The Hanging Tree

by Ben Aaronovitch

  I was less than two metres from the struggle when something hit me in the back and knocked me forward on my face. There was a sudden smell of candle wax and hyacinth and a rope of crimson smoke shot overhead and smacked Crew Cut in the face. As he reeled backwards, the smoke fluttered like silk in the wind before slapping Lesley in the chest hard enough to knock her backwards over a counter top. I winced as I heard glass break under her back and saw fashionably black spy gear scatter behind her.

  Despite the blow Crew Cut hadn’t let go of Reynard and he quickly regained his balance, tightened his grip on the young man and started dragging him away.

  I tried to scramble to my feet, but another blow on my back put me down. A second crimson rope rippled overhead like a vintage special effect from the 1980’s.

  ‘Is Nightingale doing that?’ yelled Lesley from somewhere to my right.

  Hyacinth and candle-wax? I thought, not likely.

  Nightingale should have arrived by now, though, and I suspected the delay was something to do with whoever was flinging ropes of magic smoke around. Still, I doubted he was going to be long.

  ‘Stay down,’ I shouted.

  ‘You first,’ she shouted back.

  I rolled left through a gap in the Vodafone counter to see if I could avoid another smackdown and found myself face to face with a very well dressed but terrified Asian guy. I motioned frantically for him to stay down and he nodded.

  The counter I was behind had a transparent top which gave me a chance to see out without getting my damn fool head blown off. The rope of crimson smoke had wrapped itself around Reynard’s neck and was dragging him back-up the aisle despite Crew Cut’s best efforts to pull him the other way. Even as I looked back to see if I could spot where the rope was coming from, a pulse of light raced up its length in a blaze of petrol bomb yellow, vaporising the crimson smoke as it went. It roared past me and then, as it reached Crew Cut and the struggling Reynard, the pulse slowed and dissipated the last of the smoke with a gentle pop, leaving the pair temporarily frozen – and staring in amazement.

  Now, that was Nightingale.

  Reynard recovered first, and with a snarl buried his teeth in Crew Cut’s neck. The man screamed and beat at Reynard’s head with his fists. Lesley hadn’t emerged from hiding yet. And she was still my priority, so stalemate suited me. Every second of status quo meant more members of the public evacuated, a tighter containment perimeter, and more chance that Nightingale was going to arrive to back me up. And if Reynard got a bit of a smacking in the meantime, I could live with that.

  Unfortunately, this plan went to shit when Crew Cut fumbled inside his jacket, pulled out a compact semiautomatic pistol and bashed Reynard on the head with it.

  From a policing point of view, guns are a pain. Once someone is known to be tooled up, your operational priorities are suddenly fucked up. It all becomes about managing whoever was stupid enough to pull a gun in central London and your number one priority is public safety, followed closely by officer safety and then, not so closely, by the safety of the moron with the gun. Any other operational considerations, such as arresting former colleagues, don’t enter into it.

  ‘Gun!’ I shouted as loud as I could.

  Crew Cut whirled to point his gun in my direction in a professional, albeit one handed, firing stance. I crouched down and threw up my shield – but he didn’t fire. While he was aiming at me, Lesley launched herself out of her hiding place at him.

  He was fast. Before Lesley was half-way to him he’d turned and fired – a flat loud popping sound – and then again and again. There was ripple in the air in front of Lesley’s chest and something small and fast whistled over my head.

  He didn’t get in a fourth shot because Lesley swung at his wrist with what I recognised as a police issue extendable baton. There was a crack and the pistol fell out of his hand. He gasped at the pain and Lesley followed up with a sharp blow to the head then a third to his face – another crunch and a spray of blood from his mouth.

  I used impello to flick the gun as far up the room as I could, and then I jumped up and yelled, ‘Armed police, stop fighting and drop your weapons.’

  All three of them stopped and turned to look at me – and for a moment I thought they might actually comply, if only out of sheer incredulity. But then Reynard gave Crew Cut a swift knee in the bollocks, wriggled free and legged it.

