We said nothing more for the next few minutes, while we waited for my 'father' to make his entrance. I felt very uncomfortable, sitting in silence with this stranger, but he acted as though he felt perfectly at home. When Mr. Crepsley finally entered, Mr. Blaws stood and shook his hand, not letting go of the briefcase. "Mr. Horston," the inspector beamed. "A pleasure, sir."

"Likewise." Mr. Crepsley smiled briefly, then sat as far away from the curtains as he could and drew his red robes tightly around himself.

"So!" Mr. Blaws boomed after a short silence. "What's wrong with our young trooper?"

"Wrong?" Mr. Crepsley blinked. "Nothing is wrong."

"Then why isn't he at school with all the other boys and girls?"

"Darren does not go to school," Mr. Crepsley said, as though speaking to an idiot. "Why should he?"

Mr. Blaws was taken aback. "Why, to learn, Mr. Horston, the same as any other fifteen year old."

"Darren is not…" Mr. Crepsley stopped. "How do you know his age?" he asked cagily.

"From his birth certificate, of course," Mr. Blaws laughed.

Mr. Crepsley glanced at me for an answer, but I was as lost as he was, and could only shrug helplessly. "And how did you acquire that?" the vampire asked.

Mr. Blaws looked at us strangely. "You included it with the rest of the relevant forms when you enrolled him at Mahler's," he said.

"Mahler's?" Mr. Crepsley repeated.

"The school you chose to send Darren to."

Mr. Crepsley sank back in his chair and brooded on that. Then he asked to see the birth certificate, along with the other 'relevant forms'. Mr. Blaws reached into his briefcase again and fished out a folder. "There you go," he said. "Birth certificate, records from his previous school, medical certificates, the enrolment form you filled in. Everything present and correct."

Mr. Crepsley opened the file, flicked through a few sheets, studied the signatures at the bottom of one form, then passed the file across to me. "Look through those papers," he said. "Check that the information is… correct."

It wasn't correct, of course — I wasn't fifteen and hadn't been to school recently; nor had I visited a doctor since joining the ranks of the undead — but it was fully detailed. The files built up a complete picture of a fifteen-year-old boy called Darren Horston, who'd moved to this city during the summer with his father, a man who worked night shifts in a local abattoir and…

My breath caught in my throat — the abattoir was the one where we'd first encountered the mad vampaneze, Murlough, thirteen years ago! "Look at this!" I gasped, holding the form out to Mr. Crepsley, but he waved it away.

"Is it accurate?" he asked.

"Of course it's accurate," Mr. Blaws answered. "You filled in the forms yourself." His eyes narrowed. "Didn't you?"

"Of course he did," I said quickly, before Mr. Crepsley could reply. "Sorry to act so befuddled. It's been a hard week. Um. Family problems."

"Ah. That's why you haven't shown up at Mahler's?"

"Yes." I forced a shaky smile. "We should have rung and informed you. Sorry. Didn't think."

"No problem," Mr. Blaws said, taking the papers back. "I'm glad that's all it was. We were afraid something bad had happened to you."

"No," I said, shooting Mr. Crepsley a look that said, 'play ball'. "Nothing bad happened."

"Excellent. Then you'll be in on Monday?"

"Monday?"

"Hardly seems worth while coming in tomorrow, what with it being the end of the week. Come early Monday morning and we'll sort you out with a timetable and show you around. Ask for—"

"Excuse me," Mr. Crepsley interrupted, "but Darren will not be going to your school on Monday or any other day."

"Oh?" Mr. Blaws frowned and gently closed the lid of his briefcase. "Has he enrolled at another school?"

"No. Darren does not need to go to school. I educate him."

"Really? There was no mention in the forms of your being a qualified teacher."

"I am not a—"

"And of course," Blaws went on, "we both know that only a qualified teacher can educate a child at home." He smiled like a shark. "Don't we?"

Mr. Crepsley didn't know what to say. He had no experience of the modern educational system. When he was a boy, parents could do what they liked with their children. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

"Mr. Blaws?"

"Yes, Darren?"

"What would happen if I didn't turn up at Mahler's?"

He sniffed snootily. "If you enrol at a different school and pass on the paperwork to me, everything will be fine."

"And if — for the sake of argument — I didn't enrol at another school?"

Mr. Blaws laughed. "Everyone has to go to school. Once you turn sixteen, your time is your own, but for the next…" He opened the briefcase again and checked his files "…seven months, you must go to school."

"So if I chose not to go…?"

"We'd send a social worker to see what the problem was."

"And if we asked you to tear up my enrolment form and forget about me — if we said we'd sent it to you by mistake — what then?"

Mr. Blaws drummed his fingers on the top of his bowler hat. He wasn't used to such bizarre questions and didn't know what to make of us. "We can't go around tearing up official forms, Darren," he chuckled uneasily.

"But if we'd sent them by accident and wanted to withdraw them?"

He shook his head firmly. "We weren't aware of your existence before you contacted us, but now that we are, we're responsible for you. We'd have to chase you up if we thought you weren't getting a proper education."

"Meaning you'd send social workers after us?"

"Social workers first," he agreed, then looked at us with a glint in his eye. "Of course, if you gave them a hard time, we'd have to call in the police next, and who knows where it would end."

I took that information on board, nodded grimly, then faced Mr. Crepsley. "You know what this means, don't you?" He stared back uncertainly. "You'll have to start making packed lunches for me!"

CHAPTER THREE

"MEDDLING, SMUG, stupid little…" Mr. Crepsley snarled. He was pacing the hotel room, cursing the name of Mr. Blaws. The school inspector had left and Harkat had rejoined us. He'd heard everything through the thin connecting door, but could make no more sense of it than us. "I will track him down tonight and bleed him dry," Mr. Crepsley vowed. "That will teach him not to come poking his nose in!"

"Talk like that won't fix this," I sighed. "We have to use our heads."

"Who says it is talk?" Mr. Crepsley retorted. "He gave us his telephone number in case we need to contact him. I will find his address and—"

"It's a mobile phone," I sighed. "You can't trace addresses through them. Besides, what good would killing him do? Somebody else would replace him. Our records are on file. He's only the messenger."

"We could move," Harkat suggested. "Find a new hotel."

"No," Mr. Crepsley said. "He has seen our faces and would broadcast our descriptions. It would make matters more complicated than they already are."

"What I want to know is how our records were submitted," I said. "The signatures on the files weren't ours, but they were pretty damn close."

"I know," he grunted. "Not a great forgery, but adequate."

"Is it possible there's been… a mix-up?" Harkat asked. "Perhaps a real Vur Horston and his son… sent in the forms, and you've been confused with them."

"No," I said. "The address of this hotel was included and so were our room numbers. And…" I told them about the abattoir.

Mr. Crepsley stopped pacing. "Murlough!" he hissed. "That was a period of history I thought I would never have to revisit."

"I don't understand," Harkat said. "How could this be connected to Murlough? Are you saying he's alive and has… set you up?"