"I don't know," said Newton. "My uncle runs a toy shop in Hounslow," he added, in case this way any help.
"Is that sooo?" said Shadwell.
Mr. Shadwell's accent was unplaceable. It careered around Britain like a milk race. Here a mad Welsh drill sergeant, there a High Kirk elder who'd just seen someone doing something on a Sunday, somewhere between them a dour Daleland shepherd, or bitter Somerset miser. It didn't matter where the accent went; it didn't get any nicer.
"Have ye all your own teeth?"
"Oh yes. Except for fillings."
"Are ye fit?"
"I suppose so," Newt stuttered. "I mean, that was why I wanted to join the territorials. Brian Potter in Accounting can bench-press almost a hundred since he joined. And he paraded in front of the Queen Mother."
"How many nipples?"
"Pardon?"
"Nipples, laddie, nipples," said the voice testily. "How many nipples hae ye got?"
"Er. Two?"
"Good. Have ye got your ane scissors?"
"What?"
"Scissors! Scissors! Are ye deaf?"
"No. Yes. I mean, I've got some scissors. I'm not deaf."
The cocoa had nearly all solidified. Green fur was growing on the inside of the mug.
There was a thin layer of dust on Aziraphale, too.
The stack of notes was building up beside him. The Nice and Accurate Prophecies was a mass of improvised bookmarks made of torn strips of Daily Telegraph.
Aziraphale stirred, and pinched his nose.
He was nearly there.
He'd got the shape of it.
He'd never met Agnes. She was too bright, obviously. Normally Heaven or Hell spotted the prophetic types and broadcast enough noises on the same mental channel to prevent any undue accuracy. Actually that was rarely necessary; they normally found ways of generating their own static in self-defense against the images that echoed around their heads. Poor old St. John had his mushrooms, for example. Mother Shipton had her ale. Nostradamus had his collection of interesting oriental preparations. St. Malachi had his still.
Good old Malachi. He'd been a nice old boy, sitting there, dreaming about future popes. Complete piss artist, of course. Could have been a real thinker, if it hadn't been for the poteen.
A sad end. Sometimes you really had to hope that the ineffable plan had been properly thought out.
Thought. There was something he had to do. Oh, yes. Phone his contact, get things sorted out.
He stood up, stretched his limbs, and made a phone call.
Then he thought: why not? Worth a try.
He went back and shuffled through his sheaf of notes. Apes really had been good. And clever. No one was interested in accurate prophecies.
Paper in hand, he phoned Directory Enquiries.
"Hallo? Good afternoon. So kind. Yes. This will be a Tadfield number, I think. Or Lower Tadfield… ah. Or possibly Norton, I'm not sure of the precise code. Yes. Young. Name of Young. Sorry, no initial. Oh. Well, can you give me all of them? Thank you."
Back on the table, a pencil picked itself up and scribbled furiously.
At the third name it broke its point.
"Ah," said Aziraphale, his mouth suddenly running on automatic while his mind exploded. "I think that's the one. Thank you. So kind. Good day to you."
He hung up almost reverentially, took a few deep breaths, and dialed again. The last three digits gave him some trouble, because his hand was shaking.
He listened to the ringing tone. Then a voice answered. It was a middle-aged voice, not unfriendly, but probably it had been having a nap and was not feeling at its best.
It said "Tadfield Six double-six."
Aziraphale's hand started to shake.
"Hallo?" said the receiver. "Hallo."
Aziraphale got a grip on himself.
"Sorry," he said, "Right number."
He replaced the receiver.
Newt wasn't deaf. And he did have his own scissors.
He also had a huge pile of newspapers.
If he had known that army life consisted chiefly of applying the one to the other, he used to muse, he would never have joined.
Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell had made him a list, which was taped to the wall in Shadwell's tiny crowded flat situated over Rajit's Newsagents and Video Rental. The list read:
1) Witches.
2) Unexplainable Phenomenons. Phenomenatrices. Phenomenice. Things, ye ken well what I mean.
Newt was looking for either. He signed and picked up another newspaper, scanned the front page, opened it, ignored page two (never anything on there) then blushed crimson as he performed the obligatory nipple count on page three. Shadwell had been insistent about this. "Ye can't trust them, the cunning buggers," he said. "It'd be just like them to come right out in the open, like, defyin' us."
A couple in black turtleneck sweaters glowered at the camera on page nine. They claimed to lead the largest coven in Saffron Walden, and to restore sexual potency by the use of small and very phallic dolls. The newspaper was offering ten of the dolls to readers who were prepared to write "My Most Embarrassing Moment of Impotency" stories. Newt cut the story out and stuck it into a scrapbook.
There was a muffled thumping on the door.
Newt opened it; a pile of newspapers stood there. "Shift yerself, Private Pulsifer," it barked, and it shufed into the room. The newspapers fell to the floor, revealing Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell, who coughed, painfully, and relit his cigarette, which had gone out.
"You want to watch him. He's one o' them," he said.
"Who, sir?"
"Tak yer ease, Private. Him. That little brown feller. Mister so-called Rajit. It's them terrible forn arts. The ruby squinty eye of the little yellow god. Women wi' too many arms. Witches, the lot o' them."
"He does give us the newspapers free, though, Sergeant," said Newt. "And they're not too old."
"And voodoo. I bet he does voodoo. Sacrificing chickens to that Baron Saturday. Ye know, tall darkie bugger in the top hat. Brings people back from the dead, aye, and makes them work on the Sabbath day. Voodoo." Shadwell sniffed speculatively.
Newt tried to picture Shadwell's landlord as an exponent of voodoo. Certainly Mr. Rajit worked on the Sabbath. In fact, with his plump quiet wife and plump cheerful children he worked around the clock, never mind the calendar, diligently filling the area's needs in the matter of soft drinks, white bread, tobacco, sweets, newspapers, magazines, and the type of top-shelf pornography that made Newt's eyes water just to think about. The worst you could imagine Mr. Rajit doing with a chicken was selling it after the "Sell-By" date.
"But Mister Rajit's from Bangladesh, or India, or somewhere," he said. "I thought voodoo came from the West Indies."
"Ah," said Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell, and took another drag on his cigarette. Or appeared to. Newt had never actually quite seen one of his superior's cigarettes—it was something to do with the way he cupped his hands. He even made the ends disappear when he'd finished with them. "Ah."
"Well, doesn't it?"
"Hidden wisdom, lad. Inner mili'try secrets of the Witchfinder army. When you're all initiated proper ye'll know the secret truth. Some voodoo may come from the West Indies. I'll grant ye that. Oh yes, I'll grant ye that. But the worst kind. The darkest kind, that comes from, um…"