Lies Sleeping

by Ben Aaronovitch

  ‘I’m just a special. But the head of Bloomberg’s London office is finishing his vacation in the Seychelles early and flying back this afternoon. So I believe some investigation is likely.’

  ‘In that case I’ll email you some names to look out for,’ I said.

  Back in the ‘good old days’ when a quarter of the map was pink and the Folly was at its height you couldn’t practise magic in the UK without their permission. Sometimes the permission was implicit – if you weren’t scaring the horses or curdling the milk they ignored or patronised you, especially if you were female.

  But if you were a full-on Newtonian practitioner, a master of the forms and wisdoms, you had better be recognising the authority of the Society of the Wise or there were going to be consequences.

  All that ended with the decimation of British and European wizardry during the Second World War, although personally I think their control might already have been slipping in the 1920s and ’30s. After the war all you had to do to practise magic with impunity was not come to the attention of Britain’s last official wizard.

  At least until recently.

  When dealing with a problem, the first thing to do is admit you have a problem. The second thing is to try and determine the scale of the problem. Now, for the last couple of years we’ve mainly been hunting Little Crocodiles. But in the process we’ve been identifying other potential practitioners and adding them to our growing database. A database that I was happy to assure the Data Protection Agency was impervious to unauthorised access on account of it being confined to old-fashioned index cards in a rather nice polished walnut filing cabinet in the upstairs magical library.

  They still made me fill in my own body weight in forms.

  And on one of those cards in the walnut cabinet was the name Patrick Gale – confirmed practitioner. He’d come to my attention following the death by hyperthaumaturgical necrosis of one Tony Harden – a junior colleague of his. Because neither had studied at Oxford or were on our Little Crocodiles list, or appeared as nominals in Operation Jennifer or any other Martin Chorley-related investigations, we’d kept a watching brief.

  Also, Patrick Gale was a senior partner at Bock, Loupe and Stag, one of the top ten legal firms in London known collectively as ‘the magic circle’. Firms like BL&S routinely swindled developing countries for fun and profit, bullied government departments and had the personal mobile numbers of media proprietors on speed dial – you don’t mess with them unless you have to. Not if you want to wake up in the same career you went to bed in.

  But the case that had drawn Patrick Gale to my attention had also involved the ritual sacrifice of a goat. So it had to be followed up. In policing you don’t want to be explaining to the case review board why you missed that vital piece of evidence because it seemed a bit obscure and you couldn’t be bothered to get off your arse. Even if in our work a case review board is pretty bloody unlikely.

  So when I got back to the Folly I pulled the relevant index cards and sent the details to Nguyễn. Then I called Postmartin, who has a morbid interest in animal sacrifice.

  ‘My interest is entirely academic and historical,’ said Postmartin on the phone.

  Behind him I could hear town traffic and student voices. Given it was a warm Sunday afternoon I guessed he was sitting outside the Eagle and Child enjoying a gin and tonic and pretending he was C. S. Lewis’s younger, atheist, brother.

  ‘Neither Thomas nor Abdul have ever shown any interest, beyond the practical, in ritual magic,’ he said. ‘Particularly if they predate the Newtonian synthesis.’

  Postmartin always called it ‘the Newtonian synthesis’ to emphasise the fact that Newton did not so much invent magic as find the principles that underlie its practice.

  ‘A practice that dates back millennia,’ he said. ‘All the way back to the dawn of Man. If not older than that.’

  Postmartin favoured the ‘tribal religion theory’ propagated by P. J. Wickshaven, country parson, occasional wizard and amateur anthropologist. Around 1905 he wrote a treatise in which he postulated that religious rituals gained currency with early Man because they produced actually identifiable results. Furthermore, as Postmartin explained it to me, the ancient pre-Abrahamic religions maintained their effectiveness because of their essentially local nature.

  ‘It’s always Isis or Hermes of such and such a place,’ he said. ‘It seems entirely reasonable to me that Isis, for example, could have been a local genius loci who either took on the guise of the goddess or even perhaps came to embody the deity in that locality.’

