Lies Sleeping

8 Flat Roof Pub

So I spent the next couple of days seeing if I couldn’t find where Charlotte Greenwood had come from.

Some say there is an invisible line in the world that separates the demi-monde, the world of magic, from the mundane world of everyday existence. They say that if you step over that line, however unknowingly, your world will be changed for ever. They say that once you have taken that fateful step you can never go back, never unsee what you have seen, never unknow what you have discovered.

This is of course total bollocks.

Of course you can cross back; you can move to Burnley and become a hairdresser, or to Sutton and work in IT. You can go caravanning in Wales and never see a single dragon, and go swimming in the Severn and never meet the goddess Sabrina.

Even the very strange can leave the demi-monde if they put their mind to it. There’s definitely at least one bridge troll that I know of teaching PE at a comprehensive in Reading.

Those that don’t choose a quiet life teaching basketball to twelve-year-olds form what we call the demi-monde, because calling it the half-world in English would lead to too many questions. It’s made up of fae of all kinds, and also people who want to be fae or have been touched by the supernatural in some way, or just found this great pub with this really spooky atmosphere.

So pub crawling I went – from the Chestnut Tree at Hyde Park Corner to the Spaniards Inn in Highgate, to the shebeen that’s run off the roof of a tower block in Hillingdon. Everywhere I went I was greeted with the glad cries and open-hearted welcome that a police officer comes to expect when trawling his suspect pool.

I did get some co-operation if only, as it was made clear, to speed me on my way.

While I was out fruitlessly outreaching the community, the Queensland Police emailed back to say that Gabriel Tate had died the previous November after being bitten by an eastern brown snake at his home in Middle Park, Brisbane. That he didn’t recognise the bite for what it was, until he was too far gone, was attributed to his inexperience with Australian wildlife and it was considered an accidental death. Just to be on the safe side I requested the full file.

An email from the US regarding John Chapman just said Call me.

By the time I got back from Hillingdon it was past 8 p.m. in Washington DC, and so late enough to catch my US contact at home.

Leaving aside dumb luck, criminals are mainly caught by systems, not individuals. Most of these systems are officially sanctioned and come with virtual folders full of regulations and best practice, but some are complex webs of interpersonal relationships and traded favours. Where everyday policing butts up against boundaries – jurisdictional, national, ideological – the official linkages can clog up or break down or just plain fail to exist at all. Here the informal networks take over at every level, from ordinary hard-working but newly qualified DCs to the chief constables of major forces – they are tolerated as the quickest way to get the job done.

Foreign is always tricky even when you share a common language, and so a sensible young copper looks to maintain whatever contacts might fall into his lap.

Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds was my contact at the FBI and ostensibly worked for the Office of Partner Engagement in Washington DC. She was also, as far as we both knew, the Bureau’s only Special Agent currently tasked with investigating weird bollocks. She suspected there might be more, but the top brass at the Puzzle Palace had made a point of discouraging her curiosity.

We’d been very cautious about our contacts until the previous winter, when Kimberley had been forced to break agency protocol and get my help, or at least my advice, long distance. And, in the aftermath, nothing happened. Which is impressive considering the centre of a small town was effectively levelled as a consequence.

Since that contact we’d regularly exchanged information, gossip and advice on the basis that if the powers-that-be didn’t want us to –and we had no doubt that we were being monitored – they’d bloody well say so.

‘I think we can safely assume,’ Kimberley had said during one conversation, ‘that the FBI now considers you a partner it’s engaging with.’

Still we didn’t say anything out loud that we didn’t want the NSA overhearing.

‘John Chapman taught Latin at John Carroll University in Cleveland,’ said Kimberley. ‘That’s the one that’s in Ohio.’

‘Taught Latin?’ I asked, not liking the past tense.

‘Died in an officer involved shooting last January,’ said Reynolds, who’d managed to get a look at the file.

Chapman had been filling up his car at a local gas station when he was attacked by a lone figure dressed in black combats and a black or dark blue winter jacket. Police theorise that the assailant was either planning a straight mugging or a carjacking, but either way he was out of luck because a Cleveland PD cruiser pulled into the gas station forecourt just as the attack went down.

The subsequent events were confused and not helped by the fact that the police cruiser’s camera was facing away from the action and the footage from the gas station’s CCTV was never recovered. According to the officers’ own statements they responded to what they initially perceived as an altercation, but as they were approached they were threatened by the unidentified assailant.

