Free Knightley and Son (9781619631540) by Rohan Gavin

Tilly finished her account, Uncle Bill thanked her and asked her to wait next door until he had interviewed Darkus.
    “I’m not finished yet,” she protested. “I’ve got a few questions of my own.” She turned her attention to Knightley.
    “All in good time,” he answered vaguely.
    Tilly narrowed her eyes, assessing the situation before letting Uncle Bill usher her out of the living room and close the door behind her.
    Bill sat opposite the Knightleys, his homburg hat resting on his generous midsection. “Now, Darkus,” he began.
    “Call me Doc.”
    “Doc. Yer father and myself worked together on many of the cases ye apparently know so well.”
    “I never saw your name mentioned,” said Darkus.
    “That’s because ma name is not technically ‘Uncle Bill.’ It’s Montague Billoch.”
    “You work for Scotland Yard,” said Darkus, remembering the name from the Knowledge.
    “Indeed.”
    Knightley added, “That’s where he got his nickname. Uncle Bill—Old Bill. The Bill—it’s slang for the police.”
    “Logical,” said Darkus with a nod.
    “Aye. Only I don’t work for any department ye or many other people will have heard of,” Bill went on.
    “SO 42,” said Darkus.
    “Aye,” said Bill. “Specialist Operations branch forty-two. Only among the likes of yer father and myself, it’s known as the Department of the Unexplained. It does not operate in the world of Draycott or the regular police force. It’s too secretive for that. It exists outside the regular world, just like the crimes it investigates.”
    “And what crimes are those?” asked Darkus.
    “Highly organized crime, parapsychology, the occult, the dark arts, and well nigh everything in between.”
    “In other words . . . the Combination,” said Knightley.
    “We’ll see about that, Alan,” said Bill, then turned back to Darkus. “Yer father and me don’t always see eye to eye. Alan believes there is one organization that is responsible for all these unexplained events. The Combination, he claims. I, however, find it hard to believe such a web is possible, and have yet to see the evidence.”
    “That’s why I assembled all my cases into one file: the Knowledge,” added Knightley. “For reasons of security, I never referred to our enemy by name.”
    “Indeed.” Bill explained to Darkus: “Yer father was preparing to hand over the sum total of all his investigations to prove or disprove his theory once and for all. But before he could do that, he had his wee . . . episode.”
    Knightley nodded gravely. “Now the Knowledge is gone, and we’re back to square one. And my brain is nothing but a dull blade.”
    Uncle Bill shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the chair creaking under his weight.
    “Now, Doc . . . how do ye feel about everything we’ve told ye?” he inquired gently.
    Knightley waited with bated breath for his son’s response.
    “I don’t have the empirical data to determine whether one organization is responsible for all my father’s cases,” said Darkus. “However, having had the chance to digest the Knowledge, I would agree with him that there are certainly connections: all those clues going missing, forensic evidence being mishandled or ruled inadmissible in court, witnesses changing their stories.”
    Knightley cleared his throat and took over. “My memory’s not what it used to be, but Darkus knows the history. Throughout my career, there were clues, traces, that formed a common thread running through every case. Follow the thread and you locate the Combination.”
    Darkus watched his father, concerned. It was clear that whether the Combination existed or not, his father wasn’t about to let it go. Uncle Bill shrugged, unconvinced, his chair creaking in complaint.
    Knightley continued undaunted: “Clive’s daughter observes two police officers absconding with the Knowl-edge. You think that’s coincidence?”
    Bill shifted in his seat again, apparently too exhausted to weigh the theories