Бен Ааронович - Lies Sleeping

There were six of them – three were lawyers, two worked in HR, and one was Patrick’s Executive Assistant. We started by marching them over to UCH, where Dr Walid put their heads in an MRI and Dr Vaughan spent a merry twenty minutes showing them her highly educational brain collection. Once they’d been suitably apprised of the dangers Nightingale assessed them for basic magical competency.

‘As I thought likely,’ he said. ‘None of them had progressed far beyond the lux forma and its many variations.’

We’d agreed that we wanted to keep this curriculum as non-lethal as possible, so Nightingale had dredged up his own memories of his first year at Casterbrook’s school for future wizards.

‘By necessity your education has had to be somewhat martial,’ he said. ‘I found it quite satisfying to teach the beginning formae in a more relaxed fashion. I might even consider teaching full time when I retire.’

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ I said.

‘Quite,’ said Nightingale.

There was a report in the Evening Standard that two figures dressed as Ninjas had been seen running across the rooftops of Soho, waving swords and doing gravity-defying leaps and bounds from building to building. Online speculation was that this was some kind of elaborate prank carried out in the Japanese style and sooner or later the result would appear on YouTube complete with badly translated subtitles.

‘Was that you?’ I asked Guleed and Michael Cheung when we were out on a double date at the Number Four Restaurant on the Hertford Road.

‘That’s an operational matter,’ she said. ‘And I am strictly forbidden to talk to you about that stuff.’

I personally was reassured to know that Guleed was out on the cobbles, showing her face and creating order out of chaos. I did make time to ask Nightingale about the ‘agreement’ with Chinatown.

‘There really is nothing mysterious about it,’ he said. ‘By the 1970s a large number of Chinese were setting up businesses around Gerrard Street. I knew from my experiences in America that this would quickly acquire what you would call a distinct ethnic identity.’

This, he surmised, would include their own structures and hierarchies because nothing says persistence like four thousand years of continuous civilisation.

‘I went and talked to some influential business people and made a bit of a demonstration.’ Nightingale made a sharp downward gesture with his hand that I’ve learnt to associate with his more showier bits of magic. ‘Said I was agreeable to a meeting to get things sorted out and let them formulate their own response. A couple of days later I received a hand-delivered invitation at the Folly.’

‘Had you told them about the Folly?’

‘No.’

‘So they . . .’ I left the implication hanging.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Precisely. So that evening I sat down for a perfectly splendid meal with some very distinguished gentlemen who introduced me to a young man called Simon Wong, who said that, should I be agreeable, he would take responsibility for maintaining the peace within Chinatown.’

‘Did he have a sword?’

‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘Although he didn’t have a card identifying himself as a legendary swordsman. That seems a more modern form of whimsy. I sensed that the sword was important, though, in a mythic or symbolic sense.’

‘In what way?’

‘I was rather hoping that one day Sahra could tell us.’

‘You’re such a romantic,’ I said.

‘Merely an interested observer. And as such I need to ask you a personal question.’

‘Ask away,’ I said, but only because I couldn’t see a convenient window I could dive out of.

‘Have you talked to anyone about your experiences?’ he said.

‘I’m considering it,’ I said.

‘May I suggest you do more than that? After I came back from the war I found it very useful to talk things through.’

There was quite a long silence as I waited for more – in vain, as it happened.

‘I’ll do that then,’ I said.

‘Jolly good,’ said Nightingale.

So I got someone to talk to. A very nice old lady psychiatrist that Postmartin knew, called Valerie Green. Her father had been a famous psychiatrist in Vienna and her mother had been a famous singer. He’d been Jewish and she’d been Sinti – both had fetched up in London in 1938. Valerie had been born after the war and had gone into her father’s profession.

‘Couldn’t sing, darling,’ she said.

Postmartin hinted strongly that one of her parents had been a practitioner of some kind, although Valerie wouldn’t say which one. It did mean that I could tell her everything without being immediately committed, and I suspect that David Carey was another client of hers. But of course she wouldn’t say.

All this meant that I was now expected to reveal my innermost thoughts to at least three people. Although, to be fair, I don’t think Toby was that interested.

Nightingale had been right – it was useful.

As was the magic training, the Latin, the Greek, teaching Abigail, and writing the ever-expanding Folly Expansion document – now incorporating the lessons learnt from Operation Jennifer.

The principal one being that we needed to maintain a complement of at least six new practitioners, and that was only counting the ones that were also police officers.

All of this helped keep my mind off the possibility of being dismissed or, more likely, being quietly given the option to retire with full benefits or else.

‘Would it be so bad if it was or else?’ asked Beverley one afternoon in late August.

‘You mean apart from the public disgrace and the loss of my pension?’

We were in her big tub at her house, having spent the morning strenuously avoiding any possible physical exertion. Beverley’s head was leaning comfortably against my chest and she was occasionally persuading the water to warm itself up.

‘Yeah, apart from that,’ she said.

‘I haven’t finished,’ I said.

‘Finished what?’

‘Any of it. The magic, the policing, the reorganisation—’ I stopped when Beverley shook with suppressed laughter.

‘The reorganisation,’ she wheezed.

‘It’s important,’ I said.

‘The reorganisation,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Would you quit if I asked you to?’

‘Truthfully?’

‘Of course truthfully,’ she said. ‘Always truthfully.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to quit?’

‘Truthfully?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘What’s brought all this on?’

‘Ah yes,’ she said. ‘There’s something you need to know.’

She took my hand and firmly placed it on her belly – it was smooth and warm.

And then, as they say, the penny dropped.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Beverley.

‘But what about your degree?’

‘It doesn’t actually cause your brains to dribble out of your ears,’ she said.

I had a good feel, but her stomach felt the same shape as before – at least I think it did.

‘Stop it,’ said Beverley. ‘That tickles.’

‘Mum will be pleased,’ I said.

‘So will mine.’

‘Tyburn’s going to be well pissed off, though.’

‘Bonus,’ said Beverley, and wriggled round to kiss me.

The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a real place up until April 2017, when it left London to be replaced, no doubt, by a boutique hotel, some luxury flats and a coffee shop. All the workers described in this book are 100% made up and any resemblance to any real person living or dead is completely coincidental.

The London Mithraeum has been returned to its original location, thanks to Bloomberg, and is now open to the public. I’ve visited and it’s worth a look, although I prefer to think of it as the Temple of Bacchus – a deity who seems much more in keeping with the spirit of London than grumpy old Mithras. I also find it a comforting to think that somewhere in the City under all that money and modernist concrete is a Temple of Isis – unless it’s under St Paul’s, that is.