‘This is where you might find it interesting,’ said Reynolds. ‘The officers’ statements in the official investigation both say that the unidentified male threatened them with a long knife, “almost a sword”, and in fear of their lives they opened fire.’

Emptying their Glock 17s – 17 shots each – at their target.

‘I’ve seen panic fire before,’ said Kimberley. ‘And judging from the dispersion pattern those boys were strictly spray and pray.’

John Chapman had been struck three times in thigh, hip and chest and had died on the way to hospital. The unidentified assailant fled the scene and was never apprehended. The Cleveland PD’s follow-up investigation was swift, comprehensive and, to Kimberley’s eye, almost entirely fabricated.

‘It helped that Mr Chapman lived alone with no relatives and didn’t seem particularly loved at his place of work,’ she said.

‘No interest from the British Consulate?’ I asked.

‘Chapman had dual citizenship and Cleveland PD only recovered his American passport,’ said Kimberley. ‘I doubt it occurred to them to check further.’

‘Sloppy,’ I said.

‘Under pressure, in my view,’ said Kimberley. ‘But fortunately for you the DOJ was conducting an investigation of the whole department.’

Which meant that Kimberley had access to confidential documents without all the hassle of getting warrants – or permission.

Both the officers had been long-standing veterans. During their careers neither had faced complaints for excessive force and only one had discharged his firearm at an incident while the other had not – they were both described as reliable, professional and level-headed.

And both had retired from law enforcement within six weeks of the incident.

‘You think they ran into something,’ I said. ‘Something they didn’t understand?’

‘Oh, definitely.’

‘Any chance of you talking to them directly?’

‘Already booked on a flight.’

Kimberley was too experienced to make a move without cover – she had to have sanction from higher up. Strangely, who precisely constituted these higher-ups never arose in conversation. Obviously not worth discussing.

If this was sanctioned, then they must have been as spooked as Kimberley.

‘You’re that certain?’ I asked.

‘Thirty-four rounds, Peter,’ said Kimberley. ‘They hit the car eight times, two gas pumps three times each, they hit the “We’re Open” sign and the support pillars either side. And the only thing they didn’t hit was the mystery assailant? I know you have a low opinion of American law enforcement, but trust me when I say we teach our people to shoot straight.’

‘Then be careful,’ I said.

‘Always am.’

I checked in the next morning to see if we knew the whereabouts of Zachary Palmer, the demi-monde’s very own go-to guy for ducking and diving, bar work, fixing and general dishonesty. Due to a lucrative consultation contract with Crossrail, currently worth three hundred large a year, he didn’t actually have to do any ducking and diving. That he still fiddled his change and sold dodgy goods on the Portobello Road while the money piled up in a low interest building society account seemed to wind up Seawoll no end.

‘He could at least move to a Home Office priority crime,’ he said. ‘Something worth nicking him for. Or maybe he could buy something worth sequestrating.’

I explained that people like Zach were wired differently from most of us. Driven by a different set of priorities – even if they were as blind to their obsessions as we were to ours.

‘Is that what it is?’ Seawoll had said, giving me a long look. ‘Well, that explains a lot.’

Zach was also costing us a fortune, because a full-time surveillance is three shifts of five running 24/7 plus overtime – a cool two and a half grand a day. And every week or so he managed to shake them anyway. As he had that morning.

We still had to pay the bloody team, by the way – police work is by the hour, not by results.

‘Is he using magic to do that?’ asked Guleed.

‘He’s just really sneaky,’ I said. ‘But I reckon he only makes an effort when he wants to slope off and meet Lesley – which is a good thing.’

‘Because?’

‘For one thing, it means if we ever find Martin Chorley we can time his arrest to when she isn’t there,’ I said. ‘One less thing to worry about.’

There was no Goblin Market that week but Marcia, who grows underwater blow on the Regent’s Canal just outside Camden Lock, mentioned that she’d heard of unusual sightings of the High Fae around Southend and Canvey Island.

‘Only on moonless nights,’ said Marcia, a muscular white woman in her seventies who favoured sleeveless tops that showed off her impressive tattoo collection. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ I said. ‘But can we make sure it’s just tea this time?’

‘I’ve already said that was a mistake,’ said Marcia. ‘I got the labels mixed up.’

