I backtracked a bit and asked questions in various different ways, but the vixen was better than most people, better than most trained professionals in fact. I let them have the rest of the cheese puffs. Abigail disapproved.
‘You shouldn’t spoil them,’ she said after we’d watched them disappear into the undergrowth.
‘Watchers?’ I asked as we walked back to the factory. ‘Assets, reports, covert? Is there something you want to tell me?’
‘It’s not me,’ said Abigail. ‘They think they’re spies.’
‘Working for who?’
‘They won’t say. I’m not sure there is anyone. I think it’s part of the process that made them big and smart.’
We didn’t see Molly for two whole days and everybody had to make do with takeaway until she resurfaced. Well, except for the second day when I cooked jollof rice, groundnut chicken, stock fish, palava sauce – with way too much palm oil – and fried plantain. Admittedly, I did have my mum to help. And I did have to physically restrain her from putting a year’s supply of pepper in the soup. We compromised and had a pot of what she called properly seasoned Tola sauce, which proved surprisingly popular with some of the analysts. One white guy kept coming back despite the fact that he’d turned bright pink and was damp with sweat.
‘I know it’s killing me,’ he said. ‘But it just tastes that good.’
Stephanopoulos filled her plate with a blithe disregard for thermodynamics and later asked my mum for the recipe for groundnut chicken.
Even while turning pink, the CCTV teams managed to establish that the footage from the entrance camera had been doctored – presumably to hide the departure of the two vans the vixen had seen. One of them, probably, carrying the new bell.
But even Chorley couldn’t get to every camera on Coldharbour Lane. And by suppertime the day after we’d fed the foxes, we had the colour, make and index of both vans. Not that we expected the indexes to remain the same – in fact we were working on the assumption they’d be changed. The City of London Police and CTC had spent a great deal of the last thirty years waiting for the next big truck bomb – be it IRA, IRA classic, various varieties of cryptofascists or jihadists – and they had systems for finding vans with dodgy numbers.
Nightingale insisted that me and Guleed got as much rest as we could.
‘Whatever happens next,’ he said, ‘is likely to be the final operation of the campaign. I need you two to be fully combat-fit, as it were.’
I always worry when Nightingale goes all Band of Brothers on us, which is one of the reasons I took up feeding the multitudes as a distraction. Still, at least after a worrying silence from Molly we got reassurance that Foxglove was settling in.
On some nights the full moon rises above the skylight and floods the atrium with cold light. On those nights Molly turns all the electric lights off, including the Emergency Exit signs, even though I’ve told her she’s not supposed to, and glides around the atrium and the balconies in weird random patterns. I’d got so used to it that I could walk down from my room to the kitchen, looking for a snack, without paying any attention to the silent shadow that darts here and there – always in the periphery of my sight.
The first such moonlit night after Foxglove joined us I was out in search of a nightcap when I realised that Nightingale was standing on the upper balcony. Silently he beckoned me over and pointed down to the atrium floor.
Below I saw Molly flit across the tiles, her hair streaming out behind her like a shadow. Behind her came a second figure, Foxglove, dressed in a loose silk shift that looked blood red in the moonlight. In her right hand she trailed a long ribbon of white fabric. Then Molly turned, grabbed Foxglove around the waist, and swept her around in a circle – the white fabric looping around them as they spun in place. I don’t how long we watched them dance, silent but for the swoosh of their clothes and Foxglove’s streamer, but when they finally vanished into shadows I heard Nightingale sigh.
‘Here’s a comforting thought for you, Peter,’ he said. ‘However long you may live, the world will never lose its ability to surprise you with its beauty.’
And the next morning there was kippers and jam and coffee and toast and everything was all right in the world.
For about six hours at least.
31
The Winkle Garden
There once were railway sidings that ran right under Smithfield Market, allowing tons of animal carcasses to be shipped into the cold stores prior to dismemberment, distribution and, ultimately, dinner. In the 1960s they were closed by the same people who gave us streets in the sky, the urban motorway and myriad buildings that architects have spent the last forty years trying to blame on somebody else.
