Guy Adams - The Clown Service

I sat down, closed my eyes and worked at trying to imagine the warehouse around me. This was hard enough as I hadn’t given the place much attention. It had been a means to an end, not important in itself. It occurred to me that my perceptions might well have been interfered with from the moment I had crossed the threshold. That army of homeless, rearing up from the shadows to attack me. Had they even been real?

I tried to build a picture of the warehouse in my mind, imagining the front wall, its loose door, the pattern of the shutters on the windows. I might have thought I had been ignoring the place, but we always take in much more than we realise. Unimportant details litter our brains – things we’ve barely glimpsed linger in our memories. I recalled the dusty concrete floor and the piles of leaves and dirt, blown in and left to turn crisp in the dry, sheltered air. The abandoned timber, rat-chewed and warped. The remains of old fires, blackened on the ground like silhouettes left by a nuclear strike. I recreated the entire building in my memory, cramming in every detail I could. I kept my eyes closed, reached forward and rubbed my fingers on the floor. I lifted up my hands and rubbed the fingers slowly together, feeling the grit and dust crumble on my skin: details .

Tentatively, I opened my eyes and looked upon the empty warehouse once again. There was no sign of the homeless army, a figment of my imagination as much as the impenetrable darkness. I had fallen into some trap, an echo left for the unwary snooper.

I checked my watch. Somehow, an hour had passed.

Was Krishnin still on Farringdon Road? Had I lost the window of opportunity that had been open to me? Common sense demanded that I retreat and return later, but I was loath to give up. Leaving there now felt like failure. But leave I did. Whatever Krishnin was working on in the adjacent building was important enough to require protection. I needed to plan this properly, do it right. Otherwise none of us would be any the wiser and I could very easily join that unknown Russian somewhere in an unmarked grave.

a) Section 37, Wood Green, London

‘You can’t just leave it there!’ Toby shook his head in exasperation.

‘I can for now,’ Shining replied with a smile. ‘The day’s dragging on and I have business to attend to. We’ll continue this tomorrow morning, in situ.’

‘In situ?’

‘I want you to meet me at London Bridge – shall we say half past nine? It’ll all start to make sense then.’

‘I doubt that.’

Shining got to his feet. ‘Don’t underestimate yourself. Do you know my last member of staff tried to jump out of the window on her first day? We’d only had one briefing… I assume she had an innate fear of pixies.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘Of course I am.’ Shining shrugged on his coat. ‘Make sure you lock up on your way out.’

b) Flat 3, Palmer Court, Euston, London

Toby was almost surprised to find himself back home. His mind had been so occupied as he travelled back from the Section 37 office that he’d been oblivious to his journey. Even now, leaning back against the front door of his flat, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

Did he want food? A drink? A few lazy hours in front of the telly? It all seemed inappropriate. Like a cheerful song at a funeral. Real life was something that was hard to settle into when you worked in intelligence. Extended periods abroad, a name that changed as often as the shirt on your back. He might have hoped that his new posting could at least have afforded him some stability, but no, it had offered a step away from ‘real life’ even further than ever before.

He sat down and waited for a useful thought to come to him. Something that didn’t involve astral projection, numbers stations or mad Russians. Before anything came Toby was distracted by an envelope on his coffee table. It was an envelope he had never seen before and it had his name on it. This is exactly the sort of thing that makes intelligence officers run for the front door, make an emergency phone call and change their address. Someone had been in here in his absence, been here and left him a message.

He got up and made a circuit of the flat, checking for signs of disturbance. There was nothing – which didn’t mean the place hadn’t been turned over, just that the people who had done it were good at their job. But why cover up any sign of your presence and then leave a letter proving you’d been there?

Toby went to the kitchen and fetched a pair of rubber gloves from beneath the sink. He pulled them on, retrieved the letter and brought it back into the kitchen where the light was at its brightest. He sniffed the envelope, held it up against the neon strip in the ceiling, examined it as closely as he could. It seemed to be nothing more than it appeared: a note in an envelope. His name was handwritten, another casual touch.

There was little else to do but open it. Inside was a folded sheet of writing paper, off-white, generic. The sort of thing you could buy from a high street stationers were you one of the few people who could be bothered to write a letter anymore.

He unfolded it. Written across the sheet in plain capitals was the message:

‘AUGUST SHINING WILL GET YOU KILLED. HE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED. LEARN THE TRUTH OUTSIDE EUSTON STATION. 20.45.’

Toby folded the letter back up and replaced it in the envelope. He dug a freezer bag from one of the kitchen drawers, placed the note inside it and put it in his pocket. He looked at the clock on the microwave. Half-past six. Just over a couple of hours until his anonymous visitor wished to meet him. His evening now had purpose.

c) Hampstead Heath, London

Shining took his time going up Parliament Hill, not because he was unfit but because he liked to savour it. He strolled, he allowed himself a moment to watch the view change, watch London slowly reveal itself as he climbed higher. He nodded at the dog walkers and the romantic couples, stepped aside as the joggers cut past him, even took the time to sit on a bench and sip his way through a takeaway coffee. He was, for all the world, a man with time on his hands spending it in a calm and pleasant way. Nobody even noticed as he reached beneath the seat of the bench and ran his fingers along one of the struts, feeling his way towards the packet he knew would be there. Nobody, that is, except the old woman who sat down next to him, a colourful confection of brightly coloured wool and a startling pink cap.

‘It’s not there August, darling,’ she said. ‘I got bored hanging around so it gave me something to do.’ She handed him the packet. It was a narrow manila envelope containing a couple of sheets of paper. The envelope was unsealed.

‘You opened it?’

‘Of course I opened it, I could hardly pass the time just looking at the envelope could I? It’s not very interesting I’m afraid, just a lot of nonsense about portents. You know what he’s like.’

‘An incredibly gifted seer?’

‘A tubby old astrologist who should stick to writing waffle for local newspapers: “Darkness ascending through the House of Mercury bodes ill for financial matters in the East.” He laughs at you, I’m sure of it.’

Shining stared at the old woman and sighed. ‘You really shouldn’t stick your nose in, April, dear. I’d hate to regard you as a security risk.’

‘A security risk?’ she laughed, pulling a cigarette case from out of the pocket of her heavy woollen jacket. ‘Me? Darling boy, you know I’m only after your best interests – what else are big sisters for?’

‘Fading into dementia and leaving their brothers to get on with their job?’

‘Cheeky bugger. My mind’s as sharp as it ever was.’ She looked around, sneering at a pair of cyclists as they rode past. ‘This place has gone to the dogs, no character anymore. It’s all Lycra and kites. Once upon a time you could walk up here and rest assured that everyone you saw was about important business, spies doing dead letter drops, cabinet ministers shuffling off into the bushes to get their bottoms filled.’