Mike Carey - The Devil You Know

And the only answer I could come up with was that I was still unhappy.

Pen needed the car, so I dropped it back around to her. Walking down Turnpike Lane, I called Peele to tell him I had some things to do that would keep me away from the archive for most of the day.

“What’s left of the day, you mean,” he corrected me prissily. “It’s almost noon now.”

Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. “I had some other matters to attend to,” I said.

“Other matters?” He was suitably scandalized. “You mean you’re taking on more commissions before you’ve finished here?”

“No, I went to the zoo.”

“Very amusing, Mr. Castor. The things that you’re doing today, can you honestly tell me that they relate to us? To our problem here?”

“Yes,” I said, which was true enough. “A lot of it is about getting more background information. I’m on the case. I feel like I’m really moving forward.” And now I was stretching the truth more or less to breaking point. “But if I can use a military metaphor, Mr. Peele, sometimes when you move forward too fast, you leave your flanks exposed. I just want to make sure that I’m not missing something.”

He gave in sullenly and indicated that there was a conversation that needed to be had about an incident in the workroom the day before. I told him I’d be at his disposal either later that day or first thing tomorrow. Then, before he could hang up, I hit him with the little sting in the tail I’d been holding back all this time.

“Oh, just one more thing before you go, Mr. Peele,” I said like Columbo’s understudy. “Why didn’t you tell me I was the second name on your list?”

“I’m sorry?” Peele sounded surprised and coldly affronted—as if I’d accused him of marital infidelity.

I rephrased. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d already used another exorcist? Gabriel McClennan has been in the Bonnington, and he’s met your ghost. I like to know if I’m unpicking someone else’s work rather than doing a job from scratch.”

There was a long silence. “I don’t understand,” Peele said at last. “Who told you that? Nobody else has been at the archive. I came to you first.”

He sounded sincere, but I couldn’t let it go. I knew what I’d seen when the ghost was flashing pictures into my head. “You came to me first. Okay. Why was that, exactly? You said it was a personal referral. Who from?” I should have asked him before. Nothing to plead in my own defence there except ego, because it was an obvious question.

“I did say that,” Peele admitted, sounding annoyed now. “I’m afraid it was an overstatement. What I meant to say was that I’d done the research myself—chosen you on the basis of my own efforts, rather than—”

“You saw one of my ads,” I suggested.

“Yes.” Reluctantly, with a slightly sullen undertone—the voice of an honest man who’s been caught out in a trivial lie. “I believe it was in the classified section of the Hendon Times . . .”

My ad had been in the Wembley Times , but all of the North London free sheets are basically the same paper with a different masthead. After what had happened with Rafi, though, I’d never renewed the standing order. The ad wouldn’t have been in there for over a year.

Bachelor flat. Stack of newspapers getting taller and taller in a corner of the kitchen or a hall cupboard.

“This was an old copy, right?”

“Perhaps. I looked through several issues, but more or less at random.”

It made sense, but I was still suspicious.

“My office is in Harlesden. This other man, Gabriel McClennan, he’s local talent. You’ve probably walked past his office on your way to work—”

“I told you, I’ve never heard of an exorcist named McClennan!” Peele sounded irritated and indignant now—and it didn’t have the hallmarks of the anger you use to cover up a lie, with which I’m more than familiar. But I couldn’t have mistaken that face. The archive ghost had met Gabe McClennan at close quarters. Another exorcist had already worked the place, and yet she was still there. So if it wasn’t Peele, somebody else was trying to exorcise the ghost. Now why would that be?

“Okay, skip it,” I told Peele brusquely. I’d follow up in my own sweet time, but it didn’t look as though I was going to find out any more right then—and I knew better than to clutch at straws purely so that I could flog dead horses with them. “How did your meeting in Bilbao go?” I asked to change the subject.

Peele was aware of the discontinuity but unable to resist the red herring. “Very well, thank you. Very successfully indeed. I hope to hear good news within the next few days—news that will strengthen the links between the Bonnington and the Guggenheim Museum and be good for both institutions. But Mr. Castor, I need to know more about the progress you’ve made. Alice says—”

“Excellent progress, Mr. Peele. Better than I’d expected. In fact, I’ve just been able to eliminate a false trail that might have tied up a lesser exorcist for two whole days. Sorry to disrupt your morning. I’ll check in with you later on.”

“A false trail?” he echoed, bemused. But I hung up before he could shape that into an actual question.

The cloud had set in again thicker than ever, stone gray buttresses hanging over the city like masonry suspended in midfall. I took the Tube to Leicester Square and then headed up Charing Cross Road before turning west into Soho.

There was something going on at the archive that I was being kept in the dark about—I didn’t like that much. And I’d been pulled back from the brink of a broken neck, or worse, like a toddler wandering in traffic—I liked that even less.

Worst of all, I knew what it was that had saved me. And that was a pill so bitter, I almost couldn’t get it down.

Gabe McClennan has an office on Greek Street, and he calls it that with a straight face. The signs at street level read NEW MODEL IN TOWN, INDIAN HEAD MASSAGE, and gabriel p. mcclennan, spiritual services. The street door was open, so I went in, but Gabe’s door was locked, and there was a damp, heavy silence. The model and masseuse probably did most of their work on the night shift, but Gabe’s shingle ought to be open now if it ever was. On the other hand, let him who keeps regular office hours cast the first stone. I knocked a few times just in case, but got no answer.

Later, then. Because I was damn well going to finish this jigsaw off now that I’d started it—even if I had to knock some of the pieces into place with a ball-peen hammer. Yeah, I could just have played the tune and taken the money, like the Pied Piper, but I guess I’m not as pied as I make myself out to be. In any case, and for reasons I wasn’t keen to explore, it had suddenly become important for me to get at least some idea of what the hell I was dealing with here. Call it professional pride. Or call it what you like.

I had three places on my itinerary, and I’d budgeted the whole day. That may sound a bit pessimistic, given that they were all in North London, but my first port of call was the Camden Town Hall planning department. You don’t exactly abandon hope, but you certainly slip it into a back pocket.

Back at King’s Cross again; it felt like I’d never left. The town hall building looks like a set from an old Doctor Who episode, and to some extent, that gives a fair impression of the experience you’re likely to have when you go in there: meeting strange, not-quite-human creatures, burning your way through vast swathes of time, that sort of thing. I went in through the Judd Street entrance and was sent straight back out again; planning was at the other end of the building and was entered via Argyle Street. The gods of local government would be angry if I walked straight through, and I’d end up with my resident’s parking permit revoked and a council-tax bill for seven grand and my immortal soul.