The sidings became an underground car park, but in an ironic twist their entrance is an elegant spiral ramp that winds its way around a small circular park. The park itself was built by the Victorians on a site made famous as an execution ground for such celebrities as William Wallace, Wat Tyler and a couple of hundred Protestants who got on the wrong side of Queen Mary. According to the Folly’s records, the area had been pacificatus as part of the process of building the original railway, the ramp and the park. The dispersal of all that negative energy was capped off with a bronze statue of ‘Peace’ by John Birnie Philip, which the Sons of Weyland had, apparently, had a hand in.
‘Does it say in what way?’ I asked.
‘Nope,’ said Abigail, who was back in the library at the Folly digging up references in real time.
I was sitting on a bench in the courtyard in the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less, peering through the railings out at West Smithfield in the hope of catching sight of Martin Chorley and/or associates. I was there because parked halfway down the spiral ramp was one of the vans last seen leaving Martin Chorley’s factory. Spotted by one of the car park attendants, who called it in because the number plate ‘looked iffy’, which set off a flag at CCC, which filtered quickly over to Operation Jennifer, which didn’t so much spring into action as lurch sideways like a startled crab.
This is totally normal police behaviour, by the way, and nothing to be alarmed about.
Ranks and chain of command are all very well for administration, but when the wheels come off and the world is going fruit-metaphor-of-your choice, then the plod on the spot needs to know who’s in charge of what. That’s why we have the Gold, Silver and Bronze Incident Management Procedure (page 560, Blackstone’s Police Operational Handbook, Second Edition). Seawoll was Gold, which meant he was stuck in the Portakabin back at the Folly. Because this was a Falcon incident Nightingale was Silver and, theoretically, should have also been in a control room somewhere – like that was going to happen – while Stephanopoulos was Bronze (public safety) and I was Bronze (Falcon containment).
‘The Victorians did a lot of this pacificatus stuff,’ said Abigail. ‘And not just in London either.’
And was it just the unquiet dead? I wondered, thinking of the god of the Yellowstone River. Or had the wizards of the Folly gone forth like the loyal sons of the British Empire they were and done a bit of pacificatus in the dominions?
I thought you gentlemen should know how things go in the former colonies, the letter from America had said.
‘Peter?’ said Stephanopoulos over the Airwave. ‘See anything?’
I couldn’t see the van from my position, but I did have a good view of the roads around the park. Sandwiched between Smithfield Market to the north and Barts Hospital to the south, both providing ample cover to bring up van-loads of backup, the car park was tactically a terrible choice for Chorley to get caught in. Stephanopoulos already had spotters on the roofs and the upper floors of the buildings all around and two whole serials of TSG lounging around in the courtyard behind the hospital museum. This particular lot had worked with us before and had taken to wearing a sprig of mistletoe on their Metvests, presumably because a bulb of garlic would lo
ok stupid. TSG officers spend a lot of time waiting around in the backs of Sprinter vans and so are prone to violent practical jokes and moments of whimsy. Seawoll had suggested celery, but nobody but me got the joke.
I replied to Stephanopoulos. ‘Nothing from here.’
I listened while Nightingale and the rest of the spotters reported in from their various positions around the perimeter. Nightingale, I knew, was in Smithfield Market with Guleed comfortably ensconced in the Butcher’s Hook pub on the east side.
‘What’s the target, do you think?’ asked Seawoll.
‘St Paul’s at a guess,’ said Nightingale. ‘Possibly the site of the Mithraeum.’
The cathedral was half a kilometre to the south and the Bloomberg building site was further to the east and twice as far.
‘He certainly likes the Square Mile,’ said Guleed.
She was right. The Rising Sun, where Camilla Turner met the late John Chapman, was just around the corner, and beyond that was the Barbican, where Faceless Man senior had been stashed for all those years. Behind me on the other side of the hospital was Little Britain, where Martin Chorley had his think tank.
‘Everyone’s in position,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘What now?’
