The Calling

by Jane Goodall

  ‘Sure.’ She perched on the edge of the sofa.

  Pavan turned to his assistant. ‘Give us a few minutes would you, Ken? If you wouldn’t mind waiting outside.’ He sat at the table by the window with his legs crossed. ‘You shouldn’t have come back, Briony. It was a mistake.’

  She took her time responding. ‘A mistake?’ she repeated. ‘From whose point of view?’

  ‘Have you absolutely no sense of self-preservation?’

  ‘It’s my job to negotiate dangers, not run away from them, Pavan. If I must, I’ll pack up and find a hotel room, but I intend to be part of this inquiry. I saw Steve Latham last night and got a rough account of what happened to Macready, but we didn’t get to any of the detail. Since this was a second intrusion, there must have been added security on the house. I assume there was no repetition of the bathroom window trick?’

  ‘No, there wasn’t. The bathroom window, like all the others in the house, has been fitted with bars narrower than standard specifications. Both external doors — front and back — have new double-cylinder deadlocks. We haven’t found any signs of tampering.’

  ‘So what’s your explanation?’

  Pavan’s mouth tightened as he thought. ‘As you know, Briony, a skilled burglar can get the better of almost any lock. It’s a matter of having some knowledge of how the mechanism works, what the component parts are and so on. All the same, there would be forensic traces of even the most expert lock-picker’s work.’

  ‘Keys,’ she said quietly. ‘Who has them?’

  ‘Apart from Macready — myself and the lab liaison officer.’

  ‘Ken.’

  Briony went to the door and asked Ken to come in. He didn’t seem remotely disconcerted to be asked about the keys, and he showed her where he carried them — attached to his belt with a steel chain.

  ‘They never leave my desk unless they’re here,’ he said, giving the chain a rattle.

  The three of them sat for half an hour talking through details and possibilities, going over the same points repeatedly until Briony said, ‘Look — let’s leave the technicalities for now. What strikes me is that this is in every respect a different MO from that of the original intrusion. First, if he’s that good at picking locks, why didn’t he do it the first time? Why go through all that athletic performance with the bathroom window? Then — this was a different type of attack. The first intruder comes in broad daylight and does something that advertises his visit immediately. The second gets in at night and — if he sprung Macready without being heard — with the silence of a panther. Macready could hear a watch tick in a crowded room. I don’t think we’re dealing with one person here. This is some kind of group enterprise.’

  Pavan’s expression hadn’t changed. ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘all the evidence points to there being only one assailant on Saturday night. Macready saw a single person, and the fact that he managed to thwart the attack is itself evidence of there being no accessory present.’

  ‘No accessory present inside the house,’ Briony interjected. ‘Could have been someone outside — with a car, perhaps. Are there tyre tracks?’

  ‘Afraid not. The garden path leads directly from the main road, so any vehicle would have been pulled up on a surface passed over by countless other sets of wheels. If there was a vehicle, the best we can hope for is a sighting.’

  ‘All right.’ Briony leant forward, concentrating intensely. ‘Another thing. This was unfinished business. If the intruder had completed his mission — ’

  ‘Macready would have been a goner.’ It was Ken’s turn to interrupt. The three of them fell silent again, and again it was Briony who spoke first.

  ‘He wore a mask, this guy. Is that right? That’s what Steve told me, but he didn’t say what kind of mask.’

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ said Pavan. ‘We’re waiting to talk to Macready about it.’

  ‘I’ll ask him myself. He’s given me the okay to visit him this afternoon. But in general you can say that masks are theatrical, aren’t they? Sudden Deff wear them as part of a stage act. So from the viewpoint of the perpetrator, at least, this could have been some kind of performance. How was it supposed to end?’ No one wanted to answer that. ‘Well, I suppose we can’t get any further with this right now.’ Briony stood up. ‘I’d better go and pack my case again.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ Pavan asked.

  ‘If this goes on much longer, I suppose they’ll get me fixed up with a police flat or something. In the meantime, I’d better find a cheap hotel.’

  Ken suddenly became animated. ‘There’s a good one in Cadogan Square — called the Fyfield. My niece stayed there last year. Ask for the room on the top floor. They don’t have a lift, so any unwanted visitor would have to toil up four flights of stairs.’

