by Emma Jameson
“I did,” Jackson said. “Funny thing. Detectives who come up the hard way tend to look a certain way on paper. Middling scores. No glowing notes from instructors. Not ranked at the top, not ranked at the bottom—just sort of hovering in the flabby middle. Then they step into the real world and boom. They start breaking cases. Making arrests. Rocketing up. Because the real world isn’t about acing an exam. It’s about grabbing the bull by the tits and making a difference.”
Kate stared at him in rising disbelief.
“Erm. Maybe not the best phrase in today’s climate.” Jackson cleared his throat. “Point is, I’ve seen it all before. A brash young PC becomes a DC. Then a DS. Next thing you know, she’s nominated to be a Detective Inspector. She still has hoops to jump through. Interviews, a health assessment, all the usual bureaucratic buggery. But she will be a DI, and maybe sooner than she thinks.”
“Yes, sir,” Kate mumbled. It seemed like a dream. “Thank you, sir.”
Chapter Nine
Tea and toast was surprisingly good at the Saint Benedict drop-in center on Arneway Street. Tony had known about the spread, which was put out for the homeless and hungry every day, including weekends and bank holidays. He’d heard such places mentioned many times, of course. Either during discussion of one of his many charities, or in official MPS reports, typically in a sentence like this:
“Suspect has no fixed residence but is known to the staff and regular clients of the Saint Benedict drop-in center, where he sometimes has tea and toast.”
But today, the sixth day of his investigation into Mariah Keene’s death and her twin brother’s disappearance, Tony was at Saint Benedict, sampling the goods. Specifically, he was sitting at a beat-up table in a dark corner, sipping hot tea with lemon and contemplating the curious habits of Mark Keene.
As above, so below. That was Mark’s motto. He’d blogged about it, bent his father and mother’s ear about it, tried to convince his therapist the four words were the gateway to higher consciousness. He’d even taken to defacing private property with related signs and symbols. In another time, Mark probably would have been a wandering mystic, living off the kindness of those who found his message captivating, if ultimately inexplicable. From what Tony had pieced together, Mark’s university career had cratered when he stopped taking his meds. Next, he’d fired his therapist. Then he’d began making the rounds in London, especially the City of Westminster, for which he seemed to have a particular affinity. Within the City’s proud confines, the heir to the earldom of Brompton reputedly made the rounds every day, which included nibbling free biscuits, drinking free tea from paper cups, and carving designs into the Saint Benedict center’s furniture.
Yet I keep missing him, Tony thought, tracing a fingertip along the table’s dominant design. It wasn’t actually carved so much as pressed into the synthetic wood by the repeated application of a ballpoint pen.
The design was a rectangle with numbers and a spiral inside. The spiral, small and tight at the beginning, grew larger and looser toward the end. Seeming to arise from the number 1, the spiral passed quickly through 2, 3, and 5, then swept around 8, 13, 21, and 34. Mark had drawn the design with great precision, using a straight edge to get the proportions correct. That was Mark, from what Tony had gathered: delusional off his meds, obsessive even when on them, but always correct with mathematics, even if he was using them to express, or attempt to express, eschatological truths.
This particular figure was called a Golden Rectangle. Mark’s preoccupation with the symbol had led Tony to reacquaint himself with a curiosity from his boyhood: the mystical Fibonacci number sequence. He’d learned about it at age nine, during his religious training at Christ Church Mayfair. The priest had described the sequence as beginning with “seeds”: zero and one. Zero plus one equals one; one plus one equals two. One plus two equals three. Two plus three equals five, and so on. Mark had carved them along the table’s edge:
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144…
Tony and the other boys in his Sunday school class had been captivated to learn about the number sequence, which was visually expressed in the form of a spiral. The priest explained how certain arrangements of atoms followed the Fibonacci spiral. So, too, did the corkscrew pattern of seeds inside a sunflower, and the structure of spiral galaxies. Like a wink from a mischievous supreme being, the Golden Spiral, as the priest called it, turned up repeatedly throughout nature. This included hurricanes, tornadoes, nautilus shells, and the cochlea of the human ear.
