Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(46)

‘And now they’re gone?’

‘Leaving not a single solitary moan behind.’

‘You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?’

‘On my life,’ he said.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘do you want to go home or not?’

Zach paused to give it some thought but in the end he relented – as I knew he would.

‘Stanmore,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a place in Stanmore.’

We knew all about it of course – but I didn’t tell him that.

I drove via Neasden to avoid the traffic and we were just crawling along the semi-detached and taxi gardened wasteland of Dudden Hill when Zach unexpectedly spilled the beans.

‘They want to summon Mr Punch,’ he said.

‘Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘Whatever for?’

Lesley had been possessed by Mr Punch, aka the restless London spirit of riot and rebellion – or possibly by the ghost of an eighteenth-century actor who thought he was Mr Punch. It had all got a bit confusing towards the end of that particular case.

‘Lesley’s not . . .’ I started, but didn’t know where to go with the question. Not still working with Mr Punch? Under his influence? Possessed?

‘What do they want him for?’

‘Oh,’ Zach waved his hand airily. ‘They’re going to kill him.’

I braked sharply to avoid hitting the back of a Volvo.

‘Isn’t he already dead?’

‘You tell me,’ said Zach. ‘You’re the one who’s met him.’

‘Can he be killed?’

‘Anything that’s alive can be killed. But I think this is more in the way of a sacrifice. You know, for the power.’

‘For the power of what?’

‘He’s not your ordinary ghost, is he?’ said Zach. ‘He’s something else again.’

‘I meant what do they want the power for?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Zach. ‘For something big. Old Faceless wanted to use the juice from Skygarden, but you put the kibosh on that, didn’t you? He was well vexed with you, bruv, but I’ve got to say Lesley was impressed – I think. At least she couldn’t believe you stayed in the block with the bombs.’

I can’t believe I stayed in the tower that day either. Sometimes I dream I’m outside, and however hard I try I can’t make myself run inside to warn the residents. Then the bombs go off and down it comes, one floor on top of the other, and above the roar of it I can hear the screams.

‘It’s not like I had a lot of choice, is it?’ I said. And then, ‘Would sacrificing Punch generate much power?’

‘A raging revenant from the dawn of time? I think there might be a certain amount of wattage in that. Don’t you?’

‘So what does Martin Chorley need Lesley for?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Zach. ‘But I know he does because Lesley thought it was really funny in that, like, totally unfunny way that sometimes things are funny.’

‘To do what, Zach?’ I said. ‘What the fuck does Chorley want to do?’

‘Lesley never said. And, you know what? I never asked. Because it was none of my business.’

‘I want you to tell Lesley that we need to meet,’ I said. ‘On her terms if she likes, but we’ve got to talk.’

Zach turned away from me and stared out his window.

‘She’s not going to risk seeing me again,’ he said. ‘Not after the shit you pulled.’

‘I didn’t tell her to change sides,’ I said.

‘You didn’t exactly help her stay on yours, though,’ he said. ‘Did you?’





17

First Century Mandem

‘Intelligence led’ is one of those dire phrases that police officers feel the need to include in their operational plans. This is either because they feel senior officers might otherwise assume that they are stupidity led, or because it’s an article of faith among the rank and file that everyone above superintendent has had their sense of irony surgically removed. Often the word ‘proactive’ is added at the front to create a kind of litany. O lead us intelligently into the valley of the shadow of limited resources so that we might make our crime targets before the end of the Home Office reporting period – Amen.

What intelligence led really means is trying to figure out what you’re doing before you actually do it. And that means being honest about what you do and what you don’t know.

And one of the things we didn’t know was the true nature of Mr Punch.

You’ve got ghosts. Occasionally you’ve got ghosts which can directly affect the material world. And you’ve got revenant ghosts which feed on other ghosts. Then you’ve got genii locorum, the spirits of places – ranging from the playful spirit that inhabited a bookshop in Covent Garden to the Goddess of the River Thames. The distinction, as far as we can tell, lies in where they draw their power from. Ghosts get theirs from the layers of vestigia laid down in the material fabric of old houses or the stone geology of some rural locales.

The genii locorum draw their power from the locality itself – although we’re still no closer to understanding where that power comes from. Since some of those localities include the entire watershed of the Thames above Teddington Lock you can see why we are careful to be polite around them.