‘I’m only on the fringes myself. But when I’m in their places I do my best to talk their language. You know, to speak all old-fashioned London. All that Mary Poppins music-hall nonsense. It’s just what they’ve always done.’
He meant how Ross’ fortune-teller at the New Age fair had talked. So that was what this guy was worried about — his speech patterns. Just as well he hadn’t gone total Peckham on him.
‘I know the Keel brothers and others are trying to force changes now, that a generational thing of some kind is going on, and that suits me too…’
Sefton filed that one away for future reference.
‘… but you can’t get everything you want at once. Might as well work out which way the wind is going to end up blowing. I know I’m only in the very first stages. And I know it must be a lot worse for … for you…’
‘For black people, you mean?’
He hesitated again, big time. ‘I’m not one of the people who feel you’re automatically too modern. There have been … people of African descent in London for centuries.’
So this was definitely about being seen as too modern. Something not from whatever ‘golden age’ people like that fortune-teller harked back to.
So, hey, entering that shop and heading into the serious stuff at the back must be something you didn’t often see people of colour doing. To this bloke, encountering Sefton had been like getting onto the bus and having Rosa Parks sit down next to him. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘It’s time for a change.’
‘Are you going to the Goat?’ He had lowered his voice, so it seemed that mentioning it in public was dangerous. But he’d also said it as if it was obvious that Sefton would know what he was on about.
Sefton narrowed his eyes and made as if to get up, again doing the opposite of what the man wanted rather than reveal his own lack of knowledge. Again, it worked. The man leaped to his feet, obviously feeling that he’d offended Sefton in some way. ‘Listen, I know about what they say is going to happen there this month. I’m a regular, just on the first level, not every Thursday, but at least on the first Thursday. People are saying that now that the Keel brothers have bought the place, it might get easier for me to, you know, get downstairs. That they’re going to change the rules. You must know something about that.’
The man was obviously assuming that Sefton’s skin colour automatically made him a radical in this subculture, and radicals knew about radical developments. The Goat? It might be a pub. On the first Thursday of the month. That explained why Thursdays brought this sort of person into town. He’d just found one of the meeting places of the London occult community. Job done. He didn’t let that satisfaction show. He slowly sat back down, nodding as if appreciating this bloke’s knowledge of the situation. ‘I might.’
‘Well, if you’re there next Thursday … tread carefully, eh? They might announce new rules, but real change takes time. This might not be the moment. But, hey, if you do get anywhere, I’ll be there to cheer you on. I’d benefit too. I’ve worked hard to get this far. Be nice to get down to the lower floors.’
Sefton considered. He really wanted to know this man’s name and to be given a map of how to get to a location that might be supernaturally hard to find, but he couldn’t risk asking for either. Names were a big deal in both undercover work and everything he’d read about the weird stuff. He waited for a long moment before answering. ‘Let’s see how it goes.’
‘Okay. Great.’
Still taking care to look unsure about this guy, Sefton got to his feet again. He moved to the door like a wary beast on the edge of being tamed by Tarzan. He turned back and gave the man a long, significant look. Then he inclined his head to him. You’re cool, my white brother. I will think hard about what you’ve said here today.
As soon as Sefton turned the corner beside the cafe he broke into his everyday stride, dropping the undercover from his shoulders with great relief. He hit the button on his mobile to call Quill. ‘Jimmy,’ he said, ‘have I got juice for you!’
* * *
Quill listened to the description of the juice. He found it good. He took pleasure in the way his team all looked so engrossed as they stood around the main table in the Portakabin, gazing down at the Google map of London on Ross’ phone. ‘There’s only one pub name with “goat” in it within five miles of that shop,’ she said. ‘The Goat and Compasses, on Manette Street.’
Quill looked it up on his own phone. ‘Can’t book it for the first Thursday,’ he said, ‘or any other Thursday. Private function. And it is indeed now owned by Keel Promotions PLC.’
‘The Keel brothers,’ said Ross, ‘being Barry and Terry, both with form for burglary and attempted robbery, both single, both with addresses in Shoreditch. The company office for the Quicksilver Dawn chain of stores is the shop that Kev visited.’
‘Interesting name, goat,’ said Sefton, ‘a bit Denis Wheatley, and compasses, a bit Masonic.’
‘But,’ added Costain, hitting buttons on his phone, ‘it says here that the name’s a corruption of “God encompasseth us”. Wow. This is so the right place that it’s even got a cover story.’
‘We should get it checked out,’ said Quill. ‘With the aim of learning anything about the murders, and, incidentally, anything about the Sight.’
‘I’ll take a tube of the silver goo along,’ said Sefton. ‘In case there’s someone I can show it to. Maybe indicate that I want to trade it.’
‘We should also listen out for any mention of a thing or a person that can walk through walls and skip off like Peter Pan,’ added Ross.
‘If the Ripper turns out to be Peter Pan,’ said Quill, ‘I will have had the last of my illusions shattered.’ He looked round the group for more input, and found none. ‘Thus endeth the list of what we’ll be listening out for.’
‘We?’ said Sefton.
Quill had thought hard about this. He had approached Lofthouse for authorization under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and she’d got it for him, but she’d raised an eyebrow at what he’d told her he was planning to do. ‘We all go,’ he said. ‘We may only get one chance to hear something important before this community is on to us. It seems to be all about who’s in the know and who’s not, and like some of the communities Kev and Tony have gone undercover in, it has its own forms of speech. Some of us may bounce down the steps and some may get invited into the back room for a hand of supernatural whist. Our two undercover officers might find themselves being bounced, given the racially challenged aspects of what we’ve heard. I’m also thinking that this could be the Losley house all over again. What we discovered there, and in Berkeley Square, was that we handle the really terrifying shit better as a team.’
‘But you and I aren’t undercovers,’ said Ross. She had developed a serious frown.
‘And you’re not a police officer, which I wouldn’t normally mention, except to say that I am absolutely not asking you to go undercover. It’s a public space, the two of us will stay entirely within it. We just show up, off duty. We don’t have an angle; we just watch and chat, and ask no questions. We do not use assumed names, but we don’t volunteer our real names either. We thus stay outside the definition of a covert human intelligence source.’
She considered for a moment. ‘Okay,’ she said, finally.
Costain was looking worried too. ‘From what we heard at the New Age fair, police officers are loathed and feared by this community-’
‘If things get anywhere near serious, I’ll walk out of there to the car I’ll leave round the corner, and that’ll be the signal for Ross to follow. Same the other way round. You two specialists, on the other hand, will be using constructed identities, and will be free to explore beyond the public areas, should you deem it safe to do so.’
‘What if someone from the New Age fair is there?’ asked Sefton. ‘Me and Costain showed our warrant cards there.’