18. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Thursday 24th September 1994
Taking the man they'd arrested through the formalities proved a surprisingly slow process in the early hours of the morning. By the time he'd been Ennervated, booked under the name 'John Smith', tested for jinxes and Dark items, and safely locked away in a holding cell, it was well past three in the morning. Tonks and Cornworthy reluctantly offered to get into work at the usual time ready for the interview, but Cassius simply shook his head and waved them away with a smile.
"I think both of you deserve a decent night's sleep after that. Take the morning off and get here for midday. That'll give me time to talk to Donnacha and look up what we know about this chap. Seldom hurts to let them stew for a bit."
"Don't you deserve a decent night's sleep too?" asked Tonks in a pointed manner.
"Oh, you know what they say, the old need less sleep," he said airily. "I've been staying up late and getting up early for a while now. But I can certainly understand if you youngsters can't last the pace …"
They exchanged glances. Cornworthy seemed to be making an effort not to laugh, although Tonks felt less like doing so when she remembered why Cassius had been staying up late. "Very well, Cassius," he said, with a wink at Tonks. "See you this afternoon."
Tonks wondered if she might find it difficult to sleep after all the excitement, but realised when she awoke at eleven o'clock that she must have fallen asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. Clearly staying up on late-night vigils wasn't her strong point, and she hoped it wouldn't be something she needed to do very often.
She was taken aback to find a bustle of activity when she arrived at work. Everyone else was there already, including Rhiannon Davies, perched precariously on the edge of O'Gregan's cubicle desk.
"Morning … er, afternoon, Tonks," she said cheerfully. "I wondered where Donnie had gone running off to last night, and now I know. Congratulations!"
"Wotcher, Rhi," said Tonks. "Thanks. What's the plan, and why all the rush?"
"The rush, my girl," said a somewhat rumpled-looking O'Gregan, glancing up at her, "is because the Wizened Lot, showing their usual perfect sense of timing, have gone and signed the Veritaserum warrant for our Miss Perks today, just when we have another suspect! And they seemed rather put out when we suggested it could wait a day or two, so they did, despite the fact they've been sitting on their backsides for a couple of weeks without making a decision."
"Not a problem, Donnacha," said Cassius, sticking his head around the corner of the cubicle. She thought he looked disgustingly fresh again for a man who'd had so little sleep, just as he had on the morning they'd gone to Brighton in search of Ballantyne. "Good afternoon, Tonks. We'll simply have to split our efforts, won't we? You and Arnold can interview Charlotte Perks – the Ashford affair was your case first, after all." Both men looked at Cassius with surprise and a certain respect. "Tonks and I will see what we can get out of our robber. I hope we won't be needing Veritaserum to persuade him to talk."
"Did we get confirmation he was using Liquor of Jacmel?" asked Tonks hopefully.
"We did indeed," said O'Gregan with a grin. "That Barton fellow had the taxi drive him all the way back to the Leaky Cauldron, then he asked old Tom if he could use the Floo without buying a drink first. So I picked him up before he went home and brought him in to let the curse-breakers have a look. They said it was like seeing Farley all over again, they did. I snatched a few hours sleep in the office until he snapped out of it, and was he horrified to find out what he'd been doing for the past twenty-four hours. And our analyst boys –" he waved a roll of parchment "– were absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure this time that he'd been subject to Liquor of Jacmel. I do so like it when we get clear proof, so I do."
"Brilliant!" said Tonks. "What did you do with him? Can he identify anyone?"
"No such luck," said the Irishman regretfully. "He's got no real recollection of what happened since about midday yesterday when he drunk the stuff, just like it says in the notes. But given how the fellow you caught was behaving, I don't think it matters."
"Was he who I thought he was?" asked Tonks. In the dark she hadn't been entirely sure. "And what's his real name?"
"Barry Lewis," Cassius informed her. "You were right, you did recognise him. That made him quite easy to trace – minor criminal record, nothing too serious before now."
"Who is he, then?" asked Rhiannon curiously.
"The bloke who works in that 'JW Wells' shop in Knockturn Alley," Tonks informed her.
Rhiannon raised her eyebrows. "The one who told you about that bookshop originally?"
"Yeah, and the one talking to Scarf Boy the day Cassius followed him."
"Yes indeed," said Cassius, nodding. "I imagine he might have quite a lot more he could tell us, don't you?"
-----
The wizard named Barry Lewis was looking decidedly the worse for wear when they arrived in the interview room, and it seemed obvious that he hadn't slept well the previous night. He glanced up at them as they entered, fear showing in his eyes.
"Good afternoon, Barry," said Cassius pleasantly. "I'm sure you know why you're here, but for the record, I'll list the charges against you. Possession of a Class A Non-Tradeable Substance, namely Liquor of Jacmel. Actual use of said substance on an innocent party. Four offences of major robbery. We'll throw in resisting arrest and visible use of spells in a Muggle-inhabited area as well. Not that we really need them, but we like to keep things neat and tidy, you see." Lewis didn't reply. "Now then, Barry, what are you going to tell us?"
Lewis looked at him sullenly and mumbled, "Nothing."
Cassius and Tonks looked at each other with smiles. "Oh dear, haven't we been here before?" he said.
"I don't care. I'm not saying nothing." Lewis seemed to be avoiding their eyes as much as possible.
"Barry, you might want to reconsider that. You're looking at a life sentence in Azkaban if you don't," said Tonks, irritated.
"What!" He jerked in the chair and Tonks blinked; surely he had to have known that?
Cassius contemplated him. "Barry, do you mean you didn't know that using Liquor of Jacmel is considered the notional equivalent of an Unforgiveable Curse?"
Apparently, Lewis hadn't. "N –no?" he stuttered.
"We can show you the Wizengamot ruling if you like," said Tonks cheerfully. She rummaged through her notes, found the appropriate piece of parchment, and handed it to him. "Here, have a butcher's …"
Lewis took it with obvious trepidation, read it quickly and blanched. He looked up at Tonks and Cassius with a helpless, hunted expression.
"A life sentence in Azkaban might not be very long, though, to be fair," said Tonks with her best poker face. It irritated her that she'd slipped back into the part of Bad Auror to Cassius' Good Auror. "People don't last long in there, you know, just go out of their minds and fade away as the Dementors suck out all the good memories they have …"
"No!" Lewis tried to get up; Tonks stood up, grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him back into the chair, as befitted the role she seemed to be adopting. She exchanged a glance with Cassius; he seemed mildly amused, but willing to play along.
