The Clown Service

by Guy Adams

  When I had finished talking, I made my way over to the filing cabinets and began to search for old files that might be pertinent to Krishnin.

  ‘Oh August,’ April said, ‘you finally get a nice young man to help you with the creepy stuff and then you go and get yourself kidnapped or killed.’

  ‘Not killed,’ I said, ‘at least not yet. Krishnin will want to know how much we know; that’s the only reason he could have for kidnapping August. Standard protocol – take an officer, interrogate them, ascertain how far your operation is compromised.’

  ‘“Interrogate them”,’ repeated Tamar. ‘That not good, not in this work. He will be hurting August.’

  ‘My brother is made of stronger stuff than people give him credit for,’ said April, ‘and we won’t help him by sitting here fretting. Eyes forward, my petal. Let us concentrate on the mission in hand.’

  ‘There’s nothing here older than a couple of years,’ I said, slamming the filing cabinet shut.

  ‘Of course not,’ said April. ‘Section 37 hasn’t been sat on its bottom for the last fifty years you know. August’s old case files are safely hidden away. You leave that part to me. Whatever reports he filed I can dig out.’

  Something occurred to me. ‘From what he told me, the night that he and O’Dale visited the warehouse they found a sample of some form of chemical. I don’t suppose O’Dale …’

  ‘Long dead, darling. Drank himself to death at the arse-end of the ’70s. If they did bring any evidence out though, I’m sure I can find it. A report on its contents anyway.’

  ‘An original sample would be too much to hope for after all this time, I suppose, though I feel we’d have a much greater chance of analysing it now than they did back then.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find, but yes, I can’t imagine there’ll be anything but paper for us to work on.’

  ‘What should I do?’ asked Tamar.

  ‘No idea at the moment,’ I admitted. ‘We just need to get every bit of information together that we can.’

  ‘I could go to warehouse and try to find him. Krishnin must have been seen.’

  ‘You’d think so, yes, though he vanished into thin air, so I wouldn’t bank on it.’ I kicked the filing cabinet in frustration. ‘That’s the bloody problem! I’m not prepared to deal with this kind of thing. It’s all nonsense to me. He could have been snatched by leprechauns for all I know.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling, the leprechauns keep themselves to themselves since the ceasefire in Northern Ireland.’

  I stared at her and she fluttered her eyelashes in a manner that she no doubt thought of as coquettish but just struck me as smug.

  ‘You’re as bad as he is,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean, this is not a situation I’m trained to handle. I don’t know the rules, the possibilities … it’s all above my head.’

  ‘Rubbish, you’re an intelligence officer. Now use some. For what it’s worth though, I think you’re right to keep his disappearance a secret. We’re on our own – Section 37 always is.’

  As if to reinforce her point, the office phone started ringing and it took me a moment to realise that I was the only one who should answer it.

  ‘I don’t even know how he answers the bloody phone!’ I exclaimed.

  April sighed and took over. ‘Dark Spectre,’ she said, ‘publishers of the weird and wonderful.’

  Our cover was a publishing house?

  She listened for a moment. ‘That’s quite all right. Our senior editor is out of the office at the moment, but I’m fully capable of handling your enquiry.’

  She listened a little more then rifled around the desk for a pen and a piece of paper. ‘Yes,’ she said, while taking notes, ‘fine. I’ll send one of our men right over. His name’s Howard Phillips. He’ll introduce himself.’ She put the phone down.

  ‘Who the hell’s Howard Phillips?’ I asked.

  ‘You are, dear, at least for today. That was one of August’s contacts at the Met. It appears they’ve found a dead body that fits his brief rather more than theirs.’

  ‘I haven’t the time to be chasing other things,’ I insisted. ‘We have to focus on the operation in hand.’

  ‘Up to you, of course, but she’s expecting you outside St Mathew’s in Aldgate.’

  ‘St Mathew’s?’ I remembered the bizarre message from the newspaper seller. ‘Fine, I’ll go.’