  Prior to Newton, Wickshaven contended, the practice of magic and that of religion were essentially indistinguishable. He’d travelled to Papua New Guinea in 1907 to find some poor lost tribe to prove his theory for him and had last been seen setting out from Port Moresby, never to return. You’ve got a lot of work like this in the Folly libraries – enthusiastic theories defended to the death without much in the way of corroboration. Or, as Abigail said, ‘So, this is what people used to do before the internet.’

  According to Wickshaven, the central figure – he called him a shaman – generates a forma and leads a congregation in a ritual. Even if only a couple of the attendees successfully replicate the forma then, presumably, that would increase the strength of the spell. And throw in an animal sacrifice?

  ‘This ritual does seem reminiscent of the bacchanalia described in Livy or perhaps, given the sacrifice of the goat, classical Greek worship,’ said Postmartin.

  Sex, booze and animal sacrifice – I suppose after a hard week flogging your slaves and inventing comic theatre you needed something to do on the weekends. I asked whether Postmartin thought this was significant.

  ‘The London Mithraeum is thought to have been converted to the worship of Bacchus in the fourth century ad,’ he said. ‘Could be a coincidence.’

  Only in a rational world, I thought.

  ‘Mithras lost his lustre, did he?’ I asked.

  ‘Mithras could have been a contender,’ said Postmartin. ‘He was one of the big three mystery cults, along with Jesus Christ and Isis.’ Then, as Postmartin had it, the Christians got the nod from Emperor Constantine and that was all she wrote for the other two gods. ‘Which was a pity, because imagine world history if Europe had turned to Isis instead,’ he said. ‘A female priesthood would have been just the start.’

  Postmartin said that there was solid evidence that there had been a Temple of Isis in London but nobody knew where it was. Not like they did with Bacchus and the Mithraeum.

  ‘But if you do run into a candidate for it,’ he said, ‘you will let me know?’

  So, to sum up – persons unknown had, probably, conducted a bacchanal on the exact site of what was probably London’s last major temple to Bacchus, and that ceremony had produced a real magical effect – possibly intentionally.

  I wasn’t putting this on the whiteboard until I had some idea who the persons unknown were.

  And that information was gleefully supplied the following day by Special Constable Nguyễn.

  ‘They were all sensible enough to leave their cars at home,’ she said. ‘We think most walked out of the area and then got night buses. A smaller number felt relaxed enough to summon an Uber to pick them outside the building, and one was picked up his wife in the family SUV.’

  ‘Her name was Monika Gale. Wife of Patrick Gale.

  ‘Boch, Loupe and Stag,’ said Nguyễn. ‘You guys really know how to pick your suspects. I’ve been asked, in my role as Folly liaison, to indicate that as far as City of London Police are concerned this is one hundred and ten per cent a Falcon case. Good luck.’

  And that was that.

  When dealing with the excessively rich and privileged, you’ve got your two basic approaches. One is to go in hard and deliberately working class. A regional accent is always a plus in this. Seawoll has been known to deploy a Mancunian
dialect so impenetrable that members of Oasis would have needed subtitles, and graduate entries with double firsts from Oxford practise a credible Estuary in the mirror and drop their glottals with gay abandon when necessary.

  That approach only works if the subject suffers from residual middle-class guilt – unfortunately the properly posh, the nouveau riche and senior legal professionals are rarely prey to such weaknesses. For them you have to go in obliquely and with maximum Downton Abbey.

  Fortunately for us we have just the man.

  So it was Nightingale who went striding into Patrick Gale’s workplace with his best black Dege & Skinner two piece suit, with me following behind in my serviceable tailored M&S looking like the loyal flunky I was.