"Of course, we might be able to do a deal, Barry," he said quietly.
"Wh – what?"
"A deal, Barry. We'd rather like to know where you got the Liquor of Jacmel from. If you told us, and put us on the right path to finding the supplier, I'm sure we'd be willing to recommend to the court that we only charge you on the robbery counts. You didn't make the potion all by yourself, did you?"
Lewis' eyes flicked around the bare surroundings again. He looked haunted. "Yeah, I did. I – I'm good at potions, always have been."
Tonks shook her head. "Well, it's a real shame you threw away your academic career for a life of crime then, Barry," she said, with as much cold sarcasm as she could manage.
"Eh?" Lewis looked at her blankly.
"Well, no-one outside of Haiti ever managed to make Liquor of Jacmel before. Still, if you've worked out how it's done, you might be able to trade that bit of knowledge for a reduction in sentence too. What's the procedure? I always wondered."
"Er …" Lewis had the hunted look again.
"Or maybe you could just cut the crap and tell us who you got it from," she told him brutally.
"He'd kill me!" blurted Lewis. It seemed to dawn on him that saying this wasn't really helping his case, and an expression of horror spread slowly across his features.
Cassius shrugged. "To be perfectly honest, old chap, so will having every feeling of happiness and hope sucked out of you by Dementors. At least this way you have a chance to get out of there eventually." His expression was not unsympathetic; Tonks knew very well that he didn't particularly approve of the creatures guarding Azkaban, but he certainly wasn't above using the threat of them against a suspect. More gently, he added, "Suppose you start by telling us why you did this a fourth time after a gap of a few months. You must have netted over fifteen thousand Galleons from the first three robberies. Wasn't that enough for you? Why risk this again?"
"I wanted – I needed the money," said Lewis sourly. "I wanted to be able to get away, didn't I? Can read the signs as well as anyone else."
"What signs?" asked Tonks, intrigued.
Lewis shuddered. "What signs? Bloody Death Eaters on the loose again! I'm old enough to remember everyone wetting themselves at the thought of them last time around." Tonks realised with a start that Lewis couldn't be more than a decade older than her; he'd have just left school when You-Know-Who fell. "Anyway, how was I supposed to know anybody had rumbled me? Goblins weren't going to say, were they? Nothing in the paper about it."
Cassius actually rolled his eyes, and Tonks too was surprised at how idiotic that sounded. "You think we'd let you know what we knew?" she said. This brought no comment from Lewis, whose face had fallen comically.
Cassius eventually broke the silence. "Look, young man, I'm afraid that with the evidence we have against you, a guilty verdict is a formality. So there really are only two ways this can go. One, you voluntarily tell us what you know. Two, we get a Veritaserum warrant and get it out of you anyway. I can't encourage you to imagine for one second that the Wizengamot would quibble about granting one considering the seriousness of your offences, and especially not – as you yourself have realised – in the current climate. The only differences are that with option one, you can earn yourself some brownie points for the sentencing, and we get the information that little bit sooner, which may be of value to us."
"Unless of course you're a Master of Mental Magic and can fight the Truth Potion, which I rather doubt," said Tonks brightly.
Lewis looked daggers at her. His eyes flicked to Cassius. "Would you keep me safe till I come to trial?"
"Safe?" said Tonks, incredulous. "What do you mean, safe?"
"I heard what happened to that Ballantyne bloke. I'm not so stupid I can't put two and two together. Your lot arrested him on something to do with the Bu … this stuff. I've met Ballantyne, seen him about. He'd probably have spilled his guts in the end. He'd have reason to, wouldn't he? But he got done in for it, didn't he?"
"If he had 'spilled his guts', as you put it," said Cassius mildly, "he'd most probably not have been 'done in'. He'd still be alive today if he hadn't given whoever killed him a chance to get to him."
"He was stupid, he tried to hold out," added Tonks roughly. She was curious to know what Lewis had been going to say before he cut himself off. "What are you going to do, Barry?"
Lewis was positively shaking now, and Tonks had the very strong impression that he'd never realised the seriousness of what he was getting himself into. "All … all right," he said. "Look, you've got to promise that you'll go easy on me, OK?"
"That depends on what we get from you, old chap, I'm afraid," said Cassius. "Let's start with a basic question. Where did you hear about Liquor of Jacmel?"
Lewis' shoulders slumped in defeat. "Oh all right. I overheard Wellsey chatting about it with him, OK?"
"With who?"
"Don't know his real name. Calls himself the 'Butler'. Bit of a private joke, far as I can tell. Supplies stuff for people, like, odd stuff he gets from abroad, he's got contacts out there." Lewis waved a hand in a vague manner, suggesting that anywhere outside the British Isles was more or less the same to him. "From what I heard from Wellsey, he's been doing it a while now, sort of took over the business from a bloke who used to be in the trade years ago. Anyway, he was saying he'd got some of the stuff in for an order and had a bit on hand, and wanted to know if Wellsey would sell any." Lewis laughed, without sounding as if he found it especially funny. "Old sod said it was too much of a risk to flog it in the shop. Bet he knew what the sentence was."
"How can you not know this man's name?" asked Tonks in a disbelieving voice.
Lewis snorted. "Don't be daft love. Keeps his face hidden when he's on business, don't he? Basic precaution. Better to have people suspicious of how you look than have them know for sure who you are. A lot of people don't use their real name down Knockturn Alley, or anywhere else you can get dodgy stuff, you know? Would you?"
Fair point, but … "I've never heard of anyone called the Butler. You, Cassius?"
Cassius shook his head. "No, never. Sorry, Barry, you're not convincing us."
"Well, you wouldn't have, would you?" said Lewis, beginning to sweat a little. "He's a bit of a specialist, like, innee? Knows better than to get in the way of the big boys, but I've heard he'll supply them with stuff if they're after it, does a nice little trade from all I hear. You have to be told about him. Probably they all think he's a respectable young bloke when he's out and about without that stupid scarf on."
"Who do you mean by the big boys?" asked Cassius cautiously.
"You know. Proper Dark wizards, not just the … well, ordinary decent crooks most of us on the Alley cater to. The real villains."
Yeah right, thought Tonks. I don't suppose you'd have argued about selling to … oh, just for the sake of argument, my uncle. But then, I wouldn't be surprised if you were scared of him too …
"What do you know of that?" said Cassius sharply. "If you want to get any kind of reduction in sentence, you're going to have to tell us everything, Mr Lewis."