  Briony wandered into the bedroom and picked up her still-to-be-unpacked hold-all. She unzipped it and took out the swimsuit and sarong, which looked squashed and lifeless. Blocking out the associations they had, she collected some work clothes from the wardrobe and crammed them into the bag.

  There was time to check out the hotel before her appointment at the hospital, and it was fine — friendly and efficient, with plenty of staff around. The little room was like a maid’s bedroom from the Victorian era: warped wooden floor, narrow bed with an iron frame, and window set right up under the roof line. She looked out and discovered there was a bird’s-eye view, quite literally, above the tree line and clear over both ends of the street. She checked her watch, then splashed her face in the basin, changed into a clean blouse and skittered down the four flights of stairs.

  When she was shown into Macready’s room, Briony’s first thought was that she’d walked through the wrong door. The man in the bed was wearing a cheap green pyjama shirt, opened to accommodate a neck brace and chest bandage, and he appeared older and thinner than Macready. Clearly the attack had taken its toll on him. One look at his face was enough to tell her the story of blood loss, pain and shock that he’d been through. Besides which, she realised, she’d never seen him before without his whole regalia of collars and waistcoats, cuffs, buttons and turn-ups. Now she was seeing what lived beneath the suit of armour, and it seemed all wrong that it should be exposed to view. The voice, mercifully, was unchanged.

  ‘Sit down, Williams. There’s a chair there somewhere, I believe. Perhaps you could move it a little further down that way.’ He pointed towards the foot of the bed. ‘So I can see you.’

  She followed instructions, taking in the disturbing array of drips, drug trays and hanging charts with which he was surrounded. ‘I’ve been told no more than fifteen minutes, sir, and the nursing staff here look every bit as snarly as any watchdogs from the Met.’ She drew breath. ‘You mentioned that you’re being interviewed by a CID team this afternoon, but Steve Latham and I had a talk last night and — ’

  ‘And you identified the points on which you urgently wished to interrogate me. Let me go through them.’ He paused, swallowing awkwardly and with obvious pain. Briony judged it best to avoid trying to prompt or otherwise help him along. ‘Skipping the details of time and circumstance, which will no doubt already have been gathered by the Hampstead police ... ’ Another swallow. ‘First, the assailant. Five foot eleven, slightly built, dressed in black. Hands — gloved, feet — black workmen’s boots without laces, probably elastic-sided. Be so good as to pass me that glass of water.’

  His hand was shaking and there was some awkwardness as he accepted that he had to let her help him drink by holding the glass steady while he sipped as best he could, unable to prevent runnels of water from escaping down his chin. When he’d finished, he made as if to push her away, then suddenly grabbed her hand.

  ‘You are still a young woman, Williams. You should leave this turmoil behind you, take your share of lightness and ease.’ He let her go and sank back against the pillows, still holding her with his eyes. ‘Why do you choose to spend your life in this way, facing death at every turn?’

 
; ‘I don’t know, sir.’ Briony’s mind had gone blank. This was not a side of Macready she’d ever encountered. She’d seen him angry, frustrated, exhausted, but never like this. ‘I really don’t know. Somehow it’s what I’ve felt I had to do, even before I knew anything about police work. And I’ve always thought — ’ She hesitated, knowing that she was venturing on a new level of frankness. ‘I’ve always thought you were like that, too.’ She smiled. ‘I can’t imagine you doing anything else, sir.’

  There was silence for a moment, and Macready closed his eyes. But just as Briony was thinking she should leave him, he spoke again. ‘You’re right, Williams. It’s our calling. We’re the ones called to know the darkness and find ways to fence it in, but when it suddenly breaks through our own defences and invades us, what then? I hope you never see the face I saw.’

  This was odd. What about the mask? Had he actually seen his assailant, or was he hallucinating? Macready was the last person to succumb to hallucination, but looking at him lying there with his eyes closed, she wondered.

  ‘We need the description, sir,’ she said gently. ‘Anything you can remember.’