  SUPPLEMENTARY FILE: UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

  ‘Shining? Wake up. I know you can hear me.’

  ‘I can hear you.’

  ‘We must talk.’

  ‘I suppose we must.’

  ‘You got old.’

  ‘Yes. You didn’t. Which is fascinating. Perhaps not quite as fascinating as the fact that you shouldn’t even be here, but fascinating nonetheless.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here?’

  ‘No. Of course you shouldn’t. You should be dead.’

  ‘How can you be so sure I’m not?’

  ‘The fact I’m talking to you?’

  ‘We know better in our business: things are not always as they should be.’

  ‘No. That’s true. Still, this would be my first conversation with a dead man.’

  ‘Really? I used to interrogate them all the time.’

  ‘Echoes. Shades. A walking, talking dead man? That’s new to me.’

  ‘Perhaps you were mistaken then. Would that make you more comfortable? Perhaps I’m not dead at all.’

  ‘No. No, sorry that won’t do. I know you died. You’ll forgive me if it’s tactless to bring it up. I know you died. I was the one who killed you.’

  ‘I’ve forgiven you.’

  ‘Then maybe you’ll untie me? My old bones aren’t what they once were.’

  ‘I think not. Forgiveness will only stretch so far.’

  ‘A drink of water then?’

  ‘Perhaps. Later. I must admit I wondered if you’d still be alive yourself. You’re very old.’

  ‘Very. We Shinings were built to last. Extraordinarily resilient.’

  ‘Time will tell.’

  ‘A threat?’

  ‘I would take no pleasure in torturing an old man to death.’

  ‘Even the old man who killed you?’

  ‘Even him. But we must talk.’

  ‘And what is it you would like to talk about? Cabbages and kings?’

  ‘I would like to know what you know. I think that would be helpful. I think that would be sensible.’

  ‘How long have you got? It’s been a long old life – as you kindly point out. I know a lot of things …’

  ‘But what have you told others? You always did surround yourself with agents and freaks. But how important are they? Who in power might listen to them? My sources tell me that you are operating on your own. And now I have you. Perhaps that will be enough? When the entirety of Section 37 is tied to a chair and totally vulnerable, even the most cautious man would have to admit its potential threat is diminished.’

  ‘They would.’

  ‘And yet you smile. You are alone, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m sure your sources were quite thorough. Section 37’s been a one-man band for years.’

  ‘Yes. The world moved on, didn’t it? My own work seems to have been ignored. The department disbanded.’

  ‘These are impoverished times. Your country is no longer what it once was.’

  ‘We shall see about that. It has always struggled to thrive under unimaginative leadership.’

  ‘Since the glorious days of Stalin?’

  ‘You mock, but at least he had vision. That said, no, I had no love for the old dictator. My father died under his regime. Stalin was a maniac. But perhaps that is also what they say of me?’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘I am … determined. I am an aggressor. I want to attack, to grind this country beneath my heel. I want power. I want control. I want … death. Yes, perhaps I am a maniac after all.’

  ‘Perhaps you are. And is that really how you want t
o be remembered?’

  ‘Remembered? I don’t know if that’s important to me. I resented the fact that my government turned against me, but I think that was more frustration than a feeling of injustice. They weren’t willing to do something that could so easily be done. And will be done. Soon.’

  ‘Ah yes – the countdown. Wonderfully theatrical. I take it I triggered that by entering the warehouse?’

  ‘A basic safeguard, in case you were more of a threat than you appear. So, I say again, what do you know?’

  ‘Ah … But here’s the problem. As you say, we’ve both been playing this game for a long time. If I give you the information you want, I become dispensable. Not what I’d want at all.’

  ‘But maybe I’ll kill you anyway?’

  ‘Maybe you will. Either way I seem to be staring death in the face. Any advice on how I deal with it? You being a man with experience.’

  ‘Yes, I know all about death, August. I know how to receive it and how to give it.’

  ‘I wonder which side of that equation you’ll end up today.’

  ‘I too wonder … Perhaps we should find out?’

