The Bride Wore Black Leather

said, looking closely at the bottle, then shaking my head firmly.
    Cathy grinned as she made the bottle disappear again. “There’s never any name. But . . . free booze is free booze! If there’s any left over at the end of each year, I go out and hand it over to the homeless. They’re always very grateful. I think they use it to thin out paint-stripper before they drink it. Or to start a fire when it’s cold.”
    “I have also just noticed,” I said, “that your state-of-the-art sound system has been replaced by what appears to be an old-fashioned wind-up gramophone, complete with metal horn.”
    “Oh that!” said Cathy, wriggling excitedly in her chair. “It’s the latest thing! You can put on any record you like, adjust the dimensional tracking system, and it will play any variation of the record from any number of alternate timetracks! It’s super cool!”
    “Sometimes you make me feel very old,” I said. “What’s wrong with CDs?”
    “Vinyl rocks!” said Cathy.
    I returned determinedly to my stack of papers, trying to find something that appealed to me . . . and then looked up again, to consider Cathy thoughtfully.
    “It’s that look again,” she said resignedly. “What is it this time, boss?”
    “I did wonder,” I said carefully, “whether you might want to take on the office, and the business, after I’m gone. Be a private investigator in your own right.”
    “Oh hell no,” Cathy said immediately. “Not my thing. I only stayed on here because it seemed to me you needed a secretary and a helper.”
    I had to smile. “And I let you stay on here because I thought you needed something to do, and keep you occupied, while you found your feet in the Nightside.”
    We both laughed quietly together.
    “I have enjoyed being your secretary,” said Cathy. “Going out drinking and dancing in all the best clubs and bars, to keep up with the latest gossip and useful information. And getting paid for it. Best job ever! I might keep that part going . . .”
    “Are you still in contact with your mother?” I asked.
    “We have regular little chats, on the phone,” said Cathy. “We get on much better, now there’s a distance between us.”
    “Any chance of your going back, to visit her?”
    “Best not,” said Cathy, very firmly. She flashed me a bright smile. “So it’s definite, then. No more John Taylor, PI. No more faithful girl secretary. The end of an era.”
    “What are you going to do once this place is shut down?” I said.
    “Oh, that’s already been decided, boss. I’m going to help Alex run Strangefellows. I love organising things. And people.”
    “Will you be sad, to see the back of this place, after so long?”
    “Nostalgia is for old folks, boss. I always look forward, never back.”
    I sat up a little straighter in my chair, so I wouldn’t look like old folks, and concentrated on the papers before me while she ran through the e-mails. And soon enough, we both started coming up with interesting cases. Luckily, none that involved looking for that notorious black bird, the Maltese Falcon. Which is a very real object, in case you were wondering. Not that I’d touch it with an enchanted barge-pole.
    “I’ve got an intriguing little e-mail here, from last week,” said Cathy. “Katherine Karnstein wants you to find her lost innocence.”
    I sniffed loudly. “I don’t think so. I know the lady in question, and she didn’t lose her innocence; she threw it away with both hands, first chance she got.”
    “All right; how about this one? A Mr. William Everett wants you to find lost Atlantis.”
    “It isn’t lost,” I said. “It’s hidden. There’s a difference. Move on.”
    “The SAS are offering a seriously large amount, for you to find the Holy Grail for them.”
    “The Salvation Army Sisterhood should have known better than to ask,” I said. “They’re probably trying to get me in trouble again. They’ve never approved of me. I had enough problems tracking down the Unholy Grail. What else have you got?”
    “A Reverend Lionel wants you to find the last of the Merovingian line.”
    “Forget it,” I said. “That line’s been broken so many times down the centuries that properly speaking it isn’t a line, any more. Far too many pretenders to the throne, so to speak.”
    “All right then, Mr. Fussy Pants, what have you got?”
    I looked dubiously at the paper before me. “Someone who prefers to remain anonymous wants me to find out why