Foxglove Summer

by Ben Aaronovitch

  She didn’t ask after Nicole – I wondered if that was significant.

  She did remember a sort of road in the forest, it was all overgrown but the lady had made them run across it very quickly. There hadn’t been any signposts or houses, apart from the castle of course.

  I found Windrow in his office reading statements and approving actions which, along with going to meetings with other senior officers, is what senior officers spend most of their time doing. Rather them than me.

  I asked if there were any word on Nicole but Windrow said no – the inter-agency care team would send word as soon as there was any change.

  ‘What did you think of the statement?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t know, sir,’ I said. ‘Any chance I can talk to her?’

  ‘Let’s see if she sticks to the same story for the next couple of days,’ he said. ‘Is there any chance it’s true?’

  ‘It would be nice to have some physical evidence,’ I said. ‘She mentioned a cave – any sign of that?’

  ‘From the description it sounded like it might be along the river bank at Aymestrey. There are old quarry workings down there – so it’s possible.’

  And close to where we found them, I thought, and the scrap of cloth from Nicole’s clothes, too. That every vaguely castle-like structure within thirty kilometres of Rushpool was going to get a thorough going-over went without saying. My guess was that the National Trust was going to be seeing a heavy police presence in the next couple of days.

  ‘Any trouble with the media?’ asked Windrow.

  ‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘Is there likely to be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Windrow. ‘I don’t trust them when they go all quiet.’

  I promised to keep my head down, my nose wiped and to wear a clean pair of underpants at all times.

  ‘What do you plan to do next?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m going to do what I didn’t do when I got here,’ I said. ‘I’m going to hit the books.’

  Thankfully, he didn’t ask me what books. Perhaps he assumed that back at the Folly we had great big tomes full of esoteric lore within which the true history of the world was illuminated. It’s true about the esoteric lore, but the illumination has always been on the scarce side. Fortunately, I knew a bloke with a lot of the books I was looking for. All conveniently located in the same place,

  I pulled out my phone, found the number I wanted and pressed call – it rang twice.

  ‘Oswald Honey,’ said Mellissa. ‘Best honey there is.’

  ‘Hi, Mellissa,’ I said using my non-policing voice. ‘I wonder if I could come up and use your library.’

  ‘Granddad’s asleep,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be quiet,’ I said. ‘You won’t even know I’m there.’

  ‘Are you going to bring your friend?’

  ‘Who, Beverley?’

  ‘Of course Bev.’

  ‘If you want,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mellissa. ‘Come over whenever you like.’

  11

  Service Delivery Option

  In some households you only have to turn up three times before you’re expected to make your own tea, draw up a chair in front of the telly and call the cat a bastard. The Oswalds’ wasn’t that kind of household, not least because they don’t have a telly, but at least Mellissa seemed almost pleased to see me – or more likely Beverley.

  ‘She’s a bit short of female company round here,’ Beverley had said as we drove up the steep lane to the Bee House. ‘There are certain topics she can’t discuss with her granddad.’

  I’d asked her to see if she could find out who Mellissa’s parents were, but she made no promises – not even to tell me if she did find out. ‘Some things are private,’ she’d said. ‘Even from the police.’

  Which explained why, when we arrived, I was peremptorily waved up the stairs to the study while Beverley and Mellissa hustled into the kitchen with cries of glee and a vague promise that refreshments might arrive at some point in the future. Up in the study, I carefully cleared space on the gateleg table and removed a stack of old Bee Craft magazines from the wood and leather desk chair. The cover of the topmost magazine was dark pink and showed a line drawing of a hive and almost abstract pictures of flowers in the bulbous ink style that I associate with Gerry Mulligan covers of the mid-sixties. I remember staring at the cover of Feelin’ Good for hours when I was twelve but that was not necessarily down to the Art Nouveau stylings of the design.

