by Paul Cornell
After they left, Sarah listened as Jessica talked herself to sleep, then lay back in the sofa and looked at where she would normally expect to see Quill. She couldn’t do this alone. That lot were wrapped up in their usual horrors, the ones that were one day going to eat them like they’d eaten Quill. She needed family; she needed someone who could help, who knew Quill. She picked up the phone and made the call. ‘Laura,’ she said, ‘listen, something’s happened. Could you come down to London a few weeks early, live with us for a while? We’ve still got the spare room.’
At lunchtime on the Wednesday, with nothing to do at the Portakabin except monitor the build-up to Thursday morning’s operation and wait for news about Quill, Ross accepted Flamstead’s invitation to come for a walk in Hyde Park.
Flamstead smiled at the passers-by who recognized him, signed autographs. Ross wondered if pictures of them were going to end up in the tabloids. She finally told him, not regarding it as an operational matter, all about Quill. He listened, concerned, upset. Were those emotions lies too? Surely not. How could any being function like that? ‘How’s Costain taking it?’ he said, out of the blue.
Ross didn’t like that he’d asked. ‘Costain? He’s trying to make out it’s not hurting him, being stoic. He says he doesn’t like where your version of Holmes is going. I don’t think he’d have had an opinion before. This isn’t some sort of pissing contest for you as well, is it?’
‘Now, how can I possibly answer that?’
She should know better than to ask him direct questions. ‘I’m going to one of the London auctions tomorrow night. Do you know about those?’ She wanted to say, ridiculously, that as well as perhaps having a chance to get her happiness back, they might find something to help with their current operation. That was a distant possibility, however, and she was talking here, she suspected, to someone who could spot half-truths a mile away.
‘Ah. Alone?’ His tone indicated he knew what she was talking about.
‘No.’
‘What does Costain stand to gain by accompanying you?’
She was pleased at his insight. ‘My trust, I guess.’
He took her arm in his and put a gentle hand on it. ‘Ah,’ was all he said again.
The location for the auction was, as always, somewhere special. That Wednesday night, Costain and Ross took the train out to Greenwich, threaded their way through the bohemian streets, still packed with tourists and summer food vendors, and, having been given the nod by an oddly shabby-looking security guard at the locked gates of the park, made their way up the hill towards the Royal Observatory.
As they climbed the incline, Ross looked down on London, lit up on this clear night. The Sight made Greenwich into somewhere that smelt of the sea, and overwhelmed you with the knowledge of time. She could feel, in this hill, the small weight of her own years, the steady decay of everything, how short a while was left to her. From the hill she could see, above London, constellations, a web of lines actually drawn in the sky, making the stars feel trapped. As they walked higher, the feeling got more and more intense, like they were inside an enormous clock, and she knew it was about to strike the hour. It felt like the grandeur above them was locked, by this hill, into the notion of Britishness, that here was somewhere that connected the eternal to Empire. This feeling was still at play in London below, but it was complicated, worrying. Here was displayed, for all to get nervous about, one of the grand certainties that nobody felt certain of anymore.
She looked to Costain. He remained stoic, seemingly not as affected by the experience as she was. She remembered how he’d described the night he’d looked out at London from the Downs, how left out of the memory of the city he’d felt. This would surely be making him feel the same way. This time, however, when he saw her looking at him, he managed a smile. He was trying so hard.
The location this time had only been vaguely advertised as being at the observatory itself, but none of the old red buildings that vaguely reminded her of Battenberg cake looked big enough for the crowd that had assembled last time.
The whole cluster of buildings, including one with an observatory dome and one with a red ball on a mast on the roof, was lit up, as if this were an official event, and she supposed, given the connections that must be in place to have let the last auction happen at the Tate, it might be. Then, as they got to the main gate, she noticed figures standing in the shadows of the buildings, and a familiar one setting down a wooden crate across the line of metal on cobbles that marked the Meridian itself. It was Miss Haversham, the host of the last auction, still in her dilapidated gown. Ross could feel the Meridian, stark in her senses, like a vein or a wound, pumping time and pride around the world. It connected directly to the glowing compass that was all the sky above them.
