“Why not?” Mrs. Greene is typically blunt.
“Because we were only formally established as a police force by order in privy council four weeks ago, and while we’ve sent out briefing packs to all the other forces, they’re still working their way through the system. Jim and I briefed as many ACPO chiefs as we could reach at their summit last week, but it takes time for new information to get from the head office down to the feet on the beat.”
Greene shares a brief whispered exchange with the woman on her left – a parliamentary private secretary, if my nose serves me right: an MP on the first rung of the ladder to ministerial rank, essentially a political gopher assigned to the HomeSec – then turns back to me. “Dr. O’Brien, I notice a pronounced defensiveness in your responses and a lack of proactive engagement with your primary objectives.” Her eyes narrow. “You’ve been up and running for eight weeks: What have you accomplished?”
Oh shit. I think on my feet: “Let me start from the top. I’ve assembled a core management team of experienced superpowers, able to provide an austere – basic – response in event of a notified incident while our operational team is in training. We were active in time to be on-site during the Euston robbery. We subsequently established transport and logistic capabilities that support deployment anywhere in the UK, and have already deployed operationally in response to a support call from Greater Manchester Police.” Please don’t ask how it went. “We have created an analysis department, which is, as I said, currently working up a database of all known superpowers in the UK of three-sigma or higher capability. We have established liaison protocols with ACPO and are in the process of bringing all the territorial forces up to speed. We have recruited – after enhanced CRB checks and interviews – a core superpower team suitable for deployment with backup and oversight from the management team once they are fully trained. We are undergoing intensive training in police procedures and operations, because it’s necessary for our superhero team to be sworn-in officers of the law – I should note that training for a probationary constable is normally two years, but we’re working with Hendon to get them through the essentials in less than six months. We’ve been working with a Home Office–approved PR organization to produce a range of public information materials in support of our core function of diverting potential vigilantes into working within a lawful framework —”
Mrs. Greene is rubbing her forehead. Am I giving her a headache? Oh dear.
“Dr. O’Brien,” she says, icily polite, “this is all very well, but it’s not helping to catch Freudstein. In case you hadn’t noticed, this country is facing a general election in nine months’ time. Freudstein is currently setting the paranormal policing agenda by default, and if your organization hasn’t caught him by then, it isn’t going to exist. You might not have been paying attention, but my Right Honorable opponent, the Shadow Home Secretary, is making hay with the superpower issue. He’s publicly saying that your Force is a boondoggle and that when he’s in my office he will start with a blank sheet review. And I should remind you that the only reason Freudstein’s escapades are not yet public knowledge is because Freudstein hasn’t publicized them and we have managed to keep the lid on everything except the British Library robbery due to the potential for public panic. But the blackout isn’t going to last forever, and your failure to apprehend Freudstein could become the sensational lead story across all media at any moment. If that happens, it will make this government look bad. I need a concrete achievement to point to within the next month. Get me one.” She raises a hand: “Without shooting up any more mosques.” Her tone is dry enough to parch the Sahara.
Her gaze slides away from me to look at Jim. “Chief Superintendent. What is the state of readiness of the TPC Force, in terms of the Police Service Readiness Criteria?”
Jim doesn’t miss a beat. “Working up, ma’am. That is to say, it’s simply not fully operational yet and won’t be for at least four months, as my director said. Our key bottleneck is that there is only one identified three-sigma-plus police officer in the country, and he’s already working for TPCF. Everyone else has to pass through basic training. TPCF is actually ahead of where I would expect a new organization to be at this early stage. Its lean staffing level and austere budget mean there’s no room for featherbedding, and it’s agile and responsive. Also, we’ve been able to import management with existing experience of dealing with extraordinary threats from the MoD. The downside of that stance is that it’s brittle – we’re reliant on highly skilled individuals rather than functioning as a resilient organization. Dr. O’Brien is addressing this, but as she noted, it will take time.”
Mrs. Greene nods. I keep a poker face as I realize that she’ll accept it coming from a man in a uniform, but not from a woman. She fixes Jim with the unblinking basilisk stare she learned from her idol, the Iron Lady. I seem to be beneath her notice. “Get me something. Anything newsworthy and positive will do at a pinch, but what I really want is Freudstein’s hide. I expect weekly updates in the meantime.”
We are dismissed: the pit bull releases its chew-toy and we limp away to nurse our wounds.
I’m going to fast-forward past the inevitable shockwaves that fan out from my collision with Mrs. Greene. If you’ve ever been carpeted by the Boss and found wanting, you know how it goes. Let’s just say that I spend the rest of the day (and early evening) in a council of war with the entire executive team – being me, Jim, Mhari, Ramona, and by special invitation, Dr. Armstrong himself – while we hammer out a highly unofficial hit list and a bunch of itemized deliverables that might meet the HomeSec’s political requirements rather than our official (and bewilderingly useless) terms of reference. There is no point in prioritizing doing your job when your organization faces being defunded in less than three months’ time if you don’t do something else: you do what’s necessary in order to ensure your organization survives, then you get back to work.