"Not much. I hear rumours, like?" he said, panicking a little. "There were people who'd got a reputation coming down the Alley, people they said had been really bad once upon a time – You-Know-Who's lot, probably, the ones they never pinned anything on. They seemed to be sniffing around, making plans again …"
"Like the riot at the World Cup?"
"Yeah, wouldn't be surprised. Don't know. Wasn't going to ask for bleedin' details, was I? When I was a kid, you didn't cross them if you knew what was good for you." Cassius nodded sadly as if he'd heard this sort of tale many times before. "On the prowl again, weren't they? More than enough for me. I can tell which way the wind's blowing. I wanted out. Especially after the World Cup. I was there, I saw them. Scared the willies outa me. Had to get as much as I could as quickly as I could when I saw the chance, didn't I?"
"And the thought of nicking lots of money wouldn't have crossed your mind otherwise, then?" said Tonks sarcastically. She decided to try a little jab. "And you knew all this before the World Cup, when the first three robberies took place? You seem to be very well up on their plans, Barry."
Lewis scowled, but – even to Tonks eye – looked scared rather than shifty. "Well, all right. I wanted to make a little money, don't we all? But I wouldn't have risked it again so soon otherwise …"
Cassius exchanged a mildly sceptical look with Tonks. "Tell me how you got hold of the Liquor of Jacmel you used, please."
"Bought it from the Butler, didn't I?"
"You bought it … That must have been rather expensive?"
"Yeah, it was, but I had a bit put by for a rainy day. And once I tried the first job and it worked and there wasn't a big row in the papers or anything, I could buy up some more, couldn't I?"
"I see. What did he say when he realised you knew about it? For someone who claims to be worried what he might do if you told anyone, wasn't it rather a risk to approach him and place an order?"
Lewis swallowed. "Well, he wasn't too keen, like, but I suppose he worked out that if I already knew about him having the stuff, it was safer to have me as a customer, yeah? In the same boat then, you know?"
Tonks had been nodding away, then something he'd said caught her attention. "Wait a minute, you said you bought more?"
"Good point," said Cassius, acknowledging the question with a brief inclination of his head. "How much more?"
"A dozen doses. Probably a good chunk of what he had left in stock at the time, I wouldn't be surprised. Most of it's left," he added hopefully.
This time the looks that Tonks and Cassius exchanged were delighted. "A dozen?" she said. "So you weren't planning many more robberies, then?" Lewis' face fell.
"Turn that over to us, Mr Lewis," said Cassius, seizing the advantage, "and that will definitely be a decent slice off your sentence. Where is it? In your house?"
"Nah, in the shop. Safer. In a little secret drawer I fixed up in the back that old Wellesey don't know about," said Lewis, almost eagerly. "I'll tell you the password and everything if you want to go and get it."
"You can write it all down in a minute and we'll send someone round as soon as possible," said Cassius. "Just to warn you though, old chap – if we have any trouble, so will you. The shop will be closed now, I take it? When is Mr Wells expected back?"
Lewis snorted. "Another couple of weeks, at least. Spends half the year gadding about, don't he? Don't suppose anyone will care that much whether we open the shop, bloody historic or not. Like I say, it's not my place to worry about."
"Good. Now, if you can repay the money that will also help your case. No doubt you spent some, but how much do you have left?"
"Most of it," said Lewis. His voice held an odd mixture of relief, regret, and eagerness to please. "Didn't want to draw too much attention to myself yet, you see? Owed a bit though, had to pay that off, and I bought some decent tickets for the World Cup … but well, yeah, there's still about ten thousand left." Cassius nodded.
"How did you select the victims then?" asked Tonks. She wondered if that might give them a clue to the supplier, but Lewis' answer disappointed her.
"Worked it out, didn't I?" he said with a hint of pride. "There's always a good few 'respectable people' who wander down the Alley looking for stuff that maybe ain't quite as respectable as they are. Nondescript birds looking for ingredients for love potions, like –" Tonks grinned to herself at this "– blokes too sometimes, people wanting cursed stuff, kids trying to impress their mates with a bit of Dark Arts, you name it. Well, I watched them, and got talking to people in other shops who sold stuff to them too, and followed some of them back and found out who they were, yeah? There were a few who were well off but didn't take enough care of themselves – dead easy to hang around the Leaky Cauldron and slip some of the stuff in their glass when they'd gone out to the bogs, wasn't it? That's what I did with that Barton bloke."
"Right," said Tonks, regretfully. Lewis was undoubtedly a liar on general principles, but trapped as he was, he sounded convincing. She glanced at Cassius, who seemed to feel the same way.
"Let's go over some of the details again, Barry," said Cassius. "But first of all, you'd better tell us how to find that secret drawer so we can send someone to investigate …"
-----
"Well, that went quite nicely."
Tonks looked up from perusing the output of the Auto-Dictation Quill that had taken down everything Lewis said, and grinned at her partner. "Yeah, you could say that. Is Rhi back from the shop yet?"
Cassius grinned back at her. "Yes, just a few minutes ago – things went without a hitch. She and a fellow from the Patrol got in and found the hiding place using Lewis' information, no trouble at all."
"Any luck?"
"Yes indeed. They sealed up the shop and dropped off ten bottles of a pale yellowish liquid for Magical Analysis to have a look at. Apparently they were delighted to have so much available for investigation."
"Wonder what Mr Wells will think about his shop being closed when he gets back?" asked Tonks with a chuckle. "Is it really historic?"
"It probably is, come to think of it," said Cassius reminiscently. "That shop's been in Knockturn Alley for as long as I can recall – and you needn't remind me that that's a long time, young lady," he said, wagging a finger. "The original J.W.Wells would have been something like his great-grandfather. I believe the story was that he earned a certain notoriety by getting drunk in a Muggle pub one evening, and talking about his business to a man who wrote songs. He made a musical show out of the idea, which could have been a nasty Statute breach, but fortunately he got enough of the details wrong to show that he hadn't really taken Wells seriously. That's the tale, anyway. Of course, these people often make things up to sound more impressive."
"Right." Tonks glanced at the long roll of parchment again. "How much of what Barry Lewis said did you think was made up, Cassius? I didn't believe a word about him only going into the robbery business because the Death Eaters were coming out to play again."
