Broken Homes

exactly it was you got in a Fortnum and Mason hamper – beyond ‘posh stuff’, that is.
    She was still up there when Nightingale arrived so I left them to it and met him down by the VW Golf. He was sitting comfortably on his heels, staring at the stoved in side panels and stroking his chin.
    ‘It was covered in frost,’ I said when I joined him. ‘Immediately after. Like it had been frozen.’
    ‘This is a worrying development,’ he said.
    I tapped the mangled metal. ‘I thought so,’ I said. ‘Especially at the time. Any idea who trained her?’
    ‘Not our man in the mask, that’s for certain.’ He nodded at the car. ‘Not with that spell.’
    Lesley emerged from the house and joined us – her own mask back on. Nightingale straightened when he saw her.
    ‘Did Mr Palmer have anything useful to say?’ he asked.
    ‘Not noticeably,’ said Lesley. ‘He did tell me that he’s only seen Varenka at the fair recently and that she just seemed to be there for the same reasons as everyone else – a bit of shopping, the odd glass and gossip.’
    ‘Did she gossip with anyone in particular?’
    ‘Not that he noticed,’ she said.
    ‘I assume you asked him to keep an eye out,’ said Nightingale.
    ‘Yep,’ she and held up a large jar with an old-fashioned orange label. ‘And this is for you.’
    Nightingale took the jar, read the label and smiled.
    ‘Game relish,’ he said. ‘Excellent – we’ll have to see what Molly can do to this.’
    The jar vanished into his coat pocket and his face became grim.
    ‘When she cast the spell did you get a sense of her signare ?’
    ‘Weirdly yeah,’ I said. ‘Bread, grain, something yeasty.’
    ‘Hungry dog,’ said Lesley.
    ‘Dog or wolf?’ asked Nightingale.
    Lesley shrugged. ‘To be honest I don’t think I’d know the difference.’
    ‘ Nochnye Koldunyi ,’ said Nightingale. ‘A Night Witch.’
    ‘Is that like a person or another thing?’ asked Lesley. ‘Like Peter’s Pale Lady?’
    ‘A type of Russian practitioner,’ said Nightingale. ‘Recruited during the war, the training had a very narrow scope. It was concentrated almost entirely on combat. We heard rumours that there were whole regiments of women trained in this manner. Hence the nickname.’
    ‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ I said.
    ‘We tried something very similar ourselves in 1939,’ said Nightingale. ‘Unfortunately it didn’t turn out well, and the whole project had to be abandoned.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘Half of everything I try and teach you is to stop you from killing yourselves,’ said Nightingale. ‘Skimp on that aspect of the training and many more of your apprentices will die. We felt that the casualty rate with the New Training was too high – I suspect the Russians were willing to make greater sacrifices. Our war was pretty desperate but theirs was a war of annihilation – victory or death was not an empty slogan.’
    ‘Hold on,’ said Lesley. ‘That was seventy years ago – she’d be an old woman.’ She paused and narrowed her eyes at Nightingale. ‘Unless she’s doing the backwards aging thing, like you.’
    ‘Or she might have been trained by her mother,’ I said. ‘Or perhaps the Russians still have a military magic programme.’
    ‘Maybe she’s an unauthorised agent,’ said Lesley. ‘Maybe we should tell the Russians.’
    ‘Well, prior to that,’ said Nightingale, ‘we’d have to determine which Russians to tell. We’d better consult with the Professor about that.’
    ‘If we can pry him away from his new German grimoire,’ I said.
    ‘Nonetheless,’ said Nightingale. ‘Regardless of her provenance, the fact is we now have two confirmed fully trained practitioners at large in London. You two are going to have to be even more careful when operating without me. In fact, I don’t want either of you operating alone or without letting me know where you are – you can consider that an order.’
    ‘We should start routinely carrying tasers,’ said Lesley. ‘That would be our best bet – zap them before they know we’re there. I’d like see someone concentrate on a forma with fifty thousand volts running through them.’
    ‘No warning,’ I said. ‘I like it.’
    Lesley glared at me and I realised she was serious.
    Nightingale nodded. ‘I’ll have to clear it with the Commissioner first. And I’ll need you both to demonstrate to me that you’ll hit the target you’re aiming at.’
    ‘In the meantime?’ I