Title: As Dreams are Made On (4/4)

Author: Emma

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Andy Davidson, Toshiko Sato, others

Rating: Starts PG, but hey, it’s got Jack and Ianto in it!

Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?

Summary: Andy Davidson’s first Torchwood case…

Author’s Note: Andy’s patron saint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winefride

She also is the subject of Ellis Peters’ first Brother Cadfael novel, A Morbid Taste for Bones

Hezār-o yek šab is the Persian name for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Thousand_and_One_Nights. I'm borrowing the name. Sue me.

            Mrs. Glynn’s daughter-in-law let me in very reluctantly and only after I had assured her twice that I wasn’t from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. “You never know when those vultures will want their cut. They’re going to have to wait like everyone else.”

            I made sympathetic noises while I wondered why so many Britons were idiots about their own tax laws. I had looked at Mrs. Glynn’s finances just on the off chance she had made a big sale in the last days before her death. She was a hard-working, thrifty lady, but any estate she left would be comfortably below the threshold.

            “I hope you don’t mind the kitchen. I just made some tea.”

            “The kitchen will be fine.”

            She led me down a hall lined with wall-mounted display shelves filled with ordinary magical objects: Egyptian scarabs that gave people nightmares if placed under the bed; fairy apples to fix the attention of the one you lust after; a Mayan rattle to call the rain spirits; even a really good example of a never-ending thread. But I couldn’t for the life of me see anything that would drive people to murder.

            “What did you say you wanted to know?”

            “I’m trying to find out if your mother-in-law found something of interest in the weeks before she died.”

            She gave me a shrewd look. “This is about Eugene, isn’t it?”

            I decided right then and there to abandon all subterfuge. This Mrs. Glynn reminded me of my mam; sharp as a needle and not tolerant of what mam called rannygazoo.

            “Yes, ma’am. I think Mrs. Glynn’s and Eugene’s death are related.”

            She poured tea and settled a plate of biscuits on the table between us. “I’m glad someone does. The twpsyn who came to see me kept lecturing me about letting my mother-in-law go out in a storm. As if Mairwen were a toddler that I could keep in leading strings or a doddering old fool.” She bit into a biscuit viciously. “Idiot.”

            “The police are equally uninterested in Eugene. So here I am.” I told her a little about my friendship with Branwen. “It… irritates… me that nobody thinks him important.”

            She studied me for a minute. “All right. Yes. Mairwen did find something. She wouldn’t tell me what it was, but she was very unnerved by it. You have to understand, she was in the hunt for the fun of it.Whatever she found scared her.”

            “Did she give you any hints at all?”

            “No… except… well, maybe. One night we were watching television and there was a show about an empath psychologist who profiles criminals for Scotland Yard. Mairwen said something… let me see if I can remember exactly… she said Lizzie, there’s nothing exciting about looking into somebody’s mind. It’s disgusting in there. I thought she was giving me one of her usual pronouncements, and I laughed.  She looked a little sad, but after a while she started to laugh too, so I forgot about it until now.”

            I didn’t like that one bit. Artifacts that allow even a glimpse into a human mind are not exactly seelie – none of the blessed want to read people’s minds. Between human beings that sort of thing is dangerous.

            “Could she have spoken to Eugene about it?”

            “If it were anyone, it would be him. Mairwen was really fond of Eugene.” She refilled her cup. “Two of a kind, they were.”

            I will own that at this point I found myself completely blocked. The only two people who could tell me what I wanted to know were dead. Unless I could get Linda to open up I had nothing. I said a quick prayer to Saint Gwenfrewy, patron saint of crazy Welshmen.

            “Did you look through Eugene’s ledger?” Mrs. Glynn asked me.

            “Ledger? What ledger?”

            “According to Mairwen he kept a ledger of every item he found, or even heard about. If she told him about it, he would have recorded it.” She smiled fondly. “She admired his thoroughness.”

            I sighed. “Thank you, Saint Gwenfrewy.”

            She laughed. “She is helpful, isn’t she?”

            I said goodbye to Mrs. Glynn – the only Mrs. Glynn left – and raced back to Eugene’s home. Mrs. Jones was very happy to see me.

            “Branwen called me to tell me she was on her way and that you were looking into Eugene’s death. I don’t know how to thank you.”

            “You don’t have to. Branwen is a friend. I was happy to help.”

            When I asked about Eugene’s ledger, she pointed me downstairs. “He fixed the basement into a little museum. Everything would be down there.”

            Mrs. Jones had been literal in her description. The basement was a museum, with cases lining the walls. They were filled with the same things that I had seen in Mrs. Glynn’s hallway. At the far end, a work table and two chairs were arranged under a large spotlight. A big accounting-style ledger rested on the table, squarely in front of the largest chair.