"Well, neither did I," agreed Cassius. "Although … I have to say, I did find him convincing when he talked about the latest robbery. He looked genuinely scared, which isn't really surprising. But I very much doubt that was his original motive. I suspect it was an idea he'd had in the back of his mind for some time, but never saw how to bring it off before he overheard that conversation. He would have had to work quickly to find his victims otherwise."
"Did you think that stuff about the 'Butler' was fishy?" asked Tonks. "If this Butler character was so reluctant to sell to Lewis, why would he be trying to flog the stuff to Beatrice Easton?"
"Blackmail, I should think," said Cassius with a shrug. "She may have had the elementary sense not to let him know her name – but when you talked to him, he seemed to know a lot about her, even so. It wouldn't have been difficult for him to follow her after they met and find out that she'd gone back to work at the Ministry – and once he had her buying truly illegal potions, he'd have her hooked. I think she had a very lucky escape."
Tonks grimaced, remembering her encounters with the man. "Too right. Is there any record of someone using 'The Butler' as an alias?"
"Actually, yes, sort of. I checked on the WEB Access, and there were a couple of vague mentions of a supplier using that name. So Lewis may well be telling the truth, even if it's not all he knows – not least because he didn't give us much in the way of details that would excuse him, not even made-up ones. We'll find out soon enough, anyway."
"Veritaserum again?"
"Yes. I don't anticipate a problem this time – we've got all the evidence we'll ever need. And Mr Lewis doesn't have any friends in high places. For the moment, though, I'm going to assume that what he told us is worth checking out – he certainly seemed frightened enough to tell us as much as he could. Good work on that, by the way. We'll make a Bad Auror of you yet!"
"Well, I hope you don't," said Tonks, unhappily. "But I do work at doing what I need to though, Cassius. I may joke a bit, and I …well, I make mistakes, but I take the job seriously."
"Good."
"It's what I always really, really wanted to do, you know?"
"Yes, I know," said Cassius, smiling. "Mind you, on that subject I do want a word or two with you about …" He broke off and glanced up towards the main office doors, and the smile widened; Tonks, following his gaze, saw O'Gregan and Cornworthy coming through them. "Well, never mind for the moment. With a little bit of luck, we may have a double result on our hands. I wonder what Miss Charlotte Perks had to say?"
-----
Tonks, watching the faces of her two colleagues as they approached the cubicles, felt a slight twinge of unease. They had curiously mixed expressions that seemed unable to decide between satisfaction and disappointment.
Cassius didn't seem to have noticed. "So, Donnacha, Arnold, what do you have for us?" he asked cheerfully. "Did you find out what her connection to Portia Blackstock was?"
O'Gregan looked slightly embarrassed. "Er, yes, Cassius old lad. It seems from what she told us after she took the Truth Potion – with a certain reluctance, you might say – that the two of them met each other at that charity of yours, as we thought they might have, now. They did get to know each other away from the office, and they've actually been spending a fair bit of time together, so they have. In fact Charlotte's been round at Portia's house a number of times when her parents have been out doing the social circuit, without them knowing …"
"Excellent! Why all the secrecy?"
"Well, from what she said I don't think … erm, that she's quite the kind of friend Portia's parents wanted for their darling daughter … er, you know, not when they wanted her to be out and about meeting young fellows they might be able to marry her off to … I mean, erm …" O'Gregan shuffled his feet awkwardly and shot a desperate glance at his partner, clearly seeking his help in explaining to Cassius. Tonks was struggling very hard not to laugh, and when she caught Cornworthy's eye he seemed to be having the same problem.
Cassius rolled his eyes and took pity on the Irishman. "Donnacha, please. For goodness' sake – I may have been born in a different era, but after eighty years in this business, believe me there is very little that would shock or even surprise me any more! All right, so young Charlotte and Portia are friends, by which I assume you really mean lovers." He grinned. So did Tonks; she'd had an inkling that something like this might be the case. "Wonderful! That finally provides us with a solid connection and a motive. So how close is their relationship? Enough to plan murder with each other, clearly?"
"Erm … fairly strong," said O'Gregan, looking daggers at Tonks, whose mouth was twitching at his discomfiture despite everything she could do to keep a straight face. "But that's what we wanted to talk to you about …"
"Are you sure, Don?" A brief giggle escaped from Tonks. She managed to compose herself. "What did Charlotte have to say about the night Ashford got stabbed? She was supposed to be in that Muggle restaurant in France, yeah? Was what happened Portia flying solo? Or did she plan it with Charlotte, and the French business was just her making sure she kept her nose clean? Or did they arrange for the restaurant witnesses to lie through their teeth, and they were really out and about together in the Transfigured Toad?"
O'Gregan scowled and exchanged helpless looks with Cornworthy, who had suddenly stopped grinning. "Ah. Yes. Now then, young Nymphadora, you're not going to like this bit, you're not …"
"We're not?" said Tonks, bemused
"No," put in Cornworthy with a grimace. "You see, according to our Miss Perks, not only was she in France dining, Portia was with her."
"What?" said Cassius sharply. "Are you sure? How is that possible? I thought neither of them could Apparate?"
O'Gregan shrugged. "They can't. We did check, Cassius old lad. But even so, France isn't hard to get to, now is it? Go by Floo to the Diagon Alley station, then there are regular scheduled international Portkeys to Paris every couple of hours, then they could take Muggle transport to the restaurant. Nice and anonymous all the way, and wouldn't take more than three-quarters of a hour, if that."
"But what about that house-elf who said she was at home …" Tonks trailed off. "Oh. Right. They keep their masters' secrets. Like you said, you can't trust them to tell the truth, can you? But why wouldn't it have told Portia's parents, in that case?"
Cornworthy smiled slightly. "Because her dad was the one giving him the orders – and unlike his wife, he didn't grow up with house-elves around, and so he didn't quite word his orders right. Jinky – that's the elf – was told to let them know if Portia was meeting any young men they didn't know about and might not approve of, but they didn't ask about female companions. So Portia ordered him not to mention Charlotte unless specifically asked, and her mum and dad never knew there was anything to ask about – so they didn't."
Tonks glanced at Cassius. He seemed to be as dumbfounded as she was. "What about the witnesses at that restaurant?" he said. "None of them mentioned Portia?"
"We didn't think to ask either, did we?" said O'Gregan with a snort. "Not that it would have helped – they were little Charlotte's friends, and she asked them not to mention Portia being there."
