I played nice. She played nice. I wish the same could be said of the other delegates. Old what’s-his-name, Basil Northcote-Robinson from Archives, seems determined to make a big joke of the whole thing. Every time Mhari or I tried to convince him that PHANGs are a serious subject, he found an excuse to turn it into a reminiscence about his time in the army right after the Second World War, doing something dodgy with SIGINT in Romania. Or to talk about the time he got to shake hands with Boris Karloff. And the others on the committee kept playing along. I’m coming to the conclusion that whatever causes the disbelief is a powerful but very low-key, persistent geas. If it was splattered all over Dansey House as part of that annoying contamination problem they’re dealing with, that would explain why I can’t pick up any signs of it in the New Annex. It would also explain why the oldsters are so damned intransigent: they’ve been picking up subliminal nudges for forty-five years.
In the end, during a particularly hysterical (not) digression (during which Doris Greene from H&S tiresomely explains that vampires really don’t exist and if they did it would be Too Bad, because they’d have to wear surgical masks, gowns, and eye shields at all times because of the risk of blood-born contamination; I think she’s mistaking them for Hep-C patients or something), I manage to catch Mhari’s gaze. Which is difficult when her eyes are rolling. But we make eye contact nonetheless, and she nods, and I can tell she gets it because at the end of the session she stays behind. “I know what you’re thinking,” she says, as the coffin-dodgers shuffle through the door, leaving us alone.
“Yeah. Listen, your list looks good to me. There are a couple of things I’d like to add to it, but it’s a good start.”
“Oh I am so relieved.” She winces and clutches her forehead theatrically. “And?”
“My protocol. Do you think it could work?”
“I think there’s an element of ‘and now a miracle happens’ in the process for extracting samples, somewhere between organizing a hospital liaison and sorting out a regular courier run. But I want to believe.”
“So. Wanna take it to email?”
Mhari finally smiles. “I like it when you talk dirty.”
“Listen, you’re the chair. Co-opt me as secretary and we can kick it around until we both agree to it. Then we hold another meeting, feed the peanut gallery the edited highlights, let them spin some more war stories, then get everyone to sign off on it.”
“I think that’s a great idea.” She narrows her eyes and stares at me. “Why are you being so proactively helpful all of a sudden?”
“Because it’s necessary. For the organization.”
“No, I mean why are you. Being so, um, cooperative?”
I blink. She still thinks it’s personal . . . ? “Would you rather I nursed grudges?”
“I was afraid of it. I guess.” She gives a little self-deprecating laugh. “Well, got to be going. I have minutes to write up. And then another meeting. They’re keeping me busy, bringing me up to speed on changes to management appeals processes.”
“I’ve got to go, too,” I say. “Take care. And if you see something . . .”
“Say something. Right.” She smiles, and reveals her teeth. The canines are gleaming again: I guess the cosmetic dentistry doesn’t last forever. (Maybe they’re like rodents? Continuously growing?) “I’m a grown-up, Bob. Of course I’ll call you.”
“Bob?” says Pete. I snap back to the here-and-now.
“Yeah?” I say.
“What happened?” he asks.
“What? Um. Well.” I gather my thoughts. “Nobody believes in vampires. Our monitoring program that keeps an eye open for them was shut down forty-plus years ago. Then around four to eight weeks ago three things happen simultaneously: a whole bunch of vampires appear ab initio in an external organization. One of our former HR people just happens to be in a senior-ish position in the Scrum. And I somehow end up pulling a part-time data mining project that is designed to flag early warning signs of vampirism. I emphasize: all of this happens at the same time.
“Let me speculate. Someone in the organization has been aware of vampires all along. Probably because they are one. Quite possibly, being infested with the V-symbiont confers immunity to K syndrome—in which case, becoming a vampire might be an occupational hazard for ritual practitioners. One with an upside to balance the downside, if they’re sufficiently ruthless.
