The Calling

by Jane Goodall

  Soon the chorus took over, so all you could hear was a mass of rhythmic yelling. ‘Fire, fire! Fire, fire! Fire, fire!’

  Sharon tried to catch Flak’s eye. He didn’t respond, but as she was getting the padlock into position he took a deep breath, inflating his chest like he did in the practice session. So it must be still all right. Snapping the lock shut, she raised her hand and the roadies began to pull. People in the crowd got the idea, caught hold of the end of the chain and added their force. On the third heave Flak left the ground, swinging free about a foot above the roof of the tomb. On the next he was jerked up another three feet and his head would have hit the branch if he hadn’t ducked it just in time. Now all they had to do was get him down in the right place.

  Don’t move the box. That was the number one thing Flak had told her. No matter what, don’t move the box: if the body doesn’t swing level with it, you have to push it to the right place and guide it down. Flak was actually hanging a good two feet to the left of it right now, and it would be a job to get him over that far on her own. Rollo was drumming with his fists on the edge of the crate. She grabbed his arm, dragged him away from the crate and pointed upwards, and as the chain slackened to lower the body again, he gave it an almighty shove. The men on the ground, with perfect timing, let go. And Flak dropped right on target, into the crate.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Where’s my face?’

  Sharon reached into the crate, pulled out the floppy mask and struggled to get it over Flak’s head and correctly in place around the eyes and mouth. She stood back to check it and a corpse face stared back, its mouth working.

  Rollo bent in to the mike to address the crowd. ‘I think our friend’s trying to say something. What does he want, then?’

  ‘He wants another smoke,’ a voice yelled back. ‘Give him a light!’ Laughter.

  Sharon put a cigarette in the mouth and threw the box of matches across to Rollo, who approached one step at a time, lighting matches and tossing them in the air.

  ‘Here comes a candle to light you to bed,’ he chanted as he lit another match.

  What happened next hadn’t been covered in the practice session and Sharon wasn’t prepared. A fierce blaze of light came at her, followed by a wall of heat that nearly knocked her over. For a few seconds she was blinded, then everything was a grey blur with clots of luminous black swimming across it, and it was a couple of minutes before she could really make out the scene before her. The first thing she saw was the box, its edges still flaming, and inside it the square shape of the trapdoor, open to the darkness below. So the escape had worked.

  The crowd were stomping and chanting as Rollo started the countdown: five — four — three — two — one. And right on cue, Flak — bare-faced again — rose up through the trapdoor. He stretched out his arms draped with chains and burning rags, and was greeted by a chorus of yells and cheers. Holding one arm up to call for silence, he stepped aside from the remains of the wooden crate as new clouds of smoke came pouring up from below and slowly another bandaged mummy rose amid the orange clouds, complete with rubber demon mask.

  Flak ordered the other two off the stage, and Sharon watched from below as he struck a match and placed it in the demon’s open mouth. For a few long seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Then a spear of flame rose above the thing’s head, its face blackened and caved in, the smell of burnt rubber filled the air and with a violent roaring sound, the whole body exploded into flames.

  30

  Briony left the hospital feeling numb. It was a shock to see Macready like that and not just because of his physical condition. The trauma had got to him emotionally — she just wasn’t prepared for that. She walked fast, battling to get her thoughts reorganised. For the past five years, she realised, Macready had represented for her the epitome of mental clarity and personal control. Maybe there was a touch of hero-worship in there, but she wasn’t the only one in the Met who’d admit to that. And, unlike others who traded the stories about him, she’d seen him at work close up and seen all sides of him. She’d witnessed the bursts of temper, the capricious personal judgements, the plain doggedness of his round-the-clock work when a case bit hard. But one thing she’d never seen in him was fear. Anxiety yes, but fear never.

  Well, he was out of action — for quite a while, by the looks — so where did that leave the inquiry? If DCS Fletcher was taking over, he was no substitute for Macready. There was no substitute for Macready, full stop. No one else had his sixth sense of who to rely on for what, where to focus attention and where to take short cuts, how to drive right in to the heart of a case. What was the word he’d used just now? A calling. We’re the ones called to know the darkness and find ways to fence it in.

  Without thinking about where she was heading, Briony found she’d walked straight towards Lucan Place. All right — that was it. What was the point of pretending to be on holiday? The station was suspiciously quiet: there were only two cars in the parking lot, and a lone sergeant at the desk, talking on the phone. She waved, but when he saw her he looked flustered and covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

  ‘Inspector Williams! The DCS told me to look out for you. He wants a pow wow.’ He wagged a finger. ‘I think you might be in hot water. Coming back from your holidays like that. Scuse me, will you.’ He returned to his phone call and Briony walked on down the corridor towards Fletcher’s office, preparing a little speech in her head.

  ‘Sit down, Briony,’ he said. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to. About to send out the search party as a matter of fact. If you’re going to be in London, you’ll have to make your whereabouts known at all times. The ACC’s deputy has been on the phone this morning — DAC Chalmers — and his recommendation to me was to send you away again. I can see that, short of bundling you into a paddy wagon, we’re not going to achieve that objective.’ They exchanged brief, cold smiles. ‘But as far as your personal safety’s concerned, you’re going to have to co-operate with the Protection Unit — and to start with, they won’t let you stay in your flat.’