"But you're saying they both have an alibi!" Tonks said, exasperated. "You're quite sure that … oh I don't know, the Veritaserum hadn't run out or something?"
"Don't be daft, Nymphadora," snapped O'Gregan. He took a deep breath and continued in a milder tone. "We did get the Healer who was there to administer the Veritaserum to check – and before you ask, we also got him to look her over for evidence of Memory Charms or thought removal or curses, because we sure couldn't find any evidence of them just from her answers. And she came up clean as far as we all could tell."
"So if she hasn't had her mind affected by spells …" Cassius trailed off, obviously thinking hard. "She can't have taken the antidote to Veritaserum – or if she had, it would have worn off by now, so it comes to the same thing. She could be under Jacmel? … no, same problem there, it would have worn off long ago. I can't believe Portia knows how to cast Imperius, so that leaves … some form of resistance?"
"Oclo-whatsit, you mean?" asked Tonks, remembering what Kingsley had talked about. "Isn't that like resistance to Imperius – or Jacmel? Very rare?"
"I'm not sure," said Cassius, clearly surprised. "Do they teach you about that in Auror training nowadays?"
"Oh, er, no, not properly," said Tonks, backtracking hastily. It wouldn't do to have colleagues asking funny questions about her outside activities. "But it was mentioned a few times, and it sounded interesting. Isn't it supposed to be really hard?"
"I believe it's achievable with the right training," mused Cassius. "Easier than resisting Imperius, anyway. Adapting the technique to resist Veritaserum isn't as straightforward as all that, though, and from what I remember, the difficulty was always finding someone who had the skill and time to teach it properly. Very few of us in the Department ever bothered … But I suppose Miss Perks must have done so, somehow." He paused, looking extremely disappointed. "Damn! Just when I thought we had her, another loose end to chase down."
"Or she could be telling the truth," said Cornworthy quietly. "That the simplest explanation, Cassius."
"But that …" Cassius looked at him unhappily. "That doesn't make sense, Arnold! Charlotte Perks has means and motive, and she had opportunity for the second attempt, and now we find she really does have a connection to someone who had a clear opportunity for the first attempt. And then you tell me they both have an alibi? Isn't it rather too … pat?"
"Yes, it is," said Cornworthy, shrugging, "but we can't prove otherwise, can we?"
"What about the stuff you found in her kitchen?" asked Tonks without much hope.
"Sticks with her story that she didn't know it was there," said O'Gregan, with a shrug. "And however much we tried to goad her, she didn't get all annoyed and vehement the way she's been up to now, she just denied it placidly. You know, the way people do when they're under Veritaserum. And we tried asking lots of little questions in the general region of the subject – you know, when was the last time she opened that hidey-hole, what was she doing just before, that sort of thing – but she didn't say anything to contradict herself on the subject, so she didn't."
"She didn't tell us anything else she shouldn't have, either," said Cornworthy glumly. "Said she'd never been to the Transfigured Toad in her life and neither had Portia, didn't know a thing about the owl sent from the World Cup with those chocolates. She even refused to throw the blame on her cousins, because she said they wouldn't do something like that, and neither of them would have the nerve or the planning ability to bring it off anyway. In short, she claims to be as pure as a unicorn rider … well all right, maybe not quite that pure … obviously … but you know what I mean."
"What are we going to do with her?" asked Tonks. "Will we have to let her go?" She had an uneasy feeling she knew what the answer was going to be.
"N … yes," said Cassius. He looked like a man who would have been gritting his teeth if he hadn't felt it undignified. "In fact, not only will we have to let her go, we'll have to let her go with an apology. I suppose that falls to me. I want her watched when she leaves, though."
"Can we do that?" said Tonks. "Officially, I mean."
"Possibly not, but at the moment we can get away with it, I think," said Cassius, with a grim expression. "Donnacha, Arnold – add her to your watching list, but first you'd better go and process her. Let me know when she comes round from the Veritaserum, and I'll talk to her. Tonks – stay here, I still want a word with you."
Tonks nodded. The other two looked at her with a kind of sympathetic curiosity and left.
"What was it you wanted to know, Cassius?" she asked. She had a feeling she knew the answer to that question as well.
"I just want to know where we stand," he said quietly, confirming her suspicions. "I must admit, Tonks, I wasn't at all happy to find that your supposed Knockturn Alley contact was actually your parents – or more precisely, I wasn't happy that you hadn't told me about it. Why was that?"
"I couldn't, Cassius," she said unhappily. "I really couldn't. It would have got Dad into big trouble if Gringotts had found out. You know what goblins are like. I promised I wouldn't tell anybody except Scrimgeour. I didn't like keeping it from you all, but … well, I promised. I'm sorry," she finished in a rather small voice.
"I see. Well … I don't suppose I can really argue with that." Cassius seemed thoughtful. "After all, I should know by now that sometimes you have to keep things to yourself, shouldn't I? It's just that … I never suspected what the true situation was until your mother called you yesterday." He shrugged. "I suppose, if I'm being honest with myself, that I underestimated you, Tonks. As you said, sometimes it's easy to see you laughing and joking, and overlook the fact that you do take things seriously. Perhaps I need to remind myself occasionally just how far you've come in a few months."
"Thanks, Cassius!" said Tonks, feeling oddly embarrassed, but also rather pleased.
"Don't mention it. You're surprisingly good at keeping personal secrets from people for someone who's usually so open, young lady. Perhaps I should be watching and taking notes." His smile took the sting from the words.
Oops. It's a good job you don't know about Shacklebolt then. Tonks kept her face straight, although it took a certain amount of effort; but then she was getting used to it by now. The idea of telling Cassius what she'd learnt crossed her mind briefly, but she rejected it almost immediately. "Well, I only charge a Galleon an hour for lessons, mate," she said with a grin to cover herself.
"Ah well, too much for a poor old man like me," said Cassius, smiling back at her. "Look, Tonks, given the situation – and the results – I'm not going to complain about you keeping me in the dark. Just remember that it's not usually a good idea to have little private arrangements your colleagues don't know about. I assume your parents won't want to be mentioned in the case report?"
"Not if we can avoid it … the goblins won't insist on the details, will they?"
"I doubt it. Knowing them, they won't ask too many questions about exactly how we caught Lewis, as long as we've put a stop to his activities. I think your father's job is safe enough. Do give him my heartfelt thanks for his help, won't you?"
"Yeah, of course I will," said Tonks, pleased. "I was going to see Mum and Dad this evening, actually, I'll tell them."