“So, let’s posit a very old, very ruthless sorcerer embedded within the Laundry. For a long time they’ve been running a very low-level geas, probably the source of the contamination under Dansey House. We can construct a number of narratives that start this way. For example: recently they decided it was a good idea to do some research into their condition, and the best way to do this was by, well. We know it’s a memetic parasite. Think the wrong thoughts and you, too, could grow fangs and catch fire in sunlight. So they looked around for a suitable petri dish to culture vampires in. And of course you don’t mess around with lethally dangerous infections without keeping a means of sterilizing it to hand. I was, I guess, intended both to deliver a report on the experiment and to, uh, recycle the petri dish? Someone with access to my long-ago HR file would know about me and Mhari getting along like a house on fire, complete with the screaming and smoke inhalation.” Andy looks at me. “Yes?”
“You’re still here and they’re still here,” he points out.
“Yup. So let’s spin another yarn. A different vam—sorcerer, outside the Laundry, experiments with minions. They decide to generate a bunch of baby vamps as enforcers for some reason. Our vamp, inside the Laundry, decides to take their toys away from them, by inserting Mhari into it and drawing the side effect of their feeding to my attention.”
Pete looks at me. “Isn’t this a bit far-fetched?”
“Normally I’d say so,” I agree. “But it all lines up, and it’s much too neat. And there are too many tight links in the chain. It’s almost as if it was designed as a plausible cover story for something else—”
That’s when the phone rings.
I pick it up. “Bob speaking.”
“Bob.” It’s Angleton. “BLUE DANDELION is open again. Are you alone?”
I glance around. “I’m with Andy and Pete. I can have them leave—”
“Not necessary. Is Alex Schwartz around? Mhari Murphy? Any of the PHANGs?”
“No.” Suddenly I’m hunched over. Andy watches me, eyes narrow; Pete merely looks resigned, as if he thinks this is just another case of bad telephonic etiquette cutting a casual conversation dead.
“All right. Meet me in the lobby immediately. I need you to come with me to make an identification.”
Oh fuck. That does not sound good. “Right.” I pause. “Anything for Andy or Pete?”
“Ask them not to go home until we’re back. We should not be long.”
“Okay. Bye.” I hang up. “That was Angleton. I have to go off-site for a while. Not long. He says you should both stay here until I get back—I think he intends to rope you in on whatever this is later.”
“What does that mean?” Pete complains.
“Hope he’s wrong and you don’t find out,” Andy says darkly. “Good luck, Bob.”
“Hope I don’t need it,” I say. Then I grab my jacket and smartphone and run for the stairs.
• • •
I MEET ANGLETON IN THE LOBBY. “WHAT’S UP?” I ASK.
He strides towards the front door, trench coat flapping around his knees. “You’ll see.” The usual expression of arch amusement is missing from his gaunt face right now. He looks—old? Tired? Ill-at-ease? All of these things, I decide. Which is bad for my stomach, but not as bad as the crimson police BMW with the yellow stripes and the flashing blue lights that’s waiting for us with a heavy from SCO19 leaning against it beside the open door.
“You Angleton and Howard?” asks the cop. He doesn’t look terribly
amused.
I pull out my warrant card, carefully not moving too fast. Unlike most British cops this one has a holstered pistol to go with his bulletproof vest, and there’s undoubtedly an exciting collection of things that go bang in the locked safe in the car boot. “I’m Angleton,” says Angleton. “He’s Howard. I gather we’re needed at . . .” He gives an address, somewhere in the East End.
“Okay, hop in.” The officer passes my warrant card back and looks at me, checking my face against the photograph. “We’ll have you there in no time.”
That’s when I realize how serious this is: the Met charge top dollar for their services as a taxi firm, especially when automatic weapons are along for the ride. Also, there’s a dress code for the back of this limo—uniform or handcuffs—and we’re breaking it. Our interlocutor climbs in the front next to the driver, and we barely have time to shut the doors before he switches on the disco lights and sound system and floors it. It’s not a terribly comfortable way to travel, but it’s the third fastest way to get around London—after helicopters and motorbikes—and it’s astonishing how the buses and taxis get out of your way when you’ve got lights, sirens, and submachine guns on your side.
