‘The Sons of Wayland,’ he said, and gave me a suspicious look. ‘I thought you Isaacs knew all about them.’
‘I’m just a lowly constable,’ I said, which made Artemis laugh.
‘You’re the Herald of the Dawn,’ said Artemis. ‘The harbinger of the new world.’
I’ve been getting this a lot recently and since nobody seems to have a clue about what it actually means, I try and not let it get in the way of work. So I asked about the Sons of Wayland again, but Artemis didn’t know any more than I did.
He did try and sell me another charm – this one against cockerels. I declined.
I looked down into the empty pool – in time to see Danni being handed a small package wrapped in black paper which she quickly stuffed into her bag. The stall wasn’t one I’d seen before, and seemed to specialise in T-shirts and studded leather accessories. When I met her at the top of the ramp she did a little guilty start.
‘I need to check it,’ I said.
‘Check what?’
‘Whatever it was you bought.’
‘Why?’
‘In case it’s cursed,’ I said, which got a sceptical look.
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ I said. ‘I need to make sure it’s safe before you take it away.’
Danni sighed, pulled the packet from a shoulder bag, unwrapped it and handed over what looked, to me, like a small mop head made of leather. It had a handle fashioned of wood wrapped in leather and the strands were neatly stitched. When I held it up and let it unfurl I saw it was a small flail whip.
I looked at Danni, who gave me a defiant grin.
It wasn’t magical but it was beautifully made.
I handed it back and Danni put it away.
I didn’t ask what she wanted it for and she didn’t volunteer the information.
Danni hadn’t found any jewellery on the stalls down in the pool, just T-shirts, whips, death masks, books and candles.
I was about to suggest we head upstairs to see what else we could find when someone poked me in the back. I turned to find Alice, the teenaged door warden, looking up at me.
‘My old man wants to see you,’ she said.
This was new. We had intelligence that Alice’s family ran the Goblin Market but never any confirmation. Even Nightingale admitted that he’d never had an audience.
‘Oh yeah?’ I said, trying to keep the eagerness out of my voice. ‘What’s he want, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alice. ‘I think maybe you should ask him yourself.’
She led us back out the front of the house and pointed us at where a Ford Transit with a Luton box body was parked across the road by the park. It looked like a typical removal van, except stencilled down the side were the words BACK OF THE LORRY DELIVERIES and the silhouette of a bird. It might have been a sparrow, a crow or a blackbird for all I knew. There was a door on the left side just behind the cab. Placed on the pavement before this door was a beautifully carved set of mahogany steps. Alice skipped up the steps to open the door for us and, hopping down, gestured for us to enter with an oddly formal half-bow.
As I stepped through, I smelt old paper and beeswax – things I associate with the mundane library back at the Folly, especially after Molly had been cleaning. The source was obvious as soon as we entered – both sides of the interior were lined with bookshelves from floor to roof. The upper shelves were crammed with large leather-bound volumes, but the lower shelves were filled with neat rows of modern box files.
Not books, I realised – ledgers.
Halfway down the length there was space for an antique mahogany writing desk – an escritoire Postmartin would have called it – with a fold-down work surface and a double bank of small ebony box drawers behind. On a matching leather upholstered swivel chair sat a short slender white man in a blue shirt and tan trousers held up by red braces. His hair was cut long to hang down to his shoulders and was that dull brown colour that blond hair fades to in middle age. He snapped shut the MacBook he’d been working on and rose to greet us. He had a narrow chin, widely spaced grey eyes, a long straight nose and a wide mouth that, when he smiled, seemed weirdly familiar.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said, and shook our hands. His grip was dry and firm. ‘Please have a seat.’
He gestured at a low green leather sofa that sat opposite the desk. I sat down and Danni followed – her eyes curious but her mouth shut.
Me and Nightingale had drilled this protocol into her on the first day of training. When meeting a supernatural power, watch, learn, follow your more experienced partner’s lead.
And this was a supernatural power and then some, for all that he lacked the flashy burst of vestigia that some give off. Instead, there was a sense of an enormous depth, as if an entire age had been wrapped up in his skin and set in motion.
‘My name is Robin Goodfellow,’ he said. ‘You must be the famous Peter Grant – and this is …?’ He inclined his head at Danni.
‘Detective Constable Danni Wickford,’ I said.
He didn’t, I noticed, offer us a cup of tea or any small talk.
‘I have a problem I need your help with,’ he said.
‘If I can,’ I said. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Numbers,’ he said. ‘Too many punters, not enough floor space.’
The number of people visiting the Goblin Market had been steadily increasing since Robin Goodfellow took over the family business in the late 1970s. According to his grandfather’s records, which went back to the 1950s, they were now attracting quadruple the punters they did in 1963 and the trend was upwards.
‘You’ve seen it,’ he said. ‘It’s like the Tube in there.’
They needed to operate from bigger premises.
‘A permanent site?’ I asked.
‘If that’s what it takes,’ said Mr Goodfellow.
‘You’ll have to go official,’ I said. ‘That’s a lot of paperwork.’
Mr Goodfellow chuckled and pulled a box file from a nearby shelf. Opening it revealed it was filled to the brim with paper. The top page was titled ‘Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Health and Safety standards for market operators, market stalls, mobile caterers and street food sellers’.
‘I have three more boxes of this,’ said Mr Goodfellow. ‘Mundane bureaucracy I can cope with.’
‘So what do you need us for?’ I asked.
‘We need to make a change to the Agreement,’ he said.
The relationship between the Folly, the demi-monde and the other powers, such as the Rivers, was governed by a series of informal traditions and agreements. According to Postmartin, it was a typical British mixture of archaic tradition, handshakes between gentlemen, and a stubborn refusal to engage with anything that might smack of dangerous continental legalism.
Still, I sensed an opportunity to inject a bit of rationality into the demi-monde, and after a moment I detected a more immediate advantage as well.
‘I’m sure it can be done,’ I said, channelling my inner Del Boy. ‘But it will cost you.’
‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
‘Information.’
‘How much information?’
‘Let’s start small,’ I said. ‘By way of down payment.’
‘I’m listening,’ said Mr Goodfellow.
‘What do you know about the Sons of Wayland?’
The trouble with foxes is, if you let one into your house they don’t half take the piss. Although Abigail is quick to point out that with the talking variety, at least they don’t literally mark their territory.
‘Come on, I need to do some washing,’ I said.
The fox currently curled up inside my washing machine gave me an appealing look.
‘Do you have to now?’ it asked. ‘Only this is so nice.’
‘Yes, now,’ I said, but, because I am weak, I added, ‘You can climb back in afterwards.’