"Excellent. Remember me to your mother too – I think I met her once or twice, back when she was even younger than you are!" He checked his watch and made a face. "In fact, you might as well toddle off and see her now, because we're not going to get any further this late in the afternoon, and I've got to go and humbly apologise to Charlotte Perks for the way we cruelly and unreasonably suspected her on the basis of rock-solid evidence."
"Where do we take it from here?" asked Tonks, making a face of her own.
Cassius shrugged. "We hope that Donnacha and Arnold can find something. I don't like it, but she's passed the Veritaserum test, so there's nothing we can do for the moment. In the meantime, we'll just have to chase down the other leads we have. Barry Lewis has given us plenty to check out, I want a little word with this Wells chap when he gets back from his holiday, and I suppose we still ought to take a look at Mr Arkwright and find out why he's buying cages from Mackenzie Ashford again. It's a loose end, and I don't like leaving loose ends dangling in case they turn out to be important. And if your friend from the World Cup can arrange for us to go and have a look incognito, it would be a shame not to, wouldn't it?"
"I'll ask him again," promised Tonks as she got up, conscious of having let that possibility slip a long way down her list of priorities.
"Good" He looked up at her. "Tonks?"
"Yeah?"
He broke into a smile again, one she returned with a grin. "Well done."
The grin remained on her face all the way down into the Ministry foyer, and even as far as her Apparition to the safe arrival point in her parents' home, as Tonks thought with pleasure of the congratulations she could pass on. Then she pursed her lips and sobered slightly.
Because she had other reasons for wanting to have a good long talk with her mother, reasons that were among the many things she hadn't told Cassius. The discussion she wanted to have – needed to have – with her had been put off for far too long.
Thirteen years too long.
-----
"Hi, Mum!"
"Nymphadora?" Andromeda Tonks glanced up from the book she was reading as her daughter walked into the lounge, smiling at her. If her mother noticed that the smile wasn't entirely natural, she didn't let on. "I thought it was early for Ted to be back yet. Come here, darling."
She sprang up and embraced her daughter with affection; Tonks eventually managed to detach herself and take a seat. "Fifi LaFolle again?" she said, glancing at the book her mother had left on the table, this time with a completely unforced grin. "Mum! Honestly, if anyone knew you read that stuff, they'd never let you live it down."
"I don't care if they do," said Andromeda trenchantly. "I like it, it's escapist fun, and I notice you haven't returned my copy of The Heart's Plenty yet."
"Oops. Forgot about that. I'll owl it back to you as soon as I get home." Before someone sees it and gets the wrong idea. "It's not really my thing."
"Hmm. I'm not sure about that. You aren't getting … sentimental about that new young man of yours, are you Nymphadora? You haven't brought him round to see us."
Well, we've only been going out a few weeks, I don't want to scare the poor bugger off just yet … "No, I'm not getting sentimental! I've been busy at work, as you know. I wanted to talk to you about that, actually."
"Good." Andromeda gave her daughter a very amused look. "I was wondering when you were going to get round to telling me what actually happened after you and the goblin in the picture left."
"Give me a chance, Mum," said Tonks in an injured tone. "We didn't make the arrest till the early hours of this morning …" She quickly outlined the previous day's sequence of events for the benefit of her mother, ending by saying, "Oh, and Cassius Smethwyck sends you his regards and his thanks. Said he met you years ago – you said you knew him, didn't you?"
"Rather vaguely, dear." Her brows crinkled as she tried to remember. "I can recall him as friendly enough, but I wouldn't have seen him very often. After all, he didn't exactly make a very popular marriage as far as my family was concerned." She laughed. "Of course, neither did I when you come right down to it, darling, so I'm hardly going to obsess about bloodlines the way Mother and Father did – let alone your great-aunt. I left all that behind a long time ago."
Tonks pricked up her ears at this unexpected reminiscence, and realised, on brief consideration, that she was most unlikely to get a better cue for what she really wanted to discuss.
"Actually, Mum, I wanted to talk to you about that …" she began.
Andromeda's eyebrows shot up. "Nymphadora! How serious are things with this young man of yours?"
"What? No, not that!" said Tonks, reddening slightly. "I didn't want to talk about that!"
"Well, darling, what did you want to talk about then?" asked her mother in a mystified tone.
"I wanted to …" Tonks stopped, took a deep breath, carefully avoided looking directly at her mother, and spoke as calmly as she could. "Actually, Mum, I wanted … to ask you about … um, about Uncle Sirius."
After a few seconds of complete silence from the other chair, she couldn't help but look round. Her mother was sitting there frozen, not blinking, barely even seeming to breathe.
"Mum?" she said uncertainly, then started as her mother abruptly jumped up from the chair and strode out into the kitchen. Tonks followed her slowly and with a certain amount of trepidation. That reaction didn't bode well.
She stopped in the doorway; her mother was by the window, staring out at the garden; there was the slightest hint of a tremble in her shoulders but otherwise she was standing perfectly still. She didn't even acknowledge the noise of Tonks' slight trip on the rug as she reached the door.
"Mum?" she said again. When she didn't get a reaction, she opened her mouth again. "Er, Mu –"
"I knew you'd ask." Her mother hadn't turned around, but her comment, spoken so quietly it took Tonks a moment to register it, silenced her daughter as effectively as a shout. "I thought you'd want to talk when he escaped … but you didn't ask then, and I counted myself lucky." She still didn't turn. "Then when they … they –" she swallowed, hard "– when they saw him near here, I knew you'd have to ask because of your job. I just wasn't expecting you to ask right now. Silly me. I suppose I should have."
Tonks caught her breath. She was very much feeling her way; it was, after all, a subject that had been a Hippogriff in the corner of the room for thirteen years. "I didn't have to, Mum," she said gently. "I wanted to. I … well, I need to know. For me. Not for the Department."
"You obviously already know what he did." It was a statement, not a question. "When did you first learn, Nymphadora? Surely not from the newspapers this year? In your training? Gossip at school? Or did you ignore our advice when it happened and look at the newspaper then?"
"Yeah, I did look at the paper when it happened," said Tonks steadily. She refused to apologise for that. "And I cried like mad. But I'd have found out anyway. You know what school's like."
"I suppose I do."
