Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(52)

Older, Beverley had said.

I used the last of my willpower to pull myself upright and face Tyburn.

‘What happened to his youngest?’ I asked.

‘You what?’

‘You said they killed his wife and kids but they were just starting on the youngest when Cata went mad,’ I said. ‘So what happened to the youngest?’

Sir William grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close so he could whisper in my ear.

‘They slit her pretty little neck,’ he said. ‘And threw her in the Walbrook.’

He pushed me away and I fell into darkness.



And blinked and opened my eyes in an ambulance.

Allison Conte was riding with me and the paramedic – she didn’t look happy.

‘I don’t care who you think you are. None of you lot are going down alone,’ she said. ‘Ever again.’

She’d found me in the side access alcove, sitting up against the ladder and totally out of it. She’d had to get some help and a rope to drag me out.

The paramedic wanted to know if I’d smelt or ingested anything prior to losing consciousness.

‘Woodsmoke,’ I said.

‘Could have been carbon monoxide,’ said the paramedic, because medical professionals are willing to spout total bollocks in order to maintain their air of authority. Nothing like us police, who always tell it how it is.

Generally speaking, if you’ve fallen unconscious for any length of time it’s best to go to a hospital for blood tests and shit. So I asked them to take me to UCH. Then I called Guleed and arranged to have her pick up the Hyundai, and then go ahead to the hospital so Dr Walid could meet me in casualty. They were used to our ways there by then, and the casualty registrar didn’t blink when Dr Walid ordered up a ton of phlebotomy. He’s hoping to get an understanding of the biochemical consequences of my ‘encounters’, as he calls them. He’d have popped me in the MRI, but it was solidly booked with emergency cases that day.

Bev called me and asked if I wanted her to pick me up. But my mind felt heavy and slow, as if it was waterlogged, and I wanted time to myself. I fell asleep in one of the treatment cubicles and didn’t wake up until after midnight, when the first wave of closing time casualties arrived and the unit needed their cubicle back.

I let them check my pupil reaction and blood pressure and then I walked back to the Folly.

I was walking past the quiet darkness of the park in Russell Square when the full implications of what I’d learnt sank in.

Mr Punch was a god.

And Martin Chorley wanted to sacrifice him.





18

The Tea Committee

We held a meeting of the ‘Tea Committee’ in the upstairs reading room. The Tea Committee consisted of me, Nightingale and other interested parties – in this case Postmartin and Dr Walid – where we thrashed out any policy involving magic. This was part of our agreement with Seawoll to avoid ‘distracting’ his ‘normal’ officers from doing their jobs properly.

‘I have come to the conclusion,’ Seawoll had said during one of the initial planning meetings that set up Operation Jennifer, ‘that if we can’t ignore it we can at least paint it pink and make it somebody else’s problem.’

Dr Vaughan was off on a training course, but Abigail was allowed to be present as long as she kept her mouth shut and took notes.

We quickly reached the consensus that despite Lesley’s opinion – that it would make the world a better place – we didn’t think anything good was going to come of offing Mr Punch. Especially now we knew he was a god.

‘Although wouldn’t dealing with Punch in and of itself be a bonus?’ asked Dr Walid, who’d spent a gruesome six months working with what was left of his victims the last time the little hook-nosed bastard had made his presence known.

I pointed out that, according to Bev, half the ecological disasters in the world occurred when people removed ‘pests’ or predators without thinking through the consequences.

Nightingale asked for an example, but all I could think of offhand were snakes – which if eliminated lead to a massive increase in rats. Even as I said it, I had a horrible feeling that I’d read it in a fantasy book once – possibly a comical one.

I looked over at Abigail, who tilted her head to one side in a disturbingly Molly-like way and made a note.

‘You believe removing Punch might disrupt the . . .’ Dr Walid paused to dredge up his medical Greek. ‘Eidolonisphere.’

Nightingale smiled.

‘From Eidolon,’ explained Postmartin. ‘Greek for phantom or ghost – indeed quite apropos because it commonly refers to a phantasm or ghost that possessed the living.’

‘Eidolosphere scans better,’ I said. ‘And I don’t know what effect it will have, but in any complex system if you change one variable it can cause unpredictable effects throughout that system.’

‘Quite,’ said Nightingale. ‘But this doesn’t get us any closer to learning what Martin Chorley wants to happen.’

‘We need to find a way to turn Lesley,’ I said.

Nightingale sighed.

‘Our last attempt in that direction hardly went well,’ he said.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘If anyone knows what Martin Chorley is up to, then it’s going to be her.’