  Bock, Loupe and Stag occupy a large chunk of the building across from Broadgate Tower. Like that, this one was designed – as far as I could tell – by the same people who did the interior layout for Cybertron. Lots of angled struts, planes of glass and random spikes. It was, as architectural theorists like to say, a bold statement and the statement was: ‘Fuck truth and beauty. We’ve got money and loads of it’.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale to see Patrick Gale,’ Nightingale said, and flashed his warrant card at the receptionist without breaking step.

  Ahead was a set of security gates, like posh minimalist versions of the ticket barriers at Tube stations. I was probably the only one who noticed the tiny gesture Nightingale made with his right hand. I recognised the tight little surge which followed as a complex fifth order spell that caused the gates to lock in the open position so we could walk through.

  A tall, thin Sierra Leonean man in a security guard uniform stepped up to block us.

  ‘Step back, sir,’ I said firmly.

  Which he did smartly – possibly because of my impressive command voice, but more likely because his name was Obe and he was my cousin – second or third, I forget which – on my mum’s side. I’d nudged him into his current job shortly after Patrick Gale came to my attention. It was down to Obe that we knew the make and model of the security barriers, how many guards would be on duty, and that Gale was currently up in his office.

  Because we’d planned this as carefully as any raid on a crack house, with maps and timetables and Guleed and Carey out front and back with an arrest team just in case anybody tried to scarper. After all, you don’t want to be striding resolutely into someone’s office only to find they’re spending a dirty weekend in Honolulu with their son’s macramé tutor – do you?

  Gale had an office on the sixth floor, so we risked the lift.

  We emerged into an open-plan office crowded with the upmarket walnut veneer versions of drone cubicles, took a sharp left and headed down the clearway towards the big airy offices of the senior partners.

  And the biggest and airiest belonged to Patrick Gale, one of the most powerful men you’ve never heard of.

  He was a big, wide, white man with the heft that the naturally fat get when they exercise like mad in middle age. He had a good but stylistically neutral lightweight cotton suit and definitely handmade shoes. Reception had obviously had time to call up and warn him, and he’d chosen to act casual – leaning against the front of his desk with his arms folded.

  He was sharp, I’ll give him that. He recognised me immediately from when I interviewed him about the late Tony Harden the year before. Then I saw him clock Nightingale and a moment of utter shock crossed his face, which I reckon was him realising exactly who was in his office.

  Good, I thought, you know who he is – this should make things easier.

  I’ll give him this, though – he didn’t bluster. He kept it together enough to step up and ask us, politely, what our business was.

  ‘Mr Gale, we’re here to talk about the ritual sacrifice you took part in on the night of the twentieth at the construction site at Queen Victoria Street.’

  His face went professionally blank as he considered his options.

  Now, I thought, it’s either going to be outraged dignity or Let’s Be Civilised.

  ‘Please,’ he said, looking to retake control of his own office. ‘Have a seat. Can I offer you a coffee? Tea?’

  I wanted popcorn, but asking for it might have broken the mood.

  Nightingale said thank you and sat down as if he was settling in to watch the rugby. I tried to follow his lead, but I suspect I was too tense for properly casual.

  Patrick Gale sat down on what had to be three grands’ worth of reinforced stainless steel and leather executive seating.

  Bluff or denial? I wondered.

  ‘A sacrifice?’ he said.

  So denial it was.

  ‘A goat was ritually sacrificed at or around midnight at the Bloomberg construction site by person or persons unknown,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘Contrary to the Animal Welfare Act (2006),’ I said.

  ‘We believe you were intimately involved,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘And why might you think that?’ asked Gale, with just a hint of smugness.

  We told him about his wife’s car, but he wasn’t impressed.

  ‘That’s hardly a positive identification,’ he said. ‘I’m sure there are many reasons why my wife’s car might be in the city at night. Just as there are many reasons why I might be in the vicinity. Without resorting to fanciful theories about – what was the animal you said was slaughtered?’

  ‘Patrick,’ said Nightingale, ‘you need to cast off the notion that this is a matter of the law and that your superior interpretation and command of the legal niceties will see you through.’