Tonks approached her mother cautiously. "I want to hear what you thought, Mum. I never knew at the time, it was clear you didn't want to talk about it." She hesitated. "And it was clear – even to me as a kid – that it hurt you. Somewhere deep. Every time someone mentioned anything anywhere near the subject, you'd tense up. I suppose I just got used to not thinking about it for years."
"And now?"
"And now I know …" She stopped herself in time; the details she knew from Kingsley could wait for the telling, and very possibly should not be told. "I know I want to know about it. It's time for us to talk about it, Mum. Please …"
Tonks reached out, intending to put an arm around her mother, and was startled when she abruptly turned round to face her. Her face was pale, but had a set, grim expression. "Very well," she said. "Yes, Nymphadora, it did hurt me. It hurt me then and it hurts me now. You couldn't know how or why it hurts so much, you were too young to know and I made damn sure you weren't raised the same way as I was. But you're right. It's time we had a talk."
She strode back into her lounge with her head held high and sat down on one end of the sofa, gesturing to a following Tonks to sit at the other end.
"So what do you want to ask?" she said abruptly.
Just as with Kingsley, Tonks found herself with so many questions now she had an opportunity to ask she didn't know which to ask first. "Everything, Mum," she said gently. "Everything you want to tell me, anyway. Just … just make me understand why it hurts you so much."
Andromeda smiled grimly. "I'm not sure you can understand without being brought up the way I was. Without knowing what things were like then."
"Try me, why don't you? I'm not eleven any more, Mum. I'm a grown woman. I'm an Auror, for heaven's sake!"
"Yes, that's true," she answered slowly. "I forget sometimes, darling. Or rather I'd like to forget, because it scares me that my only child is doing what she's doing at such risk …"
"We've been over that a million times, Mum …"
"I know. And I've managed to handle it. Give me a chance, darling … God knows I'm proud of you for doing this, for wanting to do this. You always were one to throw yourself into fights. Very like … him."
Tonks stilled. "Uncle Sirius?"
"Yes."
"Tell me what he was like, Mum," she said softly. "Tell me what he was really like, to a grown-up. Tell me what you thought of him."
Andromeda leant back in her chair and gazed into the distance. "I never really thought much about bloodlines when I was a young child," she said, apparently unaware that her comment seemed like a complete non sequitur. "There was just family, and people we approved of, and people we didn't, and I never even bothered to wonder why. So when I left home for school, I made friends with all sorts of people, without really thinking about who they were or where they came from, and it took me a while to realise why some people in my house – and out of it – were giving me funny looks from time to time. I mean, it's an old, old story, isn't it? Oh, now I know how these things work, as an adult, but then it was a real surprise to me."
"You knew the pure-blood stuff was stupid even then, though," said Tonks; pleased with her mother's answer, even if she wasn't quite sure how it related to Sirius Black.
"Do you know, I'm not sure I did?" said Andromeda. "I probably thought it was a good idea on the whole, I just didn't think it was important enough to be worth making such a fuss about. Your grandparents didn't like that at all. Neither did –" she took a deep breath "– your aunt Bella. It sounds dreadful to say this, but in some ways I'm almost glad that she was such a stickler on the subject? We were so close in age that we couldn't help being rivals, and I always used to go against whatever it was she wanted."
"That was all?" said Tonks, shocked.
"No, it wasn't all," snapped Andromeda, visibly composing herself. "Give me some credit, Nymphadora! It wasn't easy to shake off that kind of upbringing. Or even to want to, really, not until I had reason to decide one way or the other."
"Sorry, Mum," said Tonks quietly, abashed. "What made your mind up then?"
Andromeda laughed. "What do you think? I got to know your father, of course. And, well, we fell in love – but teenagers do that all the time, don't they? Nothing out of the ordinary, we didn't know how long it would last. But fairly soon, I realised I had to decide if I loved him enough. Whether I had the decency and the guts to stand up in front of all the people I knew and tell them I didn't care and they could go to hell if they didn't like who I was with." She paused for a moment, with an odd look that held a little defiance, a little nervousness, and a touch of pride. "I'm glad to say I found out I did. We went away, we got married, we had you, darling, and don't you ever, ever think I regret it. I didn't realise just how stultifying it had been at home until I left it."
"How did Granny and Granddad Black take it? They never seemed that fond of me."
Her mother snorted. "Your grandparents? They completely disapproved, what did you expect? They were usually tight-lipped whenever they had to talk to me after that, and they almost never managed a civil word for your father if they spoke to him at all. I didn't like things being like that, but we all made our own choices, so …" She smiled broadly. "I remember Mummy and Daddy telling me, in tones of hushed horror, that I'd actually been struck off the family tapestry by Aunt Walburga. Frankly, that was the least of my concerns."
"What family tapestry?"
"Mm? Oh, it's in the house in Grimmauld Place, the one they've never let you or Ted visit. Believe me, darling, you haven't missed much. It took up one whole wall – Blacks going back centuries, generations of us. I'm certain they wouldn't have missed little me. Or Siri …" She paused. "Well, I suppose she might have put him back again."
Tonks pricked up her ears at the sound of the conversation returning to where she wanted it to be. "Uncle Sirius was struck off this thing too? Why?"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, darling," said Andromeda, clucking her tongue in slight irritation. She paused, obviously needing to steel herself. "At the time, he was just about the only member of the family anywhere near my age who didn't seem to care much about the Precious Black Name, or the crucial significance of having pure blood. We didn't see each other that often, but it felt nice to know I had an ally around. He felt the same way. Well, I thought he did."
"And then …?"
"And then … oh come on, darling, what do you think?" She scowled. "We heard the news that You-Know-Who had suddenly disappeared, completely out of the blue; and after the first celebrations I just felt giddy with relief, knowing that the people I cared about weren't in danger from him any more. And yes, that included Sirius. I was sure he was involved in the fight in some way. Then I realised it had been his friends who were killed in the attack, and I felt sad. I wanted to find my poor little cousin and comfort him." She spat out the word 'comfort' as if it had been an expletive. "And then, we heard the next day about what he'd done and that poor young man who found him, and all those Muggles he'd killed for no reason …"
"And then …" Tonks repeated as her mother trailed off.
Andromeda grimaced. "And then, Ted tells me I went hysterical for several hours … oh yes, Nymphadora, I've talked about it with your father," she said, lips twitching faintly at her daughter's surprise. "Though not until recently, I admit. I felt so betrayed I simply blanked it out – blanked him out – and got on with my life. I decided I had all the family I wanted right here with me." She hesitated. "I trusted him, darling," she said simply. "I would have trusted him with my life. Worse, I'd have trusted him with your life. I couldn't bear the thought of having been so wrong about something so important."