Barely fifteen minutes later we pull up in a very tidy residential street, outside an imposing chunk of Victorian masonry that’s clearly been converted into posh apartments. They’re not so upmarket right now, with police incident tape strung around the railings and doorways. A couple of constables are on hand, bitching into their wallyphones as they stand by to check IDs for the upset residents who will be coming home from work to find their des res is a crime scene. Angleton strides over to the nearest PC. “Which flat is it?” he asks briskly.
“Can I see your—oh, it’s you guys.” The cop gives me the hairy eyeball. “Him, too?” I pull out my warrant card. “Okay, it’s Flat Four. Go on in, the front door’s locked open. Don’t mess with the crime scene unless you want the inspector to shout at you.” He turns away.
I follow Angleton up the front steps. “What was that about?” I ask.
“None of your business, boy.” He seems amused about something. I shrug and follow him up the stairs, pausing to stand aside as a couple of SOCOs in bunny suits shuffle downstairs, almost doubled over under the weight of their cameras and bashed gear bags.
“What is this? A murder investigation?” I ask.
“Perhaps.” Angleton arrives at the entrance to Flat Four, which is indeed wedged open. The white door is smeared with fingerprint powder all around the handle. (Very old-school; maybe the door surface doesn’t play nice with cyanoacrylate?) “Anyone there?” he calls.
“Wait one!” There is a loud rustling noise, then a boil-in-the-bag cop appears. Her Tetra radio is crackling excitedly. (It’s digital: I suspect they add the fake interference because it confuses the users if the quality is too good.) “Who are you?”
“Angleton and Howard, to ID the victim.” Oh, now he tells me.
“Okay, come on in. You don’t need to suit up but you should avoid touching anything.” She backs into the apartment. “We left him in situ, in the living room.”
I get my first premonition from the greasy, mouth-watering smell. It’s faint but noticeable: last night’s Chinese char siu takeaway, or something worse? (Or was it last night’s? Could it be even older?) “Wait one. There’s a corpse? Do you know what he died of?”
Our guide stops, her bunny suit rustling. “You’re definitely Howard?” I nod. “You’re here to ID the victim?”
Angleton buts in: “He is.”
“Well, thanks for briefing me,” I say sarcastically. In context, the smell is nauseating. And my ward is itching—it’s not under attack, but something very bad happened here not long ago, and it’s picking up the aftershocks. “How bad is it?”
“Breathe deeply,” she suggests. “If you’re feeling faint, it’s okay to go back into the hall. Or sit on one of the dining chairs. But don’t throw up on the evidence.”
Oh, that bad. We move on, doing the pantomime horse thing, into a big open-plan dining-kitchen-living area. Kitchen and breakfast bar at one end, then a dining table, then thick shag-pile carpet and sofa and living stuff opposite a picture window. Someone’s sitting on the sofa—
Oh, right.
I wander over to the window, turn round, then squat on my heels facing the corpse. The victim is badly burned, but the sofa’s made of thick cowhide over fire-retardant padding, and the carpet didn’t catch. Like many burn victims the corpse’s arms and legs are drawn in, its back arched by contracting muscles—so why is his charcoal briquette of a head lolling to one side? I close my eyes and anchor myself, then look. Yes, I’ve seen him before. In the Scrum’s office, then a couple of times on induction courses around the New Annex crèche. There’s still a faint crimson glow inside his skull, but it’s not human; there’s not enough life there for me to reanimate, just the quiet crunching and munching of the V-parasites chowing down on a host who can no longer deliver the goods.
I open my eyes. “It’s Evan,” I say. “Evan Elliott. Teamed with Alex for pair programming, specialist in Hilbert-space visualization interfaces.” I look at Angleton. “Neck’s broken, and there’s some residual V-parasite activity. But nothing I can reanimate.” The SOCO sergeant is giving me a glassy-eyed stare. “If I had to speculate, I’d say someone broke his neck. Then, while he was paralyzed”—(looks like vampires are tougher than merely mortal humans)—“they positioned him in front of the window and opened the curtains, leaving him for the daylight. Which implies they knew who and what he was.” Evan has clearly participated in his final burn-down. I stand up and look at Angleton. “When did we hear about it? How long has he been dead?”