  Traditionally, the weapon of choice for a classically trained wizard is the fireball – I’m not kidding. And in some respects, from a policing point of view, it’s not a bad weapon. Being by definition a soft and low velocity projectile, you can loose them off in the knowledge that it’s not going to blast through your target, the wall behind them and the bus queue of blameless OAPs behind that. However, this means that – unless you’re Nightingale – the bloody things can be stopped by modern ballistic armour, my metvest and, in some cases, a thick woolly jumper. At the same time, they remain potentially lethal, which means you’ve got to be careful who you lob them at.

  So I water bombed Lesley instead.

  It’s a harder spell, third order, based on two formae – aqua, impello – and a couple of extras we call adjectivium which modify the way other formae work. The result generates a ball of water the size of a party balloon which, when properly applied to a suspect’s face, often causes them to cease and desist in their activities – whatever these might be. Fireballs are much simpler and easier to cast under pressure, but I’d been practising the water spell by playing dodgeball with one of Beverley’s younger sisters and, trust me, if you do that with a hyperactive nine year old river goddess then you pick up the skills fast.

  Nightingale says that one of the prefects at his old school claimed there was a variation that created a ball of gin, but try as they might nobody ever found the spell or worked out how to recreate it.

  ‘And, as you can imagine,’ Nightingale told me, ‘a great deal of effort was expended in that direction by the sixth form.’

  Water was fine for my purposes, and I’m sure Lesley appreciated the elegance of my approach when it smacked her in the face. She went down swearing and I ran forward, flicking out my baton as I closed the distance.

  I didn’t make it because, when I was almost there, Lesley threw Crew Cut at me. It was impello, of course, but that didn’t make 140 kilos of bad suit any less painful when it sails through the air and hits you in the chest – especially when you also have a duty of care and have to catch the bastard. So, while I was putting Crew Cut in the recovery position, Lesley went haring after Reynard.

  Not far away I heard shouting and the sound of things breaking and, because I’m police, that’s the direction I ran in.

  Guleed met me in the next room, running in with David Carey and a bunch of uniforms. He peeled off to deal with a member of the public who’d obviously been knocked down.

  Guleed pointed to a ramp.

  ‘That way,’ she shouted.

  ‘Unconscious suspect on the floor back there,’ I said to one of the uniforms. ‘White male, cheap suit. Non-life-threatening injuries. Had a firearm but now disarmed, check for other weapons, hold him for assault and check welfare.’ I told him he needed to find and secure the firearm so an AFO could bag it. He nodded and sensibly grabbed a mate before heading back the way I’d come.

  Me and Guleed advanced cautiously up the ramp – there was a short corridor at the top with entrances to the public toilets.

  ‘They didn’t stop,’ said Guleed.

  ‘Where’s Nightingale?’ I asked.

  ‘Back at the café,’ she said. ‘Dealing with something Falcon.’

  Presumably whoever had been throwing the crimson smoke around.

  We navigated the corridor and looked out onto a long, wide room filled with flat screen televisions lined up like the suspiciously convenient cover in a third person shooter. It was empty of staff and customers and Guleed said that Stephanopoulos had moved her troops in from the other side as soon it all went pear-shaped.

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sp; ‘We should have a security perimeter,’ said Guleed, which meant that Reynard and Lesley were somewhere in there amongst the Panasonics and Toshibas.

  ‘Was that really Lesley?’ asked Guleed.

  ‘Large as life,’ I said. ‘And twice as beautiful.’

  ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘You grab Reynard,’ I said. ‘I’ll grab Lesley and then we can ask her.’

  Which is what we in the business call an operational plan.

  ‘Okay,’ said Guleed. ‘Slow and quiet, or fast and loud?’

  ‘Loud,’ I said.

  So we marched out amongst the televisions bold as brass, although both of us had our batons resting on our shoulders and left arms extended in the recommended manner. Around us the big LCDs showed Jeremy Kyle getting self-righteous with Sharon and Darren, although a couple near the end of a row were showing Alpha and Omega 2. I couldn’t tell which was worse.

  ‘Lesley,’ I shouted. ‘You know how this works, you know you’ve lost your opportunity to escape, so you might as well put the fox down and show yourself.’

