‘Yes sir,’ I said. ‘If you’d like to make your way down the stairs as quickly as possible.’ Or you could go back inside your flat and watch yourself explode on TV.
The next door in front of me opened to reveal a ridiculously good-looking West Indian woman in her early thirties who gave me such an open and friendly smile that I was temporarily taken aback.
‘Can I help you, Officer?’
‘We’re being evacuated,’ said her neighbour.
‘Are we?’ she asked, and I explained quickly that for their convenience and continued existence they might want to think about leaving the tower just about as fast as their legs could carry them. If it was not too much trouble.
‘What about my boys?’ she asked.
‘Are they in the flat with you?’ I asked.
‘No they’re at school,’ she said.
‘So are mine,’ said her neighbour. ‘They go to the same school.’
‘Would you like to see them again?’ I asked. ‘Then please make your way downstairs as fast as possible.’
It still took me another two minutes to get the pair of them to the emergency stairs.
How long?
More than twenty minutes. The LFB would be in the tower, clearing it floor by floor. Everybody Walworth Road nick had handy would be securing an outer cordon and setting up the Scene Access Control. And tucked away in a non-obvious place, to avoid secondary devices, would be the Rendezvous Point with one of the specialist control vehicles with a CCTV camera on a pole. It would be filling up with mid-ranking officers who were nervously contemplating the fact that for the time being the buck was stopping with them.
Third flat, no response and when I looked through the letter box I found it was fitted with a protective box on the inside that blocked the view. I couldn’t tell if there was someone in the flat, so I blew the lock out and barged my way inside. My sleep’s troubled enough without them pulling a body out of the rubble and comforting me with the words ‘Well, you weren’t to know.’
There was nobody in the flat, but at least now I knew.
They also had a couple of a cans of Coke in the fridge, one of which I nicked.
‘Go away,’ shouted Jake as soon as I rang the doorbell. It sounded like he was in the hallway, and I think he’d been waiting there just so he could tell me to go away.
‘Jake,’ I said. ‘The building’s going to blow up.’
He opened his door with the chain on and glared at me through the gap.
‘I might have guessed,’ he spat. ‘Blogtavist — hah. What are you, Special Branch?’
‘I’m with the Serious Fraud Office,’ I said because I’m with the small department that deals with magic often raises more questions than I had time to answer. ‘We’ve been investigating the developers.’
‘Are they the ones behind this bomb scare?’
‘It’s not a bomb scare,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the bombs and they’re real and unless you leave now there’s a good chance you will die.’
‘I can’t leave my garden,’ he said slowly.
‘Jake,’ I said, ‘we need you. . as a witness against County Gard, amongst others, and if you die then they’re going to win. And then what the fuck was all your work for?’
How long?
Twenty seconds to make up his mind, thirty seconds to unchain his door and emerge onto the walkway. Another sixty to get him to the emergency stairs.
How long?
Last two flights of stairs to the twenty-ninth where I found that every single flat had a County Gard seal on it — there was no one up there to evacuate. I was just turning to start a dignified but hopefully swift descent, when I noticed that the security doors that blocked the stairs up to the roof were hanging open.
How long?
Long enough for there now to be the whole glorious multihued panoply of a Major Incident response down below. With Gold and Silver commanders and Bronze commanders spawning like frogs in concentric circles around Skygarden.
I went up the last flights of steps, because I had to be sure.
The Faceless Man was waiting for me up there — the bastard.
Another good suit in navy blue, matching scarlet cravat and pocket handkerchief. I don’t think he even bothered with the concealment glamour and his tan featureless mask reminded me disturbingly of Lesley’s.
He was standing leaning against the railings with the same studied nonchalance he’d shown the last time I’d met him. Good, I thought. He’s not going to blow up the building with him on top of it.
Hopefully.
I sauntered towards him, but veered slightly to the left so that I drew closer to the concrete cylinder that hid the Statdkrone. I thought it might serve as useful cover in an emergency.
I was within six metres when he languidly held up his hand to indicate I should stop — I took a couple of extra steps just on the general principle of the thing. Plus it put me closer to the cylinder.
‘I’ve got to ask,’ I said. ‘What’s with the mask — who were you expecting to meet up here?’
‘Your master,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘Or do you call him your guv-nor?’
‘Fair enough,’ I said sauntering a couple of steps closer to the cover. ‘Have you considered a cape? You’d look good in a cape. You could throw in an opera hat.’
‘Very funny,’ he said. ‘But I’m not the walking anachronism around here.’
‘He’ll be here soon,’ I said. ‘You know he took out your Russian witch?’
‘I heard,’ he said. ‘Very impressive.’
‘She was all like, “Oh no you don’t” and he was like — splat! And that’s all she wrote.’
‘Do you have a radio?’
‘What?’
‘A radio,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘A means to contact your superiors.’
I showed him my airwave.
‘Are you planning to surrender?’ I asked.
‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘I want to know if the building has been evacuated.’ He patted his jacket pocket. ‘Before I set off the fireworks.’
I keyed the airwave and asked for MS 1, the Walworth duty Inspector.
There was a couple of seconds’ silence and then a response; ‘MS 1 receiving.’ Then another voice; ‘Go ahead.’ An older woman with an old-fashioned estuary accent and lots of attitude — I bloody loved the sound of that voice.
‘I’m on the roof facing and talking to an unidentified Falcon-capable suspect who claims to have a detonator for multiple IEDs in the building. He wants to know if the building has been evacuated.’
‘The building has been investigated, EOD is with the device on the twenty-first floor.’
Meaning, yes of course the bloody building’s been evacuated and can you please get more information for the bomb squad.
I told the Faceless Man that the building was cleared except for the disposal team.
‘Tell them that I will detonate the device in five minutes, so they’d better pull everyone out now. If I so much as hear a helicopter in the distance I’ll detonate there and then,’ he said. ‘Make sure they understand I’m serious.’
‘He says you have five minutes to evacuate any personnel before he detonates the IEDs; if he sees or hears India 99 or a helicopter he will detonate immediately.’
‘Are you free to speak?’ asked MS 1.
I said no.
‘Is there anything you can do?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m totally buggered.’
‘Understood,’ she said and then my airwave went dead. They’d cut me off and from that moment on I was a hostage not an asset.
Five minutes.
The Strata building overlooked Skygarden and might be close enough for a sniper, but I rather suspected the Faceless Man had positioned himself carefully so that the central cylinder blocked the line of sight.
‘What’s all this in aid of, anyway?’ I asked.
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘I know that Stromberg built this tower in order to harvest magic, but I don’t know why,’ I said. ‘I know you’re planning to steal it, but I don’t know how.’
‘Peter,’ said the Faceless Man, ‘you’re an exceptionally bright boy and I know you’ve been to the farm, so why don’t you stop pretending and tell me what you really know.’