  ‘I’ve already sorted that out, sir. I’ve got a hotel room in Cadogan Square.’

  ‘The officers from the PU will assess it for security. Contact them right away, will you, and give them the details. Chalmers will be coming here later this afternoon to give a briefing. I suppose you’ll want to be in on that? Yes, I thought so. In here at four.’

  As Briony started opening the stack of mail that had come in during her absence, she was called back to Fletcher’s office, where Steve was already apparently in earnest conversation with the DAC. Chalmers had the bulldog look of an old style policeman, with an over-large head, thick neck and big shoulders. He sat forward in the plastic armchair holding a trilby hat between his meaty hands, and didn’t smile in response to her greeting.

  ‘You’d better have a seat,’ he said. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

  She perched on the edge of a chair and glanced at Steve, whose expression indicated that he knew what was coming.

  ‘I’ve just come from the hospital,’ Chalmers continued. ‘Commander Macready’s had a bit of a relapse. Breathing difficulties. They’ve had to put him back on the respirator.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Heart’s not coping too well.’ He stared into his hat. ‘He’s strong, Macready, and exceptionally fit for his age, which might have caused us to be a bit too optimistic about his recovery rate. Given what happened.’ He put a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, then looked meaningfully into the trilby. ‘As you probably know, he and I had a few discussions about the previous incident at his house, which we suspect is related. From a forensic point of view that’s certainly not an assumption we can make, but Macready himself is convinced there’s a connection.’

  The words came slowly and Briony was already fidgeting. Surely it wasn’t necessary to go back to square one like this? She suppressed the impulse to interrupt, as Fletcher took up the thread.

  ‘Which means w
e have to consider that the threat to you two is our primary concern. So we need to introduce a few additional precautionary measures.’

  Steve, who had never suppressed an urge to interrupt, cut in. ‘Of course, sir. But I hope we can avoid anything that might hamper our effectiveness in the investigation, since we’re the ones who know the background on this. And there is evidently a complex psychological dimension to the attacks. In fact, I have a suggestion to make.’

  She could see he had them listening and was half resentful, half relieved, as she watched him take over the agenda. He was proposing a second eyeball-to-eyeball with the Walker in Brixton, this time with Briony also present, ‘to see what the reaction is’. Steve had done some work as a consultant in Brixton and he was now spinning a whole mini-lecture about the relevance of behavioural analysis in a case like this.

  When the spiel was finished, Chalmers gave his hat a half-turn and put it on his head. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I daresay you two will be safe enough in Brixton for an hour or two. I’ll talk to the prison governor — see if he’s agreeable.’

  31

  Aidan made a wide circuit of the concert area, watching the crowd disperse, and taking photos of the mausoleum and its surrounds from different vantage points. But the light was fading and he wanted to keep some of the flashbulbs for the inside of the tomb. By the time the last people had gone, it was practically dark at ground level beneath the trees, though the sky still showed a luminous white. Crows wheeled across it, carking into the silence as he crouched over the dead one Flak had managed to shoot. The idea of bagging it and taking it back to leave in the wardrobe for collection made him laugh briefly. He photographed it and left it to lie there in peace till the socos got to it.

  Was he really alone now? In Highgate cemetery at dusk? He must be off his rocker, considering all those stories about the thing with red eyes that came looming up and stared at you with malicious intent.

  ‘Let’s get this over and done with,’ he muttered to himself as he headed towards the mausoleum. The door was left open and his torch showed nothing at first but an empty space with some rubbish scattered on the earthen floor. He put the torch down and attached the camera flash, which illuminated the walls, blackened from the smoke. They were lined with inscribed stone slabs. Eighteen years old. He rests with God — Aged thirty-two, beloved mother of Andrew, Mary and Louise — Taken by the angels after seven days in this world. What did the angels think about all these tribals messing about on their turf disturbing the peace?

  Aidan put his gloves on, then trained the torch beam at a heap of stuff on the floor and crouched to get a closer look. He bagged some fragments of the charred rags and scattered ash, some pieces of chain, and samples from a spilt bottle of blood capsules. They’d have to get the forensics in here, so it was important to keep disturbance to a minimum, but he scraped a sample of discoloured earth near the wall behind the door. Inspecting it in the palm of his glove, he saw that it was the colour of blood. No doubt the capsules were responsible, but it was best to be sure.

  At the back of the hut there were stone steps going down. Aidan felt a trickle of sweat breaking from his scalp as he planted his foot on the first of them. The torch beam revealed coffins stacked three deep in racks along the walls, old caskets that were musty and mouldy and caving in with rot. In one corner the upper rack had collapsed into the coffin underneath, bursting it open so the head and shoulders of a half-decomposed body hung out, the hollows of its eyes seeming to stare right at him. Aidan stared back for long enough to get a good photo, then moved further in, keeping the torch beam low. Sure enough, there were more stairs that led further down. That was the only way the performers could have got in and out. The idea of going down there now wasn’t in the least appealing and he had a weird feeling he wasn’t alone. Deciding this was definitely a job for the socos, he turned and stumbled back up, out into the night, and took deep gasps from the rising breeze.