  The trick, when rifling through the library of a practitioner, is to find the books with the notes written in the margins. I don’t know why – perhaps it was something they encouraged at Casterbrook – but I’ve never met a wizard yet who could resist jotting his thoughts down on somebody else’s work. The History of Ludlow by Thomas Wright Esq., MA, FRS, Hon. MRSL, 1850 had been extensively scribbled on as well as having obviously, judging by the stamp, been lifted from the Bodleian Library. There was quite a lot about wolves and their rampages in the tenth century alongside which Hugh, I recognised his handwriting, had written alas no more. One book caught my eye because it had a distinctive plain burgundy cover that I’d learnt to associate with the limited editions published in Oxford for use by the Folly. I opened it to the frontispiece to find the title – A Survey of Significant Locations in England and Wales by Henry Boatright. Published in 1907, it was a vestigium survey of Earthworks and Ancient Monuments with, where possible, a compendium of any information gathered by reputable practitioners about said sites. I checked the entry for Northern Herefordshire and found listings for Croft Ambrey, Brandon Hill, Pyon Wood Camp and the battlefield at Mortimer’s Cross.

  Boatright had diligently noted his impressions of possible vestigia as he examined the locations. But, being from the last century, he had yet to take up the ultramodern Yap scale of magical influence.

  Should have got yourself a ghost-hunting dog, I thought. That’s the way us go-ahead twenty-first-century practitioners calibrate our science experiments.

  Boatright was an unspeakably dull writer but, hopefully, conscientious – he certainly went on at length about his sense impressions in a manner that would have made Henry James proud. I did The Turn of the Screw for GCSE English, in case you wondered. And I’ve got to say, I preferred the metaphysical poets – so there.

  But Boatright certainly loved Pyon Wood Camp, which was situated the other side of the road from Croft Ambrey – talking about its numinous quality and air of ancient solemnity. He also rated Croft Ambrey because of its lofty aspect, but was disappointed because he found nothing that would verify his theory that this was where Caratacus made his last stand against the Romans. Brandon Hill gave him a weak feeling in his bowels which he later attributed to some dodgy boiled beef he’d eaten the night before. I skipped Mortimer’s Cross because it was on the other side of the Lugg and, judging by Beverley’s face-off with the unicorn, whatever was running around on the ridge didn’t like to cross the river. Why that might be was something I planned to get Beverley to find out.

  Caratacus suffered the double indignity of being taken to Rome in chains and having an opera written about him by Elgar. Apart from the need to deal with stroppy British chieftains, the Romans didn’t have much interest in northern Herefordshire except as a route up to Wroxeter and places North. They did this by constructing Watling Street, which runs diagonally across England like the zip on a Mary Quant dress, from Dover to Wroxeter. This is the road that crossed the Lugg by the Riverside Inn and that I had admired from up on the ridge – imposing itself on the landscape for certain. I made a note to check and see whether it was possible that either Pyon Wood or Croft Ambrey might be the castle Hannah had talked about. Perhaps the castle had been as immaterial as the unicorns – a product of magic. Or possibly even more insubstantial – a ghost of a castle like the incorporeal apple trees I’d seen in the moonlight. If that were true I’d have pegged the Roman Road to be the one she’d described crossing. Only she’d said it was partially overgrown
. According to the OS map the nearest disused section of the Roman road started over a kilometre north of Aymestrey and continued on to skirt the eastern side of Wigmore.

  Hugh’s annotations were extensive but cryptic, being mainly memos to himself. Things like BA disagrees and See IB07, BA confirms IB06. Most promising to me was a note on the Croft Ambrey page which read Activity stops in 1911 BA has no explan. It took me another half an hour of systematic searching before I located a row of old battered notebooks with dun-coloured cardboard covers on which was handwritten Incident Book, County of Hereford and then a year from 1899 to 1912. If I had any doubts about what kind of incidents they recorded then these were dispelled by the words ipsa scientia potestas est – knowledge itself is power – written in a ponderous cursive hand on the inside cover of every single notebook. And under that, a name. Barnaby Atkins Esq., MA (Oxon) CP (Herefordshire). CP stood for County Practitioner, a term that I’d heard Nightingale use. But I’d never taken it very seriously. It made me think of pith helmets and tea on the veranda with the District Commissioner. But there he was – Barnaby Atkins, aka BA – and his incident books, or IB, listed by year 99 to 12.

