an old woman,” Kenny said, “Bernadette something. Maguire, I think. She helps out at one of the shelters. She used to be a teacher, or something. She’s retired now, lives in the country somewhere. He talked to her. She hasn’t been around that much lately. I think she’s just too old. The first time I’d seen her in months was a few weeks ago. She was talking to Lynch.”
“You think he told her about his visions?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“You think Bernadette Maguire killed him?”
“Uh … no. She’s, like I said, she’s old.”
“Old people can kill people too.”
“I know, but …”
“She could be a ninja.”
“She’s not a ninja, for God’s sake. She’s somebody’s great-grandmother.”
“I want you to think carefully about this, Kenny. Have you ever seen her with a sword?”
“What?”
“How about throwing stars?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Have you ever seen her dressed up as a ninja? That would have been my first clue.”
The girl sucked in her cheeks so she wouldn’t laugh out loud.
“What kind of cop are you?” Kenny asked, resolutely unamused.
“I am the kind that is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery,” said Me.
The door opened, and a boy with blond hair poked his head in. Kenny was so startled by the way the boy’s hair stood on end that he completely missed Inspector Me getting to his feet.
“Thank you for your co-operation,” Me said, quickly following the girl out the door. “My colleague will be in to see you shortly.” Out in the corridor, the girl held the boy’s arm and reached for Inspector Me as he closed the door. It clicked shut, and all was suddenly quiet for a very brief moment.
The door opened again. A middle-aged man walked in, carrying a notebook. Inspector Me and his two teenage students were gone.
“Mr Dunne?” said the man. “My name is Detective Inspector Harris. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kenny said, a little doubtfully. “The other Inspector kept me busy.”
Detective Inspector Harris smiled good-naturedly as he sat down. “Other Inspector?”
“The one who just left.”
“Hmm? Who was that, then?”
“Detective Inspector Me.”
“Detective Inspector You?”
“No, Me. That’s his … He said that’s his name. You just passed him. He was with a girl on work experience and a boy with spiky hair.”
Harris blinked at him. “I didn’t pass anyone, Mr Dunne, and I’m the only Detective Inspector on duty right now.”
Kenny stared at him. “Then … then who the hell was I just speaking to?”
“Please,” she whispered to little Alice, “do not throw up on me.”
Alice watched her with big blue eyes, but wasn’t promising anything.
Squinting slightly against the sun, Valkyrie glanced back into the church. Alice wasn’t the only one who had just been christened today, so the place was full of chatting, laughing families with camcorders, saving every gurgle and wail. She may have been biased, but it was Valkyrie’s sincere opinion that none of the other three babies were half as cute as her three-month-old sister. They just didn’t measure up where it counted. It was sad, really. Those babies had already lost the cuteness war and they wouldn’t even know it for years to come. A real tragedy.
She looked down at her sister. “You don’t do much, do you? You’re fairly limited, as far as most things go. Mum says I have to keep talking to you, to get you used to my voice. So, well, I suppose I’ll keep talking. There are two of me, you know. There’s me, the real me, and then there’s my reflection. The reflection looks like me, and talks like me, and acts like me, but it isn’t me. It steps out of my mirror and goes to school and does my homework and, yes, sometimes it babysits you. And I don’t like that. I don’t like leaving you in the care of something that has no emotions, but I’m a busy girl. Yes I am.
“When you’re a bit older, we’re going to read you stories about princesses and wizards and magic, and we’re going to let you believe, for a few years, that some magic is real. And then, this is the sucky bit, we’re going to tell you that most magic isn’t real. We’re going to tell you that people can’t fly and they can’t turn each other into toads and that there are no magical, mystical monsters. Between you and me, though, that’s the big lie. There is magic, people can fly, there are monsters … I’m not sure about the turning each other into toads bit, though. But who’d want that anyway? That’d be gross.”
Valkyrie started swaying the top half of her body slightly as she walked in a circle. “Who’s a cutie? Who’s a cutie? You are, that’s who. You’re a cutie. And who’s sounding pretty dim-witted right now? That’d be me, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would.”
She looked down, saw the baby gazing up, and she laughed. “Oh God you’re adorable. I’d ask you to stay like this for ever but, you know, that’d be a little awkward. Especially when you’re old enough to go out on dates.
“We have a weird family, do you know that? You’ve probably already noticed. Mum’s normal enough, in her own way. But when she gets talking to Dad, a different side to her comes out – an immensely silly side. He’s a bad influence on her, that’s what he is. Because our dad is an oddball. Mm-hmm. As odd as they come. Uncle Fergus is odd too, but not in a nice way. He’s just mean all the time. It’s a shame you never got to meet Gordon. You’d have liked Gordon. He was a cool uncle.” She kissed the baby’s cheek and kept her head down. “Want to know a secret?” she whispered. “Magic runs in our family. You might be magic. Someday you might be able to do all the things I can do. Someday you might have to take a new name, like I did. Or you might not. But I don’t know if I want that for you. Being normal isn’t so bad, once you’ve seen the other side. I know it wouldn’t be fair if I kept this from you, but I don’t want you getting hurt. Do you understand me? Something like that, it’d kill me.”
The baby reached out, took a small handful of Valkyrie’s hair.
“I’m glad we understand each other. For someone with such a small brain, you’re very smart, you know that?”
Alice gurgled.
Valkyrie took her baby sister back inside the church, made her way over towards her folks. Her aunt emerged from the crowd, hair pulled back off her face, pinching it tight. It was not a good look.
“Hello Stephanie,” Beryl said. “You’re holding her wrong.”
“She seems pretty comfortable,” Valkyrie responded, making