Бен Ааронович - The Hanging Tree

‘Well, they’re no fun, constable, if they don’t wriggle a bit under the claw – are they?’ His smile was vulpine and humourless, but now he was talking about the things that floated his particular boat, and once they’ve started doing that it’s just a matter of hopping on board and sailing them down the river.

‘You like the thrill of the chase, then?’ I asked.

‘Don’t we all?’

I gave him a half shrug that implied that I would love to agree with him, but I was constrained by the iron hand of political correctness. Which was all it took for Reynard to pick up the paddle and push us out into midstream.

He leaned forward and looked me in the eye.

‘Most men do,’ he said. ‘But they’ve been conditioned not to admit it – even to themselves.’

‘So where do you like to go hunting?’ I asked.

‘I don’t go looking for them, Peter,’ he said. ‘They come looking for me.’

Presumably with torches and pitchforks.

‘All the little bunnies do it,’ said Reynard. ‘Even the Germaine Greer wannabes. There they go, backwards and forwards right under your nose,’ he said. ‘While making sure everything is bouncing away in the most appealing fashion.’

‘It’s those little fluffy tails,’ I said before I could stop myself, but fortunately Reynard was too deep into his happy place to notice.

‘When little Christina came hop hopping past,’ I said, ‘where were you?’

‘The Chestnut Tree,’ said Reynard.

Which was a famous pub in Marble Arch where denizens of the demi-monde hung out after doing a hard day’s whatever it is members of the demi-monde do. Zach the goblin boy was a periodic patron when he wasn’t barred. I’d been in a couple of times to show my face and reassure the community that I was bloody well keeping an eye on them – the thieving gits. It wasn’t the sort of place that checked IDs once you were visibly old enough to do a paper round.

It also wasn’t a pub you wandered into by accident – I pointed this out to Reynard.

‘She was there with company,’ he said.

‘What sort of company?’

‘The deified sort,’ he said. ‘Or at least one of their offspring.’

‘That’s quite a lot of kids,’ I said. ‘Which one?’

He hesitated; I suspect he was considering whether he could use the name as a bargaining chip. But then, sensibly, he told me.

‘Lady Ty’s little girl,’ he said. ‘Olivia.’

And round and round we go and where we stop nobody knows.

While I was talking to Reynard the Unreliable, Nightingale had popped out with Guleed to extend Jeremy Beaumont-Jones, and his lovely daughter Phoebe, an invitation to help the police with their inquiries. That way they could run the whole Trace Implicate or Eliminate routine free from the fear that he’d turn up and drop another building on us. And, should that or any other equally gruesome thing happen elsewhere while he was with us, we could safely eliminate him from our inquiries.

By agreement we all paused for coffee and scheming, and I asked Guleed what she thought of Phoebe’s father.

‘Actually he comes across as a bit dim,’ said Guleed

‘A perfectly pleasant fellow,’ said Nightingale. ‘But not what you’d call a world-class brain.’

Which just goes to show that all a degree from Oxford guarantees is that the recipient went to Oxford and turned up for some lessons.

‘And it was a rather poor second at that,’ said Nightingale.

It seemed that our Mr Beaumont-Jones had been more interested in the Oxford Revue than his Philosophy, Politics and Economics, although he’d also failed to generate a career in cutting topical satire.

By the end of the morning, while we’d confirmed that he’d been booked in at an exclusive West End hotel at the time the Faceless Man was subjecting me to an involuntary swimming lesson with the Americans, we couldn’t confirm that he’d actually been in the hotel. Not only did the hotel in question not CCTV its visitors going in and out, discretion being part of the service, but we also hadn’t managed to track down ‘Anna’ the ‘open minded blonde’ that Jeremy Beaumont-Jones claimed to have bunged a grand to for a night of if not passion then a really good simulation of it. It didn’t help that he couldn’t remember which escort agency she’d come from, and had paid in cash so there was no electronic record. He hadn’t booked this young woman of negotiable affection on his own phone, and there was no record of his making an outside call from the phone in his room.

It was a fair bet that someone at the hotel knew exactly which agency represented the young women who came and went, and David Carey had been actioned to take ‘statements’ from the staff until such time as someone coughed. Once that happened, Carey had declared, he was willing to work all hours tracking down escort agencies and taking statements from ‘the girls’.

‘That’s just how dedicated I am to this job,’ he’d said.

‘Rather him than me,’ said Guleed. ‘That’s a dreary job.’

Jeremy Beaumont-Jones’ alibi for this Monday afternoon’s dismemberment in the park was equally porous. But walking around without an alibi was not sufficient grounds to charge either father or daughter. Or at least, it isn’t if the suspect has a decent lawyer.

I reported Reynard’s assertion that Olivia had introduced Christina Chorley to The Chestnut Tree, and thus to the wonders of the demi-monde.

‘So Olivia McAllister-Thames was lying to us,’ said Seawoll. ‘Again.’

‘Somebody’s lying,’ I said, which got me a look of amused indulgence from Stephanopoulos and a snort from Seawoll. Of course somebody was lying – we were the police – somebody was always lying to us.

‘We have Olivia’s girlfriend,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘We can always ask her.’

‘No,’ said Seawoll. ‘I don’t like the way these posh buggers have been pissing us about.’ He looked at me and Nightingale. ‘Do you know this place?’ he asked, meaning The Chestnut Tree.

Nightingale said we did, and Seawoll asked if we wouldn’t mind popping over and seeing if we couldn’t scare up some witnesses who could tell us exactly who had taken whom to where and what they were doing while they were there. Armed with that information we could then go back into an interview and nail said posh buggers’ hands to the table.

Metaphorically. Or at least I hoped he meant metaphorically.

You can’t take Nightingale to The Chestnut Tree, because by the time you’ve walked in the front door most of the clientele will have run out the back. In fact, on the off chance that this might prove useful one day, I once spent a fun morning trying to find the back door but to no avail. Rumour was that it opened into a secret subterranean passage which emerged in the Hyde Park car park. On this visit I did take Guleed, because Seawoll was more likely to believe her report than mine, and also I don’t go into The Chestnut Tree without someone watching my back.

The place itself is on a windswept alleyway in Marble Arch just short of, and not to be mistaken for, the famous City of Quebec pub. There’s no sign on the door, but I’ve been told that the frame is made of genuine chestnut cut from the original tree. Inside is a short corridor painted that strange green colour that I assume someone, somewhere, once persuaded the brewery chains looked wholesome, inviting and encouraged people to drink to excess.

At the end of the corridor there’s a short flight of stairs into the main saloon bar. That’s where the actual chestnut tree that presumably gave the pub its name grows out of the wall behind the bar. Or rather doesn’t grow, because it’s been dead for more than a hundred years, but its branches spread out in a tangle of bare limbs across the width of the saloon where they merge with the wooden booths that lurk in the gloom on the other side. Amongst the branches hung dusty iron and glass lamps holding what I really hoped were fake gas mantles, because using real ones would have been a bit of a health and safety violation.