She ducked into the cabin to put the kettle on. Marcia’s boat is one of the few remaining narrowboats still rigged for cargo, with a small cabin at the stern and a long tarpaulin-covered A-frame over the holds forward. The tarpaulin was blue, which clashed horribly with the lurid red and orange gingerbread trim of the boat itself. Marcia had bought it in 1974 when she’d mustered out of the Merchant Marine. Previous to that she’d been first mate on a tramp freighter registered out of Panama. At the bow of the boat, just behind the prow, a half metre high carved wooden statue of an orangutan sat cross-legged, palms upwards in the style of the Buddha. This mark of allegiance being why Marcia didn’t pay tying up fees anywhere along the length of the canal.

That and the blow, of course. Which, while not containing any Falcon-actionable ingredients, and you can be sure we tested extensively, was potent enough for me to be missing one whole weekend. Guleed swears blind I didn’t do anything too embarrassing and so far nothing has surfaced on YouTube. Occasionally she or Bev, or once even Molly, will look at me and laugh . . . but that could just be my paranoia.

I glanced inside Marcia’s cabin long enough to make sure it was Sainsbury’s own label tea bags going into the mugs. Once the tea was done we did the whole ‘no obligation’ exchange – nobody knows whether this is really necessary, and nobody wants to be the first to find out the hard way that it is.

We sat opposite each other on the padded gunwales and chatted shit for a bit. It’s good when you’re running an investigation not to get tunnel vision. Sometimes spending a bit of time with the local faces can often yield better results than charging around yelling ‘Just the facts, ma’am’. So it proved that afternoon, although I didn’t spot the connections until much later.

‘You guys haven’t been stirring up the City, have you?’ she asked.

We were moored off Muriel Street in Islington, just short of the west end of the Islington Tunnel, which gaped like the entrance to a dark dimension, but really just led to more Islington. Marcia had gestured down it when she spoke – so I knew when she said ‘the City’ she meant the City of London proper.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Things have been unsettled recently.’

She refused to provide details – although she did suggest I might want to check out the Goat and Crocodile. Which turned out to be a pub in Shoreditch. When I checked the map I keep on my phone I saw that it lay squarely on the theoretical course of the Walbrook. The river that originally bisected the Roman city from north to south.

Worth a look, I thought.

Few buildings evoke the sinister horror of 1950s municipal architecture more strikingly than the flat roof pub. Thrown up in their thousands wherever the working class were being rehoused, it’s hard to imagine that the architects were not secret teetotallers looking to make the whole pub experience as grim as possible. How else do you explain the cheap portal frame construction, the equally cheap uninsulated concrete slabs, and the flat roof with just enough parapet to ensure that damaging puddles formed with the lightest drizzle.

The Goat and Crocodile was a classic flat roof pub, and the fact that it sat squarely under the brand new concrete viaduct that linked the London Overground to the station at Shoreditch High Street marked it out from the start.

The sign looked even older than the pub, and in patches had been bleached blank by the weather. There was enough left to make out the image of a goat standing on its hind legs, head tilted upwards, jaws open as if screaming. The bleaching made it hard to see, but there was a suggestion that the goat had its forelimbs around the shoulders of figures to either side – as if it were dancing in a chorus line. There was no sign of the crocodile. The more I stared, the more I was convinced of the mad gleam in the animal’s eye. The paintwork was very fine and if ever a pub sign was ripe to be restored and hung in a museum, this was it.

The interior décor of the pub, on the other hand, couldn’t have been dumped in a skip fast enough. In fact, quite a lot of it looked like it had been salvaged from skips in the first place. The floor was a patchwork of different coloured lino, faded blue in one corner, scuffed brown in front of the bar. A mismatched collection of fabric-covered benches, stools and repurposed wooden kitchen chairs were clustered around chipboard tables with genuine wood-finish laminated tops. The light coming in the dirty windows was a dusty brilliance on one side of the pub and cast the other side into shadow. In those shadows I saw two figures hunched over a table playing dominoes. The pieces clacking down in a demure English style. The players seemed to be the only patrons.

The place couldn’t have been more demi-monde if it had changed its name to Biers and had a sign saying Do not ask for normality, as postmodernism often offends.

The bar was the only solid bit of furnishing, an old-fashioned wooden pub bar with a brass foot rail that looked like it had been looted during the Blitz and cemented awkwardly into place by someone on work experience.

