by Greg Keen
None of the three hard hats in the Portakabin was large enough to fit me. As a result, I accompanied Adesh across fragments of brick and broken glass like a man balancing a galia melon on his head. A white tent had been erected forty feet away from a pile driver. If Adesh was correct, and the Association for British Archaeology got its way, the machine wouldn’t be seeing any action for a while.
Inside the tent, two men were standing beside a trestle table on which lay a number of dingy items. A patch of earth had been excavated to about three feet. It revealed a pair of brown corroded skeletons. One was hunched in a foetal position, the other stretched out on its back. Disconcertingly, its skull had been placed between its feet. I tried to focus on the two people in the room with a bit more padding on them.
Blimp Baxter’s jowly cheeks were cratered with acne scars, although for a guy in his mid-fifties he had an impressive head of dark-brown hair. His blue eyes were as hard as an eagle’s and had caused more than one contestant on Elevator Pitch! to dry up entirely on the journey to the Shard’s summit. Wearing a grey business suit, he was wagging a finger in the face of a man sporting a sky-blue fleece and a pair of glasses that made his eyes appear large and owlish.
‘Are you out of your mind?’ Blimp asked the archaeologist. ‘We’re two months behind schedule as it is without having to let you lot loose with teaspoons and toothbrushes.’
‘I fully understand your concern, Mr Baxter,’ he replied. ‘And of course we will bear in mind this is a construction site.’
I admired his sangfroid. Not many people kept calm when Blimp got in their face.
The tycoon glanced in my direction. ‘I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes,’ he said, and returned his attention to the archaeologist. ‘How many more of those do you think there are, Spencer?’ he asked in a much less bollocky voice.
‘It’s hard to say but the GPR results indicate numerous anomalies in the substrata. That means there could be as many as another thirty burials.’
Blimp rubbed his chin and appeared to give this some thought. ‘Who else has seen the results apart from you?’ he asked.
‘I’m the only person,’ Spencer said, ‘although I’ve shared the information anecdotally with colleagues. It’s really very exciting.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I get all that,’ Blimp said. ‘But what if the equipment was faulty?’
‘It’s in excellent working order.’
Blimp put an arm around Spencer’s shoulder. The archaeologist looked slightly bewildered at his sudden change in demeanour.
‘Here’s the thing, Spence,’ Blimp said. ‘My company puts buildings up all over the world and we probably don’t pay enough attention to the archeological heritage we might be destroying. I’m guessing that’s a concern to someone like you?’
‘Absolutely,’ Spencer replied.
‘Of course it is,’ Blimp nodded empathetically. ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking that what we need is to retain a consultant we could fly into each site, and pay a fee of . . . oh, I don’t know . . . maybe twenty thousand? Starting with this site, of course.’
It was as outlandish a bribe as I’d heard. What made it even more audacious was that Blimp had made it in front of a third party. Clearly it wasn’t the fact that he might be witnessed taking a bung that bothered Spencer, though. He stared at his shoulder as though Blimp’s hand were a turd.
‘Even if I did say the equipment was faulty, Mr Baxter, which I have absolutely no intention of doing, the tests would simply be rerun.’
‘And if I just bulldoze away?’ Blimp asked. ‘What then?’
‘As a Stop Notice has been issued, you would be committing a criminal offence that, in this instance, would almost certainly carry a jail sentence.’
Blimp shook his head. ‘People like you make me puke,’ he said. ‘Who the hell cares what happened five hundred years ago?’
‘Eleven hundred,’ Spencer corrected him.
For a moment I thought Blimp was going to hang one on him. His jaw became rigid and his shoulders tensed. Although he probably had sixty per cent less adipose fat on him, I’m not sure Spencer would have come out on top if it came to a scrap.
‘Oh, just fuck off, why don’t you?’ Blimp said eventually.
‘As long as we’re clear about the situation, Mr Baxter.’
