Бен Ааронович - The Hanging Tree

In my earpiece I could hear Nightingale calmly ordering units into position around the park, while maintaining his position behind me and working without a map. The mist was thickening, the trees that lined the path I was on were flattening out and fading.

Ten metres further down the path I risked a look and saw that Reynard and co had changed direction. Now they were heading downslope – to the east.

I turned off the path but stayed at a tangent so I wouldn’t be obviously following them. But I had to close the distance before they were swallowed up in the mist and darkness. I reported the change in direction.

‘You’re going to have to risk getting closer,’ said Nightingale.

I heard a snarl off to my left and I didn’t think it was a dog. I looked and thought I saw movement in the mist, man-shaped but loping like a big cat, picking up momentum as it ran after my targets. I was about to call it in when a long thin shape hissed over my shoulder and slammed into the running figure, which went tumbling with a yowling scream. A naked man ran past me and did a sort of hopping turn to face me. His long rangy body was smeared in blue paint and he held a pair of spears in his left hand. His hair was a spray of spiky black, and gold gleamed at his throat and wrists.

‘Did you see that?’ he shouted. ‘Tell me you saw that – that’s got to be a worth a song.’

He turned and ran off, shouting over his shoulder.

‘Or at least a memory.’ It sounded almost plaintive.

And then with just a few steps he was gone.

I checked Reynard and the others, but they were still walking calmly in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. Either they were the most focused people on Earth or that encounter had been a lot quieter than I thought it was.

‘Boss,’ I said into my Airwave. ‘It’s getting needlessly metaphysical out here.’

‘Ignore it,’ said Nightingale calmly. ‘There’s more than one conflict going on at the moment, but only one of them is your concern.’

I realised that despite having two of the busiest roads in London within a hundred metres, the rush hour had faded to nothing. From behind me I heard a stamping, grunting sound and a noise like pots and pans being rhythmically smacked together. A growl, a shout, a scream.

Stay on target, I thought.

‘They’re definitely heading for Hyde Park Corner,’ I said

Nightingale said that he and Guleed were going to get ahead of them and that I was going to be on my own, but I should be quite safe.

‘As long as you stay focused,’ he said.

Which was easier said than done because that’s when Early Tyburn returned.

I smelt him before I heard him, the copper smell of fresh blood and old sweat, wood-smoke and wet dog.

‘You should listen to your master,’ said a voice by my ear. ‘He’s a cunning man. And by the way, did you see that sick cast – right through the neck. Never saw it coming. Worth a song right, bit of an impromptu beat box maybe.’

‘What’s with the woad?’ I asked. ‘Last time we met you were all medieval.’

Out in the mist the trees had multiplied and the straight London planes and lime trees were sharing space with the shadowy ghosts of oak, beech and poplar.

‘Just being true to my roots, fam,’ said the former incarnation of the god of the River Tyburn – or maybe a hallucination brought on by way too many supernatural wankers messing with my head. Or possibly both at the same time.

I kept my eyes on my targets ahead and my hoodie was as effective as any pair of blinkers, so I almost screamed when I felt him slip his arm around my shoulders, the spare javelins in his left hand clacking against my arm, the tips pushing into my peripheral vision. I felt my balls and my stomach tighten, the anticipation of action as when you run down a deer in the King’s Forest or jack a motor from outside a gaff in Primrose Hill. The defiance of power making the meat taste so much sweeter, the slip into first gear and away so much sweeter.

‘I saw your father,’ I said. ‘He seemed a happy little Roman.’

‘And so he was,’ said the voice. ‘But we are not always the sons our fathers dream of – as you should know.’

As I did know, and all the things sons do to make their fathers proud until you learn to choose your own life for your own reasons. Have your own money, your own car, your own job, you own place, your own life and fuck everybody else.

What have they ever done for you?

But I had felt this seduction before. Or something like it. On a tube train between Camden and Kentish Town when old Mr Punch tried to recruit me for Team Riot, and I knew how well that had turned out in the end.

‘Lady Ty must be a real disappointment,’ I said.

The arm squeezed my shoulders and relaxed its grip. ‘Why don’t you ask her about the Marquee in ’76, the bin bag dress and how she couldn’t quite bring herself to push the safety pin all the way through,’ said the voice. And before I could reply he was gone.

With him went the concealing mist and suddenly I was standing by the Boris Bike stand at the far end of Green Park and listening to the angry traffic fighting its way around Hyde Park Corner.

Hyde Park Corner is what happens when a bunch of urban planners take one look at the grinding circle of gridlock that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and think – that’s what we want for our town. Inspired no doubt by the existence of the Wellington Arch, George IV’s cut price copy of Napoleon’s own vanity project, they wrapped seven lanes of traffic around one corner of Green Park, ran a dual carriageway underneath and produced virtually overnight what had taken the French and Baron Haussmann a hundred years to perfect.

I scanned right to left and spotted Reynard, Lady Helena and Caroline waiting for the lights to change at the pelican crossing. There was enough of a crowd to allow me to cross right after them with just a bit of a last minute dash against the red man.

Ahead of us was the Wellington Arch, with Europe’s largest bronze statue thoughtfully plonked on top to avoid people getting a good look at it. Nike Goddess of Victory riding the Chariot of War driven by a boy racer. There used to be a mini-police station built into the Arch, which would have been bloody useful right now, but they closed it down in the nineties.

It was full night by the time I crossed the street and the Portland stone of the Arch was bleached white by spotlights, the bronze on top lit up in blue. I let Reynard and his party gain some distance as they passed to the right of the structure. In my earpiece I could hear Nightingale calmly positioning spotters to cover the tube station and all the crossings.

‘They’re heading for Hyde Park,’ I told him and then remembered Reynard’s left hand drive Renault 4 that we’d never located. Maybe because it was stashed in a car park somewhere – maybe the one beneath Hyde Park. The one with a reputed tunnel to The Chestnut Tree. I floated the idea past Nightingale and heard Guleed groan in the background. Nightingale punted it up to Seawoll to get some bodies down to the car park to check. If it had been sitting there all this time we were all going to look stupid come case review, but at least we might get there before Reynard.

If they were going for the car park then they’d cross the road and head north up Park Lane or more likely walk along the parallel bridle path.

I veered to the left with the idea of running through the Arch and closing the distance with Reynard, when a young white woman caught my eye. She was slender but toned with strong legs and shoulders under mauve designer jeans and a matching suede jacket. Her face was round and smooth with a snub nose and rosebud lips. Her hair was dark brown and cut into a pixie bob. A pair of pretentious round framed smoked glass spectacles hid her eyes.