‘If we’re lucky the fucker will show his face and Thomas can twat him,’ said Seawoll.
‘We’re not exactly covert,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘We’ve got a couple of hours before we’re all over Facebook.’
‘If that,’ said Guleed.
‘The longer we wait the more we pass tactical advantage to Chorley,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I think we’ve all had quite enough of that.’
‘The bell is the key,’ I said. ‘We half-inch the bell and Chorley’s stuffed.’
‘There were two vans,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘How do we know the bell’s in that one?’
‘Or not already in place somewhere,’ said Nightingale – unhelpfully in my opinion.
‘Somebody’s going to have to have a look, aren’t they?’ said Stephanopoulos.
It was a difficult decision. Chorley knew me, Guleed and Nightingale on sight and there was no way we were going to risk some poor non-Falcon qualified copper. In the end Stephanopoulos nicked a green London Ambulance service jacket from one of the nearby ambulance crews and got ready to do the walk past herself.
‘And what if you meet Lesley?’ I asked.
‘Then that will be one less problem to worry about, won’t it?’ she said.
‘Make sure she fucking wears her Metvest,’ said Gold leader when we outlined the plan.
Stephanopoulos, who claimed to have stashed her Metvest in her wife’s henhouse the day she made inspector, nonetheless promised not to get stabbed. I donned my magic hoody and dashed around through the hospital grounds so I could loiter suspiciously on the corner of Little Britain and keep the entrance ramp in view.
It was a bright day with scattered clouds and the air was still and warm. Stephanopoulos wore the jacket over one shoulder to sell the illusion, and to disguise the fact that it was too small for her. And to hide the X26 taser she was carrying in her left hand.
I still couldn’t see the van but I knew its exact position halfway down the ramp. I reckoned if I vaulted the safety rail further up, where the drop was less than a metre, I could get there in less than twenty seconds.
‘I’m approaching the van,’ said Stephanopoulos.
I’ve been told that in the old days undercover officers had to try and disguise the fact that they were using a radio. But now you just wear headphones and carry a phone in your hand. This explains why the next thing she said was, ‘Just as long as we don’t have asparagus again.’ A pause. ‘Because I hate asparagus.’
‘I’ve always said you were wasted on the police,’ said Seawoll.
‘I’m having a look through the front window,’ said Stephanopoulos in a low voice. ‘I can see something in the back and she’s sitting low on her suspension.’ And then much louder, ‘How many times do I have to tell you: the goat is not allowed in the house.’
Nightingale told me to saunter up the entrance to the ramp while he went to the top of the pedestrian access stairs on the other side of the park, so he could cover Stephanopoulos’ exit.
I was halfway across the road when a spotter reported that a mint coloured Fiesta was heading up Long Lane and was indicating for a left turn – meaning it might be heading for the car park. I said I’d keep an eye out.
I was almost across when Stephanopoulos said, ‘Oh shit. Chorley just came out of the underground bit.’
There was a bit of loud breathing and then Stephanopoulos said she was hidden behind a different van but she could probably get a shot with her taser as Chorley went past.
‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ said Nightingale.
‘Wait for him to pass and get the fuck out of the way,’ said Seawoll.
‘Peter,’ said Nightingale, ‘turn the car away.’
I looked over and saw the Fiesta, mint coloured as advertised, turning out of Long Lane and making an obvious beeline for the entrance at the top of the ramp. I stepped quickly out in front of it and held up my hand in that gesture all police hope is authoritative enough to halt over a tonne of moving metal.
The trick is to always be ready to dive out of the way.
The driver was a white woman in her mid-twenties; white blouse, lightweight navy suit jacket, brown hair.
I made a friendly fending-off gesture, but the woman’s expression gave her away.
I’d know that look of exasperation anywhere – even when it’s not on the right face.
‘Lesley’s in the Fiesta,’ I said over the Airwave.
She’d been slowing to negotiate the ramp, but as soon as she saw me Lesley floored it. I threw a car killer into the bonnet and the engine died. But she had too much momentum and I had to vault the safety rail to avoid getting run down.
