Lofthouse was amazed. ‘You have something on the other victims?’
Rita handed her an envelope. ‘This is our gift to you. Because of what we think is going to happen soon.’
‘We’re not going to tell you what that is,’ said Sue in a stage whisper.
‘Your Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Geoffrey Staunce, and the driver, Brian Tunstall,’ continued Rita, ‘both have a history of unusual payments being made to them, Staunce until a couple of years back, Tunstall only recently. But Staunce got another one … the day after Spatley was murdered.’
Lofthouse looked through the papers with growing interest. ‘Thank you. This could be extremely helpful.’
‘Not as much as it could be,’ said Sue. ‘The trails all lead back to cut-outs in the realm of offshore banking. Not even our reach extends that far.’ She looked up suddenly at the sound of leather on willow. ‘Oh, lovely shot.’
FOURTEEN
Quill’s team had gathered in front of the Ops Board once more. Ross had told the others about the auction, but had made it sound as if it was something she’d found out about from the Docklands papers only on that same night. She’d managed not to mention that Costain had come along too. She’d thus established an honest context for having connected the man who’d left the Soviet bar to the big circle they’d drawn to indicate the wider world of the London occult underground. She’d mentioned getting a look at the auction ledger, and thus finding the record of Vincent’s transaction, as though anyone could easily do that. She had made no mention of her ordeal.
Sefton had looked suspiciously at her as she’d told them all that, but had in the end accepted that he’d made solo jaunts himself; it was something their team did. ‘Just bring me along to the next one, okay?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Are you okay?’
Ross had needed her best poker face for that one. She’d managed to avoid looking to Costain. ‘Yeah.’
Sefton had finally just nodded.
Now, Ross attached an association thread between Tunstall and Staunce. ‘According to Lofthouse, Tunstall received six cash payments of ten thousand pounds each during the six-week period before his death. He was smart enough not to put them into his Barclays current account, but instead started up a deposit account with Mansion House, a bank based in the Cayman Islands.’
‘The main investigation would have looked into his financials,’ said Quill. ‘But they didn’t find that; it took the funny people to do so. So it was set up by someone with considerable knowledge of financial kung fu.’
‘The payments made to Staunce,’ continued Ross, ‘which he put into a more traditional Swiss bank, Heinkemann’s, are of the same amount and frequency, but happen in bursts, every few months, the first of which was paid ten years ago.’
‘That’d be when he became commissioner,’ said Quill.
‘They cease two years ago, but then there’s another payment, the day after the Spatley murder, and then Staunce is killed that same night. This gives us a clear association line between these two but we don’t know what that association is.’
‘We were given that on a plate,’ said Quill, pointing at the line that connected Staunce to Tunstall. ‘We didn’t have to work for it. I don’t like that. Kev, what have you got for us this fine morning?’
Sefton stepped forward and used a marker to add to the concepts part of the board. ‘Scrying,’ he said, ‘means looking deeply into. A “scrying glass”, the item Vincent is recorded as having bought at that auction, is something used in stories to answer questions or get info.’
‘As in “mirror, mirror on the wall”?’
‘That’s the one. I say “in stories” because I couldn’t find anything in my research that came from a real-world source.’
‘There’s nothing in the Docklands documents either,’ said Ross.
‘But this is one of those points where the shallowness of our research materials is obvious. I get the feeling, because it is so well documented in folk tales, that almost anyone at the Goat and Compasses would know what a scrying glass really is.’
‘Assumption,’ said Ross.
‘Professional instinct,’ said Sefton. ‘But, yeah.’
‘So did Vincent buy one,’ said Costain, ‘to see if he was still the fairest of them all?’
‘Someone,’ said Quill, ‘is about to equate us with Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful and Happy. No, don’t sort out which is which — they were picked at random.’
‘No they weren’t,’ said Sefton.
‘At least,’ said Quill, ‘the mention of said object made Vincent suddenly very cooperative. I think we might shake some juice out of him today.’
Ross finally risked a look at Costain. He smiled back. She felt only relief that they’d sold their colleagues on her story. It was going to be difficult doing her duty today. After work, the two of them were going to set out on their own quest.
It was at least vaguely possible that, by tonight, her dad would once again be alive.
* * *
That afternoon, the four of them took an unmarked car over to Marble Arch, parked with Quill’s logbook propped in the window, and looked around for the address they’d been given by Vincent’s PA. It turned out to be a very plain door to a mews flat, with what had been a stable made into a garage beside it.
‘It’s the same address as he gave to the auction,’ noted Ross.
Quill rang the doorbell. ‘Hi ho,’ he said. ‘It’s off to work we go.’
* * *
They were led up from an entrance hall by an assistant, and it became clear that this wasn’t one mews flat, but a whole row of them knocked together. Some of the rooms were just bare repositories of empty bookshelves and unlooked-at art, but some seemed thoroughly lived in. They were taken along a corridor with carpeting that made their copper feet tired and were finally shown into the presence.
Russell Vincent immediately stood up from his desk and shook their hands. ‘I’m sorry my office took so long to get through to me about this,’ he said. Sefton saw Quill leave that one unremarked on. ‘DI Quill, good to see you again. I’m glad it’s you handling this, but, ah, gosh, exactly what this is…’
Sefton hadn’t felt anything of the Sight on entering the building and he didn’t now.
‘What this is,’ said Quill, ‘is something many might find unbelievable, but I now strongly suspect you won’t.’
Vincent looked awkward. He was clearly wary of them, trying to find a way to run this meeting on his own terms. Here, Sefton thought, was a man who didn’t know whether or not he could trust these people who’d come asking questions. ‘The sort of thing you were asking about at the do the other night, but which I was a bit shy of. Before your approach became … official.’
‘Are you, Mr Russell Vincent,’ said Ross, using the official-sounding language they’d agreed on earlier, ‘the owner of a scrying glass?’
‘Yes,’ he said quickly, perhaps a little guiltily. ‘Actually, that’s why I wanted to meet you at this address.’
* * *
Vincent pulled a dusty cloth away from an object which stood in the corner of one of his many disused rooms. ‘This is it,’ he said, ‘my “scrying glass”. The romance of a name, eh?’ It was a full-length mirror on a stand which allowed it to be turned on a vertical axis, the sort of thing you might find, Sefton thought, in a Victorian lady’s boudoir. It certainly looked ominous: an absolutely smooth surface in which he could see the contents of the room reflected.
Sefton looked over his shoulder and saw that the PA who’d answered the door had followed them in. Maybe Vincent wanted a witness at all times? She was standing on the threshold here, as if nervous of what had just been unveiled. Sefton stepped forward and put his hand up to the mirror. Then onto it. The glass was cold to the touch but no more than you might expect. There was nothing that said ‘London’ about its appearance or manufacture. There was no feeling of the Sight about it.
‘What does it do?’ said Quill.