            I turned on the spotlight and sat down to look through the ledger. Eugene would have made a good policeman. Everything was detailed: item, supposed effect, finder, location found, and amount paid. The last page had a single entry: Hezār-o yek šab vision bottle, Mairwen Glynn, St. Illtud jumble sale, two shillings. The entry was followed by a list of numbers: 150, 275, 450, 600, 850, 1200, 10000. And at the end, another entry: meet at Annie’s, Sunday at 3.

            I sat there trying to control my shivers. Hezār-o yek šab vision bottles, named after the time it took to make them, were among the most dangerous of magical objects. The Celtic Church destroyed them as they found them. Rumours had it a small collection was kept by the Catholics in one of their treasuries in Rome under triple locks. The reason for the caution is very simple: the liquid in them is a psychotropic substance. If rubbed over the eyes and the temples, it gives the bottle’s owner the ability to read thoughts. It’s dependent on native ability, of course, but even the psychically null can get results. The problem is that while you’re reading someone’s mind, your own is slowly being leached into the liquid and becomes part of it. As it becomes filled with mind, it becomes insanely powerful, and I use insanely advisedly.

            From the numbers, it looked as if Eugene had been auctioning one off.

            The sums made a very big jump between the last two numbers. Either someone had realized what Eugene had and had trumped all other offers or it was a lure to bring him and his bottle to Annie’s.

            I went back upstairs. Mrs. Jones was sitting in her armchair by the fireplace, looking through a photo album. She looked at me with wet eyes. “He was a good boy, you know.”

            “I know. Can I borrow a recent photo, Mrs. Jones?”

            She leafed to the back of the book and pulled one out. It showed Eugene at his work table, bent over something. He had turned his head to look at the photographer and grinned. It was a sweet grin, like a young boy caught at play.

            “Thank you, Mrs. Jones. I’ll bring it back.”

            Annie’s was a drab little American-style diner right by the M4. The girl behind the counter identified the photo immediately.

            “Eugene? Sure. He’s one of our regulars.”

            “Was he here last week?”

            “Sure. Sunday. With Gary and Linda. They always come together.” She frowned. “There was some sort of argument, because Eugene flew out of here and the other two chased after him.”

            “Did you see in which direction they went?”

            “I think… towards the woods.”

            I went out and followed the short trail into the woods. It wasn’t really a proper wood, just a stand of trees that had been left over from the motorway construction. People had been running wild in it; there were chip wraps and other more disgusting things littering the ground.

            And the stench was unbearable.

            I followed the smell to a small clearing from which I could see another trail that led right into the motorway. It was so bad I could barely breathe. It was my second encounter with a powerful object, but compared to this Uthyr’s crown had smelled like roses and lily of the valley. This was something like walking into a battlefield where the bodies had been rotting for several days. But the funny thing was, in spite of how much my head ached, I knew exactly where the bottle was. I walked to the edge of the trail and put my hand down into a stand of knee-high grass.

            “I think I want that.”

            I turned around. Linda was standing at the edge of the clearing. Beside her was a tall, muscular man in jeans and a leather jacket. He had the look of someone who liked to bash things. “Gary, I presume?”

            “No talking,” Linda said. “Give me the bottle.”

            “How did you manage to convince Eugene to sell this?” I held up the bottle. “It wasn’t his, and he was an honest bloke.”

            “I told him the doctor had found a tumor,” she put on a phony sweet voice. “And I so wanted to see Australia before I died, you see.” She turned cold and vicious. “He was hopeless at technology, couldn’t even use a computer. I told him I had put it up for auction.”

            “But he started to suspect there was something wrong, so he used the water. He discovered what you had done. And he ran.”

            “Right into traffic, the stupid git. No more talking, Toss me the bottle.”

            I made an overhanded throwing gesture, but at the last minute I dropped the bottle to the ground in front of me and brought my foot down on top of it. Linda’s scream of rage was drowned by the horrible sounds of souls escaping the broken bottle.

            A huge wind seemed to howl through the wood, swirling leaves and stick and garbage off the ground. It circled around Linda and Gary. It seemed to tear at them, as if invisible hands were grabbing and shaking them to pieces. Other things were moving in that whirlwind, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see them.

            The noise became so excruciatingly painful that I covered my ears and staggered backwards towards the motorway. Suddenly, the wind died completely and Linda and Gary dropped to the ground. I didn’t need to be close to know they were dead. The whirlwind was dissipating and for a moment, I saw Eugene’s face in the wind. He was grinning at me.

            I waited a few more minutes, and once everything was calm, I walked back to the diner. There was a pay phone there. I had to call Jack.