“You knew the deceased?” asks the cop. “Do you know how he was set on fire? We haven’t been able to find an ignition source or an accelerant.”
I keep a straight face. “Everyone knows vampires don’t exist,” I say. “So if I was to tell you he was a blood-sucking fiend—”
“You have got to be kidding.” For a moment I wonder if I’ve gone too far: cops take a very dim view of people messing with their heads. But she’s seen the warrant card; I’m not sure who she thinks we are, but as long as she thinks we’re authority figures she can trust, we should be okay.
I shrug. “Have it your way. It’d explain everything very neatly, though, wouldn’t it? Otherwise how else would Vampy Vicious here break his neck sitting down, then spontaneously combust?”
“There are signs of abrasions around his wrists, inflicted pre-mortem. And if you examine his crotch—”
Hmm. “Abrasions? You think someone cuffed him? What about his crotch?”
The sergeant walks over, points at a carbonized mess where the legs join the torso. “Looks like Mr. Polyester Pants suffered a bit of a meltdown in the wedding tackle department. Which was unzipped, privates on parade.” Angleton is watching me with arch amusement. “Hm. Your V—theory. Would Edward Cullen here be very strong, by any chance?”
“Yes,” I admit. “So, um. Hypothesis: the killer seduced him in order to get close enough to cuff him, then broke his neck and left him to face the rising sun. Which would destroy most of the other evidence, wouldn’t it? DNA, skin samples, and so on.” Yummy! Self-cremating murder victims. “How long ago did it happen?”
“We’re not certain yet but the body’s cold enough he could have been dead for—”
“It happened yesterday,” says Angleton.
“What?” I ask, just as the cop says, “How do you know?”
“He left the office yesterday around 4 p.m. and missed work today.” Angleton looks annoyed—and rightly so. Someone in HR was asleep on the job if we didn’t learn about it until after the police. “How did you find him?”
“The housekeeper has a key, came in to make the bed, got the fright of her life.” The sergeant shakes her head. “Am I looking for a female or
male?”
I shrug. “I have no idea. We could ask his co-workers which way they think he swings—swung—but he could have been closeted or have some other reason to lie.”
“Well. Perhaps you could introduce me to these co-workers?”
Angleton spares me a quelling look, then slides into gear: “I’m afraid not, Sergeant. Mr. Elliott was engaged in secret work for the government, as are his colleagues, and I must remind you at this point of the terms of the Official Secrets Act. Although, having said that, we entirely understand your desire to bring the perpetrator of this, this—”
“Crime,” I suggest.
“Crime to justice, and we will immediately notify you if we develop any leads, identify any witnesses, or find any evidence that will further your investigation.” Angleton straightens up. “Come on, Mr. Howard. We have a briefing room to inform.”
“Hey! Now stop right there, you can’t just—”
Angleton smiles at her, and she freezes. I sympathize with her predicament: being smiled at by Angleton is a bit like getting a glimpse through the gates of hell. Or seeing an atom bomb go off over your hometown and getting to watch all your pets and lovers and children and parents die simultaneously. “We will leave now,” he says, and steps past her. I follow him, and try to ignore the solitary tear overflowing her left eyelid and trickling under her surgical mask.
• • •
IT’S AFTER SIX. I’M IN THE BACK OF THE POLICE CAR, SHOULDER to shoulder with Angleton as we ride back to the office, when it hits me and the shakes begin.
I’m no stranger to death. I’m in a profession where people die by accident—there is a reason we have such a strong emphasis on health and safety at work. In my particular role, I am sometimes responsible for killing people. It’s a horrible, sordid business and I try to avoid it by any means possible—but a chunk of my business is carried out in graveyards and mortuaries. (What band does the necromancer dance to? Boney M.) I’m usually blasé about this stuff; after all, you don’t get to graduate from Trainee Eater of Souls to Journeyman Scoffer of Spectres without chewing some ectoplasm.
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