Live and Let Drood

me.
    “Probably not,” said the boss. “I tend my own garden.”
    “So, why are you so ready to help me now?” I said.
    “Because I’ve wanted a chance to bring Crow Lee down for ages,” said Latimer. “I really hoped your family would kill him long ago, just on general principle, but somehow you were always too busy with other things. I half expected to see him go down with the Great Satanic Conspiracy, but of course he was smart enough not to get involved. Personally, I think they weren’t extreme enough for him. And, of course, he never was interested in joining any group that wouldn’t immediately accept him as their leader.…If they had, they might have beaten you. But he’s always been too powerful and too well-connected for me to touch. So, you kick the little turd into the long grass with my blessing, Edwin. If you can.” She looked at me for a long moment. “Is it just you, Edwin? Did any of the other Droods survive?”
    “No one else from my family made it out of the Hall alive,” I said carefully. “There’s always the rogues, of course.”
    “Of course. I am sorry for your loss, Edwin. Some of them were my friends. And I do know what it’s like to lose family. Now, what can I do for you?”
    “I need information,” I said. “Where, exactly, can I find the Department of the Uncanny and the Regent of Shadows?”
    Catherine Latimer looked genuinely surprised. “Why on earth would you want him, of all people?”
    “Because my family never wanted to talk about him,” I said.

CHAPTER SIX

Department of the Unexpected
    I t doesn’t matter how much experience you have of the world or how much you think you understand how things work; every now and again the way things really are will just rise up and slap you round the head.
    Molly and I stood together looking up at Big Ben, with Molly not saying I told you so so loudly it was almost deafening. As Catherine Latimer had taken a certain delight in telling me, the Department of the Uncanny was indeed currently based at Big Ben. Just as Madame O had said back on Brighton Pier.
    “Smugness really is very unattractive in a woman,” I said, looking straight ahead. “Bloody Big Ben…I’ve heard of hiding in plain sight, but this is ridiculous. Hiding one of this country’s most secret organisations behind a major tourist attraction? That’s thinking so lateral, it’s positively perverse.”
    “Big Ben is actually the name of the bell,” Molly said solemnly. “Not the tower, or the clock at the top. I know many other useful facts about Big Ben, if you’re interested.”
    “I mean, we’re talking about a bloody big tower right next to the House of Commons!” I said bitterly. “And no one in that place could keep a secret even if you put a gun to their ’nads.…”
    Molly looked at me sharply. “We’re not going to have to go downinto Under Parliament again, are we? That whole layout gave me the creeps big-time.…”
    “No,” I said. “There’s a hidden door right at the base of the tower. Raise your Sight and look straight ahead.”
    I was already looking at it. A simple everyday door, standing upright on its own some two to three feet in front of the tower. Invisible and intangible to the rest of the world, it was a dimensional door, kept subtly out of phase with reality to provide a gateway to another place. Which meant the Department of the Uncanny wasn’t actually in Big Ben, but somewhere else. Which meant that technically speaking, I’d been right all along. I had enough sense not to say that, of course. There was even a very neat and polite sign on the door saying, DEPARTMENT OF THE UNCANNY; ENQUIRE WITHIN , for those with the eyes to see it. What next—a welcome mat? Guided tours? A souvenir shop?
    “Stop frowning,” said Molly. “It’ll give you wrinkles. Tell me things about the Department of the Uncanny. Lecture me. You know that always puts you in a better mood.”
    It would have made a much better peace offering if she could have said it without the smirk, but of such compromises are successful relationships made. Or so I’m told.
    “Catherine Latimer had quite a lot to say about the Department of the Uncanny,” I said. “While you were prowling round her office, looking for more things to steal. Most of these remarks were of a somewhat jealous and judgemental nature, but that’s competing secret organisations for you. It’s what she didn’t say that intrigues me the most. She seemed to know