  Once he’d found the right path he kept the torch beam steadily trained in front of him. If there was some ten-foot duppy around here with staring red eyes, it was going to be seriously ignored. He was watching for the landmarks he’d identified on the way in — the fallen branch to the right of the path, the three identical gravestones to the left, the burnt-out tree that looked as if it had been struck by lightning. As he threw his leg over the bike and the old motor choked noisily into action, Aidan knew for certain there had been somebody or something back there watching him.

  There was nothing he wanted more right now than to be in amongst the parade of glaring headlights on the main road. It was like plunging into an embrace of life and movement, joining a stream of people who knew who they were and where they were going. That was not a good situation back there. He’d seen conjuring acts before, but mainly with little tricks involving handkerchiefs and playing cards — nothing like that crazy exhibition. What was scarifying, though, was not the craziness, but the skill.

  By the time he got back to Chelsea it was past ten o’clock, but maybe still not too late to knock up Jimmy Chapman. And the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that was the best thing to do. He could phone the Doc from there and tell him to get the socos out to Highgate fast.

  Jimmy answered the door straightaway. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I had a feeling you might show up tonight.’ He led Aidan through the shop to a back room set up as an office, with a desk and filing cabinet. ‘Park yourself here while I get you something. You look as if you could do with a bit more than a cup of tea, but that’ll have to do you for the time being. I’m not much of a drinking man these days, so I don’t keep any on the premises. Had anything to eat? I could rustle you up a couple of sausages and some chips. How would that be?’

  ‘That would be dead righteous, Mr Chapman.’

  ‘Jimmy. Got some pictures for me?’

  Aidan put the camera on the table and fished the rolls of film out of his jacket. ‘How soon can you get em done?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Jimmy put the film in a storage cylinder and wrote on the label. ‘I’ll get that fry-up under way.’

  ‘Could I use your telephone?’

  ‘Course.’ Jimmy pulled the phone across the desk and handed him the receiver. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Kitchen’s just above.’ He pointed upwards. ‘Come and find me when you’re done.’

  Aidan knew that the Doc was in the habit of working late so he tried the office number first, but it rang out, so he tried him at home and got the same result. He went over to look at the photos on the wall opposite. They were family snapshots: Jimmy holding a baby; a toddler larking about on a plastic motorbike; Jimmy and his wife with the toddler and a spindly little girl on the seafront, their hair blown by the wind. Hunky dory, if that was the sort of life you wanted, but it wasn’t Aidan’s idea of his future.

  The family would be in bed, so he climbed the stairs as quietly as he could and knocked lightly on what must be the kitchen door. Jimmy opened it with a frying pan in one hand, then used the other to pull out a chair from the kitchen table.

  ‘Sit yourself down, Nick. You look like you been spending too much time on the seamy side, mate. How’s it going?’

  Aidan slumped onto his elbows, propping his head on one hand. ‘Can’t get on to Doc Latham.’

  ‘Well, it’s late for that, isn’t it?’ Jimmy used a fork to discipline a sausage that was spitting violently. ‘I can help you chase him up if it’s urgent. What’s getting your goat?’

  ‘I’m not being properly briefed, that’s what. Doc Latham’s giving me information on a drip feed and I don’t like that. It’s a lack of respect, know what I mean?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jimmy shot back, with an expressive tilt of the head. ‘That’s Steve for you. Thinks he knows best and likes to keep you tagging along behind. You heard about what happened to Macready?’

  ‘Sort of. It’s the background I need to know.’

  ‘All right. Let’s get the tea sorted first, shall we?’ Jimmy reached for the teapo
t from the dresser beside him and filled two mugs. ‘Sugar?’

  Aidan tipped three spoonfuls into the caramel coloured brew. He could never understand the appeal of tea, but if you sweetened it enough and drank it fast, it was better than nothing. The sausages, though, were good. He ate fast while Jimmy showed him the newspaper report about the attack on Macready. There wasn’t much to go on, from his own point of view. It wasn’t at all clear what, if anything, it had to do with the tribals and their ways of amusing themselves, but Jimmy finished up with a warning. ‘Better watch your step. Keep your eyes skinned and your doors locked.’

  Aidan pushed his empty plate aside. ‘As if we need any more paranoids in this malarkey.’ He slumped further in his chair, relaxing at last, and began to give an account of the day, using the recap to focus some of the details in his own mind. Jimmy’s questions were good — he knew what to home in on.

  ‘So this front man of theirs, Flak. He’s ex-vaudeville?’

  ‘That’s what I was told. DI Williams got some background on him from one of the club owners.’

  ‘I used to get taken to the music hall when I was a kid,’ Jimmy said. ‘They’d split your sides laughing one minute and scare you rigid the next. I can see how this fits, in a way. But the one who’s the singer sounds like he’s in a different show.’