Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(74)

Then I was lowered, with surprising care, into a chair with my wrists behind the seat back. The ridiculously strong hands kept me from moving while somebody else fixed what felt suspiciously like alligator clamps to my left index finger and the top of my right sock.

I heard Chorley ask whether things were ready and Lesley say they were. I felt the tape securing the neck of the hood being ripped off, followed by the hood proper. I squinted in the sudden light.

I was in a large, high-ceilinged room with a row of tall metal-framed windows with small panes. The walls were whitewashed brick with rounded edges along the windowsills and doorways. Interwar Art Deco industrial, I guessed, a former school or office, not so common a design that I couldn’t trace it later.

Chorley was perched on a chair in front of me, elbows on his knees, leaning forward intently but not, unluckily, close enough for me to bite his nose. He was dressed office casual in tan slacks and a light blue pinstripe shirt, top button undone – no tie.

I knew it was futile but I conjured up a shield to cut the ties on my hands. Before I even had the forma lined up my body gave an involuntary jump – a thudding shock and then pain.

‘Don’t,’ said Lesley from behind me.

I recognised the set-up – it came straight out of Nightingale’s wartime guide to holding practitioner POWs.

‘What have you got that plugged into?’ I asked. ‘The mains?’

‘As it happens, yes,’ said Lesley. ‘We couldn’t find a car battery.’

‘Now we’ve established that we’ve taken adequate precautions,’ said Chorley, ‘perhaps we can get down to business?’

‘You’ve kidnapped a police officer,’ I said. ‘The last time that happened Nightingale hunted the perpetrators down like dogs – and I mean literally like dogs – from horseback.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Chorley. ‘I personally wanted you dead. I had some talent lined up to shoot you as you came out of your mother’s flat.’

You want to be calm and in control and insouciant in the face of danger. But I was thinking of the ‘talent’ and my mum and dad and for a moment I was paralysed by the conflicting waves of fear and rage. I could feel my face burning and my hands flex – Lesley gave me a little cautionary shock.

I didn’t snarl – Stay away from my family – because I felt we could take the horrific and protracted vengeance speech as read. Still, I’d have to take the threat to my parents more seriously in the future.

If I lived long enough.

‘I wouldn’t worry about your parents,’ said Chorley. ‘I’m not foolish enough to think that would slow you down for a moment, and it is unnecessary in any case. Short of killing you, this is by far the most elegant solution.’

‘Why not kill me?’ I asked, because I’m stupid that way.

‘You know why not,’ he snapped. ‘Your friend Lesley has an unwarranted soft spot for you. Although I’m beginning to see that you could well have a place in our new tomorrow. That’s why I let her have one last go at persuading you to stand down – which is why you’re still alive now. Despite our little contretemps the other day.’

‘Oh, that,’ I said.

‘Yes, that,’ said Chorley.

And because you never know your luck, I asked him where he got the vampire bits from.

‘You’d be surprised what you can buy on the dark web these days,’ said Chorley. ‘And what shadows lie behind the shadows you think you know.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘What shadows are those?’

‘Lesley is right about you in one way. You are persistent. I’m not about to breach my own operational security. And besides,’ he gave me a bright smile, ‘most of it will be irrelevant soon.’

‘What, you mean when the sleeper awakes and leads a jihad to conquer the known universe,’ I said.

‘Very funny,’ said Chorley.

‘What was that about?’ asked Lesley.

‘Sorry, wrong power fantasy,’ I said. ‘I mean when Arthur wakes and rides out with his chosen knights to . . . What, exactly? Storm Buckingham Palace? What are you expecting to happen?’

‘I’m not sure what you think you know, Peter,’ said Chorley, frowning.

‘I know you’re obsessed with the Dark Ages and with Arthur,’ I said. ‘And I know you think you’ve got hold of Excalibur. And I know you murdered John Chapman and probably Gabriel Tate to keep the details quiet.’

‘Actually,’ said Chorley, ‘the first I knew about John and Gabriel’s deaths was when Lesley read your report on it and told me. Sorry – nothing to do with me.’

His mobile rang then – the jingling factory-set tune – and he pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and grimaced.

‘Sorry,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’ve got to take this. Back in a mo.’

I waited until I was certain he was out of the room before asking for a cup of tea.

‘Later,’ she said. ‘If you’re good.’

‘You know he’s a plastic toy short of a happy meal – right?’

‘What?’ she said. ‘Because he believes in magic?’

‘Because he plans to bring back King Arthur. The Once and Future King. You know, the one that was totally made up by a bunch of Welsh Nationalists and romantic Frenchmen.’