I Shall Wear Midnight

picked my pocket!’ He looked at her pleadingly, like a little puppy who was now expecting much worse than a telling-off.
    To the sergeant’s shock and awe, Tiffany handed the keys back to him again, with a smile. ‘You surely don’t think a witch needs keys? And I promise you that I will be back in here by seven o’clock in the morning. I think you will agree, in the circumstances, that this is very good deal, especially since I will find some time to change the bandage on your mother’s leg.’
    The look on his face was enough. He grabbed the keys thankfully. ‘I suppose it’s no good me asking you how you intend to get out?’ he said hopefully.
    ‘I don’t think you ought to ask that question in the circumstances, do you, Sergeant?’
    He hesitated, and then smiled. ‘Thank you for thinking about my mother’s leg,’ he said. ‘It’s looking a bit purple at the moment.’
    Tiffany took a deep breath. ‘The trouble is, Brian, you and I are the only ones thinking about your mother’s bad leg. There’s old folks out there who need someone to help them in and out of the bathtub. There’s pills and potions that need making and taking to people in the hard-to-get-to places. There is Mr Bouncer, who can hardly walk at all unless I give him a good rubbing of embrocation.’ She pulled out her diary, held together with bits of string and elastic bands, and waved it at him. ‘This is full of things for me to do, because I am the witch. If I don’t do them, who will? Young Mrs Trollope is due to have twins soon, I’m sure of it, I can hear the separate heartbeats. First-time births too. She is already scared stiff, and the nearest other midwife is ten miles away and, I have to say, a bit short-sighted and forgetful. You are an officer, Brian. Officers are supposed to be men of resource, so if the poor young mother comes looking for help, I am sure you will know what to do.’
    She had the pleasure of seeing his face go very nearly white. Before he could stutter a reply she continued, ‘But I can’t help, you see, because the wicked witch must be locked up in case she gets her hands on a loaded spinning wheel! Locked up for a fairy story! And the trouble is, I think somebody might die. And if I let them die, then I am a bad witch. The trouble is, I am a bad witch anyway. I must be, because you have locked me up.’
    She did actually feel sorry for him. He hadn’t become a sergeant to deal with things like this; most of his tactical experience lay in catching escaped pigs. Should I blame him for what he’s been ordered to do? she wondered. After all, you can’t blame the hammer for what the carpenter does with it. But Brian has got a brain, and the hammer hasn’t. Maybe he should try to use it.
    Tiffany waited until the sound of his boots indicated that the sergeant had decided quite correctly that it might be a good idea to have a plausible distance between the cell and himself that evening, and also perhaps a little think about his future. Besides, the Feegles began to appear from every crevice, and they had a wonderful instinct for not getting spotted.
    ‘You shouldn’t have pick-pocketed his keys,’ she said as Rob Anybody spat out a piece of straw.
    ‘Aye? He wants to keep you locked up!’
    ‘Well, yes, but he’s a decent person.’ She knew that sounded stupid, and Rob Anybody must have known that too.
    ‘Oh aye, sure, a decent person who will lock you up at the bidding of that snotty old carlin?’ he snarled. ‘And what about that big wee strip o’ dribbling in the white dress? I was reckoning we’d have to build guttering in front of her.’
    ‘Was she one o’ them water nymphs?’ said Daft Wullie, but the majority view was that the girl was somehow made of ice and had been melting away. Lower down the steps, a mouse was swimming to safety.
    Almost without her knowing it, Tiffany’s left hand slid into her pocket and pulled out a piece of string, which was temporarily dropped onto Rob Anybody’s head. The hand went back into her pocket and came back out with one interesting small key she had picked up by the side of the road three weeks ago, an empty packet that had once contained flower seeds, and a small stone with a hole in it. Tiffany always picked up small stones with holes in them, because they were lucky; she kept them in her pocket until the stone wore through the cloth and fell out, leaving only the hole. That was enough to make an emergency shamble, except that you