‘I’m all right,’ I tried to say, but there is nothing as dominant as an April Shining in full flow. She’s a hostile weather front in a cardigan and beads.
‘Nonsense, it’s obviously all gone horrendously tits up and you need to take stock, bring us up to speed and then we can get on with getting things back on an even keel.’
Somehow, without planning it, I found myself seated behind the desk.
‘Get the kettle on, darling,’ April encouraged Tamar. ‘I dare say we’d all appreciate something warming and, as my brother never had the common sense to stock a reasonable supply of medicinal alcohol, we’ll have to make do with tea.’
Tamar didn’t argue. Like me, I’m not sure she quite knew how.
‘Look,’ I began, ‘this is all very kind, but I haven’t really got time for socialising. I’m afraid I have a lot of work to do.’
‘Naturally,’ April replied, ‘which is precisely why I said you should bring us up to speed.’
This was a step too far.
‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss anything,’ I insisted. ‘Your brother and I—’
‘Are the nation’s last great hope for survival against the forces of darkness,’ she said, collapsing onto the sofa in an eruption of patchouli scent. ‘It’s terribly exciting, and Tamar and I know all about it.’
‘I doubt that…’
‘Oh, my sweet little man, don’t imagine there’s a thing August doesn’t tell his two Valkyries. We are his rock, his last line of defence, his—’
‘Shocking breach of national security?’
‘Poo to that! You men and your secrets.’
‘Secrets are important. Even if you’re cleared to know what your brother does for a living, I can’t believe that he would give you any real information about it.’
‘Perhaps he just knew whom to trust?’
‘Apparently everyone in the Greater London area,’ I replied.
‘Oh hush now, my brother’s not an idiot – which you must have realised, however briefly you may have worked with him. The work you do here is unconventional on every level, so if you want to get anywhere, you have to go about it in an unconventional manner.’
I shrugged. I had hardly spent the morning behaving in an exemplary fashion and Shining’s lack of security protocol seemed my least important problem.
‘Besides,’ April continued, ‘you don’t really have the first idea who I am and what I do in the government. One doesn’t like to flash one’s credentials around – it’s vulgar and boring – but August isn’t the only Shining sibling to have ended up working behind the scenes on national business.’
‘And I am his bodyguard,’ announced Tamar as she returned with three mugs, one of which she dumped in front of me somewhat aggressively. ‘Head of security.’
‘Right.’ I had no idea what else to say. I had spent the last couple of days being surrounded by absurdity. Sooner or later you have to look to the bigger picture and let the little things go.
I told them what Shining and I had been doing and what had happened. If that was a mistake then, to hell with it, just one more my life was littered with. I was going to need all the help I could get to pull off a successful operation in the next forty-eight hours. When you no longer have a viable career to worry about, it’s amazing how quickly you home in on the important parts of the job. I began to understood why Shining had become the man he was.
When I had finished talking, I made my way over to the filing cabinets and began to search for old files that might be pertinent to Krishnin.
‘Oh August,’ April said, ‘you finally get a nice young man to help you with the creepy stuff and then you go and get yourself kidnapped or killed.’
‘Not killed,’ I said, ‘at least not yet. Krishnin will want to know how much we know; that’s the only reason he could have for kidnapping August. Standard protocol – take an officer, interrogate them, ascertain how far your operation is compromised.’
‘“Interrogate them”,’ repeated Tamar. ‘That not good, not in this work. He will be hurting August.’
‘My brother is made of stronger stuff than people give him credit for,’ said April, ‘and we won’t help him by sitting here fretting. Eyes forward, my petal. Let us concentrate on the mission in hand.’
‘There’s nothing here older than a couple of years,’ I said, slamming the filing cabinet shut.
‘Of course not,’ said April. ‘Section 37 hasn’t been sat on its bottom for the last fifty years you know. August’s old case files are safely hidden away. You leave that part to me. Whatever reports he filed I can dig out.’
Something occurred to me. ‘From what he told me, the night that he and O’Dale visited the warehouse they found a sample of some form of chemical. I don’t suppose O’Dale…’
‘Long dead, darling. Drank himself to death at the arse-end of the ’70s. If they did bring any evidence out though, I’m sure I can find it. A report on its contents anyway.’
‘An original sample would be too much to hope for after all this time, I suppose, though I feel we’d have a much greater chance of analysing it now than they did back then.’
‘I’ll see what I can find, but yes, I can’t imagine there’ll be anything but paper for us to work on.’
‘What should I do?’ asked Tamar.
‘No idea at the moment,’ I admitted. ‘We just need to get every bit of information together that we can.’
‘I could go to warehouse and try to find him. Krishnin must have been seen.’
‘You’d think so, yes, though he vanished into thin air, so I wouldn’t bank on it.’ I kicked the filing cabinet in frustration. ‘That’s the bloody problem! I’m not prepared to deal with this kind of thing. It’s all nonsense to me. He could have been snatched by leprechauns for all I know.’
‘Don’t be silly, darling, the leprechauns keep themselves to themselves since the ceasefire in Northern Ireland.’
I stared at her and she fluttered her eyelashes in a manner that she no doubt thought of as coquettish but just struck me as smug.
‘You’re as bad as he is,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean, this is not a situation I’m trained to handle. I don’t know the rules, the possibilities… it’s all above my head.’
‘Rubbish, you’re an intelligence officer. Now use some. For what it’s worth though, I think you’re right to keep his disappearance a secret. We’re on our own – Section 37 always is.’
As if to reinforce her point, the office phone started ringing and it took me a moment to realise that I was the only one who should answer it.
‘I don’t even know how he answers the bloody phone!’ I exclaimed.
April sighed and took over. ‘Dark Spectre,’ she said, ‘publishers of the weird and wonderful.’
Our cover was a publishing house?
She listened for a moment. ‘That’s quite all right. Our senior editor is out of the office at the moment, but I’m fully capable of handling your enquiry.’
She listened a little more then rifled around the desk for a pen and a piece of paper. ‘Yes,’ she said, while taking notes, ‘fine. I’ll send one of our men right over. His name’s Howard Phillips. He’ll introduce himself.’ She put the phone down.
‘Who the hell’s Howard Phillips?’ I asked.
‘You are, dear, at least for today. That was one of August’s contacts at the Met. It appears they’ve found a dead body that fits his brief rather more than theirs.’
‘I haven’t the time to be chasing other things,’ I insisted. ‘We have to focus on the operation in hand.’
‘Up to you, of course, but she’s expecting you outside St Mathew’s in Aldgate.’
‘St Mathew’s?’ I remembered the bizarre message from the newspaper seller. ‘Fine, I’ll go.’