Blimp’s eyes were a pair of death rays, but he kept his trap shut. Spencer picked up a cagoule from the trestle table and walked out of the tent. Blimp breathed heavily for a few seconds before reaching inside his suit for a silver hip flask. ‘Want some?’ he asked.
‘No, thanks,’ I replied.
Blimp drained the flask and screwed the top back on. Then he jumped into one of the graves. The skeleton’s ribcage fractured on impact like a bag of twigs. Blimp brought a polished brogue down hard on each femur. One cracked sharply like a banger; the other gave way with a groan. The portly developer gave it some afters before stamping repeatedly on the tibia as though putting out a fire.
He picked up the yellow skull with the tips of his fingers and held it at waist height. Eye sockets through which London light had filtered over a thousand years ago gazed sightlessly up at him. It looked as though Blimp was starring in an avant-garde production of Hamlet and about to launch into the famous soliloquy.
‘You fucking cunt,’ he said, and drop-kicked it.
The parietal bone hit the roof of the tent and crashed down on to the trestle table, where it disintegrated. Teeth from the jaw sprayed in various directions, an incisor bouncing off my hard hat. The rest of the skull was reduced to myriad fragments.
The effort left Blimp red in the face and panting in a cloud of skeletal dust. After brushing some of it from his shoulders and hair, he clambered out of the grave.
‘What d’you want to talk about?’ he asked.
TWENTY-THREE
What with it being chilly in the tent (not to mention covered in fragments of Hengist, or whatever name Blimp’s victim had answered to in life), we made our way to the Portakabin. Blimp told Adesh to wait outside. I was surprised Blimp needed a minder who could probably uproot trees with his bare hands. Good to see he was an equal-opportunities employer, though.
The cabin contained two desks, a Calor Gas heater, a mini fridge and not much else. A large whiteboard had been partially expunged of dates and text. After Adesh had left, I hung my tiny hat on a rack by the grimy window. Blimp sat behind one of the desks, sparked up a small cigar and inhaled deeply.
‘Let’s start with who you are and what you do,’ he said. I handed over a business card. ‘Skip-tracers run people to ground, don’t they?’
‘I’m acting more in an investigative capacity.’
‘Connected to George Dent, my PA said.’
‘That’s right.’
‘For whom are you working?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t reveal that,’ I said, not wanting Malcolm – technically now my client – linked to the investigation in any way.
Blimp snorted. ‘Drop the bullshit, old boy.’
‘It’s a professional requirement.’
‘Is it really? Well, suit yourself, but I don’t have all day . . .’
Quite why a man up to his oxters in dead Anglo-Saxons and overrun charges had the time to see me at all was surprising. As he had, I jumped straight in.
‘Before he died, did George Dent contact you at all?’
‘Our professional lives occasionally brought us together. Industry events and that kind of thing.’
‘I was thinking of something of a more personal nature.’
Blimp blew out a column of blue smoke and shook his head. ‘I don’t go in for all the old-school-tie rot. I’m grateful to Hibberts for one thing and one thing only, which is teaching me that it’s a dog-eat-dog world.’
‘You didn’t enjoy your time there?’
‘That’s an understatement.’
‘But you were friendly with George?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Peter Ti
mms.’
The name had no discernible effect on Blimp.
‘Have you been in touch with any of the others?’ he asked.
‘I had a chat with Will Creighton-Smith.’
‘Good God, what’s that buffoon up to now?’
‘Selling vintage cars.’
‘Yah, I heard his old man crapped out on the business. Must have been hard for Smith. What did he tell you about George?’
‘They’d seen each other a couple of times.’
Blimp raised his eyebrows. ‘Wouldn’t have thought they’d have been particularly simpatico. Or has Will jumped the fence in his old age?’
‘What fence?’
Blimp blew an air kiss in my direction.
‘You mean, is he gay?’ I asked.
Blimp shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me. Always thought he was too butch to be true.’
‘Weren’t the pair of you friends?’
