I changed course and started walking towards him.
‘You having a problem, mate?’ I asked, which is the correct ritual response in these situations.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Won’t start.’ He was smaller than me but stocky, middle aged with a long nose, deep set eyes and receding fair hair in a side parting. He bobbed nervously as I approached and ushered me towards the bonnet. The second man got out of the driver’s seat and peered at me over the roof. He was younger, slimmer and had more hair but a similar cast to the nose and eyes made me think they might be related.
I saw that an old white lady was in the back seat, a serenely sleeping face beneath cap of curly white hair. Next to her the remaining space in the back had been packed with small suitcases, plastic carrier bags, a worn stuffed donkey, a pile of paperback books and a set of cream coloured padded photograph albums spilling out of a brown paper bag - what looked to me like the random leftovers you get when you move house.
They introduced themselves as the Phillips brothers, the eldest was Richard and the youngest Jasper—they were relocating their mother from her ancestral council flat off Cable Street to a recently constructed Granny flat at chez Phillip in Swindon.
‘Only the engine started cutting out,’ said Richard.
‘We had to push it up from the slip road,’ said Jasper.
The AA had been summoned but had yet to arrive.
I asked Jasper to get back in and try to start it again. Through the windscreen I saw his arm tense as he turned the key but absolutely nothing happened.
‘It’s the electrics, isn’t it?’ I said.
Richard nodded
‘What else could it be?’ he asked.
I put my hand on the engine and, much to my surprise, found out.
Magic leaves a trace behind on the material world, we call this trace vestigia. You probably sense it a dozen times a day but until someone teaches you to recognise it then you’ve probably mistaken it for a memory, or a daydream or just the random misfiring of your neurones.
There was flash of singing and the smell of rotting seashore, liquorish and sherbet, wet pavement and the flickering cigarette smell of an old cinema.
Once you know what to look for you start to learn to interpret what you sense. Metal retains vestigia for a long time, but this was hot and fresh and newly laid down. It also wasn’t the stuff laid down by everyday life or a mercurial intrusion from faerie—this was the same flavour as the vestigia that permeated the shooting range back at the Folly—this is what the German’s called magievestigium, the trace left behind when your actual wizard does a spell.
I quickly stepped back from the bonnet and did a three sixty of the car park but saw nothing.
Richard gave me a startled look but before he could speak I showed him my warrant card.
‘Where exactly did the engine stop?’ I asked.
‘Like I said,’ he said. ‘On the slip road.’
I wondered whether it was worth the time and effort to dig out the Mercedes’ electronics to see whether it’s chipset had been thaumatologically degraded but decided against it. I knew from bitter experience that any microprocessor sitting that close to a spell strong enough to leave that clear vestigia was going to be completely trashed. Besides there was an easier way to check.
‘Have either of your phones stopped working?’ I asked
‘How did you guess?’ asked Richard.
I persuaded Richard to hand his over and shook it next to my ear and heard the unmistakable sound of fine sand hissing through the remaining components.
‘Same as the electrics,’ I said.
‘Was it an EMP pulse?’ asked Jasper getting out of the car.
‘Possibly something like that,’ I said. I do like it when members of the public provide their own cover story—saves ever so much time and effort.
‘What’s an EMP pulse?’ asked Richard.
While Jasper explained, getting most of the technical details wrong I noticed, I looked over at where Beverley was waiting impatiently with not-Nicole by the Asbo and beckoned them over.
‘Can you keep an eye on the car for me?’ I asked Beverley.
‘Who’s inside,’ she asked.
I explained about how the Phillips brothers were relocating their aged mother and how I just needed to pop back up the slip road to see whether a rogue practitioner had nobbled their car.
‘Peter,’ said Beverley. ‘You do know—’
‘I’ll be really quick,’ I said. ‘Honest.’
She gave me a sly smile and told me to take my time.
Chieveley Services is one of those rare service stations that isn’t split either side of the motorway. Instead you come off the M4 where it crosses the A34, spin round a roundabout and shoot off down a slip road marked Donnington, Hotel, Services.
The Phillips brothers had limped just close enough to see the BP and COSTA COFFEE sign before the engine had died completely.
‘We didn’t think it was safe to just leave it here,’ said Richard as we stood in the sodium half-light. There was no rough shoulder or pavement, just a strip of grass with a slight upward bank. Traffic was intermittent but I kept a wary eye out for oncoming traffic—drivers come off the motorway with their reflexes tuned to the wrong channel. They don’t expect to see people and so they can run you down before they even register your existence.
Just to be on the safe side I walked all the way up to the works entrance and had a good look behind the sparse bushes that utterly failed to screen the service station from the road. The only thing I sensed was the smell of warm tarmac and old diesel.
‘What would an EMP look like?’ asked Jasper as we walked back.
‘It’s invisible,’ I said. ‘You’re certain the trouble started while you were on the motorway?’
‘Definitely,’ said Richard.
‘And you didn’t notice a vehicle following you at all?’ I asked. ‘Off the motorway and onto the slipway.’
‘There was nothing behind us,’ said Jasper. ‘I remember because we were slowing down and I was worried something would hit us from behind.’