  CHAPTER NINE: RECOGNITION

  a) St Mathew’s Church, Aldgate, London

  Shining’s contact within the Met was not what I imagined. My experience of the police had been having to handle jaded lifers– men who wore their years served with the same apathy as they did their tired suits and ties. After this, plainclothes detective Geeta Sahni was a breath of fresh air.

  She met me a short distance from St Mathew’s. I could see the police tape and the predictable gaggle of journalists sniffing around it, digital cameras poised to snatch a juicy morsel of death for their pages.

  I had expected she’d take some convincing to talk to me. Shining had clearly built a strong sense of loyalty with his assets and I was not the man she had been hoping to see. And yet she was only too happy.

  ‘About time he had a bit of help,’ she said, and that was it.

  ‘I thought it best if we kept our distance,’ Detective Sahni said. ‘There’s little left to see on site anyway – we had to let the CSEs clear everything away. The last thing the brass wants is to see pictures of Jimmy Hodgkins all over the news. They’ve spent the last few weeks going on about how violent crime numbers have dropped over the last twelve months; pictures of a bloke with his skull beaten to a thick broth are “against the current promotional agenda”.’

  ‘I bet they are. What was it about the scene that made you think of us?’

  ‘Oh it’s a weird one, no doubt about that.’ She pulled out a USB drive and handed it to me. ‘I copied all the images I could – they’re not nice. Body was found by a dog walker at seven o’clock this morning. He chucked up all over the steps, which was lovely, and then gave us a call. The dead man’s name is Jimmy Hodgkins. Worked in advertising.’

  ‘No wonder someone wanted to kill him.’

  ‘I seriously doubt the attack was personal.’

  ‘You said his head was bashed in.’

  ‘Absolutely pulverised; nothing above the neck but burger meat.’

  ‘Sounds pretty personal to me.’

  ‘You’d think so, but there’s no way the attacker could have known him.’

  ‘You know who did it?’

  ‘No doubt at all. He was found a few streets away covered in the victim’s blood. Only one problem: he was dead.’

  ‘Maybe Hodgkins got a lick in early, a fatal wound that eventually took effect?’

  ‘No. You misunderstand me: the attacker was dead before Hodgkins. A long time before. Fifty years before in fact.’

  OK, so that had my attention. ‘Explain.’

  ‘It seems impossible – which is why I called you, of course – but the attacker seems to be a man called Harry Reid; died of heart failure in 1963. Buried in St Mathew’s churchyard where, by all accounts, he had the good grace to stay. Until last night.’

  ‘You’re saying the other body was already a corpse?’

  ‘A remarkably strange one. The skin is almost like plastic, as if it’s been varnished for preservation. One of the CSEs touched its cheek and it cracked like porcelain.

  ‘It took us some time to confirm the identity. It would have taken even longer if not for a leap of logic on the part of one of the investigating officers.’ She smiled. ‘That would be me, in case you were wondering. Right next to the body of Jimmy Hodgkins was an open grave. I cross-checked the identity of the body interred there with the attacker, expecting there to be some link. What I wasn’t expecting was that it would turn out to be the same person. Can you blame me?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It looks – and I know how this sounds so please don’t argue – as if Harry Reid pulled himself out of his grave, picked up a rock and battered Jimmy Hodgkins to death. Reid then promptly ran up the street and got hit by a bus. The majority of his body was found, still writhing, under the rear left tyre. What’s left of him is currently strapped onto a gurney and defying all medical knowledge at the mortuary. It’s still moving. As is its right leg, even though it was severed on impact.’

  I had no idea what to say to that. Neither did she. She just shrugged. ‘Like I said, impossible. There’s something else too …’

  ‘Oh good, I was beginning to think it all seemed too straightforward.’

  ‘There was a word, written in Hodgkins’ blood, daubed over the tombstone next to his body.’ She pulled out her mobile, scrolled through her images folder and showed me a picture of the word:

  Чернозем

  ‘Russian,’ she said, ‘Apparently it translates as “Black Earth”.’