  His voice switched back to professional mode. ‘It was a mask, made of some kind of rubber or latex, a sophisticated piece of work, replicating the features of Maxwell Tremlay with a high degree of accuracy.’

  No, this was not hallucination, but Briony was puzzled. ‘I thought you said you saw his face.’

  ‘The face I saw was Tremlay’s, with someone else’s eyes behind it. If I believed in demons, I would say that I had met one.’

  29

  On the way back through the tunnel they heard voices and had to turn off into the old catacombs under the hill. ‘This is where the vampires are supposed to sleep,’ said Zig. All the same, she didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to get out. Sharon guessed she was hoping to come across some more traces of Sol. Maybe he was actually living down here, but if he was Sharon didn’t care right now. She was getting spooked and starting to wonder if they’d ever find the way back up to the daylight.

  Then out of nowhere noise was exploding through the earth, a sort of screeching that seemed to come from every direction, echoing through the tunnels. They broke into a run and when they got round the next corner they realised the sound was coming from a particular direction, further along and to the left. A couple of minutes later they saw daylight streaming down a set of narrow broken steps that led almost vertically upwards. They fought their way out through a mess of creepers to find that the noise had moved further off again.

  ‘It’s just the acoustics,’ said Zig. ‘Let’s try that way.’

  As they waded through waist-high flowering creepers, the noise kept stopping and starting. Every time it kicked in again, Sharon felt a jolt pass right though her, and the moments of silence were filled with tension because the intervals were so irregular. You never knew when the next burst was coming.

  Eventually they came in view of a massive stone tomb with a lone black figure standing on the roof. Kaiser. He was playing off the feedback from the mike, blending the vocals into its explosive surges, the shape of his mouth altering behind the zipper teeth in the mask as he changed pitch.

  Feeling she didn’t need to stick with Zig any longer now, Sharon skirted the outer edges of the crowd, looking for an opening through which she could thread her way to the front, and caught sight of Flak, sitting astride a big branch that stretched over towards the roof of the tomb. Well if he could be up there, so could she.

  The boiler suit and sneakers she’d been given to wear were definite assets in this situation. She hauled herself up on a big wooden crate that was placed beside the tomb, threw her arms around the branch and jumped. She ended up swinging in mid-air and Flak took his time coming to the rescue, but once she was up there it was worth the effort. Bird’s-eye view.

  She could see a square opening in the roof of the tomb, from which billows of orange smoke were escaping. Another masked man rose amid the clouds. Mr Ex: the white letters stood out against the black leather on his forehead, and he used two wooden sticks to set up a heavy clattering beat on the drum slung round his neck. It was like a marching rhythm, except that it got slower and slower. A funeral march, maybe, carrying on steadily under Kaiser’s shrieks. Smoke kept pouring out, turning from orange to yellow, then green, then a vivid blue that thickened to purple as they started playing the opening of the Sudden Deff anthem.

  Garbage is falling out of the sky

  Better get outa here, don’t ask why

  There’s no tomorrow

  For Sodom and Gomorrah

  If ya turn around, you’re only gonna die

  The audience joined in the chorus:

  Ah ya don’t get nothing cos there’s nothing left

  But we know what yer asking for

  Sudden Deff — Sudden Deff

  The two final words became a chant, repeated over and over again while Kaiser remained silent on stage, his leather face turning this way and that as if scanning the faces below for someone to attack.

  Sharon spotted a hand signal between Kaiser and Mr Ex. Then, with the audience in a near frenzy, the music stopped dead. No power cut this time. Just silence through the crowd. Kaiser threw back his head and opened his mouth wide, but still no sound came. Instead, red liquid welled up from the hole in the mask and spilt over his jaw, pouring down his chest and onto the stone platform.

  Mr Ex had now disappeared. Concealed by the smoke, his exit left nothing but the black leather man covered in fake blood. The crowd continued to watch in silence as Kaiser descended again into the tomb, but when he’d gone there was an odd reaction. Those standing shoulder to shoulder at the front began swearing angrily and throwing bottles. Sharon saw Flak make a quick movement with his hand, but she couldn’t see who he was signalling to.

