“I’ll have you know that I was listening to every word you said. But I was also checking on the gentleman who’s been following me for the last half-hour.”
Without looking round, Temper said, “The guy in the baseball cap or the guy in the green jacket?”
“The gent in the jacket is merely lost. Our baseball-cap-wearing friend is the one we’re interested in.”
“Are we leading him somewhere?”
“We are,” said Skulduggery.
They turned down a side street and waited for the guy in the baseball cap to hurry by. Skulduggery stepped out from behind cover and grabbed him, threw him against the wall. The cap came off. The guy beneath was scruffy and startled.
“Argosy Pelt,” Skulduggery said.
Pelt tried to run off and Temper shoved him back. “You know him?”
“I’ve glanced at his file,” Skulduggery said. “He had been incarcerated in Coldheart Prison when Abyssinia took it over.”
“For a crime I didn’t commit!” Pelt blurted.
“Shut up,” said Temper, and frowned at Skulduggery. “Did you glance at the files of all the inmates?”
“Of course.”
“How many was that?”
“Seven hundred and thirty-two.”
“And you recognised his face from his mugshot?”
“It’s a memorable face.”
“Is it?”
“Look at it.”
“I am, but I’m forgetting it even as I’m looking at it. Do you remember anything you read in his rap sheet?”
Skulduggery shrugged. “He’s been arrested before, multiple times, spent a total of thirty-seven years in various gaols for assault, robbery and murder.”
“I never assaulted, robbed or murdered no one!” Pelt screeched.
“He was sentenced to nineteen years in Coldheart for killing a mortal in a bar fight three years ago.”
“I’m innocent!” Pelt roared. “I wasn’t even in that bar! My reflection did it!”
“And he always says his reflection did it,” Skulduggery continued.