  These were working notebooks full of abbreviations and words that I don’t think meant what I thought they did. I was particularly suspicious of the number of women Barnaby had a ‘brush’ with during the course of his activities. Most of his cases were referred to him by the Chief Constable of the Herefordshire Constabulary, local magistrates or, and this surprised me, the Bishop of Hereford. It all seemed very informal, relaxed and entirely lacking in concern for the rights of anyone on less than £160 a year. I knew there was a section of the mundane library at the Folly which consisted of loose pages bound into ledgers – each one had been embossed with the name of a county. That must be where Barnaby Atkins Esquire’s formal reports had gone – Nightingale would have to have a look for me – but I suspected a great deal was fixed on the down low and never got reported. Especially things like, Wednesday Morning a happy bit with Mary who is maid to Mrs Packnar – most satisfactory.

  Barnaby’s sexual exploitation aside, it took a while to skim through the material. I started in 1912 and worked backwards to see what activity BA had no explanation for, and which stopped in 1911. TH complains that there have been no more visitations of the ghostly horses to Croft Ambrey and that he is £5 out of pocket through loss of custom. He claims that the visitations were common enough in the summer months but that he has seen nothing of them since the year before last. I told him that it was in the nature of spirits to be mercurial and that such matters were only my concern when they caused a breach of the peace. TH remonstrated that a loss of £5 was very much a breach of the peace but I repeated that I could not assist him and bade him farewell.

  Ghost horses, Croft Ambrey, the summer months – any of this ringing a bell?

  Barnaby, to give him his due, did investigate further and found that a number of other magical phenomena at Aymestrey, Mortimer’s Cross and Yatton – two ghosts and, ironically, an unearthly ringing bell – had also ceased.

  I was wondering why Barnaby hadn’t asked any of the local rivers if they knew anything, when I found this in IB05 – Came upon one of the river nymphs in a pool by the bridge at Little Hereford today and overcome by her beauty foolishly sought to grapple with her. At which point she landed me such a blow upon the side of the head that I had to take myself straightway to a Doctor and thereafter to my bed for a fortnight.

  I took a photo of that to show Beverley later.

  1911, I thought, what happened in 1911?

  More to the point, did it have anything to do with my case? The ghost horses said yes, but back in those days horses were as common as people so . . . coincidence?

  I heard a scraping noise from the staircase and, thinking that maybe tea had arrived, I stuck my head around the corner to see if I could help. To my amazement, Hugh Oswald was making his way up the stairs to see me – one step at a time. When he saw me he raised a shaking hand in greeting, but was obviously too breathless to speak. I moved to help him, but he waved me away, shaking his head. It took him at least ten minutes to reach the study, and at the end he accepted my arm over to a hastily cleared spot on the sofa.

  He sat down gratefully and wheezed at me while making apologetic little gestures. It was painful to watch. I offered him a drink from the bottle of water I had in my bag and he took it gratefully, making sips between gasps.

  ‘I don’t think you should have come up those stairs,’ I said.

  The wheezing became suddenly ragged, which worried me until I realised he was laughing.

  ‘I had a chance at a bungalow in the Palladian style,’ he said. ‘But I wanted the tower.’ He paused for breath again. ‘You can’t even fit a chairlift, either – Mellissa spent almost a year trying to find a way. Perils of living in a listed building.’

  I offered to go fetch Mellissa, but he was having none of that.

  ‘She’ll come looking for me soon enough,’ he said. ‘I wanted a bit of time alone with you. And she does fuss.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ I said.