  Guleed snorted quietly.

  ‘Come on, Lesley – do us a favour.’

  A couple of uniforms appeared in the archway opposite, but Guleed signalled them to stay put. Others took up positions at the remaining exits. Near the centre of the room where the aisles from one exit to another formed a crossroad was an old fashioned jukebox, which I noticed wasn’t turned on. As we approached the centre, me and Guleed let the distance between us widen. I swear I could almost hear Lesley breathing.

  In the corner to my left I noticed that one of the TVs was off. So was its power indicator and that of the Bluray player below it.

  ‘Hey, Peter,’ called Lesley from behind the TV. ‘Heads up.’

  Something small, flat and metallic flew through the air to land where I’d have been standing if I hadn’t immediately jumped backwards. It was an iPhone, and from its screen came a little wisp of blue flame. I opened my mouth to shout ‘Get back!’ But of course by then it was too late.

  The phone exploded in a most peculiar way.

  I actually saw the pressure wave, a hemisphere of distorted air that expanded out in a lazy, unstoppable fashion. And, as it did, everything with a microprocessor blew out. And then the wave reached me and knocked me on my back.

  There was a sensation like static electricity and the smell of ozone and the taste of lemons.

  Fuck me, I thought, she’s weaponised her iPhone.

  And then the lights went out.

  5

  Mother’s Little Helper

  When we briefed Seawoll later all he said was ‘That could have gone better.’ Which, as portents of disaster go, is pretty fucking portentous.

  The blast didn’t knock me out. I’ve been unconscious before and this was different. It did knock out every light in a thirty metre radius, plus the CCTV and everyone’s Airwave. Not to mention a couple of million quids’ worth of top of the line consumer electronics.

  Seriously, I thought, we couldn’t have met in a Greggs? I really hoped that Harrods’ insurance covered them for Acts of Lesley.

  What CCTV we had left showed Reynard making his escape down the central stairwell and out through the Food Hall. There was no sign of Lesley and, although Stephanopoulos shut down the store for a thorough search, nobody had any doubt that she was long gone. How was another question.

  Crew Cut had escaped as well, but we did recover his pistol which turned out to be a suspiciously clean Glock 17 with the serial numbers erased and no matches in our or Interpol’s databases. Seawoll thought it stank of spook, but nobody was in a hurry to get CTC involved – we figured they’d be along soon enough.

  It wasn’t a total loss, because back at what was left of the Montreux Jazz Café Nightingale had a strangely familiar suspect in custody.

  ‘Did you use the proper caution?’ I asked.

  ‘I believe so,’ said Nightingale.

  Lesley May’s name hung between us but we had other things to deal with first.

  Even though she was sitting down on a plastic chair salvaged from the café, the suspect was still obviously very tall – taller than me, in fact. She was dressed in an expensive black wool suit jacket – a Stella McCartney, we learned when Guleed surreptitiously checked the label later – a white male dress shirt and pre-faded skinny jeans. She’d dropped her chin down to her chest as I approached and let her long straight weave fall over her face but it was too late – I’d recognised her.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Obviously the cleaning gigs are paying well.’

  Guleed asked if I knew her.

  One thing you acquire as police is a good memory for names and faces, not only because of the long parade of villains you encounter but also because most of them are repeat offenders. It’s considered bad form not to know someone’s name when you’re arresting them for the fourth time. I’d met this one while raiding a County Gard office near Liverpool Street the year before. Just before I was distracted by the whole being on the roof of a tower block when it was demolished thing.

  ‘She gave her name as Awa Shambir,’ I said.

  ‘I seriously doubt that,’ said Guleed and then spoke to the woman in a language I assumed was Somali or a dialect thereof.

  The woman kept her face down but I could tell she was smiling.

  ‘You couldn’t repeat that, but a smidge slower,’ she said. ‘I’m a little rusty.’

  ‘Not Somali,’ said Guleed. ‘Ethiopian maybe.’

  Pure Home Counties, I thought, with a side order of posh school. Not the accent she’d used to talk to me when we last met.

