‘Right,’ said Ross. ‘Okay. Okay.’
Costain didn’t like her looking as focused as this. It was as if she was slowly getting less and less range of expression. She finally saw him looking and managed a deliberate … well, it wasn’t quite a smile. It seemed that she was already forgetting how to do that. Sefton opened the rear doors and got out, headed off on his part of this mission. Costain leaned in and kissed Ross, then she too got out and headed off.
Dear God, the last few days had damaged them all so much. Costain got out of the van and locked it. He himself had a terrible choice to make. He’d done something terrible. Again. It kept going round and round in his thoughts. The meth meant he couldn’t trust how he felt about anything. For the hundredth time, he put it out of his mind. He took out his Airwave radio and called the Armed Response Unit, who confirmed they were in place, and on a clock counting down to noon, when the strike began. He was certain that if they ended up in a fire-fight, the unit weren’t just going to down tools on the hour, but still, their clock-watching didn’t fill him with confidence. He waited for Sefton and Ross to get to their destinations then headed towards the shop. To walk felt too slow, so he started marching.
* * *
Sefton entered the small car park at the back of the Keel store, used jointly with a patisserie next door. There was a lower door and a fire escape leading up to an office level, as their research had indicated. He felt like death, he didn’t like the fire of the meth coursing through his system, and he knew sometime soon he was going to crash. But he was doing his duty, working for Jimmy and Joe and everything he stood for in this town, and he was content with his own head now and would keep going. If London survived, he could just about glimpse a future for himself. He’d called Joe and shut down all his fearful questions, and reassured him he was okay and then said he had to go. He couldn’t help but look behind him to where the unmarked van containing the Armed Response Unit was sitting ready.
He made sure nobody was about and tried to steady his breathing, but failed. He got out the London Olympics branded water carrier with a picture of that weird cartoon alien on it dressed as a copper and, his hands still shaking, started sprinkling its contents around the frame of the door. The water he was dosing the door with was from the underground river Neckinger, which met the Thames at a point where criminals were hung. Ross would be doing the same thing to the front door at the same moment. He finished with the lower door and headed for the fire escape, aiming to climb it as quietly as he could, aware that his limbs were shaking.
* * *
Ross entered the store and went to the counter. She managed what she knew wasn’t quite a smile at the young woman serving there. She managed to stop her teeth chattering. ‘I would like to make a complaint,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. What’s the nature of your complaint?’ The assistant was genuinely eager to please. They must get a lot of mad shit in here.
Ross lifted the cage she’d brought in onto the counter. ‘It’s about this.’ She pulled off the cloth covering it and revealed the stuffed bird therein. It had been the weirdest London-related thing they could find in the dusty corners of the Hill’s evidence room in the early hours, though it didn’t actually have anything of the Sight about it.
‘Is that … a crow?’
‘A crow!’ Ross was following through on an agreed-upon script, not feeling it herself. But what she did have flowing through her veins was the feeling that she was onstage and wowing the crowd. It didn’t make her happy, although it clearly should, and that disconnect was yelling at her continually, but it was certainly keeping her awake. She thought she probably looked and sounded more like a homeless person than anything else. ‘This, young fellow-me-lad, is a raven. One that has recently departed the Tower of London. Much as it has departed this mortal coil.’ She glanced across the shop and saw that other assistants were already looking over, taking an interest, amused. She wished she could feel the same. If it had been Jimmy doing this, he’d have enjoyed it, part of the great Met tradition of taking the piss. The assistants were probably getting overtime pay to come in today, with the strike about to break; besides, this place was most likely something like a home to them, somewhere they’d run to rather than away from. Again, she wished she was part of such a community. They’d be up for a bit of light relief.
The shop girl had got the joke, was trying not to smile. ‘And did you purchase it here?’
‘Well I wouldn’t be coming to you to complain if I’d bought it elsewhere, would I?’ She realized she was trying to sound like Quill.
‘So … what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is that when you sold it to me, you did so on the basis that it was a live Corvus corax, beloved of Bran the Blessed, kept by the Yeoman Warders to ward off the destruction of the British Isles. Does this look live to you?’ She gave it a poke and it fell sideways off its perch. ‘This is an ex-raven!’
The other shop assistants had come and gathered round, forming an audience to what they were sure now was a deliberate performance, and not an embarrassing or threatening one, for once. Despite the staring demeanour of the performer. Ross looked the assistant in the eye and hoped she’d go for it.
She did. ‘But it’s got lovely plumage.’
‘I demand,’ said Ross, ‘to see the manager!’
Of course, her face then immediately clouded, because Keel wasn’t going to be up for this. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘he’s not to be disturbed.’
‘We’ll see about that.’ Ross got out her phone and sent her prepared text to Costain. It just said, ‘He’s here.’ She didn’t look around as, unobserved, Costain walked quickly in and headed for the back of the shop.
* * *
Costain was trying to keep his thoughts from racing, to keep his mind on apprehending Terry Keel. He walked swiftly under the CCTV cameras beside the expensive stuff without breaking stride, hoping that would get him past the owner’s notice. Keel had no reason to be particularly on guard this morning, after all. He wasn’t the sort to worry about the police’s ability to protect his premises. He was pretty certain of doing that himself.
He walked straight through a door marked ‘Staff only’, found nobody there now that they were all watching Ross’ show with the bird, and headed up the stairwell. He was breathing too fast. He got out his Airwave radio once more. On the floor above was a toilet and an office. Costain stepped carefully as he reached eye level with the top floor. He couldn’t hear-
Terry Keel stepped out from the office, an expression of cold fury on his face. ‘You fuckers!’
‘Go go go!’ Costain yelled into the radio.
The window beside Keel burst inwards. Two Armed Response uniforms were bringing their weapons to bear. ‘Armed police officers!’ But Keel was already running, yelling, right at Costain. Something in his hand glowed like a hot coal.
Costain didn’t fall back as Keel expected him to, making himself an easy target when Keel got to the top of the stairs. Instead he heaved himself forwards and grabbed the man’s wrist. He slammed the hand with the fire in it into the wall. But Keel was a powerfully built man. With a cry, he shouldered Costain aside, rebounding from the folded copies of the Police Gazette from the 1840s that Sefton had stuffed into Costain’s jacket as an occult London version of body armour.
Keel threw himself towards the fire door. Costain kicked himself off the wall and followed, knowing as he moved that he was in the line of fire between Keel and the armed officers, knowing they wouldn’t shoot.
The weight of Keel’s body slammed the door open.
* * *
Sefton was ready as Keel sprinted out onto the fire escape. But even Keel was surprised as the fire he held in his hand burst into smoke and steam. Sefton grabbed him by the lapels and swung him up against the wall.