Бен Ааронович - The Hanging Tree

I asked where Guleed had got to.

‘Finishing the interview with the manageress,’ said Nightingale. ‘She seemed to think she’d get more out of the poor woman without me hovering in the doorway.’

‘You know she’s demi-fae,’ I said.

‘So Sahra explained.’

‘You don’t seem very surprised.’

Nightingale shrugged.

‘If Abdul ever gets his wish and finds a reliable . . .’ He frowned. ‘What does he call it – a genetic marker?’

Determining whether there was an actual genetic basis to being a fae was one of Dr Walid’s research priorities. I’m pretty certain that his keenness to employ Dr Vaughan had come from a desire to have more time to pursue it.

I confirmed that Nightingale was right and it was indeed a genetic marker. Although, of course, it was all much more complicated than that, genetics-wise. It always is.

‘Should he ever find his marker,’ said Nightingale, ‘and conduct his survey, I believe he will find that fairy blood is far more widespread than previously assumed.’

And most of them passing, I thought, like Wanda the manageress.

‘None of the items listed on eBay have been sold yet,’ I said. ‘So they must be stored somewhere.’

‘Indubitably,’ said Nightingale. ‘I think we must assume that our tricky fox has a hideaway he hasn’t told us about.’ All of Reynard Fossman’s last known addresses had already been searched over the weekend as well as a few likely lock-ups that had, as Nightingale admitted, quite tenuous connections to the man. Not to mention that we still hadn’t found the antique Renault 4 GTL that, according to the DVLA, was registered in his name.

‘It would be nice to find the Mary Engine,’ I said. ‘It could be the only original difference engine in existence. We could flog it to the Science Museum.’

‘You’d have to fight Harold for it,’ said Nightingale.

Postmartin took his role as archivist very seriously.

‘But it’s not a book, is it?’ I said. ‘That means we get first dibs. Do you know if they made any more – did anyone at the Folly have one?’

‘There was always a rumour that Babbage had worked on a mechanical device of some kind for the Folly,’ said Nightingale. ‘One which might have had applications in the practise – but it was just a rumour.’

‘Was there anything about Ada Lovelace?’ I asked.

Nightingale gave me a funny look.

‘Byron’s daughter?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure I understand the connection.’

‘She worked with Babbage on the difference engine,’ I said.

‘In what capacity?’

‘She was a famously gifted mathematician,’ I said. Who I mostly knew about from reading Steam-punk, but I wasn’t going to mention that. ‘Generally considered to have written the first true computer program.’

‘Ah,’ said Nightingale. ‘So now we know who to blame.’

‘Reynard’s not going to tell us where his real lock-up is,’ I said. ‘And I don’t think he’s stupid enough to lead us to it. He must know we’re going to tail him once we release him. I suppose we could still charge him with whatever we’ve got lying around. Or ask for an extension.’

‘No,’ said Nightingale. ‘I think we let the fox run. But not before we inform him that the Faceless Man might have him in his sights.’

‘He might bottle it there and then, ask for protective custody.’

‘So much the better,’ said Nightingale with a smile. ‘Because then we can extract a price for his protection. And if he doesn’t, then fear might just drive him back to his den. Might it not?’

‘And if we hang him out as bait and the Faceless Man offs him?’ I asked.

Nightingale put his hand on my shoulder and leaned forward.

‘I thought I might intervene before that happened,’ he said softly and then, straightening, said, ‘Besides, it will do Reynard good to play the hound not the fox for a change.’

I was thinking that it sounded like a fucking desperate plan to me, but Nightingale was the man who had walked home from Ettersberg and struck awe into the breasts of classically educated wizards from Hereford-shire to Vladivostok.

‘Do you think you can take the Faceless Man?’ I asked.

‘He’s started making mistakes,’ said Nightingale. ‘Something has put him off his game. And, if he’s scrambling, we might be able to bring him down with a good tap.’

He is making mistakes, I thought, but why? Yes, Reynard and Christina had pilfered his goodies from under his nose. But I couldn’t see any connection between that and Aiden Burghley. Especially not one which warranted that flashy dismemberment. And what was he doing questioning Phoebe in her underground pool? Unless the Faceless Man was her father, Jeremy Beaumont-Jones, and he thought Aiden Burghley was another link in a conspiracy that encompassed Christina Chorley and Reynard the Suspicious . . . In which case Olivia McAllister-Thames would be a target too.

‘We need to close down the other loose ends,’ I said.

‘Agreed,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s see how Sahra is doing.’

So we divvied up the jobs, subject to Seawoll’s agreement of course. Guleed would action a TIE on the ‘area manager’ who’d interviewed Wanda the manageress for her job.

‘I’m sure Carey will have finished with his escorts by then,’ she said.

Then both of us would head out to the fabled lands beyond High Wycombe to see whether Christina stashed her stolen goodies at her father’s house.

‘Isn’t Martin Chorley on the Tiger list?’ asked Guleed.

‘Our target’s made a big thing out of his anonymity,’ I said. ‘So assuming for a minute that he is Christina’s dad – which is unlikely, but possible – then he’s not going to reveal himself just because we want a look at his daughter’s room. Especially if we let him know we’re coming up.’

Guleed frowned – it’s bad practise to give people warning before you turn over their house, but if Martin Chorley was the Faceless Man, I reckoned the room would have been cleaned out by now anyway. It’s also bad practise to startle dangerous armed suspects – better to slowly and calmly take control of the situation. At least that’s the theory.

‘He’s not going to blow his cover if he thinks he can fob us off,’ I said. ‘And if he’s not our man then he won’t know what we’re looking for, so he won’t have a reason to hide it.’

Nightingale offered to authorise Guleed to carry a taser but she claimed to have never done the training course.

‘In that case you might want to carry a screamer instead,’ said Nightingale.

‘As long as you carry one too,’ I said.

‘What’s a screamer?’ asked Guleed.

I said I’d show her when we got back to the Folly, because Postmartin wanted us to cart a couple of crates over there and lock them in our secure evidence room. Actually, he meant the library because there was no way he wanted ‘his’ books stashed downstairs in the basement armoury.

Molly came out to meet us as we drove in the back gate. She glared at me and then tilted her head up towards the top floor of the coach house where I keep my widescreen, my desktop and any other bits of the technology that, for one reason or another, don’t work well in the Folly proper.

We left the boxes in the car and me and Guleed climbed the spiral stairs to find Caroline inside playing Shadow of Mordor on my PS4. Toby was curled up at her feet, thus once again demonstrating his true worth as a guard dog.

‘Thank god you’re here,’ she said, putting it down. ‘I was about to go mad with boredom.’

I did a quick inspection of my stuff, but nothing seemed out of place. I haven’t got so paranoid that I’ve started sticking hairs across doorjambs but between Nightingale watching the rugby while I was over at Bev’s, and Molly sneaking in whenever she thought I wasn’t looking to swap recipes on Twitter, I’ve taken to securing anything important in filing cabinets.