  ‘What’s your real name?’ I asked, but the woman kept her head down and refused to speak. Nightingale and I left her with Guleed and retreated into the café for a quick bit of post incident assessment.

  ‘There are undoubtedly going to be consequences,’ he said. Which was Nightingale for: Look out, here comes the shit avalanche. ‘We need to make good use of our available time.’

  We decided that I would stay with our mysterious not-Somali and bang her up in one of the special cells back at Belgravia.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Nightingale. ‘I didn’t recognise the formae per se, but her technique was very clean – I’d say she’s been training for a long time.’

  I asked how long.

  ‘Difficult to say,’ he said. ‘But since she was a child for certain. Stay behind her and keep your hand on the cuffs.’ During the war, the Folly had developed techniques for dealing with captured practitioners – Nightingale had dusted off an old manual, I kid you not, complete with cheap khaki cardboard covers and line drawings. Basically it amounted to keep an eye on them and don’t let them get anything started.

  ‘I don’t think she’s going to be very co-operative,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t get that well trained without a master,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s keep her under lock and key and see who comes to fetch her.’

  So while Nightingale and Stephanopoulos stayed to face the music, me and Guleed took our prisoner and legged it back to Belgravia to see whether a Sith lord turned up to bail her out.

  The custody sergeant gave us a strange look when we booked her in.

  ‘How many more of these posh young ladies are you planning to bring in?’ she asked. ‘Or are we going to have start sending out to Fortnum and Masons for refs?’

  ‘This one has to go in a Falcon cell,’ I said, which wiped the smile off her face.

  The same wartime manual with the prisoner management rules also contained instructions for creating cells for magical POWs. Nightingale decided that it would be an interesting way to combine training and necessity if we were to enchant the ‘wards’ together. These proved to be strips of iron inlaid with a crude copper filigree in loops and whirls. You enchant them as you beat them into shape – it’s very therapeutic and good for your upper body strength. We selected two cells in Belgravia’s custody suite and fused the strips across the front of
the doors and then painted them over with institutional blue paint. Nightingale did the fusing and I did the painting.

  I then spent a fun afternoon locked in one of the cells trying to magic my way out – followed by an unpleasant evening when I realised that I’d been abandoned by Nightingale, who’d put the fix in with the custody sergeant. I had just resigned myself to a night in the cells and was wondering what time refs were up when Guleed took pity on me and let me out.

  When the custody sergeant asked for a name I expected our suspect to refuse but to my surprise she gave the sergeant a cheerful smile and said – ‘Lady Caroline Elizabeth Louise Linden-Limmer’. She turned that smile on me and Guleed. ‘Mum’s a viscountess.’

  ‘Very nice,’ said the custody sergeant. ‘And mine’s a Jaffa Cake.’

  Thirty seconds looking for Caroline’s mother on Google led to the Lady Helena Louise Linden-Limmer, or rather to a famous picture of her wearing nothing but a leopard skin fur coat taken by David Bailey in 1964. After that in the listing came her autobiography, Growing up Wild: A Childhood in Africa, and a scanned article from the Observer Colour Supplement circa 1988 about her menagerie – as she called it – of adopted and fostered kids. There had been six at that point. All girls. I looked at the photographs. Two were black, one was brown, one was possibly Chinese or South East Asian. Of the white girls one had cerebral palsy and other had been a victim of thalidomide. According to the article, Lady Linden-Limmer had run a health clinic in Goa and then in Calcutta, and had worked with people suffering from leprosy.

  You can’t just return home and stop caring, she told the interviewer.

  One of the black girls in the photographs was about four, wearing a grubby blue smock and a sly expression that was an echo of the woman we had in the cells – Caroline, I presumed.

  I attached the article to Caroline’s HOLMES nominal and was about to request an IIP on her mother when Guleed kicked me under the desk and jerked her head in the direction of the door. Just coming in was a tall white DI from the Department of Professional Standards called William Pollock – SIO for Operation Carthorse, the hunt for Lesley May. He saw me, made sure he’d caught my eye and beckoned me over. I gave Guleed a cheery wave and off I went. Guleed, who knew she was going to be next, sighed and turned back to her work.