Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(13)

The Germans had refined the technique as a weapon during the Second World War. Nightingale swears blind that no British wizard ever stooped to such practice, and I admit I’ve never found any record to show they did. But still – you have to wonder.

Martin Chorley had either developed or discovered that you could use dogs instead of people, and that you could use demon traps like batteries to store magic. Which was a neat trick, because neither he nor any practitioner that I know actually knows what magic is. You can stick a label on it, call it potentia or mana or an interstitial boundary effect, but all that does is make you sound like you’re auditioning for Star Trek – TNG, not the movies.

I checked my watch. Nightingale had been standing in front of the bell for more than two minutes. I’d warned him that there was definitely a seducere style effect built in, but he seemed confident he could deal with it.

At three minutes I made a considered risk assessment and decided to go grab him and pull him off. But, as I came out of hiding, Nightingale took his left hand off the bell and held it up – palm towards me.

I stopped.

And considered crawling back behind cover – which would have been the sensible thing. But before I could do that Nightingale took his right hand off the bell and beckoned me over.

‘It’s not a trap,’ he said.

‘What is it, then?’

‘I have no idea whatsoever.’



Fortunately we got word that a man who might know something had woken up back at UCH. So me and Guleed bundled into the character-free Hyundai and headed over while Nightingale stayed with the bell, just in case it suddenly started ticking or something.

Lucy was back on shift when we arrived outside Richard Williams’s room. He’d been put in one of the max isolation wards. Designed for ebola outbreaks and the like, it had its own atrium with a big white sink and a couple of jumbo waste bins with big biohazard symbols painted on their lids.

Lucy was positioned in the corner of the room with a clear field of fire on anyone coming in through the heavy fire door to the corridor – the square window in the door had been blacked out with a sheet of cardboard. Someone opening the door would be in Lucy’s sights before they even knew she was there.

‘Warrant cards,’ she said as me and Guleed walked in.

We’re trained not to argue with stressed people with guns – especially our own people – so we dutifully pulled the cards out of our jackets and showed her.

‘Your governor’s a bit scary, isn’t he?’ said Lucy as she checked them.

She’d obviously been given the Nightingale lecture – that explained the increase in caution.

‘He’s a big softy, really,’ said Guleed with a straight face.

‘Of course he is,’ said Lucy, and settled back into her guard stance as we pushed open the inner door and went in.

Richard didn’t find Lucy’s presence half as reassuring as we did.

‘He’s going to kill me,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can do to stop it.’

We gave the usual reassurances, but everybody’s watched way too many films to trust our word. He was your classic amateur – your proper professional criminal would have been screaming for a brief and demanding to know by what right we were holding him against his will, but Richard had cracked before we’d stepped into the room.

We’d done the caution plus two – which is when we caution you and then rush to assure you that you aren’t under arrest while we make it clear, through subtle non-verbal communication, that arrest was totally an option.

Richard seemed happy to talk, eager even, as if none of it was important any more. Looking back, perhaps that should have raised more alarm bells than it did.

We started with the basics, like did he know the current location of Martin Chorley.

Richard swore he didn’t. It’s not like they’d been mates. But a friend of a friend had introduced them after he’d graduated from Oxford. He just did Chorley the occasional ‘favour’ in return for some lucrative contracts and a bit of cash under the table.

What kind of favours? we asked.

Providing video equipment, arranging to move packages around.

‘It didn’t occur to you that any of this might be dodgy?’ I asked.

‘It didn’t seem that dodgy,’ said Richard. ‘Not illegal as such.’

I wanted to press on, but we had to pause there to get names, dates and as many details of the people involved in the ‘favours’ as Richard would admit to. It’s tedious stuff but it all goes into the great mill that is HOLMES 2, the better to grind the flour of truth and produce the wholesome bread of justice.

And then, while they’re busy thinking about something else, you go down a different track.

‘Who was the friend who introduced you to Martin Chorley?’

‘Gabriel,’ said Richard. ‘Gabriel Tate. We were at Oxford together.’

The other name on the film script I’d found.

‘Was he a Little Crocodile?’ I asked – keeping it casual.

‘No way,’ said Richard. ‘He was mad into Oxford Revue and OUDS.’

‘OUDS?’ asked Guleed.

‘Oxford University Dramatic Society,’ said Richard. ‘He always wanted to write.’

‘But you were a member of the Little Crocodiles?’ I asked.