  ‘What about the sodding show?’ someone kept yelling. It was a bloke Sharon recognised from the cover of Yeller. He wore big white sunglasses and his hair was pulled up into three long spikes on his forehead, like a crown. Flak was working his way forward along the branch, till he was practically over the stage. Then, in what seemed to be a single movement, he jumped down, raised his arm in the air and a deafening crack rang out. He blew across the barrel of the gun he was holding, then let out a sudden laugh as a crow walloped down on some people in the crowd. That didn’t look as if it was planned. It certainly wasn’t mentioned in the run-through yesterday.

  He picked up a microphone. ‘All right then. Time to wrap up. Who wants to give us a hand?’

  Sharon wondered if this was when she was supposed to come out, but she hesitated.

  ‘Come on!’ Flak raised his voice to a shout. ‘Don’t just stand there. I want to know who’s up for a little bit of an experiment.’ He walked to the edge and bent over it, eyeballing the front line of his audience. ‘Scared to get your fingers burnt, are you?’

  The bloke who’d led the yelling a few minutes ago came forward, jumping onto one of the crates and from there to the stage. As he raised his arms in mock triumph, collecting the cheers of the audience, Sharon knew he was the plant. She hadn’t met him at the run-through but she’d been told about him.

  Beneath her she saw the roadies pulling the lids off the crates and throwing them aside to reveal the contents: chains in one, rags in the other. One of the men picked up an armful of the rags and tossed it high in the air, creating a giant arc of twisted bandages, which Flak caught at the other end. He began hauling in the knotted strip, hand over hand till it was all in a pile beside him. Then they passed the empty crate up to him and he placed it ready for action.

  When he looked up at her and yelled out her name, Sharon was ready. She edged along the branch, made the jump to the stage and stood there looking out over the sea of faces. It was a buzz. Flak had the crowd with him now because they knew something was going to happen, and the smartarse who’d come to take the challenge was the one they were sneering at. Flak walked around him.

  ‘I
t’s all right.’ He smacked him on the shoulder. ‘We’re going to get on like a house on fire, you and me. What’s yer name?’

  ‘Rollo!’ someone yelled out.

  ‘Don’t be nervous, Rollo.’ He brought the mike close to his mouth and looked out over the audience. ‘Here goes then. This is a demo of what we call the wick effect. First we have to make a human candle.’ He turned to Sharon. ‘Come on then — let’s get him wrapped up.’

  She’d found the end of the strip, like she’d been told, and started to wind it round Rollo’s legs, but he broke out into a frenzy of kicking that forced her to retreat. Flak dropped the mike and grabbed him from behind by the elbows, but Rollo pitched forward, throwing Flak over his head.

  Rollo scooped up the mike. ‘Two—nil,’ he said into it. ‘Which means it’s you gets to be the candle.’

  ‘Fine with me.’ Flak gave Sharon the nod and she started to wind again, from the ankles upwards. When she got to the hips, where she’d have to start binding his hands and arms in, Flak asked for a cigarette.

  ‘Just stick it in my mouth,’ he said. ‘And let him there have a go at the winding.’

  Rollo was obviously practised at the job and showed he was enjoying it, playing the clown with grimaces and pogo jumps as he went round, till from the neck down Flak looked like an Egyptian mummy. He was still smoking. Sharon took the fag out to let him exhale and stuck it back in.

  Instructions were that when the body was bound up to the neck, they had to get it into the crate and this was supposed to be done in a particular way. She looked over the side to check that the three men down there were ready, then she gave the signal. They threw a length of chain up over the branch and she caught the end and hauled it in. The two men below kept hold of the other end and moved around to the front, so the crowd could see what they were doing.

  Sharon saw Flak and Rollo look at each other. Flak gave a little sideways flick of his head. Obviously these two had a lot more worked out than she’d been privy to, so she got on with her own job. Flak had taught her how to put one hand in the way when the chains were being wound around the back, to create just a bit of give. And the main ridges had to be at the hips and shoulders, where the biggest bones were. Rollo wasn’t interfering with any of that because he was too busy sending the whole thing up and making a show of it, whirling the end of the chain round like a helicopter propeller and yelling out, ‘London’s burning, London’s burning,’ which prompted a chorus of, ‘Fire, fire! Fire, fire!’