"I never quite thought about it that way," said Tonks in realisation.
"How did you think about him, Nymphadora?" Her mother's reluctance to discuss the subject seemed to be breaking down as she talked, and Tonks detected almost a hint of eagerness in her now. "I never knew how much of an impression he made on you, because you barely knew him."
"I didn't?" said Tonks in surprise. "The way I remember it, he seemed to visit us a lot."
Andromeda smiled wryly. "Well then, he must have made quite a big impression! You'd only have met him what, once a year or so?" Tonks felt her jaw drop and saw her mother's smile change into curiosity. "What was he like to a child? Could you tell? Or did you like him?"
Tonks sat back on her half of the sofa. "I did, actually. He was this –" she bit her lip "– oh I don't know, Mum, this sort of really cool uncle, who teased me a bit and I couldn't help but like him. I suppose it registered deep down that he didn't seem to mind what we were … but mostly he was just … well … fun." She sat back, trying to analyse long-ago feelings. "I felt like we all had this special secret we shared? He was here and his mum and dad wouldn't like it, but he still came to see us anyway without telling them. It felt … cool," she finished limply. She hadn't realised until she began talking just how vague her recollections of her cousin really were after all these years; impressions more than memories, a tall man with the Black family dark hair who played with her and joked with her mother and seemed happy to meet them.
"Yes, he was," said her mother sadly. "He'd left home by then, didn't you realise?"
"He had?" Tonks blinked. "Why didn't he come to stay?"
"Oh, he had … his own friends, darling. A very tight little group, as far as I could tell. But you must know what happened to them by now – probably better than me, if you've looked in the case files." There was a tinge of bitterness there at the thought, it seemed, and Tonks realised that she would probably have to tell her mother a little of what she knew, even if only to conceal the rest.
"Yeah, I have," she said in a confessional tone. "The reports I saw said they were all supposed to be like brothers, and no-one who knew them could quite believe what happened." She hesitated. "What did you make of them, Mum?"
"I didn't really know them," she replied, to Tonks' disappointment. "I vaguely remember them being with him at school, but of course he was years below me and in a different House so we didn't mix that much. He only ever brought them round here once, and that was –" she paused for a moment and continued with a catch in her voice "– the last time I saw him before … it happened. The way he used to talk about them, they were closer than his own brother. He always spoke about poor little Regulus with such contempt!"
"Yeah? Was he the one I never met? The one who became a Death Eater?"
Andromeda winced. "Yes. Foolish boy. Sirius hated that – well, he pretended to. That must have been another lie, I suppose. For all I know, he got him into it." She shrugged helplessly. "But his friends – I mean, I never even knew one of them was a werewolf until I read it in the Prophet back in June. It seemed like just the sort of thing he'd have done, making friends with one to spite his parents." She looked at her daughter shrewdly. "I see he was teaching at Hogwarts while Sirius was … well, doing what he did there. Is there anything you know about it that didn't make the papers?"
More than you think … Her mother had asked her question in an even tone of voice, but Tonks thought she could detect an underlying hint of pain at the idea that Uncle Sirius had been trying to commit yet another murder. She briefly considered how much she could tell, and decided on a rather oblique approach; bracing herself for the likely impact of her words.
"Lupin? Yes there is … Did you know he's convinced Uncle Sirius is innocent?"
The look of mixed shock and indignation on Andromeda's face was entirely as expected. "Innocent?" she spluttered. "How can he be innocent? There were dozens of witnesses!"
"Yes, but …" Tonks briefly outlined the story that Lupin had told about Uncle Sirius, Pettigrew, the Shrieking Shack and the children; and if she added to it a few details that came from Kingsley's private information, she wasn't going to worry too much about that. Her mother listened to it with a gradually dropping jaw. "All this is in confidence, Mum – like you said, it didn't make the papers – but well, that was the story. What do you reckon?"
"I … I … I don't … I don't know." Her mother looked absolutely stunned. "You can't tell me your colleagues believe that, surely? How can anyone trust this Lupin, knowing what he is, knowing that he kept it all hidden?"
There's more to it than that, Mum, more people who think he might be innocent, but I really, really can't tell you about that … "It does kind of fit the background," she said cautiously. "Old Snape – you remember, he taught me? – confirms part of it. And the kids survived it, Mum. If he'd really spent a year trying to kill Harry Potter, why didn't he just finish him off when he had him at wandpoint?" The next revelation was treading on very thin ice, but had to be said. "One or two Aurors are at least considering the possibility it might be the truth, even if they're not convinced. It would be the professional thing to do, wouldn't it?" Although that was literally true, she wasn't going to mention that she and Kingsley were those 'one or two Aurors', and that while it would be the professional thing to do, their investigations on the matter were entirely private.
"And you …"
"I'm not sure, but I can't not consider the possibility, can I?" Her voice had risen more than she'd intended, and she had to force herself to speak more calmly. "That's why I've been wanting to talk to you, Mum. It's just never … felt right from what little I can remember of him. Because … I suppose I trusted him too, Mum," she finished plaintively.
"I … I …"
She wasn't sure how long it might have taken her mother to recover the power of speech as expressions chased themselves across her face – the first shock clearly giving way first to an odd hopefulness, then what was clearly anger at thinking in that way – but they were interrupted by a sudden crack from outside.
Tonks glanced up to see her father walking through the door. He looked at his white-faced wife and nervous daughter in some surprise. "Annie?" he said uncertainly. "Princess? What's up?"
"Oh, nothing really, Dad," said Tonks in a strained voice. "We were just talking about … erm, my Uncle Sirius."
"Oh." There was a world of dawning comprehension in that single syllable. He moved over to the sofa to sit between his wife and daughter and put an arm around each, drawing them into a hug and making both smile. "Good or bad moment for me to walk in?"
"Not too bad, Dad," Tonks told him. "We had rather a lot to say."
"I can't say I'm not pleased to hear that," he said quietly, turning to his wife. "I know it's been cutting you up all year, Annie. I just didn't quite know what to say to you."
"Of course you didn't, Ted," she said, with a tentative smile. "You're a man."
"Hey, that's enough cheek," he said, returning the smile and kissing her lightly on the forehead. "Did you hear what you wanted to hear or not?"
Mother and daughter exchanged looks. "You tell him, darling," said Andromeda.