“It’s God’s arithmetic,” the priest had said, encouraging his class to seek the Golden Spiral in the natural world. Once young Tony started looking, patterns that cropped up that didn’t seem like coincidence. A lily had three petals; a larkspur, five; a delphinium, eight; a marigold, thirteen; an aster, twenty-one. Cut open a banana and find three segments; cut open an apple and find five. The Golden Spiral proved itself over and over again.
Except it didn’t, Tony thought. Because it isn’t true.
At Oxford, Tony had tried to impress a pretty undergrad by mentioning the Golden Spiral, only to have the woman laugh in his face. She’d referred him to the Mathematical Institute, where one of his mates had lectured him mercilessly about logarithmic spirals, growth under constraint, Archimedean spirals, Fermat numbers, Lucas numbers, and at least ten types of flowers with petals that didn’t fit the Golden Spiral. The idea of Fibonacci numbers as scientifically approved mysticism was, in the parlance of the day, bunk.
Nine-year-old Tony would have been crushed, but grown-up Tony didn’t mind. Nor did he feel compelled to try and debunk the views of his religious friends, of which there were many. He didn’t find religion uncomfortable. In general, it offered a positive worldview, a series of ethical demands, and hope for the future, even after death. But a career in murder had cursed him with x-ray vision. He could no longer cast his eye upon human institutions without seeing all the way through, down to the inevitable dark side. Even the Church of England, in which he’d been baptized.
He envied those who’d found transcendence. And it didn’t surprise him that people who liked the idea of the Fibonacci number sequence didn’t care if it was a myth. The spiral of the chameleon’s tail would always be mystical, in its way, even if that mysticism couldn’t be boiled down to a series of numbers and anecdotes.
But not for Mark.
Tony had questioned two dozen people in and around the City of Westminster. According to them, their strange friend Mark considered the Fibonacci number sequence nothing less than incontrovertible proof that God was speaking to him.
He hadn’t viewed this as a comfort. Quite the contrary, Mark had found it a torment. God was speaking to him via nature in repetitious yet incomprehensible clues that only he perceived, but could not decode.
Tony pushed back his chair to look at the numbers etched into the table’s edge again. After 144, Mark had deviated from the Fibonacci number sequence with a combination of letters and numbers: RV2117.
Once again, Tony’s Sunday school classes at Christ Church Mayfair returned to him. Book of Revelations, chapter twenty-one, verse seventeen.
He pulled a small Gideon New Testament out of his pocket. It was one of the first things he’d received while undercover as a homeless man, along with £4 2p tossed at him by passersby, a card with the picture and phone number of a working girl who specialized in older men, and a curt “Shove it!” from a thug in a cheap uniform with a plastic silver-tone badge. The verse Mark referenced read,
And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.
“Hiya,” a woman with a chirpy voice said. “You must be Tony. I’m Gert.”
Instinctively he stood up to greet her, frustrated by his own knee-jerk courtesy. He wasn’t meant to be Tony Hetheridge, who had many faults, none of which involved etiquette. He was meant to be Tony the homeless man, searching for his pal Mark, who’d promised to help him.
“I see you’re looking at some of Mark Keene’s handiwork,” the woman chirruped. “Fibonacci numbers, that’s what he told me. And a Bible verse about the number 144. He tried to explain, but to me it was all very woolly. I’m Gert, by the way. Did I say that already? Sorry.”
She was perhaps fifty, but sounded childlike in her enthusiasm. Her curly hair was highlighted red; her plastic-framed specs were big, bold, and lime green.
“I’m a social worker,” she continued, hardly pausing between sentences. “Always on the go. Today it’s Saint Benedict’s. How are you today?”
“Ah, mustn’t grumble,” Tony said, pulling out a chair for Gert before reclaiming his own. If he’d accidentally revealed himself a polite old git, he might as well continue in that vein. Some of the more brutal fixers and enforcers he’d met over the years were surprisingly gentle with women and children. They only harmed the people they were paid to harm.
