‘Actually,’ I said, ‘did you know the Egyptians invented the terrace?’
‘Really?’
‘They did sleep on the roof in the summer though.’
‘That must have been nice,’ said Lesley.
‘I think Stromberg built this place as a magical experiment,’ I said.
The lift door opened and we stepped out.
‘Why do you think that?’
‘How many estates do you know that have wood nymphs living in the middle?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know, Peter,’ said Lesley with a sigh. ‘Maybe all of them do. Certainly everywhere we go we seem to be tripping over these supernatural buggers.’ She stopped suddenly outside our door and pointed at the door jamb — the slip of paper we’d agreed to leave wedged into it was missing. I unzipped the bag and extracted our batons and passed Lesley hers. They made comforting little shink sounds as we flicked them open.
Lesley turned the key in the lock as quietly as she could, and nodded down from three. On zero she flung the door open and charged in, I went in a metre behind to avoid the embarrassing police dog-pile effect you get if the officer in front trips over something — say a skateboard. It’s hard to project the full majesty and authority of the law when Lesley is sitting on your back and calling you a muppet.
Lesley went into the kitchen and yelled, ‘In here!’ And I piled in behind her.
‘I surrender,’ said Zach around a mouthful of cereal. He was sitting at our tiny kitchen table with a packet of Weetabix, an open loaf of bread, a now almost empty litre bottle of milk and open jars of raspberry jam and honey in front of him — both with knives stuck in them.
‘How did you get in?’
‘I’ve got a way with locks,’ he said. ‘It’s a family thing.’
‘This would be the thieving side of the family,’ said Lesley.
‘There’s another side to his family?’ I asked.
‘Hey, leave my family out of this,’ said Zach, fishing the last two Weetabix out of the packet and then reaching for the milk.
‘Is there a reason you came round, or did you just run out of food?’ I asked.
Lesley put the kettle on and snatched the milk from Zach before he could finish it.
‘There’s this pub up west that Lesley wanted to know about,’ said Zach. ‘I can get me and her in this afternoon.’
I looked at Lesley, who shrugged.
‘We never did get to lay out our bait for the Faceless Man,’ she said.
‘What’s so special about this pub?’ I asked.
‘Full of fairies,’ said Zach.
‘I’ve got to come with you,’ I said.
‘Better if you don’t,’ said Zach as he spread honey on his cereal. ‘You’re a little bit too closely associated with the Thames girls, if you know what I mean. Makes the gentry a tad nervous.’
‘Besides, if we go in as a pair we will look like Old Bill. If I go in with Zach it will look more natural,’ said Lesley.
‘Just another victim of my legendary charm,’ said Zach.
‘And if our Night Witch is in there getting a rum and black?’ I asked. ‘What’re you going to do then?’
‘Trust me, bro, it’s not that kind of place, is it?
‘Isn’t it?’
‘They wouldn’t let your boss through the door, and he’s respected,’ said Zach. ‘It’s all strictly fae plus one and no wizards.’
‘Except Lesley?’
‘Lesley’s the exception that proves the rule, ain’t she?’ said Zach and I couldn’t argue with that.
‘Are you going to clear it with Nightingale?’ I asked her.
‘Duh!’ said Lesley and handed me a cup of instant.
‘In that case, I’m going to take Mr Phillips up on his invitation. I bet he keeps an eye on who comes and goes,’ I said. ‘And while you’re out you can pick up some more Weetabix.’ I checked the kitchen. ‘And bread and the cheese and — did you eat the dog food?’
‘Of course not,’ said Zach. ‘I fed the dog.’
I checked Toby’s bowl and saw he was already working his way through a suitable pile.
‘Although I’ll put my hand up to having some of his biscuits,’ said Zach.
13
In Berlin, the Weimar Republic a massive workers’ estate did decree. And they handed out the job to, amongst others, Bruno Taut who built his estate in the shape of an enormous horseshoe. Once Lesley and Zach had gone, I used our fluctuating WiFi to look it up on Google Earth. As I’d remembered it, Taut’s Hufeisensiedlung enclosed a park with a central pond. Stromberg had admired Taut enough to have his prints on the wall of his study and I knew enough about architects’ egos to know that they don’t stick potential rivals on their walls unless they really like them. Or perhaps there’d been a professional connection that went beyond architecture — could they have been colleagues? Members of the Weimarer Akademie der Hoheren Einsichten, the German equivalent of the Folly? Could he have been Taut’s protege? When the Nazis had taken power, Taut had fled to Istanbul and Stromberg to London. Nightingale had told me that the German expat wizards had either enthusiastically joined the fight or had been shipped to Canada. Had Stromberg kept his skills secret to avoid the fight? Given the subsequent casualty rate, I can’t say I blamed him.
Had the Skygarden Estate been built in emulation of the Hufeisensiedlung only with a tower at its centre instead of a pond? And did it have some purpose beyond inefficiently housing large numbers of Londoners?
I really didn’t think the Faceless Man would be taking this much interest unless it had.
The WiFi connection dropped off and, search as I might, nobody else was offering free connections to the good people of Elephant and Castle. There were plenty of internet cafes in the immediate area, but I wasn’t that keen on doing without my TV that evening. Or at least that was the story I was planning to stick to.
Betsy Tankridge lived four floors up from us in one of the four-bedroom flats. When I rang the doorbell it was opened by Sasha, who stared at me for a good fifteen seconds before asking what I wanted.
‘Is your mum in?’ I asked.
It seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for him to parse a simple question before he turned his back on me.
‘Mum,’ he yelled as he walked away. ‘Someone at the door.’
As he stomped up the internal stairs his mum peered around the kitchen door and gave me a big smile.
‘Peter, come in,’ she said and bustled me into the living room before retreating back into the kitchen to rustle up tea and biscuits. I sat down in the sort of large leather sofa that my mum would have approved of, and checked the room. The sideboards I reckoned were genuine antique oak but the cupboards, complete with decorative plates, were the new Polish furniture — although the high-end stuff made from real wood cut from an identifiable tree. The top row of plates were from Royal Weddings starting with Princess Anne and ending with Will and Kate. The shelf below was all Royal Jubilees starting with the Silver Jubilee in 1977. Old Liz II looking increasingly dyspeptic with every plate.
Mounted on the wall opposite the sofa was a 75 inch Samsung LED which neatly confirmed that I’d come to the right place.
There were at least half a dozen pictures of Kevin, twice as many of Sasha — although mostly from when he was younger and less sullen. There were older pictures of a pleasant looking white man with a square face and lank brown hair — including a couple of him in a wide-lapelled penguin suit and top hat getting married to a stunningly attractive Betsy. Mr Tankridge I presumed.
Betsy came back and caught me looking, but instead of telling me about her husband she put her tea tray down on the coffee table and asked if I took sugar. She poured from a pot-bellied teapot hidden under an obviously hand-knitted tea cosy into two mismatched but clean mugs. She dropped in two sugar lumps from a red bowl with a green Easter egg frieze around its lip and handed me the mug.