As I walked towards the bar I felt a strange wave of vestigia – the smells of burnt earth and incense, and behind them a wash of sound like an outdoor market, with shouting and calls to buy and haggling, and the sound of anvils ringing like bells.

I blinked and realised that there was a young woman waiting behind the counter. She was tiny and dressed in orange capri pants and a purple T-shirt with a scorpion printed on the front. I couldn’t tell if she was mixed race or Portuguese or something like that, but she had a straight nose and hair and light brown skin.

And black eyes, and a disturbingly unwavering gaze.

‘What’ll it be?’ she said in an old-fashioned cockney accent.

I introduced myself as Detective Constable Peter Grant – because I’m allowed to do that now.

‘Yeah, you’re the Starling, ain’t you?’ she said, and managed to work an improbable glottal stop into the word ‘starling’.

I figured, if we were going to play it that way . . .

‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘So who are you, then, when you’re at home?’

‘Where do you think you’re standing?’ she said. ‘From a topographical point of view?’

The answer was, well, in the shallow valley carved by the second most important river in London.

‘So, you’re the Walbrook?’

‘You can call me Lulu,’ she said.

‘I know your mum. And a couple of your sisters.’

A hush fell all around me and there was a sound like wind chimes – the bottles along the back of the bar tinkling into each other.

‘If you want to stay on my good side,’ said Lulu, ‘you might not want to be name-dropping in this pub – especially not those names.’

My mum maintains a couple of rotating feuds with the vast cloud of family and semi-family that now stretches across four generations and eleven time zones. I know for a fact that one Aunty Kadi hasn’t spoken to another Aunty Kadi for six years, although, just to confuse people, she gets on fine with a third Aunty Kadi. Which is why most introductions in my family start, ‘This is your Aunty Kadi who lives in Peckham and married my half-brother from Lunghi, but is not the Aunty Kadi who said that thing about me which was totally not true’. Not all my aunties are called Kadi – some of them are called Ayesha, and one of them, on my dad’s side, is called Bob. The upshot of this is I’m well skilled at keeping my head down in the face of intra-familial wrangling.

‘Fair enough,’ I said and, because I thought it might be a spectacularly bad idea to ask for a drink, I asked whether the High Fae came into the pub.

Lulu gave me a crooked smile.

‘High Fae?’ she asked.

‘You know,’ I said. ‘The gentry, elves, those posh gits with extradimensional castles, stone spears and unicorns.’

‘You mean them what step between worlds?’

‘Could be.’

‘Who walk on paths unseen and wax and wane with the moon?’

‘Them sort of people,’ I said. ‘Yeah.’

‘Not in here, squire,’ she said. ‘I run a respectable pub.’

Later that evening, when I got Beverley alone in the big bath at her house, I asked about Walbrook.

‘She doesn’t mix with us,’ she said, leaning forward while I soaped her back.

‘Why not?

‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘If she doesn’t want to mix with us we can’t exactly ask her why, can we?’

‘You don’t seem very curious about what she’s like.’

‘I am curious, but . . .’ She shifted and a wave of cool water from the other end of the bath sloshed over me. ‘It’s like the back of your head. Apart from after your yearly haircut, do you ever look at the back of your head?’

‘That makes no sense at all,’ I said, and used my toes to open the hot tap.

‘I suppose not,’ said Beverley, and leant back against my chest. She had her locks all tied up on the crown of her head and they brushed my face, smelling of lemons and clean damp hair. ‘Some things we do are never going to make sense to you. They barely make sense to us half the time.’

‘What does your mum say?’

‘She says, “When you are older these things will be clearer. Now go away and stop bothering me with all these questions”.’

‘Helpful,’ I said, and managed to get the hot tap off before the bath overflowed.

There was a pause.

‘If I tell you something can you keep it a secret?’

‘Sure.’

‘Nah, nah, nah, you said that too quickly,’ she said. ‘I mean really secret. You don’t tell nobody, not your boss, not your mum, not Toby, not nobody.’

‘Yeah, OK.’

‘Swear on your mum’s life.’

‘Not my mum’s life.’

‘Yes, on your mum’s life.’

‘I swear on Mum’s life I won’t tell nobody,’ I said.

‘I don’t think Walbrook comes from my mum at all,’ said Beverley. ‘I think she’s way older than that.’

‘Older than Father Thames?’

‘Nobody’s that old.’