Бен Ааронович - The Hanging Tree

‘There,’ I said. ‘Now I’ve met you half-way .’

‘You and Bev are so suited,’ she said. ‘It’s such a pity you’re going to wear out so quickly.’

‘Got any Red Stripe?’ I asked. ‘Kronenberg? Tsingtao? Star? Come on, you must have some Star Beer left.’

‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ said Lady Ty. ‘But you haven’t seen my mum’s friends drink yet.’ She sighed. ‘Okay. He’s there, is Mr William Tyburn Esquire – like a memory, like a story I made up when I was a kid and repeated so often that it’s become the truth. He’s real, like a photograph of a grandfather who died before you were born.’

‘Did he kill the sniper?’

‘Well, I sure as shit didn’t,’ said Lady Ty. ‘You know, I’ve done business with the Public Policy Foundation. They did a study on increasing passenger traffic along the Thames. I must have attended half a dozen meetings and presentations with them, and I never once met Martin Chorley.’

‘He was avoiding you,’ I said. ‘He didn’t want you sniffing him out.’

‘I nearly got him, you know,’ said Lady Ty with a wicked smile. ‘I’d have drowned the little fucker if the bloody Americans hadn’t got in the way.’ She frowned. ‘What have you done with them, by the way?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility,’ she said.

‘We’re flying them home tomorrow,’ I said.

There had been a deal, but nobody bothered to tell us what it was.

‘A couple of quid for our quo pro,’ said Seawoll when I asked him.

I asked Agent Kimberley Reynolds when I saw her and her charges off at Brize Norton, but she said she couldn’t tell me. She did ask whether we’d recovered everything on the NSA list. I didn’t tell her about Lady Helena walking off with The Third Principia , but I did tell her that Babbage’s Mary Engine hadn’t been recovered.

‘We don’t even know if it was in the car,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got it?’

‘Didn’t it weigh like two hundred pounds?’ she asked, and offered to let me carry her luggage.

We agreed to stay in touch and I promised to send her some books. I asked how we might keep our discussions private and she just laughed.

‘What do you propose we use – a magic decoder ring?’ she said. ‘Just don’t say anything you don’t want the NSA to know.’

I added establishing relations with other national magical policing bodies to the great big fun file of things the Folly needed to do.

Which left a certain hook nosed bastard who didn’t know when to shut up.

Early the next morning I drove out to London Bridge and stood about where I judged the centre to be, turned my back on the river and leaned against the parapet. Even at six in the morning the commuters were streaming past me in the darkness, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets or clutching umbrellas against the chill drizzle.

‘You’ve been bugging me for a year now,’ I said. ‘You want to talk? Let’s talk.’

A couple of people gave me a strange look but, I suspect the majority thought I was on my phone, hands free. Of course some of them detoured to avoid me, but they would have done that even if I’d been silent.

‘You see, the thing is I’m still alive,’ I said. ‘Martin Chorley could have killed me a number of times during the fight in the garage. Fuck, he could have killed me at Phoebe Beaumont-Jones’ house. Now he says that he’s got a deal with Lesley, which he doesn’t want to break. But, you know what? I think there’s more. Because there’s half a dozen ways that Mr Chorley could have offed me and gone “Whoops, total accident, wrong place, wrong time”. And he didn’t. Which he means he doesn’t dare risk pissing Lesley off, which means she’s not just important. She’s vital to his plans.’

And there, very faint, like a whiff of shit in a posh restaurant, I caught the off-key jangle of bells, the rustle of jester’s motley and a snatch of familiar verse – He lives, while he can, upon clover. And when he dies it’s only all over.

‘It can’t be access to the Black Library,’ I said. ‘Because she’s off the guest list and she’s picking up magic. But I reckon he could find a replacement without too much trouble. Shit, he could train someone himself if he needed to. It’s not to get a psychological advantage over the opposition. Because I might hesitate when it comes to Lesley, but Nightingale will not – trust me.’

The press of commuters crossing the bridge grew until it was a continuous hurrying river of people streaming past.

‘So, I wondered what might be special about Lesley,’ I said. ‘Beyond all the things I think are special about her. And, you know what? And this is going to make you laugh . . . the answer is you , isn’t it? Some special knowledge she got while you were in her head. Or maybe a connection to you. Is that it? A connection.’

And then a voice, like a breath in my ear.

If I had all the wives of wise King Sol, I’d kill them all for my Pretty Pol.

‘You better watch it, bruv,’ I said. ‘Because you and I ain’t finished.’

And I thought I heard laughter echoing out of the city, but it might have just been the traffic.

Ruth Goldsmith and Harry Shapiro of DrugScope, Nial Boyce of the Lancet Psychiatry, Bob Hunter formerly of the Metropolitan Police now keen-eyed gum-shoe and wicked piper. Andrew Cartmel for tirelessly keeping me from making a fool of myself and James Swallow for tirelessly allowing me to go on about totally imaginary people. Simon and Gillian for just letting me go on – period. John for not screaming even when he had cause. Anne Hall for being calm.

As keen-eyed readers will know, The Jeremy Kyle Show would have finished by the time Peter confronted Lesley in the Harrods Technology Department. I did consider substituting that day’s episode of Homes Under the Hammer but I couldn’t resist Sharon and Darren – I mean, could you?

Nightingale’s bit of French erudition is from Le Lys Rouge ( The Red Lily ) written by Nobel Prize winning author Anatole France and can be loosely translated as – ‘The majestic equality of the law forbids rich and poor alike from pissing in the streets, sleeping under bridges and stealing bread.’