Lesley was to his right, trying to get to her feet. She was trying to wrench something out of her jacket pocket, and making a mess of both actions. I couldn’t pass up a shot at Chorley, so I tried to body-slam him with my shield.
I’m not sure, but I think he sort of picked up my shield and used it and my momentum to throw me over his head. Certainly for me there was a confused moment where everything was upside down, a painful impact on my back, and then I slid down the icy cobbles for a couple of metres.
I rolled over in time to see Chorley turn his full attention on me, with a look in his eyes that said I’d just reached the end of the rope he’d been giving me.
Then he fell twitching to the floor – I knew that twitch. I’ve suffered it myself. There were wires trailing from his back to the yellow X26 taser in Stephanopoulos’ hand, and she kept pumping the juice just as instructed by the big bumper manual of how to deal with criminal practitioners.
Lesley was still trying to get something free of her jacket, and I scrambled up to stop her. But before I could get to my feet she had a compact semi-automatic pistol in her hand, which she pointed at Stephanopoulos.
‘Drop the fucking taser,’ she shouted.
Stephanopoulos signalled me to hold back.
‘Or what?’ she asked Lesley.
‘Don’t test me,’ said Lesley. ‘I’m having a very trying day.’
‘For God’s sake, just shoot her,’ said Chorley, and then wriggled a bit as the current hit him again. ‘Or Peter. Or fucking somebody.’
I thought it might be quite handy if Nightingale were to turn up about then.
‘If you’re going to shoot, then shoot,’ said Stephanopoulos.
So Lesley shot her in the leg – which, looking back, was probably the sensible thing to do. If you were Lesley.
Stephanopoulos fell over sideways as her left leg gave way. She tried to keep hold of the taser, but Chorley had taken advantage of the distraction to pull the barbs out. I was already surging forward when Lesley turned the gun on me.
‘Plan B,’ said Chorley as he got up and headed for the van.
‘Copy that,’ said Lesley, keeping the gun on me.
Stephanopoulos had dragged herself behind a parked car but I could hear her swearing.
There was the sound of shooting behind me and I instinctively crouched down. At first I thought Seawoll had escalated up to an armed response once Stephanopoulos had been shot. But the gunshots didn’t sound right. Chorley was in the van by then and had it started. I jumped to the side as it pulled out and turned, not upslope as I expected, but down towards the underground car park. The curve of the ramp meant I couldn’t see the actual entrance, but there was no mistaking the bark of shotguns firing from that direction. Suddenly a white man dressed in dark military trousers and a navy bomber jacket flew backwards into view and landed on the roof of a parked car. Chorley had obviously been out recruiting in Essex again. Even as he bounced onto the bonnet he held tight to a pump-action shotgun. But before he could recover, the shotgun was wrenched out of his hands and sent flying all the way up and over the safety railing to West Smithfield Road fifteen metres above.
That explained what had delayed Nightingale.
I turned back to find Lesley had gone, so I ran over to find Stephanopoulos lying on her back with her leg elevated and her belt in place as a tourniquet. She gave me a look of annoyed exasperation.
‘Get down there and help Nightingale,’ she said.
I hesitated.
‘Ambulance is on its way,’ she said. ‘Go.’
I went down the ramp with my shield up and rounded the curve to find Nightingale finishing off a couple of wannabe hard men by knocking them down, stripping off their weapons with impello and throwing them up and out of reach in the direction of Smithfield Market.
As the guns went up, somebody unseen above threw down a couple of pairs of speedcuffs. Nightingale grabbed one and threw me the other – together we cuffed the pair and left them for the follow-up team.
I wanted at least to ask them their names, but Nightingale said we had to hurry.
‘He’s gone to ground,’ he said. ‘But he won’t stay there long.’
There were two vehicle and one pedestrian entrances into the underground. We took up position by a blue and white painted wooden office extension where we could cover the vehicle access. Behind us TSG officers in public order gear collected up our suspects while others guided one of their Sprinter vans to reverse so that it blocked the door to the pedestrian footpath.
‘Who were those guys?’
I indicated the two men as they were led away. Both their faces had a waxy sheen and they averted their eyes as they passed Nightingale.
‘Another one of Chorley’s distractions,’ he said. ‘They had a hostage. I had to resolve that before I could give chase.’
‘Yes but where do you think they came from? And what did you do to them?’
‘Irrelevant,’ said Nightingale, ‘And less than they deserved.’
We inspected the situation. Two eight-metre high Victorian brick arches marked the entrance to separate ‘in’ and ‘out’ tunnels, also from the original Victorian build. They both ran straight for twenty metres before veering left and out of sight.
There was another ‘operational pause’ while we checked that Stephanopoulos was being taken care of, that the other pedestrian access points had been locked down, and that Lesley May was nowhere to be found.
‘Chorley is our priority,’ said Seawoll. And there wasn’t any arguing with that.
‘Two tunnels,’ said Nightingale. ‘And, beyond that, two floors of parking.’
‘He could drill his way up into Smithfield,’ I said. ‘He’s good enough.’
‘But not before I could stop him,’ said Nightingale.