“Pleased to meet you, Gert,” he said. “But how did you know my name? Did someone send you?”
“That would be me,” said a short man with a low forehead and deep-set eyes. As he approached the table, the short man nodded at Gert, whom he clearly knew. “I’m Cedric. I assign beds and swab the decks. Full-service lackey of the Lord. I hope you don’t mind, Tony, but I asked my mate here to have a word with you. You’ve been in three times now, looking for our Mark. Gert’s looking for him, too.”
Tony pushed up his white canvas bucket hat, bought for a pound in an Oxfam shop, and smiled at Cedric. Tony Hetheridge was congenitally incapable of wearing a hat indoors, but Tony the homeless man took a more pragmatic view: what he kept on his body was less likely to be nicked. The rest of his undercover garb, a torn T-shirt, paint-splattered jacket, and well-worn chinos, were castoffs of Harvey’s. Overseeing the renovations at Wellegrave House was playing havoc with the manservant’s wardrobe.
“Mark was going to explain all this to me, you know,” Tony said, tracing the design, known as a Golden Rectangle. “How there are signs all around, if we have eyes to see. Messages from God and all that.”
“Yes, well. One never knows,” Cedric said lightly. “In my humble experience, the best place to receive divine messages is in church on Sunday. Puzzling out scratches on sticks of furniture can be confusing. But I admire Mark’s enthusiasm. I miss him.”
“We all do,” Gert said. “He’d become a fixture in these parts. Sometimes he caused a little ruckus. The City doesn’t look kindly on graffiti, and great financiers in their Homburgs don’t take kindly to being asked if they understand the relationship between the Fibonacci numbers and the measure of a man.”
“Or an angel,” Cedric agreed. “Mark was different, but he was all right. Never stole, or shouted, or raised a hand to anyone. He just talked about things only he understood. So tell us, Tony. What was your relationship to Mark?”
Old cons tended to be suspicious. Therefore Tony made a show of harrumphing, glancing around the quiet little shelter as if he might be under surveillance, before he spoke.
“I don’t know about relationship,” he said. “Boy’s a bit of a queer bird. But I like him all the same. I didn’t ken everything he said about divine messages and whatnot. But when it came to those ruddy computers, he was clever. Dead clever. I thought I couldn’t work ‘em, on account of my hands. Crippled up, even with pills from the clinic. Can’t do much with a keyboard. But Mark taught me to use the voice interface. Damn thing could understand almost everything I said. Mark promised to teach this old dog a few more new tricks. Help me start a web business.” He cleared his throat. “Legitimate business, mind you.”
“Good for you,” Gert said.
“Legitimate is the way to go,” Cedric agreed, still in that light tone. He was looking closely at Tony. Had he slipped up? Gone from sounding like Fools and Horses to more like Downton Abbey?
“When did you last see Mark?” Gert asked.
“Around Christmas,” Tony said. That seemed like the safest bet, to claim no contact beyond that last bitter row at the Keenes’, the one in which Hannah had given her children the keys to the street, as Peter put it. “I saw him loitering about the City. Told me he’d left Uni and started doing a bit of hacking. I wonder if he didn’t get himself into a spot of trouble.”
Cedric gave Tony another sharp look. Was he playing it wrong, steering the conversation to a suggestion of foul play so early?
“Then again, maybe Mark ghosted you lot,” Tony said, changing tacks. “That’s what the kids call it these days.”
“Mark wouldn’t do that,” Gert said earnestly. “He doesn’t play games. Always tells the truth. As he sees it, I mean. He’s not just a mystic, with visions the rest of us don’t understand. He’s sick, off his meds. He needs them to function, Tony.” She reached out to clasp his hand, then seemed to recall his claim of crippling arthritis and touched his wrist instead. “I worry what might become of him. That’s why if you know anything, anything at all, you must tell us.”
Cedric, still hovering beside the table with his arms folded across his chest, asked, “Do you know about his twin sister?”
