressed against the nearest wall, I tried to appear like an exhibit.

Drakeforth danced around looking for somewhere to hide. The murrai plodded forward, its stone head grinding as it followed him.

I squealed and ran towards the ruins of the gift shop when the murrai stomped past. “Drakeforth, come on!”

Drakeforth stepped to the right, and the murrai mirrored his movement. He hopped left, and the murrai followed him again.

“You dance divinely,” Drakeforth told it. “But I am afraid I must be going now.” He ducked under a swinging arm and bolted into the foyer.

“What the Hibernian is going on!?” Eade emerged from behind a non-descript office door.

“Murrai. Attempting to redecorate,” Drakeforth replied. The noise of the two stone men trying to turn around in the confined space sounded like they were blocking each other worse than the rocks that built this place.

“Vole, what did you do?” Eade folded her arms and glared.

“I didn’t do anything!” Drakeforth affected a shocked expression.

Eade rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. You’re just too conceited to recognise whatever it was.”

“We should go, before someone turns up and blames us for the mess,” I said.

Eade hesitated, and then nodded. “Fine. Out the front door.”