‘Pillock!’ I heard her shouting as she went past.
I made what they call a tactical assessment.
I could see the van a third of the way around and down the ramp. Because the ramp formed almost a complete circle I had sight of Nightingale to my right as he went for the pedestrian staircase less than forty metres away. I watched as he jumped over the railing and dropped down onto one of the landings below. I decided that my job, as usual, was Lesley, and took after the Fiesta as it rolled down the ramp.
The ramp was built for carriages and drays drawn by huge Clydesdale draught horses, and so was cobbled for traction and maximum tripping and leg-breaking potential. Still, I went flat out on the basis that I really didn’t want to be tag-teamed by Lesley and Chorley together.
I was good enough by then to throw car killers about without sanding my Airwave, so I was still online to hear one of the spotters yell something unintelligible and Seawoll order the containment teams to set up a safety perimeter. This was the appropriate Falcon response plan in action – the TSG keeps the public out of harm’s way while we lucky few go toe to toe with the Faceless Man.
And not forgetting his sidekick – the mutable Lesley.
The Fiesta pulled up by the van and Lesley tumbled out, still wearing her fake face.
She pulled her hand back into a fist when she saw me, but I was already casting a nice reliable impello palma even as I closed the distance between us. The spell knocked her on her back, but she rolled, did something that I didn’t recognise, and a viciously bright flash in front of my face blinded me. I went crashing down to the cobbles. All I could see was a bruise-coloured blotch in front of my eyes. But, figuring that lying on the cobbles was not conducive to my health, I scrambled off to my right where I knew there were parked cars. After banging my face on somebody’s hatchback, I found the gap between cars and slotted myself in.
I crouched down with my back to a wheel arch and blinked, trying to clear my vision.
It’s the ultraviolet content of a bright light that damages your retinas – I just had to hope Lesley had her flashbulb lux variant tuned to the lower wavelengths. Meanwhile I found I could follow the magic part of the fight through the echoes of the combatants’ formae.
There was the tick-tock precision of Nightingale doing something complicated, followed by a whispering crash like cymbals when his spell hit home. Chorley was a series of painful razor strops speeding up until it was like a buzz saw meeting metal. Somewhere out in the real world I heard real metal tearing and sirens in the distance.
And then there was Lesley with a little bit of tick-tock, some razor strop, and a strange cry like a seagull that I was beginning to recognise as uniquely her own.
Now, it would be really useful if I could use all these lovely sense impressions to get a sense of distance. But some hours spent wearing a blindfold while Abigail and Nightingale set spells off around me had proved you couldn’t. At least I couldn’t. At least not yet.
Still, the beauty of being stuck on a down ramp with nice solid Victorian brick walls on either side was that there was a limited number of directions Lesley could be coming from. When I sensed her gearing up to cast her next spell – some difficult impello-based procedure – I lobbed a glitter bomb in her general direction.
This was one of Varvara’s wartime spells as translated by Abigail – Ledyanaya Bomba in Russian, but we call it a glitter bomb because of the way light sparkles off the ice crystals that form around the epicentre.
I distinctly heard Lesley say ‘fuck’ not five metres away, and then I felt the wave of cold air roll over me. The sight in my left eye was mostly purple but my right was almost clear – obviously I’d been squinting. I risked a look.
Everything around the van was bright and sparkly, like a bright winter’s day after a frost. I saw a blurry figure who was probably Lesley turn away from me and start to run down the ramp, only to slip over and fall down hard with a yelp.
I wasn’t going to get a better invitation than that, so I rolled out of my hiding place and charged down the slope with my shield up for good measure. Which is just as well, as I ran straight into Chorley coming the other way. I was half blind and he was looking over his shoulder – it was one of them meeting engagements that military theorists suggest you should never ever do if you can help it. He didn’t spot me until we were less than three metres apart. He tried to turn away, but slipped and went down on one knee with an audible crack. It looked really painful, but not as painful as I was planning to make it.
Lies Sleeping Page 28