(This is how the iron law of bureaucracy installs itself at the heart of an institution. Most of the activities of any bureaucracy are devoted not to the organization’s ostensible goals, but to ensuring that the organization survives: because if they aren’t, the bureaucracy has a life expectancy measured in days before some idiot decision maker decides that if it’s no use to them they can make political hay by destroying it. It’s no consolation that some time later someone will realize that an organization was needed to carry out the original organization’s task, so a replacement is created: you still lost your job and the task went undone. The only sure way forward is to build an agency that looks to its own survival before it looks to its mission statement. Just another example of evolution in action.)
When we break up around seven, I un-mute my phone and check for messages. There’s a text from Bob: Mind if I drop round this evening? Need to collect some stuff. My heart bumps up against my breastbone. Sure, I text back. He sent it a couple of hours ago. I didn’t know he was even in town this week: last time I heard from him he was in Western Australia, visiting a very peculiar First Nations site in the outback.
I collect my instrument case and head home, bone-tired and somewhat depressed. When I get there, the hall light is shining through the window above the porch. As I didn’t leave it switched on, I assume that means Bob’s home. So I unlock the door, check the alarm (it’s switched off), and go inside. “Bob?” I call.
“Here.” The reply comes from upstairs.
I close the door and open the safe in the under-stairs cupboard and shove Lecter inside. But I do not lock it – not just yet. I head for the kitchen, where I smell something delicious in the convection oven and see the table is laid for two. A flash of gratitude is followed by a stab of resentment: then a moment of self-interrogation – why am I resentful of my husband for making assumptions about my desire to dine with him? I shake my head, then go to the cupboard and haul out the cafetière and the jar of decaf.
A few seconds later I hear Bob’s footsteps on the stairs. He gets as far as the kitchen doorw
ay, then stops. “Who died?” he asks, looking me up and down.
“My career, if I’m not lucky.” I pour hot water over the coffee grounds. “We were ambushed by the Home Secretary this afternoon. Be a dear and keep an eye on this while I change?”
“Sure.” He takes over while I head upstairs and replace my suit in its carrier and pull on jeans and a tee shirt. Wearing office formal at home is too much like surrendering to the job. And it was making Bob uncomfortable – he’s in his usual, which this decade is combat pants and casual shirt.
I find him downstairs in the kitchen, stabbing a roast chicken to death with a meat thermometer. “You could have mentioned you had dinner plans,” I chide.
“Sorry, I didn’t think you —” Double take. “You have alternatives?”
“Yes.” I sit down. “Ramona and Mhari ganged up on me, so I’m taking three nights a week off. Going to the opera, eating out with co-workers, anything at all really: just as long as it stops me burning the candle at both ends every day.”
“Oh, well: that sounds like a good idea.” He nods ruefully. “Next time I’ll check in advance.”
“Sorry, I should have warned you.” Apologies are the keystone of an enduring relationship. Failing to apologize for mistakes, or getting onto a treadmill of belittling insults, is a bad warning sign. So far we’ve avoided it, but… “I thought you were in Australia this week?”
“That was last week.” (I rummage in the wine rack while he talks.) “You wouldn’t believe how many sites Angleton worked at during his career. Even if he only left behind one a year that needs checking out, if it takes me an average of a week to handle each of them, I’ll be running around with my tail on fire for the next eighteen months. Week before last, it was the sealed collection of a library in Cardiff that held the foul papers of a guy who wrote mathematical puzzle books in the sixties – it’s got all the stuff Angleton made him leave out of the published editions. He was an ex–Bletchley Park analyst, nothing to do with our mob, but it had to be inspected. Angleton didn’t confiscate his notes – he just put the frighteners on him and told him not to do it again. So now I have to check them out, and either confiscate them and fend off the angry librarians or write a memo explaining why potentially hazardous papers are lying around in a library we don’t control… And last week I had to go check the cleanup on an Aboriginal site in Western Australia, two hundred miles east of Perth, south of the big mining complex. Angleton got all over the map.”
I plant a bottle of sauvignon blanc on the table. It’s from a New Zealand vineyard – extravagant, but I’ve got my husband back for the evening so what the hell. I attack the screw cap and pour two glasses. “How long are you in town for?” I ask.
“I’ve got three days, mostly for filing reports and catch-up meetings. Then they’re sending me to Leeds for a week to poke around a proposed new headquarters site for buried hazards.” He shudders. “That’s why I’m raiding my side of the wardrobe. What are we going to do?”
“Eat,” I say. It comes out sounding like either a promise or a threat or something. To tell the truth I have no idea what we’re going to do, or even if we’re still a we.
Bob dishes up slices of roast chicken breast and drumstick, roast potatoes, carrots, and swede on the side. For all that it comes in supermarket pre-packs, it’s welcome. We eat in companionable silence for a while.
“You’ve got a lot of travel going on,” I say eventually, “but when things quieten down… do you want to see if we can make things work again?”
Bob chews mechanically, eyes staring right through me. Man-boy, thoughtful. He swallows. “I don’t know if that’s even possible anymore.”
“Go look under the stairs.”
Suddenly he looks round. “Where’s your violin?”
“Go look under the stairs.”