  His face lost some of its livid mottling and his breathing its rasping edge.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said and directed me over to a chest that had been hidden under a dusty red floral cushion and two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I opened it up and smelt camphor and the warm smell of old cloth. Inside was a long cylindrical khaki bag with a rough webbing shoulder strap. I’ve spent enough time rooting around in the Folly’s basement to know army surplus when I see it. Stencilled along the side of the bag was Oswald, H. 262041 and it was held closed with three buckles. The contents were heavy – at least two or three kilos, I reckoned, when I lifted it out of the chest. Under Hugh’s direction I placed it on the floor in front of his feet and crouched down to unbuckle it.

  When I got it open a thick booklet with a dull red cover fell out – written on the front was Soldier’s Service and Pay Book. When I picked it up a photograph fluttered out from between the pages – sepia toned and faded, of a young man. Younger than me, I realised with a shock, stiffly posing in his uniform – unmistakably Hugh Oswald. I retrieved the photograph and handed it and the booklet to Hugh, who took them without looking at them. He nodded down at the bag.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  Inside the bag were two staves the size and shape of pickaxe handles. At one end they sported grips made of wrapped canvas and leather and at the other an iron cap. Branded neatly into one side was the same number sequence as on the bag, at a guess Hugh’s service number, and the hammer and anvil sigil of the Sons of Weyland – British wizardry’s legendary smiths.

  Makers of staffs.

  ‘Don’t be shy,’ said Hugh. ‘They won’t bite you.’

  A couple of bad experiences has taught me a certain amount of caution when handling unfamiliar arcane objects, so at first I just let my fingertips brush the surface of the wood. I felt it at once, the rasping, dancing, wriggling honey-soaked warm intimacy of the hive.

  ‘Have you been keeping this in your attic?’ I asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes. Well spotted,’ said Hugh. ‘Take a good grip. It won’t hurt you.’

  I closed my hand around one staff and lifted it like a club. It was heavy and comfortable and could, if I was any judge, serve usefully as a hand-to-hand weapon in a pinch. Had it ever come to that pinch? Had this frail old man, who had to muster up his strength to eat toast, smacked some poor unsuspecting German with it? Take that Fritz! Eat English Oak. I felt the heart of it then, the beating of the hammers and the hot breath of the forge and behind that the rivers of steel and oceans of coal and the clang clang clang of Empire.

  I don’t know about the enemy, but it scared the hell out of me.

  ‘I want you to have them,’ said Hugh

  ‘I’m not sure I should take these,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t Mellissa want them?’

  ‘Now you listen to me, la
d,’ said Hugh. ‘In 1939 we had no inkling of what was to come – the end of the world can arrive with no warning at all and a wise man makes sure he has a big stick tucked away, just in case.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. I replaced the staff in its bag and buckled it up.

  A more practical weapon, I thought, from a less civilised age.

  ‘What did happen at Ettersberg?’ I said. The question I’d been aching to ask.

  ‘Operation Spatchcock,’ said Hugh.

  ‘What went wrong?’ I said.

  ‘What went right? We got greedy, we thought the war was all but over and started thinking about after, what would be our role, what would be the Folly’s, the order’s, England’s, the Empire’s.’

  He looked at the bottle of water he held, as if trying to remember what it was for. ‘Hubris is what it was.’ He took another sip and when he spoke again his voice was stronger.

  ‘Nightingale was against it from the start, said we should send in the RAF and bomb the camp from altitude. He said it was the only way to be sure.’ He gave me a puzzled look. ‘Did I say something funny?’

  ‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘You mentioned being greedy. Greedy for what?’

  ‘There were some bright young sparks before the war,’ said Hugh. ‘On both sides. People like David Mellenby, who said they thought it might be possible to formulate a theory that would unite magic with relativity.’ Hugh paused again, eyes unfocused. ‘Or was it quantum theory? Which one is the one with the cat?’

  ‘Schrödinger’s cat?’

  ‘That’s the bugger,’ said Hugh.

  ‘Quantum theory,’ I said.

  ‘Closing the gap, he called it,’ said Hugh. ‘Had lots of foreign friends, particularly in Germany – all practitioners or boffins – which was damned unusual, you understand. He took the start of the war very badly, saw it as a personal betrayal. You see, the Nazis took his work and . . . I’m not sure what the word is.’