False Value (Rivers of London 8)

by Ben Aaronovitch

  I pointed out that technically since their work had been used in furtherance of a criminal offence then they were, technically, guilty of aiding and abetting under the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861.

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’ said the manager. ‘Eighteen sixty-one and you just know that off the top of your head.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ I said, although actually I’d looked it up in my Blackstone’s law manual when I stopped for a coffee on the way. It pays to be prepared.

  ‘Only,’ said the manager, ‘we just print stuff. We don’t know what it’s used for.’

  ‘But now I have informed you that it was so used,’ I said. ‘So if the perpetrator does it again you will be knowingly aiding and abetting.’

  ‘Do you normally talk like this?’ she asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘In so far as the party of the first part is . . . is . . . whatever,’ she said.

  ‘Can you at least tell me whether the card was printed here?’ I said.

  She made me wait, but I knew by the quirk of her lips upwards that she was going to help. She took the card, still in its evidence bag, and sashayed over to a computer near the back of the shop. After poking at the keyboard for a minute, she reported that they’d definitely printed a batch of calling cards with those details.

  I looked around and found a compact CCTV unit covering the front counter.

  ‘Do you know what day and time they came to pick it up?’ I asked, and the manager gave me the date and time. When I asked to see the CCTV footage for that period she didn’t seem surprised or reluctant – I think she was enjoying the excitement. Once they’ve established that you’re not going to arrest them or their relatives, people like to help the police. Especially those doing dull, low-paid jobs in retail. The CCTV was digital storage – you’d be amazed how many shops are still using VHS tape – and the manager read the time off the computer and put an hour each way on my USB.

  ‘I don’t suppose they paid by card, did they?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, they did actually,’ said the manager. ‘Does that help?’

  Wrangling personal details out of a bank takes time and paperwork, fortunately not mine, so it wasn’t until Friday morning that I headed bravely beyond the North Circular to Palmers Green and the modest first-floor flat of one Jacob Astor – probably not his real name. This turned out to be the top half of an Edwardian terrace on a side street off Aldermans Hill. It had been cold and grey when I set off, although occasionally the sun would peep out for a quick gloat before buggering off back behind a cloud for a sly cigarette – or something. It wasn’t freezing, but I was definitely considering seeing if I couldn’t dig out my thermals.

  The door was an original arts and crafts affair with a long leaded-glass rectangle of green, yellow and blue above a plain brass letter box. There were two electric doorbell buttons fastened to the jamb. Both had the remains of masking tape labels stuck below them, but time and weather had obliterated the text. On the assumption that the top bell would ring the first floor, I gave it a long hard push. There was the faint sound of a bell from inside but I couldn’t tell whether it was up or downstairs.

  In a spirit of scientific inquiry I pressed the lower button. This time the bell was loud, annoying and definitely on the ground floor. I gave it another couple of long rings until I saw, through the coloured glass panel, an interior door opening and a vaguely human shape emerge.

  ‘I’m coming!’ shouted a woman from inside and then, distinctly, came the sound of a small child gearing up for a good wail.

  The door opened to reveal a compact Asian woman in her late twenties with a dark southern complexion, and dressed in a blue sweatshirt with ask me about horseradish in white letters across the front. In her arms was an overwrought toddler in a green romper suit whose tantrum paused briefly while he eyed me up suspiciously. The woman followed suit.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want a personal friend in Jesus.’

  I showed her my warrant card.

  ‘But have you let the Metropolitan Police into your heart?’ I asked.

  The child screwed up its face in preparation for a resumption, so I stuck out my tongue, which has often worked with various cousins in the past. Woman and child gave me identical looks of astonishment – seen like this, they were definitely related. So I was guessing she was the mother.

  ‘Do you know if your neighbours are in?’ I asked.

  She said she thought he was at work but, when I asked, didn’t know where that was. I left her my card, asked her to phone me if he came back and then had to reassure her that there was probably nothing to worry about.

  ‘We just want to chat,’ I said. ‘It’s just routine.’

  Then I scarpered before the child could start up again.

  I had considered forcing the door, but if I did that magically it would leave a trace that Jacob Astor, who might well have been a practitioner, would notice when he got home. I could kick the door in manually, but I would need authorisation from a senior officer for that. And a broken door would be pretty bloody obvious, too.

  Fortunately, I had a fairly good idea where Jacob Astor was gainfully employed because he’d been getting regular salary payments from the same source for the last two months. I’d tried his home address first because your workplace is more likely to phone and warn you that the police have come round than your neighbours are. At least in a London suburb like Palmers Green.

  I got back in my car and headed down Green Lanes towards the West End, St James’s Square and the London Library.

  In 1840 Thomas Carlyle, the famous Scottish philosopher, polymath and slavery enthusiast, upset that the British Library wouldn’t let him take any books home, called for the establishment of a subscription library on the model already pioneered in Leeds and Nottingham. The result was the London Library, which moved to St James’s Square in 1845 and, two major extensions and some light bombing later, it remains one of the best book collections in the world.

  St James’s was your classic posh Georgian square where the houses were once owned by the landed gentry, but by now the torch had passed to multinationals, think tanks and gentlemen’s clubs. A blue plaque on the front of a neighbouring house read:

  ADA

  COUNTESS OF

  LOVELACE

  1815–1852

  Pioneer

  of Computing

  lived here

  The Enchantress of Numbers herself.

  As a wise man once said – I believe in coincidence, coincidences happen all the time, but I don’t trust coincidences.

  And this was all getting a bit steampunk for my liking. If Jacob Astor turned out to be wearing goggles it was going to go very hard on him indeed.

  The London Library had kept the original rusticated Georgian façade, but through the front doors was a cool, misshapen atrium with enough Victorian wood panelling to keep the BBC in period drama sets for about the next decade.

  There was a long reception desk of dark wood and glass and a series of tastefully retrofitted barrier gates to control the punters. I showed the receptionist my warrant card straight away. She was a plump, mousey white woman dressed in a black pullover and matching skirt. There were flashes of silver at her wrists and a heavy thumb ring on her left hand. However, she did have the traditional pair of reading glasses attached to a sturdy cloth lanyard hanging around her neck – presumably these were compulsory attire for all librarians.

  She said her name was Susan. She had a middle-class, Home Counties accent.

  ‘Do you have a guy called Jacob Astor working here?’ I asked.

  Susan narrowed her eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Do you know where he works?’

  ‘I can find out,’ she said, and reached for the phone but I asked her not to. She looked puzzled bu
t put the handset down.

  ‘Can you make a guess at where he works?’ I asked.

  She said probably on the first floor, in conservation.

  ‘I need you to take me there right now,’ I said.

  She hesitated, but then asked a nearby member of staff to cover while she took me up.

  ‘This way,’ she said and opened the gate for me.

  Susan led me up a short flight of stairs and then to the left, through a set of glass doors marked art room and into a room with some rather nice imitation art deco styling. Here the bookcases were made of a varnished light brown wood and we swerved around the corner of a stack into another corridor where we stopped in front of a lift.

  ‘The main lift in the entrance is much busier,’ said Susan.

  This lift was modern, with stain-resistant brushed steel panelling, but was fortunate enough not to have a prim female voice informing us that the doors were about to close or that we were about to alight on the second floor.

  We emerged into modern, white-painted corridors with black detailing and frosted internal windows and threaded our way past another random stairwell until we came to a heavy fire door labelled offices, acquisitions and collection care.

  Susan used a smart card on a reader located at convenient wheelchair height and opened the door. Beyond the door, the crisp, modern styling was slowly being swamped by the inevitable overspill of books and papers that have plagued libraries since Alexander the Great decided to give historians a really good place to write up his exploits. We passed through a narrow corridor and the gap between two black enamelled ceiling-height steel bookcases to a vaguely clear area with a couple of modern desks. Nobody was about.

  ‘I’ll see if anyone’s in Conservation,’ said Susan, and headed into a room further on. ‘Jacob!’ I heard her call. ‘There’s someone to see you.’

  ‘Who is it?’ said a voice behind me. Male, young, North American.

  I turned to find a slim white guy in his mid-twenties dressed in jeans and a green jumper. He had a blandly handsome face with black hair, high cheekbones and just a hint of an epicanthic fold in the corner of his light brown eyes. He was carrying a pile of hardback books with scuffed brown covers.

  ‘Jacob Astor?’ I said. ‘My name is . . .’

  But before I could get to the identification part, he threw the books straight at my face. And while I was reacting to that, he knocked me down with an impello-palma spell. It was as fast and neat and precise as my governor would have liked. It was also beautifully judged – just enough to knock me on my arse, but without serious injury.

  Susan was making little incomprehensible noises behind me as I clambered to my feet. Jacob Astor, if that was his real name, was running back up the narrow corridor towards the security door. He had to slow down long enough to press the open button and that allowed me to close the gap. As he went through, Jacob glanced back and his eyes widened as he saw me bearing down on him. He tried to slam the door in my face, but I cast a straight impello that knocked it open again.

  Oh yeah, I thought. I can has magic spelz too.

  Jacob looked shocked, but his surprise didn’t seem to slow him down as he banged through the next set of fire doors, ignored the stairs and hung a right – back towards where Susan had brought me up in the lift.

  I skidded to a halt just short of the turn and cautiously stuck my head around the corner. Just in time to catch a flicker of movement at the far end of the corridor where it opened up into a room full of shelving.

  I wanted to pull out my phone and get some uniforms to block off the exits. But this was Westminster, the busiest Borough Command in the Met. And these days response officers were as rare as hen’s teeth. Even if I could wrangle a couple of cars, Jacob the sprinter would be long gone. So I charged after him in the vain hope he’d be too busy running to smack me in the face again. Or possibly something worse. But I tried not to think about that.

  ‘Stop, police!’ I shouted, on the basis that one of these days it was going to have the right effect.

  The library stacks were ceiling high and so close together that the books kept brushing my shoulders. Away from the white paint and frosted glass of the offices it was suddenly dim and yellow and closed in. I couldn’t see him down the first aisle, so I did a sharp right on instinct and was rewarded by the sight of Jacob’s back. I flicked a water balloon at his head, but I think he must have sensed it coming because he ducked and the clear globe of water went over him to splash against a row of books.

  Jacob ducked left and shouted.

  ‘Watch the books, watch the books for Chrissake!’

  ‘Stop running,’ I shouted back as I skidded around the corner after him, ‘and we won’t have to!’

  The little wanker threw another impello-palma at me, but I already had my shield up and his spell fizzed and died half a metre from my face. I’ve gone toe to toe with some seriously dangerous magical fuckers, and if I have not necessarily emerged victorious then at least I emerged alive.

  Jacob was fast and assured and I was pretty certain he was holding back.

  Ahead I saw him grab the side of a stack and swing himself around another corner. I followed and found myself clattering down a staircase as narrow and steep as a gangway on a ship.

  Down we went into philology & fiction (s–z), another room full of stacks with a scuffed floor and low ceilings. Jacob had stopped trying to delay me and was concentrating on zigzagging his way through the shelving and down yet another flight of stairs. I wasn’t gaining, but I was keeping up even as he dodged through more shelving. I was fine with that, because sooner or later he was going to have to exit the building. And once he was in the open I was going to have him.

  He went left at art: sculpture (cont), through another fire door and we were back in the modern refitted office section. One floor down I guessed, but I might have got turned around somewhere. Then into a 1930s stairwell where we both ended up doing that fake parkour thing of grabbing the banister and swinging around the bend. Down past another landing with my DMs slapping on the marble risers as I tried to keep Jacob in sight.

  Finally the ground floor and a sign pointing at an emergency exit.

  I came around another corner in time to see Jacob slam another fire door closed before I could get to it. Stupidly I pushed at it before I realised it was code-locked like the offices upstairs. Through the vertical glass strip in the door I saw Jacob traverse a short hall and push open an external door. He didn’t look back.

  It was a fire door, so it had by law to have an emergency door release. I found it halfway down the wall and jabbed impatiently at the plastic cover but the door still would not open. I put my palm on it level with the locking mechanism, and there it was – the same static electricity tingle I’d felt on the locks of Bernoulli’s Mighty Organ. We think Jacob used the same spell to jam the locking plate, but we couldn’t be sure because I used a slightly over-aggressive impello variant to knock the door off its hinges.

  It hadn’t even hit the ground before I was through the doorway and out the next and into the cold December daylight outside. In front of me was the blank grey slab sides of The White Cube Gallery, to my left along the brick cobbles was a clear run to Duke Street and to the right and around the corner there was an alleyway that led out into Jermyn Street. Jacob could have gone either way, but even if I guessed right he’d still have been long gone.

  So much for running him down in the open.

  Still, part of being police is knowing when to stop running and start networking.

  I pulled out my backup phone, turned it on and called my governor.

  ‘Hi, boss,’ I said. ‘We have another foreign practitioner.’

  3

  January: Some Sheep are Black

  ‘Hello, Jacob,’ I said. ‘What are you up to this time?’

  His ID badge gave his name as Stephen Higgi
ns, in black on a pink background, and his department as Magrathea – models, maquettes and concept art. He turned smoothly, shifting his balance and letting his hands fall to his sides in a deceptively relaxed manner. I remembered how fast he’d been back at the London Library and matched his pose.

  ‘I knew you weren’t really a cop,’ he said.

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Whoever heard of a wizard cop?’

  ‘What about the Aurors?’ I said.

  Jacob and/or Stephen shifted to his left and watched my reaction. Trapped as he was on the skyway with a locked door behind him, his tactical position was poor. If he wasn’t going to talk his way out, he’d have to go for a sudden strike in the hope that I wouldn’t react fast enough.

  ‘Because they’re not totally made up – right?’ he said, and shifted his weight back to his right foot.

  ‘How do you know?’ I said. ‘Every story has a grain of truth.’

  Had this been my normal professional circumstances I would have had him by now. Knocked him down while he was still talking and slapped on the speedcuffs, called for backup and had him in one of the new ‘special’ cells before you could say ‘How’s your father’ in a bad cockney accent.

  But then he’d shut up, get a lawyer, possibly even an American consular official, and I’d never know what he wanted.

  I nodded at the door behind him.

  ‘Do you know what’s in there?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you?’ He never took his eyes off me.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  His eyes narrowed and his posture relaxed a fraction.

  ‘How badly do you want to know?’ he asked.

  ‘Can you get in?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But not today. We’re out of time.’

  He raised his hands palm out and walked towards me. I put my weight on my back foot, but he kept his hands where I could see them.

  ‘Pax,’ he said, and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a muffled clonk from the blue door. ‘Shit,’ he hissed. ‘Early.’ Then, before I could react, he threw his arms around me and pushed me against the wall. Then, before I could react to that, the door opened and the female bodyguard I’d met guarding Terrence Skinner stepped through.