There was a modern metal sculpture of some kind on the line, one artist’s own suggestion of compass points and great circles. It felt like a sliver moving inside one’s finger. Haversham glanced over and saw them approaching, and gestured for someone else to come and see. From out of nowhere stepped, wearing exactly the same garb as last time, her assistant, Bernie the Bitch. He reacted to seeing them with a clownlike, exaggerated sadness.
‘The ones oo’ve been ’urt,’ said Haversham, in her carefully chosen accent, ‘they’re the ones oo come back soonest.’
Ross and Costain entered, having seemingly chosen the right moment, as the crowd started to gather, latecomers running up to the gates. A lot of them had reason to make their way here carefully, to avoid old enemies, though there was a truce in place on the grounds of the auction themselves. They were the people of hidden London, in ancient clothes, many of them threadbare. Those individuals were deliberately emphasizing their poverty. They came here to yearn for items that might make their marginal lives better, or, in the case of those in suits and ties, to vie for objects that would increase their power. The division between those who’d brought money to pay for their wins and those who intended to barter by sacrifice in the older way was more evident than last time. The groups tended to gather together, even. The influence of money had swiftly spread into even this shadow of the transactions of the metropolis below them.
A fine mist of rain blew suddenly through the buildings, clouds suddenly scudding across the sky, the side of the hill becoming, in seconds, even more maritime, and the crowd responded by raising umbrellas, many of which were patched and one of which was a mere skeleton. Just like last time, Bernie produced the lectern and the big book from thin air. Ross recalled being taken into what had seemed like a room behind the stage last time, where no time passed. The lists of items up for auction tonight were passed out, again printed on some ancient mechanical machine, in faded purple type.
The crowd, muttering about what they were after, or exchanging gossip, came forwards in the rain as Haversham stood on the crate and repeated, word for word as far as Ross could remember, her introductory speech from last time. She saw a number of glances towards her and Costain, and had to swat away a series of occult attempts to learn more about her with the ‘blanket’ gesture Sefton had taught her. She saw that Costain wasn’t bothering. She looked at him incredulously and he looked back, calm and proud. So tonight he was letting them know he was a copper? Maybe this was another aspect of his latest attempt to be an upright citizen. She expected someone in the audience to react, but nobody did. Perhaps this lot had heard now that there was a new law in town. When she got hold of a copy of the list, she swiftly looked down it and found it: ‘A lifetime’s happiness.’
It was the third item to be auctioned. As they came to it, Haversham’s expression became concerned. ‘We ’ave some miraculous melodrama in the miasma for you tonight, ladies and gentlemen and others, so we do. A lifetime’s ’appiness was put to the risk, and now ’ere’s the young flower, seeking to set things right. Am I correct?’ There were cheers and catcalls from the crowd. Ross quickly nodded. ‘What am I bid, then?’
The bidding began with the usual newbies whose small offers of pers
onal pain or money were mocked. The desperate looks on their faces haunted Ross. The use of money for a bid didn’t elicit as much anger this time round. Someone bid £10,000, and that wasn’t taken lightly by the crowd.
Ross decided now was the time and raised her hand. She’d thought long and hard about what she had to offer. ‘An obligation from Mark Ballard, collector of London items,’ she said. She was pretty sure she could back that up, given a bit of horse trading. Thank God, the crowd seemed to regard that as a serious offer. She looked to Haversham, who nodded, a tiny smile crossing her face. Hers was the leading bid.
‘Twenty thou,’ said a voice from behind her.
Ross looked to Haversham, who took the moment she always took to use whatever internal measure of value she had, then, horribly, nodded to the new bidder. Money, so rare in this community, now had one hell of a rate of exchange compared to barter. Was £20,000 all a lifetime of happiness was really worth?
She turned to find the bidder, a tense-looking Caucasian male, fifties, about 180 pounds, balding, a frizz of white hair on his head and chin, a knotted brow, wearing a raincoat that looked like it would have been fashionable in the 1960s. He was nodding urgently, as if his nod could change worlds, as if it had to.
‘A favour from the Trickster,’ she said, sure she could get that too. The audience made noises that said this was serious business. Haversham nodded to her.
‘Fifty thou,’ called the man.
Haversham nodded to him instead. She looked back to Ross. She looked to Costain, but he had nothing to suggest. They had played all their cards. Ross felt the crushing despair once again descend on her. Did she now have to face up to a lifetime of this emptiness? No, she threw the despair out of her mind and took anger instead. She would not cry. She would do something about this. For now she shook her head.
She had to listen as the angry-looking man bettered several increasingly desperate offers from other bidders and ended up purchasing Ross’s happiness for £200,000. ‘Cheap at the price,’ said Haversham, pointedly. The man was invited to join Bernie beside the crate, and in a moment vanished and then appeared again, head down, immediately walking away, through a crowd that muttered at him angrily as he shouldered his way through it. Ross didn’t get to see in what sort of vessel her happiness was now contained. Costain made to follow, and Ross was close behind, but Haversham called at them from the stage. ‘The truce is in place. Nobody can find anyone leaving who don’t want to be found, dears. Better luck next time.’
‘Fuck better luck,’ said Ross as she watched the angry man literally disappear as he reached the edge of the crowd. ‘Let’s work this.’
She found some faces in the crowd that she vaguely recognized from the Goat and Compasses. A couple of them turned away, not wanting to speak to them or busy with items they were interested in, but one old lady in the remains of a pinstriped suit and bowler was willing to tell them who the purchaser was. She said she’d liked how Costain had stood up to the Keel brothers. ‘That’s Nathaniel Tock. Heart and soul of this community, some say. Used to be dead against money coming in and changing things, but it looks like he’s changed his tune. Maybe it’s ’cos now people have started to deal in it, he has so much of it. He’s got serious connections, they say. The big lads. He sells artefacts and land of special value to us, and runs regular gatherings of our lot. I don’t know if you’d enjoy ’em, being newcomers and all. They’re a bit stuffy if you ask me.’
Ross asked where and when, and was told they were held in a hotel near Heathrow. There was always one the first weekend after an auction. So this Saturday, then.
‘I used to quite like him,’ said the old lady, recovering from a cough that sounded worryingly serious. ‘You know, he’s a rough diamond. Gives cheek to everyone. But these days, oh, he’s pissed so many people off, got into some serious fights. He’s started to call himself the King of London, people say, and that used to be a real title, but nobody’s had it rightly and undisputed for over a century now. Look at him tonight, though, face against the wind as always. He don’t care. Admirable, in a way.’
Ross asked if they could just show up at these events of his. The woman stifled a laugh.
‘No, dear, he’s very serious about that. You don’t get in without a ticket, and he tries to control who gets them. A friend of mine is here tonight, though; we were going to go for a pint of porter after. He’s got tickets to all things.’
She led them through the crowd to her friend, who was in what Ross took a moment to identify as a polished wooden wheelchair, a sort of combination of kitchen chair, church pew and wagon. It sang of the Sight, an impression of calm decency, of trustworthiness. That, Ross thought, must be entirely deliberate. The old lady’s friend was sheltering under a tattered golfing umbrella inserted into a hole in the back of the chair, and had on top of the rug on his lap a series of envelopes. He wore a fisherman’s cap, and his neat white beard and ancient eyes confirmed the impression that here was a son of the sea. Again, though, what could be more likely to gain one’s trust in this location? He listened to the woman’s introduction, couched in formal language that Ross tried to remember for noting down later, and asked what they wanted a ticket for. The price to attend one of Tock’s conferences was a hundred pounds or some small sacrifice.
‘I keep those reasonable, like,’ said the man in the chair. ‘Some of us don’t think it’s fair, this devaluing lark.’
Costain put a hand in his pocket, then stopped, considering the man for a moment. Suddenly, Costain put a hand in his own mouth, made a sound that was halfway between a roar and a cry of pain, and held up, still bloody, one of his own teeth. ‘Been wobbly for a while,’ he said.
Ross watched incredulously as the man took the tooth in a gloved hand and slipped it into a paper bag. He handed Costain, who was wiping his mouth on his handkerchief, two of the tickets, and Costain immediately passed one on to her. They were ornate jobs, fine paper covered in watermarks, the words describing the location barely visible among all the security measures concerning forgery. She looked back to Costain, who was wincing, laughing at what he’d just done. They gave their thanks and headed down the hill.
‘You didn’t have to do it,’ she said. ‘I could have found that sort of money.’
‘I thought that’d impress him a bit more.’ And her as well? He hadn’t said a word about Flamstead tonight. ‘I thought about getting three, because there might be tons of new info for him to work with, but I had to weigh up between us needing him to know about that and . . .’ He was struggling with everything about this.
‘And the possibility we might have to do something dodgy.’
‘Yeah. I want to get your happiness back . . . ethically. Legally, even. But if we end up going the other way, I don’t want him implicated. We can record what we find, let him know afterwards . . .’
‘And hope he’ll forgive us?’
‘Is that OK?’
Ross continued to look at Costain as they headed back towards the lights of Greenwich, the sky overhead still proudly standing for something a little hollow. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was going to ask for that.’
NINETEEN
On Thursday morning, Sefton stood where Lombard Street became Fenchurch Street. If the Sight made him aware of police officers, he thought, he would be watching a sea of blue dots, with out-of-uniform members of DI Clarke’s team walking up and down this and every side street and on guard in every office where there was a safe, and with uniformed and Armed Response back-ups in vans at convenient intervals. Costain had played a blinder over the last couple of days, staying on top of his new leadership role, keeping in touch with the search for Quill, and thus allowing Sefton and Ross to focus on the work.
There had been some discussion as to whether their own team should be here, but Costain had decided that of course they should be. The killers knew they were on to them, knew they were aware that this must be their next target. It was only natural they’d be up and down it. What th
ey didn’t want to reveal was how much support they’d brought along, or their connection to Johnny Horner.
The security guard had taken perfectly normal leave, and so it was perfectly plausible that here was a person who’d played Holmes who the police had missed. Besides, the killers had to have a go, and Horner was now their only target. All Costain’s team had to do was be ready every moment Horner was near this street. The only problem was, how long could Clarke justify keeping this massive back-up operation in place?
Even a small team, though, would have a chance now, given how they’d secretly narrowed the odds in their favour. This was the sort of trap, thought Sefton, that Holmes himself might have set.
He wandered over to Clement’s Lane, where the corporate finance company Travail Ltd had their headquarters. Horner was inside, currently enjoying the company of three officers in security guard uniforms. That big safe, like the one in the story, was a floor above. It was eleven twenty-five now, some office workers starting to go for early lunches, a few smokers gathered outside their places of work. Horner would knock off and go home at six. Surely soon, maybe even today, their opponents, with their incredible means of entry and getaway, were bound to have a go? All they had to do, they’d be thinking, was whack Horner round the head with a poker, just like in the story.
Sefton walked on past; he had to stay away from that building, show no particular interest in it, look as if he thought it was one of the banks that was the target instead. Costain was in the RBS building, further up the street, making a big scene of checking the walls for chalk, as if they feared one of the gang had got inside already. Ross was in the command van with DI Clarke, ready to send forces rushing in to grab the assailants. A bucket of water and a window cleaner’s shammy were ready under Horner’s desk, the officers there bemused to be under orders to use it on any chalk marks. The gang could get in, but would then find their expected retreat cut off.