  Patrick Gale opened his mouth to speak, but Nightingale tapped a forefinger once, gently, against the arm of his chair, and no words emerged. Gale opened his mouth again, but again – nothing. The expression on his face cycled rapidly through astonishment, anger and outrage. He raised his hand, but Nightingale tapped his finger twice more and Gale’s hand slapped down onto his desk top hard enough to make the keyboard jump.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘I can render you immobile and stop up your voice – or stop your breath, if I choose to.’

  There was real fear in Patrick Gale’s eyes now, and they turned to look at me – pleading.

  ‘Follow my lead in this, Peter,’ Nightingale had said when we were planning the interview. ‘And do try to trust my judgement on the ethical issues this time.’

  ‘And no doubt,’ Nightingale said to Gale, ‘you’re thinking that what I’m doing can’t possibly be legal. And, you know, I’m not sure.’ He glanced at me. ‘Peter?’

  ‘You’re restraining him against his will,’ I said. ‘It probably depends on whether you arrest him or not.’

  Which was a terrible answer from a legal point of view, but in my defence I was distracted by the sheer technical difficulty of what Nightingale was doing. In many ways people, and other living creatures, are amazingly resistant to direct manipulation with magic. That’s why most magical duels quickly devolve down to both parties throwing the kitchenware at each other.

  But where brute force doesn’t work, subtlety does. And in the practice of Newtonian magic subtlety doesn’t come easy.

  Just on the edge of my perception there was the tick, tick, tick of a mechanical movement, a jewelled movement, that delicately bound Patrick Gale in place and stopped the action of his larynx – or whatever the fuck kept him silent. It was a twentieth order spell at least.

  ‘But, just as I can’t prove that you attended that merry little bacchanal,’ said Nightingale, ‘you can’t prove that I am in any way violating your rights as a suspect. The legal niceties have become irrelevant and we find ourselves making a moral choice instead.’

  I felt the formae twist as Nightingale added another layer of complexity. And Gale’s hands came together, fingers entwined over his paunch as if he was relaxing after a hard day.

  ‘You made that choic
e when you took up the forms and wisdoms,’ said Nightingale. ‘And now you must take responsibility for that choice – don’t you agree?’

  Gale’s face contorted and I saw his big shoulders tense as he made a desperate attempt to separate his hands. Nightingale calmly watched him for the full ten seconds or so it took for it to become clear that escape was impossible.

  Gale’s shoulder’s slumped and he nodded.

  Nightingale snapped his fingers, a purely theatrical gesture, and Gale’s hands separated as the spell was released. He wriggled his fingers a couple of times and then gave Nightingale an inquiring look, because nothing attracts the powerful quite like more power.

  ‘Shall we start at the beginning?’ said Nightingale. ‘Who trained you?’

  Gale hesitated, eyes flicking between us.

  ‘I swore an oath,’ he said finally. ‘I was told there would be consequences if I revealed their name.’

  ‘Well, there’ll certainly be consequences if you don’t,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘There’s no evidence that breaking your oath has supernatural repercussions,’ I added.

  Beyond the obvious risk that you might have pissed off someone more powerful than you, I thought, but kept that to myself. No point cluttering up the conversation with pointless trivia.

  ‘I learnt it from a friend of mine at Cambridge,’ said Patrick Gale.

  ‘His name?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘John Chapman,’ he said.

  It’s always tempting to show off your knowledge during a confrontation. But during an interview it’s always better to pretend ignorance – which was why Nightingale went on to ask about John Chapman, even though Gale’s answers merely confirmed the information we’d already got from the IIP.

  Well, most of it anyway.

  ‘Where did he learn magic?’ asked Nightingale.

  ‘He said he learnt it from a book,’ said Gale. ‘By Sir Isaac Newton, of all people.’ He was sceptical.

  ‘I think he was taught by his uncle,’ he added. ‘He used to let slip and mention him from time to time.’