“Yeah. Deadenfall,” Tony said. “Bad business. Never met the bird. Still, if she was from blue bloods, like Mark, what was she doing climbing a half-finished building in the middle of the night?”
“I knew her slightly, you know,” Gert said. “Bright girl. Walked with her shoulders back and a spring in her step. She left Uni when Mark washed out. Followed him about Westminster to keep tabs. Poor Mark must feel lost without her.”
“Are you only looking for him in Westminster?” Tony asked. “Maybe he moved on to Shoreditch or Barking. This can be unfriendly ground for rough sleepers.”
Cedric chuckled. “Is that so? You telling me my business now, Tony, my mate?”
He sees through me, Tony thought. Time to confirm if drug use is a factor and bugger off.
“I only mean, if Mark couldn’t buy what he wanted in Westminster, maybe he moved on to the next borough. Lad liked his gear, didn’t he? So did his twin sis. Synthetic weed, people say.”
“I never saw Mark use,” Gert said.
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t, would you?” Cedric glared at Tony. “Is that what this is really about? You looking to sell Spice to Mark? Or collect on old debts?”
“Nothing like that. I’m looking for a lad who entered a dangerous world,” Tony said. “Hackers, Spice dealers, maybe worse. His sis pushed her way in, trying to get him out, and now she’s dead. I may be the only mate of Mark’s who could go into that world and stay alive long enough to bring him out.”
Gert and Cedric exchanged glances. Hope shone in their faces, though both took pains to conceal it.
Mark’s lucky to have such devoted friends, Tony thought. Then again, he inspired that loyalty. Maybe luck has nothing to do with it.
“Give me a sec.” Stepping away from the table, Cedric turned the WELCOME sign on Saint Benedict’s front door and locked up. After a quiet word with a dormitory worker, he shut the door between the dorm and the dining room. That left the three of them alone.
“I think Mark did enter a dangerous world,” Cedric said, returning to the table and pulling up a chair. “Every street person looks dodgy to those who aren’t used to hustlers and rough sleepers. But Mark fell in with truly bad company. He had a home to go to. But he seemed to feel safer at Saint Benedict’s. I told Mark he’d always be welcome. But not those friends of his.”
“The No-Hopers,” Gert said.
“The No-what now?”
“No-Hopers. That’s what Mark’s hacker friends call themselves.”
“Thought they were BASE jumpers,” Cedric said. “ I suppose they can be hackers, too.”
“I know a bit about BASE jumping,” Tony said. “Was Mark the sort of person who might fling himself off a building of a Friday evening?”
“Maybe when he’s off his meds,” Gert said.
“And nattering on about angel dust,” Cedric put in.
“The first time I saw Mark with the No-Hopers was in a café, last November,” Gert said. “I waved at him, but he pretended not to know me. I suppose the No-Hopers don’t like nosey social workers of a certain age. So I texted him, and he replied back. I never deleted the thread. Let’s see….”
She dug into her bag, a crocheted monstrosity that looked like a handmade gift from someone who despised her. “Where is the blessed… sorry, Tony… I think that’s… no, it’s sanitizer.” She laughed, tossing a mini-bottle of Purell on the table. “Can’t be too careful. Germs everywhere.”
“Maybe just tell us the gist of the text, Gertie, love,” Cedric said impatiently.
“Why do I carry a compact? I’ve given up on makeup,” Gert continued, tossing the silver disk onto the table. “Sorry, Cedric, I know you can’t keep the doors locked for long in the middle of the day—oh! Here we are. Whoops! Didn’t mean to do that,” she said as the flash went off. “Every time I try and send a text, I take a picture. Scatterbrained! But here we are… just a second… here.” She passed her smartphone, in a battered red and black ladybug-patterned case, to Cedric.
“Right. Yeah,” he said after reading it, and handed the phone to Tony.
On November 13 of the previous year, at 4:42 pm, Gert Verger had sent the following text to Mark Keene:
Saw you in Anatolia but you didn’t see me. You OK?
Mark: No.
Gert: What’s up?
There was no answer. At 5:08, Gert sent another query: