False Value

by Ben Aaronovitch

  “Both placed just inside the door?” I asked, and Stephen nodded. “Like the one at your flat?”

  “Couldn’t say,” said Stephen. “It was crawling with cops so I backed off.”

  “What about the police in America?” I asked.

  “What about them?” said Mrs. Chin.

  “Didn’t they get suspicious?”

  “Why should they?” said Stephen. “They didn’t know about the coven, so as far as they were concerned there was no connection.”

  I doubted that. Covens traditionally tended to be as much social institutions as magical. Any half-competent investigator should have found the links between the members and noticed the run of suspicious deaths.

  “You didn’t tip them off?”

  Both Stephen and Mrs. Chin found the very idea funny. The cops, in their eyes, were the last people you wanted involved. I teased out the details, without being obvious, so I could e-mail them to Agent Reynolds later.

  After that they took an active interest, which in Librarian-speak meant keeping an eye on the news reports.

  “They only target practitioners,” said Mrs. Chin. “We think they leave the shades alone.”

  “Could they be shades themselves?” I asked.

  Mrs. Chin shrugged.

  “Shade vigilantes,” said Stephen, and Mrs. Chin shot him a disgusted look.

  “Dangerous,” she said. “And best avoided.”

  “Duh,” said Stephen.

  “So the best thing for all of us,” I said, “is if we get in there quick, grab the Mary Engine and you guys hop a magic carpet back to the good old US of A.”

  Mrs. Chin narrowed her eyes.

  “And what’s in it for you?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because we don’t trust you,” she said.

  “I’m not after your precious Mary Engine,” I said.

  “So what are you after?”

  I nearly said the six hundred and forty million in bearer bonds he was keeping in the same vault, but I didn’t trust either of them not to get the reference. Especially Mrs. Chin—you’ve got to watch yourself around Librarians—they know stuff.

  “He’s used the Mary Engine to develop a proprietary tracking algorithm that will blow Google away,” I said. “Worth millions.”

  Stephen made an appreciative noise.

  “You plan to sell it back or auction it off?” he asked.

  “Straight to Google,” I said. “Keep it simple—less things to go wrong.”

  Mrs. Chin nodded slowly, but I wasn’t sure she was convinced—that could be trouble.

  “So what’s the plan?” she asked.

  I outlined my plan and what we’d need to do to prepare. They made a couple of good suggestions, particularly regarding how they planned to smuggle themselves out of the country. I made mental notes with a view to trading them to Silver or HM Customs if I ever needed a favor.

  Stephen gave me a sideways glance and I realized that they planned to double-cross me. That was fine, since I was planning to double-cross them—it was just a question of who got their betrayal in first. To limit their scope for action, I told Mrs. Chin it would be better if she stayed in the house until we were ready to act.

  “Except for the picnic tomorrow,” said Mrs. Chin.

  Oh bollocks, I thought, I’d totally forgotten about that.

  12

  I’m Not in the Business

  I ADMIT, I skimmed a lot of the guidelines for undercover police officers. But I’m pretty certain that Do not engage in a major criminal enterprise without consulting your handler first was in there somewhere. So the next morning, while Beverley marshaled her new recruits into the cause of river conservation, I sloped off to the Pen Pond car park and café area that lurks near the middle of Richmond Park. There, coffee and bacon butties were served from a green shack with a scatter of picnic tables for seating. I thought we’d be horribly exposed, but there were enough die-hard dog walkers and skiving joggers braving the drizzle to stop us being too obvious. Silver, dressed in an expensive burgundy quilted jacket with a Nehru collar, had obviously been expecting somewhere a bit more indoors. Nightingale had gallantly lent her his umbrella, which she angled, I noticed, to shield our faces from people passing by on the path.

  “I definitely preferred the sushi,” said Silver, after I’d outlined my plan to relieve Terrence Skinner of the Mary Engine.

  “I’m a little concerned about your escape plan,” said Nightingale. “‘Back down the lift and out’ seems somewhat vague. Especially given the plan’s many convolutions prior to that point. I’m surprised that Mrs. Chin and Stephen didn’t raise this as an objection.”

  “It’s simple,” I said. “They didn’t question the escape because they’re planning to double-cross me before we escape.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more convenient to escape first, then double-cross you?” asked Nightingale.

  “No,” I said. “Because they expect me to double-cross them first.”

  This was because they hadn’t bought my story about stealing algorithms, and so they expected me to grab the Mary Engine. And the best time for me to do that would be while we were still in the building.

  “Outside they have a two to one advantage,” I said. “Inside, I have Vogon privileges or I might have accomplices standing by. Which, of course, will be sort of true since before they can betray me you’re going to swoop in and arrest them both.”

  Silver looked at Nightingale. “I said he was a natural, didn’t I?”

  Nightingale didn’t look happy about that.

  “Why inside the building?” he asked.

  As a rule, unless you’re doing a dawn raid, it’s better to swarm them in the street where they can be quickly isolated and whisked off. The interior of buildings are full of hidden obstacles and interrupted sight lines—outside is better. And then there was his memories of the house-to-house fighting in Arnhem. But I didn’t know about that then.

  “Because then the whole of Bambleweeny becomes a crime scene,” I said. Thereby allowing Silver to slip in with the rest of the police and have a good nose around. “And possibly preserving my cover, so I can withdraw gracefully.”

  “It’s entrapment,” said Silver. “The CPS won’t prosecute. At least not on any substantive charge.”

  “So much the better,” said Nightingale. “It would be far more satisfactory if we quietly usher the Americans home. It’s not in the public interest to force a prosecution at this juncture.”

  “That’s not your decision to make,” said Silver.

  “Until such time as the Commissioner or the Home Secretary relieves me of my positions as both de facto President of the Society of the Wise and Commander of the Special Assessment Unit, then it is my responsibility to judge when prosecutions touching upon the supernatural, the uncanny and the Fae are in the public interest or not.” He smiled thinly at Silver. “And I am minded not to have a prosecution in this case—we are charged with carrying out our duties discreetly. Better that these Americans are sent home—after an appropriately severe talking-to. And then you and I can proceed in a more predictable fashion.”

  “I need a JD, Thomas,” said Silver.

  Meaning a Judicial Disposal—a prosecution or some other recordable outcome to justify her expenditure. You weren’t supposed to take that into consideration when planning operations, but then response officers were not supposed to continuously work double shifts.

  “If Skinner really has a working AGI,” I said, “all this bollocks that we think is so important—we can just kiss that all good-bye. It will be a whole new world.”

  “Oh, God,” said Nightingale, smiling. “Not another one.”

  Silver frowned.

  “You wanted to know whether Skinner was money laundering and/or providing sensitive technology to the Russia
ns,” I said. “This should give you enough access to find out.”

  Getting a JD but piggybacking on to another case was another time-old tradition we weren’t supposed to do. Silver nodded, but she really wasn’t happy.

  “I wouldn’t count on you bowing out gracefully,” she said. “These operations always end messily and nobody likes to be betrayed—however good the cause.”

  * * *

  —

  Life can be tough on London’s rivers. Those that weren’t turned into open sewers in the eighteenth century were turned into covered sewers in the nineteenth. The suburban rivers that escaped death by carefully engineered brick arch faced that most terrible of fates—flood management.

  Back then, long before rewilding, river basin management plans and the spontaneous creation—so she asserts—of the light of my life, flood management was guided by a simple idea. Floods are caused by too much water building up in a particular river. So the solution is to get the water from A to B as fast as possible. Faster flow rates for a happier flood plain—especially ones covered in 1930s mock Tudor semis.

  This led to a great deal of straightening and culverting, which in turn led to a massive loss of biodiversity. And that was before they started pouring semi-treated sewage into them. It was into this environment of neglect that the current crop of river goddesses emerged in the later part of the twentieth century, and they have been working for improvements ever since.

  Currently Beverley Brook is classified as having a Poor Ecological Status overall under the Water Framework Directive. Needless to say, Beverley has plans—lots of plans—of which the improvements in Richmond Park are just a minor part. If Thames Water think blowing the best part of £5 billion on 25 kilometers of deep-level interceptor tunnel is going to be enough to keep Bev from taking an interest in the output of the Hogsmill Valley Sewage Treatment works . . . they can think again.

  Still, until she can do something about that, she does what she can. Which is why quite a large part of our relationship involves me wading hip deep in the river where it crosses Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park.

  In the wintertime the Royal Parks pollard their willows, which provides a pile of long, straight, flexible willow stems called withies, which can be woven into hurdles which can be carefully placed in the river to promote meandering. Meandering, according to Beverley, is an altogether good thing which promotes biodiversity and mitigates flash flooding. So once I had finished making plans of dubious legality with Nightingale and Silver, I headed toward Beverley Brook for a day’s river wrangling.

  Or at least that’s what I thought I was doing.

  I should have known something was up when I saw the pavilion. Well, I say pavilion. But it was more a large white tent, the kind people use for fêtes and weddings. As I got closer I saw that somebody had carried in a big high-backed armchair. Its wooden legs and upholstery were scuffed, but it had obviously been cleaned. The brightly colored outdoor cushions, with tough weather-resistant covers that usually spent the winter in the conservatory, had been piled on the chair with Beverley on top—in obvious comfort, her feet propped up on a folding garden chair with a blue and pink cushion on top of that.

  When she saw me she asked me whether I liked the chair.

  “Someone threw it off the Priest’s Bridge,” she said, “and the landlord at the Stag called Maksim and asked if he wanted it. He’s been restoring it for weeks.”

  Despite the entire front wall being rolled up, it was much warmer in the tent than outside. Which might have been Beverley’s divine influence, but was more likely down to the two portable space heaters situated near the back. Neatly stacked on the left side of the tent was a pile of folding chairs, and on the right a corresponding stack of wooden folding-leg tables. I eyed both piles with deep suspicion and then asked Beverley what was going on.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just a bit of a picnic.”

  She beckoned me over, and when I leaned down she kissed me and her lips tasted of mown grass and strawberry jelly. I gave her a quizzical look, but she just smiled and sent me off to work.

  “You promised to make me a better river,” she said, which I felt was a generous interpretation of what I remembered as me saying, “Well, if I have to.” Fortunately, between Maksim, Abigail, Keira, Oliver and Johnson, all the waders were taken. So I joined Stacy on the bank and supervised.

  Keira and Abigail were larking about while Oliver was securing his hurdle to its posts with single-minded determination and a puzzled look on his face—as if he was surprised to find himself doing physical work. Johnson and Maksim were relishing the chance to be manly men and prove their one-generation-from-the-soil credentials. Johnson was too sensible to take his shirt off, but I could see Maksim was tempted. Still, if they wanted to do all the hard work, I was perfectly happy to let them.

  “God, look at them,” said Stacy, as we watched Maksim and Johnson manhandle a quarter of a ton of hurdle into position, so that the kids could tie them into place. “If they generate any more testosterone they’ll start poisoning the fish.”

  I asked if she’d seen Stephen and Mrs. Chin, and was told that the pair of them were helping bring up the food from the car park by the main gate. In order to further avoid the chances of me being asked to soak myself in the name of love, I volunteered to go help them. I met the pair hauling an insulated food container, of the type used by professional caterers. Or rather, Mrs. Chin supervised as Stephen and Dennis Yoon hauled it between them.

  I asked Dennis how he came to be out in Richmond Park on such a glorious day.

  He said that his relatives, who he was lodging with in New Malden, insisted he accompany them.

  “They’re back that way with more food,” he said.

  They turned out to be Mr. and Mrs. Ree, who were New Malden veterans, having arrived from Korea in the 1990s when Mr. Sung-Hoon Ree was posted to London by Hyundai. Sung-Hoon and his wife Eun-Ju were pulling a very practical handcart piled with containers, while my mum contributed by walking beside them cradling a large cardboard box. My dad was a few steps behind, carrying his trumpet case.

  I stopped to say hello and the inevitable happened, which was me being lumbered with the cardboard box, which was heavy, filled with plastic food containers and warm to the touch. As we labored on under our burdens, Mum skipped ahead toward Beverley’s tent.

  “You should carry your father’s case as well,” said Sung-Hoon, which allowed my father to catch up with my mum and meant I tripped over every hummock in the grass.

  The trestle tables had been set up by the time I arrived. Not, as I had half-feared, in rows perpendicular to Beverley’s throne in the medieval manner, but along the sides of the tent where they could serve as buffet tables. I plonked my box down on the nearest and handed Dad back his case.

  Me and him watched my mum fussing over Beverley until they both noticed us and got that sly look in their eyes that suggested now would be a good time to slope off—unless we wanted to get roped into something arduous—so off we sloped.

  “I haven’t seen your mum this happy since I opened for Bud Shank at the Bull’s Head,” said my dad.

  “Are you planning to play?” I asked as Dad opened the case and checked his trumpet.

  “The only time I’m not planning to play,” said Dad, “is when I’m playing.”

  On the basis of what the eye don’t see the Mum can’t come up with chores for, I wandered back down toward the main gate and quickly overtook the Rees, who were wheeling their trollies back to the car park for a second run.

  “How many people are coming?” I asked as I helped Eun-Ju with her trolley.

  “It doesn’t seem to matter how many people arrive,” said Eun-Ju, who was tall and very thin with black eyes and a long face. “All the food seems to get eaten.”

  “Gannets, the lot of them,” said Sung-Hoon, whose second career as a used car salesman meant
he spent a lot of time in Essex. He was shorter than his wife and was growing round as he entered late middle age. His eyes were lighter and his black hair was brushed over in a side parting.

  “That’s good of you, Peter,” said Eun-Ju.

  “It’s better than having to wade in the river,” I said, which scandalized the pair of them.

  We ended up making three more trips, only interrupted once by my mum who, shockingly, wanted a word.

  “Why you make e dae siddom nae de cold,” she asked in Krio.

  “She’s perfectly fine, Mum, and anyway this was her idea.”

  “Bo be e man ein tel am for member dee baby.”

  I have photographs of my mum being eight months gone and on tour with my dad.

  “She knows what she’s doing,” I said, and wondered if I did.

  At some point a whole second pavilion arrived—they were just putting it up when I returned lugging a Morrisons box full of biscuits, chocolates and sweets in fun-size variety packs. Someone had provided my mum with a chair and a cushion and she sat next to Beverley, their heads close together—occasionally they laughed. Beverley caught me watching and sent me off to tell the volunteers in the river that it was chop time.

  Keira was laughing as she clambered out of the water and sat down on the tarpaulin we had arranged for them. Johnson helped her off with her waders before taking off his own. I helped Oliver, who tried to stay stonily impassive but couldn’t resist a shy grin when one of Johnson’s waders came off unexpectedly and he sat down hard with a yell.

  I ushered them off toward the pavilion and stayed behind to help Maksim clear up. Once that was done, I paused on the riverbank to look over the day’s work.

  “Are you coming to eat?” said Maksim.

  “I’ll be over in a minute,” I said, but Maksim stayed where he was.

  He was a big man, a former professional criminal who’d undergone a brutal apprenticeship in the gray concrete suburbs of Moscow. Beverley said he’d already been looking for something more in his life when he and his mates had battered down her front door.