A Series of Mistakes

Epilogue

Captain Vimes believed in logic, in much the same way as a man in a desert believed in ice -- i.e., it was something he really needed, but this just wasn't the world for it. -- Terry Pratchett, Theatre of Cruelty

What happened next turned out to be nothing much. And it was, quite frankly, rather boring. Hal and Brigitta found themselves not only sorting out records but also being asked to take messages and do odd jobs around the palace. Those odd jobs included everything from catching mice to helping a guest find their missing head -- or perhaps they were helping the head find its missing body. It was hard to tell with headless horsemen.

Time moved in very strange ways in Morlangor. Days stretched out like decades and weeks passed like minutes. Brigitta got a nasty shock when she looked at a newspaper and saw they had been there for almost a year. Nothing sinister had happened during that year. Well, nothing more sinister than the ordinary bizarreness of living in a vampire's castle where almost everyone was some sort of undead.

Neither of them were sure if that included James. He acted like a normal human, but Brigitta could have sworn she saw him walk through a locked door and Hal insisted he'd seen literal eyes on the back of his head.

At any rate, nothing too disturbing happened. They got used to the insanity with astonishing speed. The idea of leaving came up in conversation occasionally, but neither of them made any serious plans to leave.

That is, until the day Hal got his hands on a newspaper from their hometown.

He barged into Brigitta's room without bothering to knock. Brigitta glared at him over the pile of scarves on the table.

"Whatever this is had better be important. I have to stick price tags on all of these before five o'clock."

"Never mind about that," Hal said impatiently. "Read this!"

He shoved the paper in front of Brigitta. The words "BANK ROBBERS KILLED IN SHOOT-OUT" stared her in the face. At first she didn't understand what it meant. Then she read the article. With increasing outrage she learnt how an amateur detective had tracked down "the notorious bank-robbers Brigitta Lahn and Halcyon Watkin", attempted to arrest them, and killed them both in the ensuing gunfight.

Brigitta burst out laughing. Hal stared at her as if she'd gone mad.

"Really?" she said when she could speak again. "Who came up with that story? An out-of-work novelist?"

"Who cares who came up with it? Now everyone will think we're dead!" Hal straightened up to his full height, which wasn't very tall, and looked as indignant as he could. "And as for that so-called detective, who does he think he is? Spreading such lies about us! I've a good mind to sue him for slander!"

Brigitta read the next few lines of the article. Her eyebrows flew up. "It says the detective recovered all of the stolen money, and in gratitude the mayor decided to let him keep most of it. And they gave him a reward for catching us."

Hal spluttered in outrage. "We've got to do something! We can't let that liar get away with it! I think I'll go back home tomorrow and challenge him to a duel!"

"That would be the worst thing you possibly could do," Brigitta said. She thought for a while. "You know what? I'm going to tell James about this. Maybe he can help us. I mean, he helped us cover up the stolen coffin incident."

The stolen coffin incident had been one of the many strange things that happened in Morlangor. It had also been caused entirely by Hal making a mistake. Even now, months after it had been sorted out, neither of them could think of it without turning bright red.

"All right," Hal said. "Maybe he can sue the detective for us."

Brigitta strongly suspected that James would do no such thing.

~~~~

She was right. James listened to their story with an increasingly horrified expression. When they were finished he looked so miserable anyone would have thought his entire family had been killed.

"I know where this is going," he said glumly. "You're going to go back to set the record straight. And something will happen that you didn't expect, and the next thing will be that you steal another boat, accidentally kidnap someone else, and break into yet another house."

"Hey!" Hal protested. "That sort of thing can never happen more than once! Nothing will go wrong this time!"

Brigitta winced. "Great. Now you've jinxed it."

~~~~

In the end Hal talked James into going with them. And so the three of them set out from Morlangor in search of a lying detective.

Brigitta strongly suspected they were making another terrible mistake. And she was right, of course. But that's another story.