Having just recently gone mano a caballo with an invisible unicorn, I wasn’t about to rule out an unseen follower but that now seemed less likely than that the problem came from inside their car.
We reached the umpteenth mini roundabout and found a short cut through the bushes into the car park. Ahead I saw that the rear passenger door of the Mercedes was open and Beverley was squatting by the door and talking to the occupant. A couple of metres away not-Nicole was lying on her back on the concrete, arms and legs outstretched like a starfish. She did this whenever she got bored or felt neglected—neither me nor Beverley could figure out why.
‘Was your mum awake when this happened?’ I asked the brothers as we approached.
‘Was she awake?’ said Richard. ‘She was definitely awake.’
‘She doesn’t like long car journeys,’ said Jasper.
‘Was she saying anything?’ I asked.
‘Like what?’ asked Richard.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Something in a foreign language—Latin maybe?’
‘Does cockney count as a foreign language?’ asked Jasper.
‘She was complaining that she wanted to stop,’ said Richard.
And then they stopped, I thought as we reached the car.
Beverley got up and gave me a smug smile. I glanced down at the brothers’ mother who was wide awake and staring out of the Mercedes with bright blue eyes. I looked back at Beverley who nodded.
I sighed and turned to the brothers Phillips.
‘I’m just going to have a quick word with your mum,’ I said. ‘What’s her name.’
‘Edna,’ said Jasper. ‘I’m not sure…’
‘I’ll just be a moment,’ I said. I pointed to a spot five metres away. ‘If you two could just wait over there with my colleague.’
They didn’t want to leave me alone with their mother but a combination of p
olice authority and the promise that if they would give me five minutes I could sort everything out including their transport saw them shuffle reluctantly away.
Once they were out of earshot I squatted down by the open car door until my face was level with the old lady’s and gave her my best police-I’m-just-here-to-help smile.
‘Hello Edna, my name’s Peter Grant and I’m with the police,’ I said. ‘How long have you been able to do magic?’
‘Cor,’ she said. ‘Is that what it is—you know I was wondering.’
‘What did you think was happening?’ I asked.
‘I thought I’d developed ESP,’ she said. ‘Like that girl in the Stephen King book. Only it would have been a lot more useful when I was young, still, why look a gift horse in the mouth? I always say.’
‘So when did it start?’ I asked.
‘Last year,’ she said. ‘I knew something was wrong when the TV blew up.’
‘Can you make a light?’ I asked. A werelight is the first thing you learn when you apprentice and it’s the sort of ‘party trick’ that can get passed down within families.
‘No,’ said Mrs Phillips sounding intrigued. ‘Can you?’
I checked both ways to make sure we weren’t being overlooked and conjured a werelight, just a small one and just for a moment. Edna’s eyes grew even brighter.
‘Are you a wizard then?’ she asked.
‘Apprentice,’ I said.
‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘I thought you was the filth.’
‘And that as well.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Because I want to report a crime.’
‘Is it a serious crime?’
‘Is kidnapping serious?’
‘Very serious,’ I said.
‘In that case you’d better nick my sons,’ she said. ‘They’re trying to kidnap me.’
‘That’s a very serious accusation.’
‘What else can you call it when you and your possessions are bundled into a car and driven away against your will,’ she said.
‘You didn’t want to leave London then?’ I asked.
‘They want to relocate me to Swindon,’ she said. ‘Swindon, I ask you—why would I want to live in Swindon?’
‘What’s wrong with Swindon?’ I asked because I’m a fair-minded guy.
‘Nothing as such,’ said Mrs Phillips. ‘But it never stops at Swindon, does it? Then it’s a nice little house in a small village near Swindon, where there’s no buses and nothing but cows and fat lady vicars to keep you company.’
I thought the fat lady vicar was unlikely.
‘But that’s not the worse part,’ said the old lady.
‘No.’
‘After that you find yourself in Wales,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘I’ve heard them discussing it when they think I’m not listening,’ she said. ‘Quiet, they say, peaceful, they say. When have I ever wanted peace and quiet? If I hadn’t had them both at home I’d reckon there’d been a mix up at the hospital and they’d given me the wrong boys.’ She shifted in her seat.
‘I mean I have nothing against the Welsh,’ she said. ‘But their qualities as a nation don’t enter into it. I didn’t want to leave and they made me and that’s kidnapping.’
I glanced over to where the Phillips brothers were staring back at us—probably wondering what the hell was going on—and wished she’d just turned out to be an ethically challenged magician or a ghost or something simple.
I took out my notebook because I had a sudden sinking feeling that I might need an official record of events.
‘Why don’t you just tell me what happened?’
So she did and the crucial thing, to my mind, was that she still had her council flat and home care visits in place when they took her away. She hadn’t wanted to leave and I wasn’t at all sure that ‘we thought she’d like it better in Swindon’, constituted a lawful excuse under the law.
Still before bothering the Thames Valley Police, I thought it was worth talking to the brothers. Which went about the way I thought it might.
‘You can’t just take our granny away,’ said Jasper. ‘She’s family.’
