Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(71)

Nguy?n, in plain clothes this time, met me on Warwick Lane, which was blocked off by an unmarked Sprinter van, and led me to Amen Court. Just across the avenue, I noticed, was Paternoster Square and the huge stainless steel sculpture nicknamed ‘The Zipper’. Beyond that, hidden behind the gleaming Portland stone fa?ades of the new buildings, was St Paul’s Cathedral.

At the entrance to the court was a scrupulously polite sign by the entrance that said in white letters on black:





NOT OPEN


TO THE PUBLIC


PLEASE RESPECT THE PRIVACY


OF THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE



On seeing that, my first thought was that someone obviously hadn’t respected their privacy and my second thought was to wonder just who did live in the rather tasty terraces beyond the sign.

‘Used to be housing for church officials,’ said Nguy?n. ‘And they’re still owned by the cathedral. Now it’s all commercial.’

The narrow alleyway continued until it opened up into the court proper, now a garden space overlooking what would have been really nice, if expensive, places to live if they hadn’t been converted into offices.

The court was bounded on the west by a high brick wall built of what looked like Regency or early Victorian brick. This was a famous wall – a last remnant of the infamous Newgate Prison. Behind it ran Dead Man’s Walk, along which the condemned, some of them actually even guilty, were led to the gallows.

More police tape had staked out a section of the wall a good five or six metres wide. Forensics had come and gone, but I recognised the late-night kebab smell of burnt offerings.

‘A cage full of rats,’ said Nguy?n. ‘Very fast fire, hot enough to partially melt the cage – no sign of an accelerant.’

‘Anything written on the wall?’

‘No, but there’s a standard pentagram scratched into the ground around the cage,’ said Nguy?n. ‘I’m hoping this is not another influential group of lawyers, because I believe that would be a problem.’

‘So am I,’ I said as I pulled on my evidence gloves.

The rats were a pathetic burnt heap, so it was impossible to tell whether they were feral or pet whites. I really didn’t want to touch them, but I was getting flashes of something while I was half a metre away and I needed to know what.

Growling, snarling, fear, misery and the taste of blood. The smell of sweat and resignation, of floral scent and old rope. And the shape and slink of an animal as it slunk on its belly to oblivion.

‘Not the Black Dog again,’ I said.

There is a legend that in the reign of Henry II a poor scholar was thrown into Newgate for the crime of sorcery. The prison had been undergoing one of its periodic efficiency drives, with savings being largely taken from the catering budget. The prisoners, driven mad by hunger, fell upon the young milk-fed scholar with glee and, presumably, some sort of condiment. The scholar was said to have uttered a terrible curse and thereby given rise to a hideous black dog which, one by one, hunted down and devoured all those who had tasted of the young man’s flesh. Even those who had been released and scattered to the four corners of the land.

‘Medical students?’ said Nguy?n.

Everybody knew about the Black Dog. Especially, for some historical reason or other, the trainee doctors at Barts Hospital, which is located not far to the north. And they, being the future health professionals that they are, love to carry out macabre rituals at the wall. Usually involving bits stolen from the pathology lab and a lot of magical symbology cribbed off the internet.

But not animal sacrifice. And not with such a workaday pentagram.

‘Are you going to handle the usual?’ I asked – meaning CCTV checks and door to door.

‘Nightingale will have to work his charm on my inspector,’ said Nguy?n. ‘If he says yes, then we shall see what we can find. Do you think it’s important?’

‘I don’t know, Geneviève. You know how it is. You never know what’s important until it’s important.’

On that basis, I stuck around for a bit to do an initial vestigia survey around the crime scene just in case there were some lurking hotspots. But by the afternoon I hadn’t found anything, so I hopped on a number 8 bus in the hope of missing the worst of the rush hour.

The bus was stop-starting just past Chancery Lane when my phone rang.

‘What’s up?’ said Lesley.





24

A Fine Distinction

‘I’m not in the mood for this shit today,’ I said wearily and hung up.

The phone rang again, as I thought it might, and I already had my backup phone out and was texting the ‘Help, Lesley has called me,’ code to the Folly. They would try to trace the call, but we knew from bitter experience that Lesley had access to a ton of different ways to spoof that.

Before I answered I plugged my earbuds into the phone.

‘Yeah?’ she said, ‘Why are you in a strop then?’

‘Why do you care?’

With the earbuds in I could hear the background noise that her phone picked up. I heard cars and bigger vehicles, street sounds – she was definitely in a city. I had a feeling she was close, but of course she could have been in Manchester or somewhere equally exotic.

‘Because I worry about you,’ she said.

There – a loud car horn behind Lesley and an instant later I heard the same horn in the distance – east up High Holborn. I twisted in my seat to look up the street towards Chancery Lane, but I couldn’t see her amongst the traffic and the crowds.