Piotr eased Andrew aside and leaned closer, to look at the shattered glass.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ Flora warned, ‘Tilda will want Jimmy to take a look; we shouldn’t disturb evidence.’
‘I won’t,’ Piotr replied.
They all eyed the cabinet in an eerie silence, each of them with thoughts tumbling through their minds: Was the cat cursed? What did it want? If it wasn’t cursed, why did the goblets shatter? What was behind all this?
The bell above the door sounded. Andrew nearly jumped out of his skin.
‘What have you done?’ The strained, squeaky voice belonged to Benedict. ‘What have you done? I knew Aunt Tilda shouldn’t have left you here!’
He paced towards the cabinet, face lined with fury.
Andrew turned, his arms out as though he were trying to hide the damage. ‘We didn’t do this, the curse did!’
‘Curse!’ Benedict yelled. ‘Curse! You lot are nothing but trouble. You put ideas into the head of an old lady, you run rampage, smashing up the place, and expect me to believe some hocus-pocus? Well, I won’t have it. I won’t. All of you, out. Now!’
Flora bundled her rug from under the table and held it close. ‘You can’t really think we’d do this?’ she said.
‘Well, who else was here?’ Benedict said. He reached for the cabinet doors and turned the handle. The cabinet didn’t open. ‘Locked?’ he muttered. There was a tiny key in one of the doors; he twisted it until it clicked. As he opened the doors, small shards of glass fell on to the drawer top. He pushed the door closed quickly. ‘I will be finding out exactly the value of the contents of this cabinet and I will be sending you the bill,’ he said with a frosty finality. ‘Now, out, out!’
There was nothing for it but to leave. Benedict rushed them out on to the street and locked the door firmly behind them.
They were shut out of the shop and shut out of the case.
‘We can come back in the morning,’ Piotr said. ‘We can explain to Tilda what happened. She’ll believe us.’
‘How can we explain when we don’t know what happened?’ Sylvie said. ‘That whole thing gave me the creeps. I don’t know if I even want to go back.’
Marsh Road was properly dark now. Low clouds raced across the night sky as though chased by hounds. Inky darkness seeped between the puddles of street lights. Andrew was glad that he had Piotr to walk home with.
They said goodbye to the girls and set off towards the flats. With each step he felt the tug towards Mum grow stronger. He’d been out for two hours. And the curse had struck. Was she OK? He picked up the pace. Piotr was taller, but he had to take big strides to keep up.
‘What should we do next, do you think?’ Piotr asked.
‘What?’
‘We’ve come to a bit of a dead end, with clues, I mean. We could try Elspeth again, I suppose?’
Andrew didn’t reply. Above their heads early buds on tree branches looked like gnarled fingers against the dark sky. He shivered and rucked the collar of his coat up over his ears.
Piotr elbowed him lightly. ‘We’ll be home soon, don’t worry.’
That was the good thing about Piotr. He didn’t make a big deal of anything, but he knew when there was some-thing wrong. Andrew smiled gratefully. Piotr was also pretty good at saying the right thing. He didn’t just let whatever he was thinking fly straight out of his mouth. Piotr took his time. He only spoke once he’d examined the words from every angle and decided that each one was the right one to use.
Andrew could probably learn something from Piotr. If he could manage to focus for long enough. Which he was pretty sure was impossible. There was a tree that looked exactly like a dinosaur eating a witch. He was about to point it out to Piotr, when Piotr spoke.
‘There might be a curse. I’m not saying there isn’t. But if there is, then you have to wonder what we can do about it. I mean, it’s a curse! We can hardly chase it and catch it, can we?’ Andrew could see the corner of Piotr’s mouth curl into a grin in the glow of the amber street lights. ‘But,’ Piotr continued, ‘if Flora is right, and there isn’t a curse, then it must be a person who broke the glasses. And we can catch a person. You see?’
‘But there was no one in the shop but us,’ Andrew said. ‘I still think we need a priest.’
* * *
‘Mum?’ Andrew turned the key and stepped into the hallway of the flat.
‘In here, sweetheart.’ Mum’s voice came from the living room.
‘How are you feeling?’ Andrew called, pulling off his jacket and stretching to reach a peg. He wandered into the living room.
Mum was sitting in her armchair. There was a cup of tea steaming on the coffee table in front of her, alongside a packet of biscuits. ‘I’m just having a snack,’ she said.
‘Oh, sorry,’ he said, dropping on to the sofa.
‘Why are you sorry?’
‘Because I wasn’t here to get it for you.’
‘I can open biscuits, you know!’
‘I know.’
Andrew helped himself to one.
‘So, what have you been up to?’ Mum asked. ‘You were with Piotr?’
Andrew chewed, working the sweet mush off his teeth with his tongue. He didn’t want to worry Mum. But at the same time, a cabinet of crystal goblets had practically exploded all over them because of an angry Egyptian cat. Worry, explosion, worry, explosion. He paused, trying to do what Piotr did before he spoke.
It was no use.
He swallowed. ‘We were ghost hunting! Well, sort of. We listened to the voice of the cat and it rained down destruction and chaos on Marsh Road.’
‘What?’
‘It was like an explosion. Crystals flying everywhere. I was lucky not to get decapitated.’
‘Andrew!’
He’d gone too far.
‘Oh, well, no, not really. But it was really dramatic. You should have seen it. Will you come tomorrow to the shop? I can show you.’
Mum pressed her lips together until they looked white. Then she said, ‘Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe the next day.’
Andrew took another bite of his biscuit. Chewed. Swallowed. Something wasn’t right here. It wasn’t just that she was worried about him. He had a twitchy feeling as he watched Mum sip her tea.
‘Did you sleep all right last night?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Oh, Andrew. It’s fine, honestly.’
‘Did you have another bad dream?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘So you did then?’
Mum put down her cup. Was her hand shaking? ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m probably just overtired by going out and starting work again. It will probably just take a little bit of time for things to settle down.’
But Mum had hardly been at work. She’d only been there an hour or two, tops! Andrew felt a twisting worm of worry inside. ‘What are you dreaming?’
‘I said you don’t need to worry about it, it’s nothing.’
‘Mum, please.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know, sweetheart. And I don’t mean that I don’t want to tell you. I mean that I really don’t know. I can smell the smoke from the fire in my dream. And hear it too. And it feels like someone is watching me, but not helping.’
‘Who?’
‘No one. It’s just a dream. I was on my own that night. I’m probably just eating cheese too close to bedtime. Forget I said anything, OK?’
Andrew had no intention of forgetting about Mum’s problems. But he had no idea what he could do about them. It felt as though the curse was creeping along the dark shadows of Marsh Road towards them.