‘Two tunnels,’ I said. ‘One each?’
‘No,’ said Nightingale. ‘This time we want the odds to be in our favour.’
We brought down the other TSG van and used that to block the entrance to the out tunnel. As Nightingale said, it didn’t need to be impenetrable. It just had to slow Chorley down enough for us to catch up with him.
I borrowed a taser and holster and stripped off my hoody.
‘Ready?’ asked Nightingale.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really.’
‘Good man,’ said Nightingale. ‘Off we go.’
We went single file up the tunnel, clinging to the left-hand wall so Chorley wouldn’t see us coming. We paused when we reached the turn and Nightingale crouched down to peer around the corner.
‘I can see the ramp,’ he said. ‘Do you think he’s on the upper or lower level?’
I said I hadn’t got a clue.
‘I have an idea,’ he said. ‘I want you to conjure one of your experimental werelights – the one that flies erratically like a bumblebee.’
‘That’s why we call it a bumblebee,’ I said. ‘It’s not really very good for anything yet.’
I’d been trying to develop a self-guiding fireball, but so far all I’ve managed is one that ricochets unpredictably.
‘It will do for our purposes. And when you conjure it see if you can imbue it with . . .’ He hesitated. ‘Some of your essence.’
‘My essence?’
‘Your personality,’ he said.
I gave it a go. The basis is your bog-standard lux-impello combination – the complications come in the various modifiers you add to the principal formae. I opened my hand and an orangey-red sphere the size of a golf ball immediately shot back down the tunnel the way we’d come.
‘Ah,’ said Nightingale.
‘It always does that,’ I said. ‘Wait a second.’
The bumblebee came racing back past us and shot into the car park, making the low hum which is the other reason we call it the bumblebee. It also made a di
stinctive squealing sound when it bounced off walls or cars. I hoped I’d made it low-powered enough not to dust the electronics of every vehicle in the place.
After it zig-zagged down the ramp into the lower level, Nightingale had me conjure another and see if I couldn’t pitch it onto the upper level. I got it first time and soon we could hear the second bumblebee bouncing off walls.
Then we heard the bell – a low shimmering tone that I didn’t think had anything to do with actual sound waves. Then the sound of an engine starting up, which definitely did.
‘Flushed him, by God,’ said Nightingale.
The engine revved, not a particularly big one by the sound – one of the two-and-a-bit-litre diesels that Ford plonked into the older Transits.
‘That’s the van,’ I said.
There was a squeal of tyres and the engine noise got louder.
‘He’s going to try to bolt,’ said Nightingale. ‘Stay behind me – I’ll deal with any magic while you stop the van.’
We shuffled forward so that Nightingale could get a better look around the corner. The engine noise was randomly reflecting off the flat concrete surfaces of the garage, but it was definitely getting closer.
There was suddenly a sharp taste of copper in my mouth.
‘Here he comes,’ said Nightingale.
Something hit Nightingale’s shield and spun away to gouge chunks off the brickwork around us. I saw the van grab some air as it came over the lip of the ramp and got my spell ready, but a wave of roiling dust swept past it and over us, blotting everything out. Real dust, I realised, when I breathed it in – I fumbled the spell. Not that I had a target.
We heard the van roar down the second tunnel on our right – the one blocked by the TSG van. I hoped nobody had sneaked back in it for a kip.
‘Come on!’ yelled Nightingale.
We ran through the brown billows of settling dust and followed the van down the tunnel. But we’d barely made it past the turn when the dusty air turned orange and yellow and a wave of heat and sound smacked us in the face.
We stopped – the van was completely on fire from front to back, flames and smoke pouring out of the open back door. I could just see the silhouette of the bell inside. We advanced as close as we dared – because modern vans don’t explode like that without help.
I activated a phone and called Seawoll, who’d already heard about the explosion.
‘Did anyone come out of the tunnel?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Seawoll. ‘Chorley?’
I looked at Nightingale, who shrugged.
‘We think he was in the van,’ I said.
‘I fucking hope so,’ said Seawoll.
32
What Remains
Burnt beyond recognition.
No one was buying that, not even when the dental records confirmed his identity.
‘We’re sending a team to check they haven’t been tampered with,’ said Seawoll at the morning briefing.
DNA tests were ongoing in three separate labs using several different reference samples, including that of his late daughter. Two to three days for confirmation one way or the other.
And Lesley was still out there.
‘Assuming this is a fake-out,’ I said, ‘he must know we’ll confirm it’s not him pretty quickly. He must be planning to do something soon.’
‘But what?’ said Seawoll. ‘We have his second bloody bell.’
Which was already on its way to the Whitechapel foundry to face the hammer.
‘What if there’s a third bell?’ asked Guleed.
Seawoll fixed her with a stern disciplinary look that wasn’t fooling me for a second.
‘Then you’d probably better find out where he made it,’ he said.
I said that I wished she hadn’t said that, and got a proper stern look for my pains.
‘There was no sign of the sword,’ said Seawoll. ‘Now I’m not a scholar of the Arthurian legendarium but I’m pretty fucking certain that Excalibur comes into it bleeding somewhere. So Guleed finds the bell.’ He glared at me again for good measure. ‘You see if you can narrow down the target.’
