‘This can’t be a coincidence,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘Him turning up just as he becomes a person of interest.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Seawoll, allowing a tinge of melancholy to enter his tone. ‘I was hoping to wrap MARIGOLD up – I’ve got a nice stabbing in Fulham which would be much better use of our Miriam’s professional time.’
‘Then I suggest that we apprehend him as swiftly as we can,’ said Nightingale. ‘So we can rule him in or out of your inquiry.’
Stephanopoulos glanced down at her tablet where I knew she had the latest IIP on Reynard Fossman. I also knew there were some things in there she didn’t like, because she’d actioned Guleed to get the information and Guleed had glared at me until I’d handed over the file I’d already compiled on the red-headed little toerag.
‘Fossman,’ said Stephanopoulos, ‘from the German fuchs for Fox, so Foxman,’ she caught my eye. ‘Reynard the Fox.’
‘Nasty little sociopathic trickster who turns up a lot in fourteenth century French literature, sort of like Brer Rabbit but without the redeeming sense of humility,’ I said.
Reynard Fossman had a string of convictions, the most serious of which was ABH for biting the ear of a member of the Old Berks Hunt during an anti fox-hunting demonstration, and a couple of assaults against similarly hunting-orientated gentlemen. Beyond that it was all trespass, public order offences – also hunting protest related – and an alleged indecent exposure when he was found running naked across Wimbledon Common which, according to Reynard, was a prank gone wrong. The arrest report was a fun read and the arresting officers had lent him some trousers and dropped him off at his house.
‘So he’s a French fairy tale,’ said Seawoll and turned to look, thank god, at Nightingale instead of me. ‘Is he?’
‘That’s a difficult question, Alexander,’ said Nightingale.
‘I know it’s a difficult question, Thomas,’ said Seawoll slowly. ‘That why I’m fucking asking it.’
‘Yes, but do you want to know the actual answer?’ said Nightingale. ‘You’ve always proved reluctant in the past. Am I to understand that you’ve changed your attitude?’
‘You can fucking understand what you bloody like,’ said Seawoll. ‘But in this case I do bloody want to know because I don’t want to lose any more officers to things I don’t fucking understand.’ He glanced at me and frowned. ‘Two is too many.’
‘Well, he’s definitely associated with the demimonde,’ began Nightingale.
‘The demi-monde?’ asked Seawoll, who didn’t appreciate being unhappy and liked to spread it around when he was.
‘It’s what we call all the people involved in some way or the other with weird bollocks,’ I said, in an effort to head them both off. ‘Some of them are just people that know things and others are people who are a bit strange in themselves.’ Out loud it sounded even weaker than it had in my head. But Seawoll nodded.
‘Individuals like Reynard are not uncommon,’ said Nightingale. ‘And it’s hard to tell whether they have, consciously or unconsciously, sought to mimic a figure from folklore or myth, or whether they are indeed an incarnation of that figure.’
‘And the difference being?’ asked Seawoll.
‘The first is relatively innocuous,’ said Nightingale. ‘But if Reynard is the story made flesh, then he’s as dangerous an individual as you are likely to meet.’
‘More dangerous than you?’ asked Seawoll.
‘Perhaps we shall find out,’ said Nightingale.
Stephanopoulos heaved a sigh that they probably heard upstairs in the Outside Inquiry Office.
‘Not that I’m not enjoying the spectacle, lads, but what if we drag this back down to the practicalities,’ she said. ‘Reynard had a message for you – one he was sure you’d be interested in.’
I checked my notes to make sure I got the phrasing right – ‘He said he could put us in touch “with a certain someone who has an item he might well like to purchase”. I asked him what, and he said Jonathan Wild’s final ledger.’
You can’t be a London copper and have any interest in history and not know the story of Jonathan Wild – neither Stephanopoulos or Seawoll had to ask who Wild was. But, being police, they did want to know exactly why it would be of interest to the Folly.
‘Aside from its obvious historical value, the ledger is thought to reveal the whereabouts of some of Sir Isaac Newton’s lost papers,’ said Nightingale. ‘The ones that Keynes couldn’t get hold of.’
‘Are you telling me that Sir John Fucking Maynard Keynes was one of your lot?’ said Seawoll.
‘An associate,’ said Nightingale. ‘Not a practitioner.’
‘And Isaac Newton is significant to the Folly why?’ asked Stephanopoulos.
‘Because he founded it,’ said Nightingale.
Because, back in the go-ahead post-Renaissance pre-Enlightenment days of the seventeenth century there was no science or magic as such – it was all Natural Philosophy and people hadn’t quite got round to deciding which was which. Back then chemists hadn’t had that dangerously foreign ‘al’ removed and Sir Isaac Newton wanted all the answers to everything – how long the universe was going to last, the exact date of god’s creation, how to make the Philosopher’s Stone, and why do things that go up have to come back down again.
In those days the idea that large celestial bodies might influence the trajectory of other bodies without an actual material connection of some kind was the stuff of magic, not rationalist thought. Vast, invisible spheres of crystal – it was the only rational explanation. Next you’ll be claiming diseases aren’t caused by bad smells – a lavender nosegay, that’s your friend.
Sir Isaac Newton legendarily wrote the famous Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which gave us principles that a couple of hundred years later were good enough to land a man on the moon. Then he wrote the slightly less well known Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Artes Magicis, which codified the magical techniques that allow me to inconvenience paper targets and Nightingale to demolish small agricultural buildings.
‘There are suggestions that there might have been a Third Principia,’ said Nightingale. ‘This one dealing with alchemy.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Seawoll. ‘Lead into fucking gold?’
‘He was Master of the Royal Mint when he wrote it,’ said Nightingale. ‘He might have considered that a viable way of revaluing the currency.’
‘No wonder Keynes was a fan,’ said Stephanopoulos.
‘Quite,’ said Nightingale. ‘However, if Wild’s ledger does exist, and if it does contain details of Newton’s lost papers, then we have to acquire it.’
Seawoll narrowed his eyes.
‘Why’s that?’ he asked.
‘Because we are the rightful owners,’ said Nightingale. ‘And if it really does contain the secret of transmutation or, god forbid, of the philosopher’s stone – then it has to be kept out of the wrong hands.’
‘That’s as may be,’ said Seawoll. ‘You want Wild’s ledger. We need Reynard because he’s a material witness. What you do with him afterwards is your business. Can we agree to that?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Nightingale.
‘I don’t suppose we have a current address for Mr Fossman?’ said Seawoll.
I told him nothing more recent than five years old, and he nodded absently.
‘In that case I suggest we set up a meet as soon as poss, and arrest the little fucker before this case gets any more fucking complicated,’ he said.
The rule of thumb in this kind of negotiation is that the negotiator stays as junior as you can get – that way you have somewhere to escalate for extra leverage – so I made the call.