To the left was Holborn Station, but I didn’t think she’d risk the CCTV coverage on the Underground. Where would she go? Down the back streets and into Lincoln’s Inn, maybe? I was pulling my phone out when an IRV, a silver Astra with Battenberg squares, pulled up with no lights and no siren. The uniform inside leant over and called my name.
‘Yeah?’
‘Get in,’ he said. ‘They’re setting up a perimeter.’
I got in, but even while I was pulling on the seatbelt I was wondering who ‘they’ were since I hadn’t called it in when Lesley arrived. Nightingale wouldn’t have me tracked – right?
I went to click the seat belt in, but an arm wrapped around my chest from behind and I smelt beer and clean hair – Lesley. Something bit into my neck and I heard her tell the driver to cut the lights. Contrary to the films, no safe sedative will put you out instantly. But whatever Lesley had jabbed me with was filling up the corners of my mind with beer flavoured milkshake. I stopped trying to dislodge Lesley’s arm and flailed at the driver. I had some mad idea that if I could distract him we might crash, or at least draw attention to the car. It might have worked. I don’t know, because the milkshake was foaming over my eyes and my last thought was that Nightingale was going to be disappointed and Beverley was going to be really pissed off.
25
An Alarming Lack of Cocktail Parties
I woke up in darkness and, judging from the smell of my own breath, wearing a cloth hood. I was lying on my side on a metal surface with my legs fastened and my arms tied behind my back. There was something yielding that was supporting my head, carefully placed to avoid positional asphyxiation. Which was just as well, since I was definitely not feeling well. Like I said . . . nothing that sedates you that fast is remotely safe.
Even with a hood on, I was unmistakably in the back of Sprinter or a Transit van. I was a bit short of clues otherwise. I tried counting turns as I was thrown from side to side, but lost track and all I could smell was the inside of the hood. I doubted I was going to be recreating this journey with the help of a preternaturally perceptive blind person and a deceptively cheerful flock of geese. I suppose it could have been worse – I could have been head down in a barrel.
I’ve never been that good at judging time without an external reference. Dr Walid thinks it’s because I’m outwardly orientated and always looking to establish my position within the wider environment. He thinks that might be why I’m good at vestigia. But, given that his data pool consists of five people, I’m not giving that theory much weight. Whatever, I think it was about half an hour from when I regained consciousness to the van coming to a halt.
I heard the back doors creak open and was seriously considering lashing out with my feet when hands grabbed my legs and dragged me out. They were strong, whoever it was, strong enough to effortlessly lift me and sling me over their shoulder. And it wasn’t a wide shoulder either, and bony enough to dig into my stomach. What with the aftermath of the sedative, the hood and the jogging up and down, they were all sodding lucky they didn’t have to wash that hood afterwards.
Then I was lowered, with surprising care, into a chair with my wrists behind the seat back. The ridiculously strong hands kept me from moving while somebody else fixed what felt suspiciously like alligator clamps to my left index finger and the top of my right sock.
I heard Chorley ask whether things were ready and Lesley say they were. I felt the tape securing the neck of the hood being ripped off, followed by the hood proper. I squinted in the sudden light.
I was in a large, high-ceilinged room with a row of tall metal-framed windows with small panes. The walls were whitewashed brick with rounded edges along the windowsills and doorways. Interwar Art Deco industrial, I guessed, a former school or office, not so common a design that I couldn’t trace it later.
Chorley was perched on a chair in front of me, elbows on his knees, leaning forward intently but not, unluckily, close enough for me to bite his nose. He was dressed office casual in tan slacks and a light blue pinstripe shirt, top button undone – no tie.
I knew it was futile but I conjured up a shield to cut the ties on my hands. Before I even had the forma lined up my body gave an involuntary jump – a thudding shock and then pain.
‘Don’t,’ said Lesley from behind me.
I recognised the set-up – it came straight out of Nightingale’s wartime guide to holding practitioner POWs.
‘What have you got that plugged into?’ I asked. ‘The mains?’
‘As it happens, yes,’ said Lesley. ‘We couldn’t find a car battery.’
‘Now we’ve established that we’ve taken adequate precautions,’ said Chorley, ‘perhaps we can get down to business?’
‘You’ve kidnapped a police officer,’ I said. ‘The last time that happened Nightingale hunted the perpetrators down like dogs – and I mean literally like dogs – from horseback.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Chorley. ‘I personally wanted you dead. I had some talent lined up to shoot you as you came out of your mother’s flat.’
You want to be calm and in control and insouciant in the face of danger. But I was thinking of the ‘talent’ and my mum and dad and for a moment I was paralysed by the conflicting waves of fear and rage. I could feel my face burning and my hands flex – Lesley gave me a little cautionary shock.
I didn’t snarl – Stay away from my family – because I felt we could take the horrific and protracted vengeance speech as read. Still, I’d have to take the threat to my parents more seriously in the future.
If I lived long enough.
‘I wouldn’t worry about your parents,’ said Chorley. ‘I’m not foolish enough to think that would slow you down for a moment, and it is unnecessary in any case. Short of killing you, this is by far the most elegant solution.’
‘Why not kill me?’ I asked, because I’m stupid that way.
‘You know why not,’ he snapped. ‘Your friend Lesley has an unwarranted soft spot for you. Although I’m beginning to see that you could well have a place in our new tomorrow. That’s why I let her have one last go at persuading you to stand down – which is why you’re still alive now. Despite our little contretemps the other day.’
‘Oh, that,’ I said.
‘Yes, that,’ said Chorley.
And because you never know your luck, I asked him where he got the vampire bits from.
‘You’d be surprised what you can buy on the dark web these days,’ said Chorley. ‘And what shadows lie behind the shadows you think you know.’
‘Really?’ I said. ‘What shadows are those?’
‘Lesley is right about you in one way. You are persistent. I’m not about to breach my own operational security. And besides,’ he gave me a bright smile, ‘most of it will be irrelevant soon.’
‘What, you mean when the sleeper awakes and leads a jihad to conquer the known universe,’ I said.
‘Very funny,’ said Chorley.
‘What was that about?’ asked Lesley.
‘Sorry, wrong power fantasy,’ I said. ‘I mean when Arthur wakes and rides out with his chosen knights to . . . What, exactly? Storm Buckingham Palace? What are you expecting to happen?’
‘I’m not sure what you think you know, Peter,’ said Chorley, frowning.
‘I know you’re obsessed with the Dark Ages and with Arthur,’ I said. ‘And I know you think you’ve got hold of Excalibur. And I know you murdered John Chapman and probably Gabriel Tate to keep the details quiet.’
‘Actually,’ said Chorley, ‘the first I knew about John and Gabriel’s deaths was when Lesley read your report on it and told me. Sorry – nothing to do with me.’