He looked at Nightingale, who nodded his approval.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on with it, then.’
Strangely enough, they don’t cover metaphysics at Hendon. But fortunately they do at Oxford, and Postmartin had spent a lifetime reading about the point where the meta meets the physical. He was also, conveniently, currently staying at the Folly. He said this was to keep abreast of developments in Operation Jennifer, but I suspected it was so he could scope out our latest house guest. I’d certainly caught Foxglove showing him her portfolio after he bribed her with two hundred quid’s worth of Polychromos artists’ pencils – whatever they were.
Luckily I managed to drag him away before Foxglove convinced him to strip off and pose for her. We convened in the upstairs reading room, where a frighteningly cheerful Molly brought us tea and cakes.
‘So, where do we think Martin Chorley plans to make his sacrifice?’ said Nightingale.
‘St Paul’s Cathedral remains the obvious choice,’ said Postmartin. ‘Given what we know of the history of Mr Punch, the next highest probability, I would say, is the true location of the Temple of Mithras. Why else would he have John Chapman encourage his banker friends to conduct their bacchanalia there?’
‘That’s assuming Punch is the determining factor,’ said Nightingale.
‘Our problem,’ I said, ‘is that Martin Chorley isn’t concerned with evidence – it’s the truth of the heart, isn’t it? Now that I’ve had a chance to chat to him, I think he really believes in it.’
‘Believes in what?’ asked Postmartin.
‘All of it,’ I said. ‘Arthur, Camelot, a British golden age, or at least the modern equivalent.’
‘A romantic,’ said Nightingale. ‘The most dangerous people on earth.’
‘For all we know he could be looking for Arthur back up at Alderley Edge,’ I said.
‘In Cheshire?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Whatever for?’
‘There’s a rather fine children’s book set there,’ said Postmartin. ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, and a sequel too – The Moon of Gomrath.’
‘No,’ said Nightingale. ‘We should not confuse a mistaken belief with a general incredulity. He may be no true scholar but it seems to me he has always followed the forms. The places that interest him will be those that present him with the most respectable “evidence”.’
‘If we’re talking Arthur, then it’s quite a long list,’ said Postmartin. ‘The hill fort at Cadbury. Camlann, which is in the Welsh sources. Badon Hill likewise. Tintagel and Glastonbury, if we stretch the scholarship somewhat.’
‘All out of London, I notice,’ said Nightingale. ‘We can at least ask the local constabulary to keep an eye on the places we can identify.’ He looked at Postmartin. ‘If you had to pick your most likely target, which would it be?’
‘Oh, Glastonbury,’ said Postmartin. ‘Without a doubt. If you’re a romantic then the Isle of Avalon is always going to appeal.’
‘I don’t like splitting our forces,’ said Nightingale. ‘But I can reach Glastonbury in just over two hours, give the area the once-over and be back by nightfall.’ He looked at me. ‘I’d like you to kit up and be on immediate standby. If Chorley makes his move in London, God forbid, I want you to get in and disrupt him. I think we’ve eliminated most of his mundane assets, so just do what you do best and frustrate the hell out of him.’
I understood the logic. We already had St Paul’s covered, ditto the Bloomberg building. Seawoll had booked up a couple more vans’ worth of TSG and I’d noticed a couple of Frank Caffrey’s ‘associates’ in the breakfast room that morning. It would be just like Chorley to wait until we were fixed on London and then make his move out in the country. Postmartin
would already be working on a potential target list and no doubt having enormous fun in the process. Meanwhile Nightingale was the only one of us with a chance of going up against Chorley without backup, so it had to be him that went.
I still didn’t like it. But what are you going to do?
To my surprise, I found Seawoll downstairs, sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs in the atrium, the remains of an elaborate morning tea spread out on an occasional table beside him. He beckoned me over and I asked why he wasn’t at Belgravia nick.
‘I’m keeping a bloody eye on you lot,’ he said. ‘Plus this is closer to the City and that’s where the action is. Which reminds me . . .’
He pulled out an envelope and shook it under my nose – coins jingled inside. Not that there were many coins. It seemed to be mostly full of tenners.
‘Whip-round for Miriam,’ he said.
I handed over a tenner and asked how she was.
‘Serious, but not life-threatening. No bones were broken and the bullet went straight through so she should make a full recovery.’ He tucked the envelope back in his jacket pocket. ‘I can’t remember the last time a detective inspector got themselves shot. Do you think our Lesley went for non-lethal on purpose?’
I said I thought she had, and Seawoll nodded grimly.
‘You’ve been right all along. Whatever our Lesley’s reasons for going to the dark side she still thinks she’s straight. That’s why she’s protecting you and went for the leg shot with Miriam. There’s still a little bit of the old Lesley in there.’ Seawoll jabbed a finger at me. ‘You must not hesitate to use that against her. I want this business finished, Peter. I want you to promise me that if you have to go hard to get the job done, that’s what you’ll do.’
Lies Sleeping Page 29