‘She’s also legally competent in her own right,’ I said. ‘If you try to drive off with her while she’s protesting, I’ll have to stop you.’
‘Wait,’ said Jasper. ‘Are you accusing us of kidnapping our own mother?’
‘That’s outrageous,’ said Richard. ‘A classic abuse of police power.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Your mother is accusing you of kidnapping and I’m exercising a classic bit of police discretion by not arresting you right now and letting the courts sort it out.’
It’s amazing how long, sometimes, it takes people to realise they’re actually breaking the law. The two brothers stared at me and then turned, as one, to look at their mum who gave them a little wave.
‘Fine,’ said Richard. ‘Arrest us.’
‘I don’t want to arrest anyone,’ I said.
‘It’s typical of modern Britain,’ said Richard. ‘You try to do the right thing…’
I let him go on for a while because the alternative usually ends in an arrest and I was desperate to avoid that. Once he’d wound down I explained that they were going to have to return their dear old mum to her former residence.
‘If she doesn’t want to go,’ I said. ‘You’re not allowed to force her.’
‘I get it,’ said Jasper. ‘Human rights directive and all that but she’s not capable of looking after herself.’
‘We’ll look after her,’ said Beverley suddenly.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Richard.
And Beverley talked them into. She didn’t even use the influence, out of deference to me I hope, but she spun some serious bullshit about sheltered accommodation and twenty-four-hour nursing quality care. She basically kept on talking until Richard and Jasper gave in. When she’d finished re-ordering their lives, I drew her back to the Mercedes for a word in her shell-like.
‘You can’t just be giving old ladies a home,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because there’s thousands of just as perfectly deserving older people who could use your help?’ I said.
‘Where?’ she asked.
‘Out there,’ I said and waved vaguely in the direction of the east bound carriageway.
‘Yeah but this one is right here,’ she said. ‘And listening to every word we say.’
‘Don’t mind me, dears,’ said Mrs Phillips.
‘She’s going to live at your mum’s house?’ I asked. ‘What’s she going to do all day?’
‘Whatever she likes,’ said Beverley. ‘It’s full of my mum’s cronies, half of whom are qualified nurses I might add.’
‘What about her sons?’
‘They can come visit,’ she said. ‘It’s only Wapping.’
‘Wapping?’ asked Mrs Phillips. ‘I used to go drinking at the Prospect of Whitby.’
‘That’s right next door to my mum’s,’ Beverley told her and then grinned at me. ‘That’s practically destiny, that is.’
‘Bev,’ I said. ‘You just can’t adopt a granny on a whim.’
‘Why not?’
‘What about all the other grannies who need help?’
‘What about all the other crimes out there that need solving?’
‘It’s not a long-term solution,’ I said.
‘She doesn’t need a long-term solution,’ said Beverley in a quiet voice that made me think before I opened my gob again.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s not going to make it to Christmas,’ said Beverley. ‘Are you, dear?
‘Dead by November,’ said Mrs Phillips cheerfully. ‘I’ve got brain cancer.’
‘Brain cancer?’
‘Totally inoperable,’ said Mrs Phillips tapping the side of her head with a finger.
‘When did you get your ESP’ I asked.
‘About a year ago,’ said Mrs Phillips.
; ‘And when were you diagnosed?’
‘About the same time.’
‘Do you think they’re related?’ Beverley asked me.
‘Of course they’re related,’ said Mrs Phillips. ‘It’s not likely to be a bleeding coincidence, is it?’
It’s an iron rule of mine that I never argue correlation versus causation in the middle of the night, especially when I had an alternative option.
‘We’re going to take you to see a doctor friend of mine,’ I said.
‘Not another doctor,’ said Edna.
‘You’ll like this one, he’s Scottish,’ I said. ‘He’s going to stick your head in an MRI and then off to Wapping.’ And I was just about to add—for a lifetime’s supply of deep-fried plantain—when I realised that it wasn’t going to be much of a lifetime and stopped myself.
Or maybe I said something out loud because Mrs Phillip cackled and said—‘Better than the alternative.’ Although in fairness she could have been talking about Swindon.
It took until dawn to rustle up replacement transport for the Phillips brothers, a van to carry Mrs Edna Phillips’ belongings back to London. Not-Nicole remained were she was, spread-eagled on the concrete, and apparently slept through the whole thing. Certainly, she seemed surprised when she climbed into the back of the Asbo and found herself sharing with Mrs Phillips.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m the future, kid,’ said Mrs Phillip. ‘You’d better put your seat belt on because it only gets rougher from here.’
Introduction: King of The Rats
(Set between Foxglove Summer and The Hanging Tree)
Mail Rail, the Postal Museum’s Underground Railway, were announcing their plans to renovate the facility as a historical attraction and asked me whether I could write a short story for the occasion. The result was ‘King of the Rats,’ ably performed by Ben Bailey Smith (otherwise known as Doc Brown) in the secret train maintenance yard deep under Mount Pleasant sorting office.
Just to clear up any confusion—Melvin is the other occupant of the canoe in False Value.
King of The Rats
‘This is discrimination,’ said Melvin.
Tales from the Folly Page 5
