Bock, Loupe and Stag occupy a large chunk of the building across from Broadgate Tower. Like that, this one was designed – as far as I could tell – by the same people who did the interior layout for Cybertron. Lots of angled struts, planes of glass and random spikes. It was, as architectural theorists like to say, a bold statement and the statement was: ‘Fuck truth and beauty. We’ve got money and loads of it’.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Nightingale to see Patrick Gale,’ Nightingale said, and flashed his warrant card at the receptionist without breaking step.
Ahead was a set of security gates, like posh minimalist versions of the ticket barriers at Tube stations. I was probably the only one who noticed the tiny gesture Nightingale made with his right hand. I recognised the tight little surge which followed as a complex fifth order spell that caused the gates to lock in the open position so we could walk through.
A tall, thin Sierra Leonean man in a security guard uniform stepped up to block us.
‘Step back, sir,’ I said firmly.
Which he did smartly – possibly because of my impressive command voice, but more likely because his name was Obe and he was my cousin – second or third, I forget which – on my mum’s side. I’d nudged him into his current job shortly after Patrick Gale came to my attention. It was down to Obe that we knew the make and model of the security barriers, how many guards would be on duty, and that Gale was currently up in his office.
Because we’d planned this as carefully as any raid on a crack house, with maps and timetables and Guleed and Carey out front and back with an arrest team just in case anybody tried to scarper. After all, you don’t want to be striding resolutely into someone’s office only to find they’re spending a dirty weekend in Honolulu with their son’s macramé tutor – do you?
Gale had an office on the sixth floor, so we risked the lift.
We emerged into an open-plan office crowded with the upmarket walnut veneer versions of drone cubicles, took a sharp left and headed down the clearway towards the big airy offices of the senior partners.
And the biggest and airiest belonged to Patrick Gale, one of the most powerful men you’ve never heard of.
He was a big, wide, white man with the heft that the naturally fat get when they exercise like mad in middle age. He had a good but stylistically neutral lightweight cotton suit and definitely handmade shoes. Reception had obviously had time to call up and warn him, and he’d chosen to act casual – leaning against the front of his desk with his arms folded.
He was sharp, I’ll give him that. He recognised me immediately from when I interviewed him about the late Tony Harden the year before. Then I saw him clock Nightingale and a moment of utter shock crossed his face, which I reckon was him realising exactly who was in his office.
Good, I thought, you know who he is – this should make things easier.
I’ll give him this, though – he didn’t bluster. He kept it together enough to step up and ask us, politely, what our business was.
‘Mr Gale, we’re here to talk about the ritual sacrifice you took part in on the night of the twentieth at the construction site at Queen Victoria Street.’
His face went professionally blank as he considered his options.
Now, I thought, it’s either going to be outraged dignity or Let’s Be Civilised.
‘Please,’ he said, looking to retake control of his own office. ‘Have a seat. Can I offer you a coffee? Tea?’
I wanted popcorn, but asking for it might have broken the mood.
Nightingale said thank you and sat down as if he was settling in to watch the rugby. I tried to follow his lead, but I suspect I was too tense for properly casual.
Patrick Gale sat down on what had to be three grands’ worth of reinforced stainless steel and leather executive seating.
Bluff or denial? I wondered.
‘A sacrifice?’ he said.
So denial it was.
‘A goat was ritually sacrificed at or around midnight at the Bloomberg construction site by person or persons unknown,’ said Nightingale.
‘Contrary to the Animal Welfare Act (2006),’ I said.
‘We believe you were intimately involved,’ said Nightingale.
‘And why might you think that?’ asked Gale, with just a hint of smugness.
We told him about his wife’s car, but he wasn’t impressed.
‘That’s hardly a positive identification,’ he said. ‘I’m sure there are many reasons why my wife’s car might be in the city at night. Just as there are many reasons why I might be in the vicinity. Without resorting to fanciful theories about – what was the animal you said was slaughtered?’
‘Patrick,’ said Nightingale, ‘you need to cast off the notion that this is a matter of the law and that your superior interpretation and command of the legal niceties will see you through.’
Patrick Gale opened his mouth to speak, but Nightingale tapped a forefinger once, gently, against the arm of his chair, and no words emerged. Gale opened his mouth again, but again – nothing. The expression on his face cycled rapidly through astonishment, anger and outrage. He raised his hand, but Nightingale tapped his finger twice more and Gale’s hand slapped down onto his desk top hard enough to make the keyboard jump.
‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘I can render you immobile and stop up your voice – or stop your breath, if I choose to.’
There was real fear in Patrick Gale’s eyes now, and they turned to look at me – pleading.
‘Follow my lead in this, Peter,’ Nightingale had said when we were planning the interview. ‘And do try to trust my judgement on the ethical issues this time.’
‘And no doubt,’ Nightingale said to Gale, ‘you’re thinking that what I’m doing can’t possibly be legal. And, you know, I’m not sure.’ He glanced at me. ‘Peter?’
‘You’re restraining him against his will,’ I said. ‘It probably depends on whether you arrest him or not.’
Which was a terrible answer from a legal point of view, but in my defence I was distracted by the sheer technical difficulty of what Nightingale was doing. In many ways people, and other living creatures, are amazingly resistant to direct manipulation with magic. That’s why most magical duels quickly devolve down to both parties throwing the kitchenware at each other.
But where brute force doesn’t work, subtlety does. And in the practice of Newtonian magic subtlety doesn’t come easy.
Just on the edge of my perception there was the tick, tick, tick of a mechanical movement, a jewelled movement, that delicately bound Patrick Gale in place and stopped the action of his larynx – or whatever the fuck kept him silent. It was a twentieth order spell at least.
‘But, just as I can’t prove that you attended that merry little bacchanal,’ said Nightingale, ‘you can’t prove that I am in any way violating your rights as a suspect. The legal niceties have become irrelevant and we find ourselves making a moral choice instead.’
I felt the formae twist as Nightingale added another layer of complexity. And Gale’s hands came together, fingers entwined over his paunch as if he was relaxing after a hard day.
‘You made that choice when you took up the forms and wisdoms,’ said Nightingale. ‘And now you must take responsibility for that choice – don’t you agree?’
Gale’s face contorted and I saw his big shoulders tense as he made a desperate attempt to separate his hands. Nightingale calmly watched him for the full ten seconds or so it took for it to become clear that escape was impossible.
Gale’s shoulder’s slumped and he nodded.
Nightingale snapped his fingers, a purely theatrical gesture, and Gale’s hands separated as the spell was released. He wriggled his fingers a couple of times and then gave Nightingale an inquiring look, because nothing attracts the powerful quite like more power.