Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.
Which was when I realised what was troubling me. The room was like a bad copy of the Folly, done up by somebody who’d been there a couple of times and fancied the ambience.
I noticed a glass-fronted case mounted on the wall opposite the Newton portrait. It was made of dark mahogany varnished to a warm glow. The sort of thing where you might display a large fish. I looked inside. It was empty and there was a silver strip with the words IN CASE OF BRITAIN’S GREATEST NEED – BREAK GLASS.
Not a fish, then – a sword. And three guesses which one.
I pulled on my evidence gloves and did a quick rummage through the drawers and bookcases. There wasn’t much in the way of dust; the corners had been swept regularly and there were no spiderwebs in the corners or between the bookcases and the walls. Somebody, and I doubted it was the people who thought that an Excalibur joke was funny, had cleaned the place regularly.
We did track her down later – a Romanian woman who insisted her name was Lana Stacey – but she’d had her own key and always cleaned first thing Saturday morning. She’d never met any of the members of the Paternoster Society. Neither had any of the youth hostel staff.
There were obvious gaps on the shelves where books had been removed, either singly or in groups. There was a lot of archaeology and history. Mostly what Postmartin calls the ‘barbarian wave’ school of historiography. I called him in Oxford and sent him some pictures – he said he would be down that afternoon. Then I contacted Nightingale and the Inside Inquiry Office in case they thought it worth sending a forensic team over. I doubted it, but you never know.
I cautiously touched the case where the sword had probably been kept.
I couldn’t sense anything, but wood is terrible at retaining vestigia.
Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote that Arthur would return.
What if he needed a bit of help?
Was that what Martin Chorley was about?
I kept my eye on the case and phoned Isis.
‘Peter,’ she said when she picked up. ‘What a lovely surprise. You’re not phoning to cancel tomorrow, are you? Oxley would be devastated – you know how he likes to tell you his stories. Especially now that he’s worn them out up here.’
‘Nah, we’re still on,’ I said. ‘Barring emergencies. I wondered whether you’d had a chance to talk to the Old Man yet?’
‘Oh,’ said Isis, sounding surprised. ‘That. Has that become important?’
I looked over at the empty sword case and the inscription below it and said that I thought it might have done.
‘I’ll pop over and have a chat before we head down to meet you,’ she said.
After the call I opened the shutters on one of the windows. They looked north over a courtyard and beyond that, rearing over the roofs opposite, was the white dome of St Paul’s.
21
A l’ombre des jeunes rivières en crue
The next day Isis and Oxley were coming down to London for an evening performance of La Bohème at the Royal Opera House. We’d decided ages ago that we’d meet up for drinks beforehand and for some reason we ended up in the Punch and Judy Tavern in Covent Garden Market.
‘It’s amazing how little damage the fire did,’ said Oxley.
The balcony ran along the middle of the west end of the market building and faced the east portico of St Paul’s Church where, incidentally, I had met my first ghost. It’s also famously the last resting place of many celebrated luvvies, and is thus known as the Actors’ Church. Which serves to distinguish it from its larger, more famous, namesake.
‘That’s because Beverley here put it out,’ said Isis.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘The water damage was worse than the fire damage.’ Beverley kicked me under the table. ‘Also, this is a solid brick building. So the structure remained intact.’
Half the shops had changed, though.
Apple had taken the opportunity to put in their iBar and the new money had scrubbed away some of the character.
Isis frowned.
‘You don’t mind coming here, do you?’
I assured her I didn’t and explained that this was where I’d done my probation, arrested my first drunk and solved my first investigation. Kissed Beverley for the first time, too – well, that was up the road at Seven Dials, but still.
There were other memories – the ruin of Lesley’s face and the realisation that I was too late. Nearly getting myself hanged on stage and Seawoll clothes-lining me in the Floral Hall Bar. And Beverley floating above me with the firelight refracting through the water before she swept it away with the wave of a hand.
And that was just the first half of the year.
Because I was, amazingly enough, off shift I managed to have my first guilt-free pint for ages. Although my phone was still on and Nightingale had told me to stay upright if at all possible.
‘I don’t like it, Peter,’ he’d said after the morning briefing. ‘It’s all too complicated. Chorley has proved masterful at deceiving us in the past and I fear a great deal of what we’re finding is part of an elaborate ruse. What Varvara would call a maskirovka.’
He wanted us to stay open-minded and alert.
And I really wanted that pint.
‘Fleet was well pissed off,’ said Beverley.
‘As well she might be,’ said Oxley.
There was an East Asian woman doing street magic in front of the portico. From the balcony I could see the way the crowd formed up around her. She was good, catching individuals’ eyes, flirting with the teenagers and getting the younger kids excited by flicking her cards palm to palm like a juggler. When she did something clever you could see the surprise and excitement ripple out through the people around her.
The crowd goes one way and the thief goes the other way. They’re excited, he’s careful. They’re relaxed, he’s tense. And even if I hadn’t known him by name I would have spotted him for the career pickpocket he was.
‘Freddy,’ I shouted down from the balcony.
He looked up. I waved. It took a moment for him to recognise me, then he looked frantically around to see if a couple of response officers were closing in on him. When he didn’t spot any, he gave me a surly look.
I made a throat cutting motion and pointed south towards the Strand.
Freddy hesitated but the implication was clear – if he made me come down there and arrest him it was going to go very hard indeed. Finally he shrugged and slouched off – northwards, I noticed, the opposite of where I’d pointed.
I turned back to find the others staring at me.
‘Pickpocket,’ I said.
Beverley shook her head and Oxley laughed.
‘Well spotted,’ said Isis. ‘You’re not going to leave us and give chase, are you?’
I said that fortunately in these degenerate modern times such things were not necessary. Then I got my phone out and texted Inspector Neblett, my former shift commander, and let him know that our old mate Frederick William Cotton was obviously out of prison again. Probably now planning to work Oxford Street.
I refocused as the waitress brought the second round of drinks. I had another gloriously guilt-free pint. Oxley had something called a Brewdog Vagabond Pale Ale, which came in a bottle and which he claimed never to have tasted before.
‘I’m trying new things,’ he said.
Including a new suit in khaki chambray that had either been tailored deliberately baggy or had once belonged to someone else. Isis was similarly smartly turned out in a burgundy floor-length dress and matching jacket with cream buttons. I did mention that the opera had got a lot more informal since they last attended, which didn’t seem to bother Isis at all.