He stands and walks through into the hall. A minute later he comes back and sits down again, then takes a mouthful of wine. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes.” I nerve myself for the next step. “It’s warded, Bob. The violin lives there… for the time being.”
He puts his glass down. “You’re trying to give it up?” He sounds appalled and hopeful all at the same time.
The words come in a rush: “It’s too strong for me, Bob! It’s getting more powerful all the time, and I’m getting older, and there’s going to come a time when I can’t control it anymore. Michael – the SA – says I’m now the second-longest carrier it’s ever had. We’re looking for someone new, someone it can’t Renfield. But if we can’t find someone to replace me, it’s going to have to go back in the inactive inventory.”
He stares at me, clearly surprised. “What changed, love?”
“You did. I did.” I grab my glass and take a gulp of wine and then set it down hastily because my hands are shaking. “If you can, can do something, I’ll meet you halfway.” I don’t know if it’s a promise or a plea, but either way I mean it.
He takes a deep breath. “I can’t give up the Eater of Souls, Mo. Not, don’t want to – I mean, I can’t.”
“Can you make it safe?” I ask. “I mean, safe enough to be around me without, without…”
He stands and walks around the table: I stand, lean against him, let him hug me. “I really need to talk to someone about applied containment theory,” he says. “When I get time.” Which would be a diplomatic way of saying no.
“You’re very busy,” I tell him, trying not to sound as broken as I feel.
“I’m sorry,” he says. Letting go of me he repeats: “When I get time.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world.” I sniff, determined not to get teary.
“I don’t think so.” He looks at me, anxious and needy. We make a dismal pairing: barely treading water on our own, so weighed down by our personalized curses that we’re each looking to the other as a life raft. “It’s been well over a month already. Please don’t let this become the new normal, Mo. Please?”
But all I can do is mutely shake my head. It’s not up to me anymore. I’ve given up a lot to be here: if Bob can’t meet me halfway, I don’t see what possible future we’ve got.
On Friday morning I go to my weekly with Dr. Armstrong. I tell him about last Saturday’s dream, and my subsequent dealings with my instrument.
“That’s a rather worrying development,” he says after I wind down.
“The violin intruding in my dreams? Do you think it’s time for me to —”
“No, you’re still perfectly able to control him if you set your mind to it. I meant the location.”
“What? The ruined city?”
“The King in Yellow.” The SA closes his eyes for a few seconds. “I haven’t heard that name in a while. It’s disturbing.”
“What is it?” I did some digging, of course: there’s a thick file on it in the Stacks, but I didn’t have time to trudge round to Dansey House and sign myself in for an afternoon of reading dusty archives: I’m too busy fighting administrative fires. I told the analysts to follow it up for me, along with all the other manuscripts Freudstein stole, and it’s somewhere in their work queue.
The SA opens his eyes. “Carcosa is one of the legendary lost cities. Or rather, a legendary lost Neolithic civilization, nearly pre-agricultural, drowned like Doggerland and the great cities of the Nile delta and the Arabian Gulf when the sea levels rose after the last ice age. They had elaborate court rituals centered around the worship of the King in Yellow. Subsequently the foundational material for some not inconsiderable occultist foofaraw in the late nineteenth century. It’s a rite of binding, Dominique. Not unlike the ritual that certain meddling fools – who should have known better – tried to use to bind the Eater of Souls a couple of years ago.” His unblinking stare makes me feel very small. “They wrote an opera around one of the invocations. One of the solos – I do not know which; it’s too dangerous to read the score – installs a very small execution loop in the auditory cortex of anyone who hears it. If warded, one is s
afe, but if not, well, the first invocation anyone feeds you starts executing on your brain. Not nice. Carcosa is lost, and it is widely believed that it is lost because the King in Yellow bound his subjects in that manner, and unintentionally carried them all to a hell of his own conception or fed them to a god of his own devising or some such.”
“That particular manuscript was part of the British Library heist.” I don’t like where this train of thought is going.
The SA turns his lizard-heavy gaze on me for a moment. “Do you suppose it was Freudstein’s real target?”
“It would make sense.” Played on a non-occult instrument the loop would just be an earworm: a short melody, very hard to dislodge from one’s head. But played on a device able to perform polydimensional chromatic transforms, it’d leave the audience vulnerable to demonic possession by the first trivial feeder to come along. “But they’d need something like my instrument to, to install the loop.”
“Yes.” Dr. Armstrong is thoughtful. “There are certain disturbing rumors about the reason Dr. Mabuse commissioned the white violins – rumors along those lines.”
“Mabuse?” He was a man of whom many stories are told, none of them good. “But surely he didn’t actually stage a performance of The King in Yellow?”
“I don’t believe he had the opportunity to do so. Then all known copies of the score were destroyed during the war, or collected by institutions that were, shall we say, uninterested in sponsoring a performance.”
“It’d be grossly irresponsible to play it without working a protective ward into the refrain —”
My phone rings. Before I entered his office I set it to do-not-disturb: only a very short list of people can get through.
“’Scuse me,” I say.
The SA swallows whatever he was going to say. “Certainly,” he says, slightly stiffly, as I pull the smartphone out.
The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files) Page 33