Бен Ааронович - The Hanging Tree

‘Whose idea was this?’

‘Your mate Lady Ty’s,’ said Zach and explained that she’d also smoothed the way with OFSTED and Camden Council to get the necessary permissions and permits. I’ve had similar dealings with Camden, so I knew that couldn’t have been easy.

I looked over at the kids. It was a sensible, pragmatic solution to the problem of integrating the Quiet People into society. And if those kids started to prefer living above ground, going to uni in far off exotic places like Reading and Cambridge, and marrying out of the tribe? Well then, after a while the whole problem just fades away, doesn’t it? Along with the memories of the old people and the unwritten histories. And silence would reign in the galleries of their forefathers. Not that they were exactly noisy now.

‘I’m not going to tell you where she is,’ said Zach suddenly.

This caused me some confusion until I worked out he was talking about Lesley.

‘Is she all right?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘Is she all right?’ I asked. ‘Is she OK?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Considering, you know, one thing or the other. All things being equal.’

Zach thought he had something to hide, which meant Zach probably was in contact with Lesley on a regular basis. Good, I thought. Because soon it will be time to pull on that thread and see where it goes.

But not today. Because first there was Mr Fossman.

‘I want to know about Reynard,’ I said.

Zach hesitated and I could practically hear him weighing up whether to pretend he didn’t know, and then thinking better of it.

‘What about him?’ he asked.

‘I need to know where he is.’

‘What for?’

‘Because the Faceless Man wants him dead.’

‘He’s probably already dead, then.’

‘Not if I can help it.’

Zach licked his lips and glanced over at Elizabeth Ten-Tons before dropping his voice so low I had to lean in to hear him.

‘Is it true you know his real name now?’

I said nothing, because if I told Zach I might as well announce it on Facebook.

‘Have you checked his gaff?’

I said that not only had we checked his gaff, we’d spun his drum and his crib as well. And that we had his ends so thoroughly staked out that street crime had dropped by twenty percent overnight.

‘I want to know where he goes as a last resort.’

Zach told me.

‘You’re shitting me,’ I said.

‘No lie.’

‘That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘That’s the nature of the beast,’ said Zach. ‘We are what we are.’

‘The Fox Club,’ said Nightingale when I called him.

‘In Mayfair,’ I said.

‘Well, at least he’s consistent.’

‘He’s brown bread if we don’t get to him first,’ I said.

‘Let’s see if we can avoid that outcome,’ said Nightingale.

Occasionally, when the mood takes us, the police can react very fast to unforeseen events. So we had a surveillance perimeter set up in less than thirty minutes with a pair of PCs in plainclothes inside the club. One of them was PC Omer Kubat from the Mounted Branch whose legendary good looks mean that nobody ever believes he’s police.

‘Is it true he nearly got arrested while in full uniform?’ Guleed asked.

Since Reynard knew me, her and Nightingale, we’d been placed around the corner from the Fox Club. Which was just as well since we were in the silver Astra with the ‘My Other Car’s an IRV’ bumper sticker.

‘That’s what I heard,’ I said. Rumour had it that Kubat plus horse had been deployed as crowd control during the Olympics when a local Inspector had got it into his head that Kubat was an actor involved in an illegal film shoot.

‘Didn’t believe him,’ I said. ‘Not even when he handed over his warrant card.’

It was a quality that meant that Kubat was constantly getting poached for side jobs like ours, although his duty Inspector made it clear that anybody, regardless of the rank, who tried to transfer him out of Mounted Branch was going to wake up with a bed full of horse product.

The Fox Club, for all its aspirations and Mayfair address, was less an exclusive gentleman’s club and more an expensive bar with some posh hotel rooms attached. Kubat was probably a bit too good looking for its usual clientele, but at least if he were mistaken for something it wouldn’t be an undercover police officer.

The club occupied a regency terrace on a street just off Piccadilly, less than two hundred metres from Lady Ty’s house and almost on top of the underground course of her river. Curzon Street to the north was still partially closed as the Fire Brigade and Thames Water dealt with the flood damage.

I didn’t think it was a coincidence. And the chance that Lady Ty was also using Reynard as bait had been factored into our operational plan, such as it was, and our risk assessment – such as that was.

Me, Guleed and Nightingale were designated Alpha. David Carey and a couple of guys from Belgravia MIT were in Charlie covering Half Moon Street at the back of the club. A couple of PCs in plainclothes on ruinous levels of overtime were in what any other nick would call Bravo but inexplicably Belgravia MIT always called the Banana car. I asked them why, but nobody could remember.

Stephanopoulos and Seawoll were trying to rustle up some armed response, but apparently there was some anti-terror operation currently live in East London so we couldn’t count on getting them until that was done.

Kubat called to report that he had eyes on Reynard.

‘At a table in the main saloon,’ he said. ‘He’s holding some chairs free, too – he must be expecting someone.’

Nightingale told him to hold position and we heard him ordering a pint of lager. A pint is a good drink for undercover work since, unlike a short, you can get away with drinking it slowly, it has low alcohol by volume, and if you keep moving it about people can’t tell how much you’re drinking.

I suggested that we grab Reynard then and there. But Nightingale said wait.

‘I don’t think we’ve played out the line fully yet,’ he said.

Poor Reynard, I thought, demoted from fox to fish – he must’ve done something shitty in a former life. Although how it could be worse than what he was doing in his current life took some imagining.

You don’t half end up thinking strange things when you’re on a stakeout.

Nightingale was proved right when we got a call from the Banana car saying they had eyeballs on an older IC1 and a younger IC3 female heading for the club.

I asked whether the IC3 female was over six feet tall.

‘Definitely,’ said the Banana car.

‘I thought this might happen,’ said Nightingale. ‘Lady Helena is still trying to secure The Third Principia for herself.’

‘Should we stop them?’

Nightingale hesitated – tapping his finger on the steering wheel.

‘No,’ he said finally. ‘If I’m right, then Mr Fossman will either hand it over directly or take them to it.’

‘And if Martin Chorley crashes the trade?’

‘Lady Helena is more than capable of defending herself and her daughter,’ said Nightingale. ‘Or at least of fending him off for long enough that we can sweep in heroically like the Seventh Cavalry.’

Burning tipis and shooting women and children, I thought.

And with that cheerful notion I had a root around in the stakeout bag Molly had provided. One of the wrapped sandwiches had a large H written on the outside – I handed it to Guleed as the rest were all unmarked. I played pot luck and got a suspiciously mundane ham salad sandwich. Nightingale said he’d have his later.