Бен Ааронович - The Hanging Tree

She caught me looking and tilted her head in amused recognition before turning and walking away on unexpectedly sensible flat shoes.

I knew that walk, a brisk, business-like walk. A walk to cover the distance quickly without looking hurried or worried.

I keyed my Airwave.

‘I’ve just seen Lesley at the Arch,’ I said.

‘Are you certain?’ asked Nightingale.

‘The face is different but it’s definitely Lesley,’ I said.

‘Is it a mask?’ asked Nightingale.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not a mask.’

‘Did she see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Arrest her,’ said Nightingale. ‘Now.’

I was wearing trainers – you can run really quietly in trainers if you have to. It’s all in the way you roll your feet. I took off as fast as I could, straight for her back. I knew sooner or later she was going to check on my position, but I was counting on her Lesley-esque sense of drama to hold the moment longer than she should. I was three metres short when a white guy in a navy suit jacket over a black Metallica T-shirt theatrically jumped out of my way and yelled, ‘Look out.’

The woman who walked like Lesley turned and I saw the look of surprise on her face. Then I stumbled as the pale skin of her face rippled and her features changed. It started at the bridge of her nose, the skin bunching up and then flopping down horribly, like the wings of a manta or the shroud of a squid. Then suddenly it was Lesley’s face again – or rather the smooth pink version of it I’d seen in the Harrods Jazz Café. I was so shocked that I barely registered the raised hand and the shimmer in the air that signalled pain inbound. I forced myself to lengthen my stumble into a fall and a clumsy roll, taking the impact on my shoulders, as something shot through the space I would have been in, with a noise like my mum beating a carpet.

As I climbed to my feet and dodged right on general principles, I heard yells behind me. I had the Airwave off by then and didn’t dare to turn it back it on to alert Nightingale to potential collateral. I had to trust to his professional instincts and hope that Lesley wasn’t flinging anything too lethal around.

She knew better than to escalate in public in central London – not unless you wanted to take a run up that short ladder that ended with making a personal relationship with the Special Air Service.

I ran through the arch, making my appearance as abrupt as I could, and spotted Lesley heading off towards the Wellington Memorial. She was walking briskly rather than running – hoping, I assumed, to avoid drawing attention to herself.

I flicked an impello at her and felt a moment of mad satisfaction as it knocked her legs out from under her. As I ran to close the distance, I pulled my asp from the belly pocket of my hoodie and flicked it out to full length.

But she rolled and was on her feet before I’d got halfway there. She raised her hand – I saw a flash and got my shield up in time to deflect it into the air. I’ve been training to conjure my shield with an upward slope for use amongst the general public. You don’t want anything eldritch, or even mundanely pointy, ricocheting into innocent bystanders.

Lesley switched direction and headed for the right of the plinth that held up forty tons of mounted military legend so I went around it on the left just in case she planned an ambush – which is how we came to run smack into each other.

I’m bigger, so she went backwards. But not before her forehead hit me hard enough in the mouth to loosen my one filling and make me taste blood. I swung my baton but missed, and she kicked me in the thigh – which was probably a lucky miss. Then she hit me with something impello -ish which knocked me over backwards, but Nightingale has trained me to accept the direction of the blow and roll up so that I regain my feet as quickly as possible.

So far this was all suspiciously non-lethal. Not that I was complaining, mind you, but we were escalating enough for the street lights and spots around us to fizz out. I flung a water bomb in Lesley’s general direction but she’d ducked back behind the plinth and I dared not charge after her in case she was waiting around the corner with something unpleasant. I went wide and caught sight of her vaulting a waist-high stone parapet behind the monument and dropping onto the ramp below. I leaned over and watched as she ran down towards the pedestrian subway. I considered following, but instead darted back and ran down the nearby stairs instead – just in case she tried to double back that way.

Hyde Park Corner has some of the cleanest pedestrian subways in the world – this one was decorated with colourful murals depicting the Battle of Waterloo, just in case any French tourists had some doubt about whose capital they were visiting. This time I went for speed and got within two metres. But she grabbed a startled tourist, swung him around as if dancing, and threw him down in front of me. I had to break stride to jump and that gave Lesley enough time to cut right down another passage. I cornered it myself in time to see her skid left and vanish into the ticket office. I followed slower, risking a peek around the corner to avoid any sudden surprises. Hyde Park Corner has a tiny ticket office and Lesley was already through the barrier. She turned to check whether I was following and that’s when I knew I was being played.

Still, I charged the barriers to drive her down the escalators. But I didn’t follow. Instead, waving my warrant card to reassure the Underground staff, I veered right and back out into the subway. Turning my Airwave back on, I ran up the stairs and found myself at the entrance to Hyde Park. I did a three-sixty scan while waiting for the Airwave to boot up. We used to wait for our electronics to warm up, now it’s our software. But there was no sight of any of the targets.

Finally the Airwave connected and I got Nightingale.

‘It’s a feint,’ I said. ‘Lesley was trying to draw me away – which means wherever they’re going is close.’ And then I looked down Knightsbridge to where the Oriental Hotel was painted a warm orange by its spotlights.

‘It’s One Hyde Park,’ I said. ‘Tell me you have spotters there already.’

‘But of course,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I believe you may be right.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Reynard and our friends have just walked in the front door,’ he said.

We waited for screams, but none came. That was almost worse.

All of the apartment windows were dark and Seawoll was ninety percent sure that most of the super-rich inhabitants of One Hyde Park were either temporarily not in residence or still living abroad and waiting for property prices in London to peak.

Stephanopoulos and some uniforms in full Public Order kit had sealed off the tunnel from the Oriental Hotel, but David Carey, interviewing staff, was pretty sure at least one group had made it in before it was locked down.

‘Four IC1 males in suits,’ he reported.

‘That will be the Americans,’ said Nightingale.

There were reports of burst water mains and flooding from Sloane Street and the Serpentine. I checked my notebook – all along the course of the Westbourne, whose genius loci was otherwise known as Chelsea Thames. I called Beverley and asked if she knew where her younger sister was.

‘Here at Mum’s,’ she said. ‘Hiding under Lea’s bed.’

‘I don’t suppose Tyburn’s popped in for a visit?’ I asked.

Beverley said no and told me whatever I thought I was going to do next I was to be careful.

‘Always,’ I said.

‘I mean it,’ she said.

‘Tyburn’s probably in there as well,’ I said, after I hung up.

‘Full house,’ said Guleed.

We’d escalated up to having a mobile control room, codenamed Broadway, which was parked on South Carriage Drive with a good view of the back of One Hyde Park. The key advantage of a mobile control room is that it gave Seawoll a place to shout at us while sitting in a comfy chair with a cup of tea.