Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
I’d laid it on thick with The Mystic Informer, and they had promised an incendiary article would be in print by midday. Time enough for me to use it with my suspects, especially as TMI had promised to email me an advance copy.
My phone pinged with a message from Ji-ho. I dug deeper into our protestors, found some interesting background you’ll want to know before you sweat them.
I wanted to follow up with Ji-ho, but my stomach was growling, so I headed to the mess to grab some refs first, which for me meant a cup of tea and a hobnob to be chased with a Dr P, because I wasn’t a madman.
As promised Laura had baked a significant volume of biscuits, all carefully decorated with little houses in honour of Unit 13’s impending move and McCaffrey’s concluded one.
Roberts was in the mess with Atkinson when I walked in. I made a brew and snagged a biscuit.
‘Did Laura make them?’ Atkinson asked me, eyeing the baked goods with suspicion.
‘She did,’ I confirmed.
Atkinson winced. ‘Then I’ll pass.’
‘You will not,’ I said firmly. ‘She made them for all of us. She gave up her evening to bake, so the least you can do is eat them.’
He sighed and grabbed a biscuit. He bit into it, but it didn’t break.
‘Dunk it into a cup of tea to soften it,’ I advised, demonstrating. I held the definitely-gone-past-golden biscuit in my tea, and when it softened, I ate it. ‘See?’
‘And we’re humouring her, why?’ Atkinson asked grumpily.
Roberts reached out and cuffed his partner over the head. ‘Because Laura is a kind human being whose life is hard enough without you ingrates making it harder. Eat a damn bikkie and thank her for it.’
Sometimes, magic or no, Roberts and I were one hundred percent on the same wavelength.
‘She’s a terrible baker,’ Atkinson groused.
‘Everyone is terrible when they start a new hobby,’ I pointed out. ‘But how do you think they get better?’ I asked patronisingly, like I was talking to a five-year-old.
He sighed. ‘Practice.’
‘You got it. Now don’t be an arsehole and eat the damned biscuit.’
‘Yes ma’am.’
He’d taken it as an order. I was fine with that. I grabbed a few more sweet treats to make a dent in the display so Laura wouldn’t feel bad, and then I made my way to Ji-ho’s office.
I was pleased to hear K-pop music playing from a few offices away.
His neighbours might be less so, but it was a small step towards normalcy.
I knew, without Ji-ho explaining, that he’d turned the music down yesterday so he couldn’t be approached unawares.
Because of that, I knocked on the doorjamb loudly before walking in. ‘I come bearing gifts.’
Ji-ho had rearranged his desk so that his back was to the wall, and he was looking out at the entrance as he worked.
The problem was that his massive set of monitors pretty much blocked his entire view of the door regardless of their position.
He had shoved his wheely chair to the side so he could see who his guest was.
He grinned when he saw the hard bikkies I carried on a small side plate. ‘Biscuits. Nice. Thanks Stacy.’
‘They’re Laura’s,’ I said in explanation and tacit warning.
‘Say no more,’ he replied and instantly dunked the brick-like thing into his steaming coffee. ‘You here to talk data?’
‘Always. Run it down for me. What did you find?’
‘Well, we’ve got a married couple, Barnaby Kerr and Angela Kerr.’ He pulled up their pictures. It was, surprisingly, beardy and the smart woman. I would not have paired those two together. But it took all kinds, yin and yang and all that.
Ji-ho continued, ‘I knew they were married when I did my first intel scrub – it’s in the files I sent to SPEL – but I did more digging on the dude.
Barnaby Kerr is the son of – wait for this – Barnaby Kerr.
And the reason I thought you needed a heads up is that Barnaby Kerr Senior is currently jockeying for position as the wizard member of the Symposium.
And by all accounts, he’s likely to secure it. ’
I frowned. ‘I thought Stone was the wizard member of the Symposium.’
‘Oh, he is, but he’s been missing for long enough that they can start the process of removing him from office in absentia and appointing someone else.’
‘And Kerr Senior wants to be that person?’
‘Yeah.’
I rubbed a hand over my face. ‘And his son is Anti-Crea.’
‘Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,’ Ji-ho said, voicing my fear aloud as he bobbed to the music.
I thought of my own father, who’d worn the same uniform I now wore. ‘No, it doesn’t. Thanks Ji-ho.’
‘Tread carefully, Shirlylock. When Senior hears you have Junior in interview, he’s going to pull strings.’
‘I’m no puppet,’ I shot back. ‘But I appreciate the heads up.’
‘The brass are going to be all over this,’ he warned me.
Channing popped his head around the door. ‘Oh, biscuits!’ He reached for a spare one still on the small side plate.
‘Laura’s,’ I explained.
His hand hesitated, but in the end he completed the grab. ‘Can I have a coffee?’ he asked Ji-ho.
‘Sure thing, C-man.’ Ji-ho slid out from his desk, fired up his coffee machine with all its bells and whistles and reached for a large mug that said ‘I masturbate to data’ and had a picture of an Excel spreadsheet.
‘Different cup, Ji-ho,’ I said drily. ‘We’re about to go into interview.’
‘Oh, right.’ He grinned. ‘I was just going for the biggest one, you know?’
‘Size isn’t everything,’ I murmured. Though I couldn’t help but think about Robbie in that moment, because it might not be everything but it definitely made things really enjoyable.
Zero days celibate. I wondered if I should still bother to count?
Channing took a sip of his coffee, now in a plain blue mug, and then dunked his biscuit. ‘Ma’am? I came to find you because the interviewees have started to arrive.’
I smiled. ‘Then let’s run them across the tapes.’