Blimp rested his cigar on the edge of the desk and leant forward. ‘Ever heard of the remora fish?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘It attaches itself to the underbelly of a shark and lives off the fragments of food it doesn’t ingest. The shark has its skin kept in good condition and, because of that, it tolerates the situation.’
‘You were a remora fish to Will’s shark?’
‘Pretty much. I helped him get what he wanted and generally played the useful idiot. In return I wasn’t relentlessly bullied, which is what usually happens to fat kids in places like Hibberts.’
‘What about the trip to Highgate Cemetery?’
‘What about it?’
‘Did Will involve you in that?’
Blimp picked up his cigar. Perhaps the nicotine had helped reduce his stress levels. Certainly he appeared to have become more relaxed during the course of our conversation. ‘He asked me to find a ladder to get them in and out.’
‘But someone spotted you.’
‘Did he tell you that?’
‘Actually, it was Peter Timms. Or should I say the late Peter Timms.’
‘Have you been in touch with any of the others?’
‘All bar Simon Paxton.’
‘What’s the Northern skimp doing these days?’
‘Ray Clarke? He’s a retired teacher.’
‘That who you’re working for?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, he kept quiet about what happened that night, which was decent.’
‘Sounds as though you quite liked him,’ I said.
‘Clarke got to Hibberts through guts and hard work. I respect that. The rest of us had wealthy parents and knew just enough to pass the Common Entrance Exam.’
Blimp ground his cigar butt out on the floor and looked at his watch. ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked. ‘Because wonderful though strolling down memory lane is, there are a few things I need to attend to.’
‘Before he died, George Dent said that he’d seen Alexander Porteus.’
‘Who?’
‘The man whose grave they visited in the cemetery. The person they said appeared when they were performing the ritual.’
‘So what?’ Blimp said. ‘He was off his head on booze and drugs. Probably thought there were pink spiders crawling over the ceiling most nights.’
‘Peter Timms saw Porteus a few days before he died too.’
Blimp frowned. ‘How d’you mean, saw him?’
‘In his garden, late at night.’
‘Maybe he’d been at the same stuff Dent had.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Is that what you wanted to know?’ Blimp said incredulously. ‘Whether a dead man’s been tailing me?’
‘I take it that’s a no, then?’
‘Of course it bloody well is. Whoever is paying you to look into this must be very rich and very stupid. Some public-school boys bit off more than they could chew forty years ago. There’s nothing to investigate. End of story.’
As though to emphasise its owner’s point, Blimp’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, sighed and pressed ‘Accept’.
‘Hello Leonid, how are you? . . . Yes, I just finished speaking with the man ten minutes ago . . . I did try but it’s not quite so easy in this country . . .’
Blimp held the phone away from his ear as something incomprehensible blasted out of the earpiece. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to repeat that in English,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m attending to it, Leonid, but I can’t work miracles . . . Very well, I’ll come round in person—’
Whether Blimp had intended to say more was immaterial. Leonid had cut the call. Blimp returned the phone to his pocket, looking every minute of his fifty-three years.
‘Right, I’ve got to go.’ Blimp rose from the chair. ‘If you take my advice . . .’ He looked at my card for a prompt. ‘If you take my advice, Kenny, you and your client will let well alone. Otherwise who knows what might come out of the woodwork.’
Blimp’s counsel carried a warning note. I also got the impression that something I’d said had put his mind at rest. The reason he’d made time to see me was that he wanted to find out what I knew – or didn’t know.
‘Oh, and one other thing,’ he said on his way to the door. ‘I’ve a feeling a break-in at the site tonight might lead to an appalling act of desecration . . .’
‘Someone might destroy one of the skeletons?’
‘You never know.’
‘Perhaps you should step up security,’ I said.
‘First thing tomorrow,’ Blimp replied.
I picked up two voicemail messages after leaving the River Heights site. The first was from Olivia, suggesting I visit the bookshop that evening. The second was from Connor Clarke, asking that I get in touch. Neither sounded too relaxed.