  I’d picked up my mobile from Oman before heading out of the office. Now, walking away from the Aldgate crime scene and the disturbing light it cast on things, I couldn’t resist turning on the app and hearing the countdown once more.

  ‘Nine hundred and fifty one, five, five, seven …’ it intoned.

  The countdown would reach zero at midday on the 31st. Was that time significant? The fact that it was precisely midday was portentous; it suggested that the countdown had been precisely timed. Was it timed to coincide with something in particular or was it simply a threat in and of itself? No. We’d triggered the countdown by entering the warehouse, that much seemed clear. So the timing had to be a coincidence. I tried not to let my imagination run away with me. The business of Section 37 naturally leans towards the fantastical and dramatic, but it would be a mistake to jump to firm conclusions just yet. Had the body of a long-dead man been not only strangely preserved but reanimated? Was that the threat of Operation Black Earth?

  I called April.

  ‘Darling, I can’t work miracles. You’ve only been gone an hour. I haven’t found anything yet.’

  ‘It’s all right. I hadn’t expected you to. I want you to look into something else though.’ I told her about what I’d found at the crime scene.

  ‘How ghastly. So you need me to look into anything similar?’

  ‘I do. Might any of those bragged-about connections of yours extend to someone who could give us post-mortem information?’

  ‘Oh yes, I know just the man.’

  ‘Then once you’ve finished there, I need you to get me the details on both Hodgkins and Reid. If the latter really did dig himself out of a fifty-year old grave, and now refuses to go back in one, we need to know.’

  ‘I can’t see how anyone could dig their way out of a grave. Surely it’s physically impossible?’

  I’d already thought about that and where my thoughts led didn’t please me. ‘It’d only be physically impossible if the person doing the digging was troubled by such things as needing to breathe. Just because the body was unnaturally preserved doesn’t mean anything else was. The casket would have rotted away long ago. I’m not saying it would have been quick. I imagine, dead or not, it would be a long business pulling your way up through several feet of earth but it could be possible.’ I laughed at what I was saying. ‘Possibl
e! What am I talking about? You know what I mean … it’s possible within the fucked-up remit of this section.’

  ‘I understand.’ She paused. ‘He was right about you.’

  ‘Who was?’

  ‘August. He said you showed potential.’ She hung up, leaving me feeling both patronised and complimented.

  So what next?

  I sat down outside a coffee shop, trying to collate everything I knew into something coherent.

  Fifty years ago, Shining had been investigating an operation known as Black Earth. The man leading that operation had died and yet now seemed active again. He was not alone in that, as Jimmy Hodgkins had discovered to his cost. So – and I gritted my teeth as the fantasies piled on top of one another – if I accepted the fact that death might not be the inarguable full stop any sane man would consider it, Black Earth had something to do with reanimating the dead. To do what? On the evidence of Harry Reid, it seemed mindless violence was the goal. But what was the point of that? Disturbing, yes, but not in itself world-shattering. Jimmy Hodgkins might have had something to say on that score, but it was my job to look at the bigger picture. Presumably, when the countdown finished, something massive was expected to occur, something game-changing.

  Krishnin had taken Shining. Where to? How did you simply vanish into thin air? That one was beyond me.

  What had we seen during Derek Lime’s experiment with time? I had recognised someone. I was sure of that. A familiar face amongst the crowd of men who had been working for Krishnin. I tried to bring the face to mind but the memory was elusive. It had only been a brief glance, not long enough to commit the man to memory. Perhaps that was the wrong way of looking at things, though. I was new at Section 37. My experience was limited. How could I have recognised someone? Was it something I had seen in the handful of reports I had read? No. I had recognised the man because I had met him. And, having settled on that, the whole thing fell into place.

  I headed back towards King’s Cross.

  b) 58 Sampson Court, King’s Cross

  It took Gavrill some time to answer his door. This didn’t surprise me. I had no doubt his tardiness had little to do with his old age.