‘Find another way,’ she said, as if the issue was decided.
‘Peter, love,’ said Beverley as we were preparing for bed. ‘You need to get a move on and either wrap up this case or hand it on.’
‘I’m not sure I can hand it on,’ I said.
‘Of course you can, and you’re going to do it tomorrow afternoon,’ she said.
I took her hand and helped her into the bed – strategically placing pillows as she wriggled into a comfortable position.
‘Really – tomorrow afternoon?’ I said.
‘At the latest,’ she said. ‘After that, I can’t say for sure.’
We lay side by side in the darkness, while outside I could hear rain pattering on the pop tents and the sounds of Beverley’s sisters definitely not settling down to sleep.
Lesley wanted the rings and we wanted Lesley.
Francisca wanted to poke out the hearts of the Manchester seven, but would only show up if both victim and at least one ring were in close proximity.
But there was no reason to believe it meant being in the same room.
Or even the same floor.
The sīphōnem spell had nearly worked, but I needed more time to find the connection back to the allokosmos that was driving Francisca’s powers and sever it.
A restrained suspect was a safe suspect, but Nightingale couldn’t do it on his own.
There was a mechanism to save Francisca; I was sure I had all the pieces. I just needed to figure out how to put them together.
I think I must have dozed off, because all was suddenly quiet when I realised I had a plan– one that would kill two birds with one stone. If it worked.
And if it didn’t?
There was always Nightingale’s alternative.
I got up and padded into the kitchen – the only part of the house devoid of relatives, friends or foxes – and phoned Nightingale.
He picked up on the second ring.
‘Peter?’ he said – sounding wide awake.
‘The Folly’s magical defences,’ I said. ‘Can we turn them off?’
Wednesday I’ll come back in again …
19 Hearts and Minds
I arrived back at the Folly at dawn the next morning, to the sound of trumpets.
The sky was lightening above the dome of the atrium as my father stood at its centre, playing ‘The Night We Called It a Day’ while Nightingale sat in one of the overstuffed leather armchairs reading the Telegraph, legs folded, the toe of his shoe gently bobbing in time to the music, and Toby did a very good ‘his master’s voice’ impression – no doubt in the hope of sausages.
I caught a glimpse of Molly drifting along the first floor balcony and, behind her, Foxglove, pirouetting.
I wondered if my dad had played the night before in the faint light of a crescent moon while the sisters danced around him. He wouldn’t have noticed them, though. When my dad plays he goes somewhere else. You could set fire to the stage and he wouldn’t notice.
Nightingale folded his paper, set it aside and rose to greet me.
‘Are we ready?’ I asked.
‘Preparations are well under way,’ he said. ‘Although I do not care for our chances of success. I’m very much afraid that we may have to take the direct approach – given the alternatives.’
‘Or I could be completely wrong,’ I said. ‘And then you’re going to have to come up with another plan without me.’
‘I could order you not to do this,’ he said.
‘Are you going to?’ I asked.
‘Perhaps we should swap roles.’
We’d gone over this earlier over the phone.
‘I’m not skilled or fast enough to play your role,’ I said. ‘So that’s a non-starter. Does Foxglove know what we need?’
‘The explanation proved quite difficult, but in the end I drew her a picture,’ he said. ‘A comic strip, if you like.’
‘This I have to see,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid Molly confiscated it,’ he said.
‘Pity.’
Guleed came in first, carrying with her her MetVest and officer safety gear in a sausage bag and my demagicked staff over her shoulder.
‘I don’t see how this is going to work,’ she said.
‘You do your bit,’ I said, ‘and everything will be much easier.’
‘I don’t mean that,’ said Guleed. ‘I mean their bit – what makes you think they’ll be so helpful as to follow your plan?’
‘The lure is irresistible,’ I said. ‘They’ll be here.’
Molly arrived with coffee and tea but before we could settle down, the team from SCO19 arrived. Guleed took charge and led them upstairs, but not before scooping up a cup and the coffee jug.
A sudden worry caught me off guard.
‘Where’s Toby got to?’ I asked.
‘In the kitchen,’ said Nightingale.
I realised that I was breathing fast and shallow – almost hyperventilating. The atrium went in and out of focus. I realised that I was terrified. Which seemed so absurd, given that I was having tea in the middle of the Folly, that I had to stop myself breaking into giggles.
‘Deep breaths, Peter,’ said Nightingale. ‘In, hold, out.’
I followed his advice, taking long slow breaths as if I was preparing for a particularly tricky spell. My heart slowed, the panic subsided – although the fear remained.
‘What the fuck was that?’ I said.
‘The responsibility of command,’ said Nightingale. ‘You’re personally brave to the point of recklessness, Peter. But now you are waiting for the battle and you know, because you’re not stupid, that you might have overlooked something or the enemy might have a capability you haven’t considered. But you know it’s too late. It’s going to happen now, and if it goes wrong and people die, you will be responsible.’
‘Cheers, boss,’ I said. ‘That was a morale-booster.’
‘This is a workable plan,’ said Nightingale. ‘I wouldn’t have approved it if I didn’t think it had a chance.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We might want to take our start positions now, however.’
I watched him trot up the side stairs and went to find myself somewhere to hide.
Back in the Regency, when the Folly was built, the gentry were very clear about the role of servants in society. They were to be helpful, subservient and, above all, as invisible as possible. To this end, the Folly was built with a number of corridors and stairs to allow the maids and stewards to circulate unseen. They also had semi-secret doors into public areas, and these doors had spyholes to allow loyal servants to check the coast was clear before entering. That this allowed the lower classes to spy on their betters never seemed to occur to the latter.
I opened what looked like a normal stretch of oak panelling and slipped into the access corridor that led to the back stairs. I turned off the single 40-watt light that illuminated it and opened the spyhole.
And then, feeling sick, I waited to see how workable the plan really was.
As we reconstructed it later, Lesley had scouted the Folly in advance and picked out one of our analysts as a suitable mark. Whether she did this on the fly the evening before, which would have been fast work, or had done the recce and selected her target earlier in the week, we were never able to establish. Either way, she’d done it early on enough to have time to acquire a professional-quality Afro wig – not something they sell at TK Maxx.
In any case, that morning she turned up at Nathan Fairbright’s front door in Norwood, talked her way in, put the glamour on him and then fed him some sleeping pills. Danni found him later, fast asleep on his My Hero Academia bedspread. Nathan was a clever choice because, despite being male, he was short and had a slight build. Better still, he walked around in baggy sweatshirts, cargo trousers and an enormous parka with a fur-lined hood.