‘I hope you don’t mind me contacting you, Kenny,’ Connor said when I returned his call.
‘No problem. How can I help?’
‘You remember I told you Judy had been receiving hate mail?’ he asked.
‘Has there been more?’
‘This morning. Thank God she was in bed and I got to it first. It’s the same handwriting, but it’s a lot crazier. I wondered if you’d mind taking a look and giving me your professional opinion. I can take a photo and email it . . .’
‘Probably better I see it in person,’ I said.
‘If you’re sure,’ Connor said. ‘I don’t want to put you out or anything.’
‘How about nine tomorrow morning?’ I suggested.
‘Could you come to my flat?’ Connor asked. ‘I’d rather not disturb Judy if she’s sleeping and obviously I don’t want to talk in front of her if she isn’t.’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Oh, and Connor, it might be a good idea if you stay with Judy tonight, just to be on the safe side.’
‘You think this guy might be serious?’
‘It’s just a precaution,’ I said.
And I hoped it was.
TWENTY-FOUR
I made my way to Leicester Square and popped into the Porcupine for a drink. Porteus Books closed at 6.30 p.m., which was when Olivia had suggested I pitch up. It gave me half an hour, and I’d just ordered a large waga when my phone rang with Gary’s number. ‘Kenny, I’ve got him,’ he said.
‘McDonald?’
‘Yeah, we’ve just come out of Angel Tube . . . He’s walking . . . down St John Street.’
Gary sounded slightly out of breath. Bearing in mind his fitness level, it was likely due to excitement than exertion. ‘Where did you pick him up?’ I asked.
‘Outside Billy’s complex in Docklands. I didn’t see him arrive, so he must have come in through the car park. Anyway, he walked out the front door half an hour ago and headed straight for the DLR. I didn’t get the chance to call you . . .’
‘Try not to lose him,’ I said. ‘Did you get a photograph?’
‘On my phone . . . Not sure what the quality’s like, though . . . Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet . . . Kenny, I’m going to have to go. There’s people everywhere and I don’t want t
o lose him.’
‘That’s fine, Gary,’ I said. ‘Take plenty of photographs and make a note of any address he goes to. Oh, and one more thing . . .’
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re a star.’
Had the Porcupine been less crowded, I’d have shouted that the drinks were on me. Instead I bought another waga and a bag of Doritos, and instructed the barman to keep the change. If Gary lost McDonald, the photograph of him emerging from Billy Dylan’s building should be proof enough that the pair were in cahoots. Even a double dose of mother love wouldn’t be enough for Meg Dylan to ignore the obvious.
Kenny was off the hook.
I sank my waga and trotted down the Charing Cross Road. A decent meal, followed by a spot of leg-over, and my delivery from the forces of darkness would be complete. Rodney was displaying the CLOSED sign when I reached Porteus Books in Cecil Court. ‘Oh, hello again,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, thanks. Is Olivia around?’
‘Downstairs with a client. Don’t think she’ll be too long. Although, be warned – she’s not in the best of moods.’
‘Sebastian?’
Rodney nodded. ‘He came round this morning.’
‘After money?’
‘Probably. At least he didn’t lift it straight from the till this time.’
‘Rodney, can I pick your brains about something?’ I asked.
‘Pick away.’
‘Have you read a novel called The White Tower?’
‘Yonks ago.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Basically some black magician whose assistant kills his victims for sacrificial purposes to keep his master alive. It was quite notorious back in the day. People thought it contained a message about how to achieve immortality.’
‘Does anyone know who William Gifford was?’
‘Is this going back to Liv?’ he asked. I made a zipping motion across my lips. ‘Porteus was based in Paris at the time it was printed,’ he continued. ‘Some professor in the States ran a computer analysis on the style. He’s sure it’s him.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Whether it’s by Alexander Porteus?’ Rodney shrugged. ‘To be honest, I haven’t read any of the old boy’s other books, so I’ve got nothing to compare it with. Mind you, the program the prof used was ninety-eight per cent accurate.’
