The Severed Streets Read online

  ‘Listen,’ Tunstall said immediately. ‘I want to change my statement.’

  ‘Now, wait—’ began Quill.

  ‘What I said happened was impossible. It couldn’t have gone like that, could it? One of the protestors must have got into the car—’

  ‘Mate,’ said Costain, ‘we believe you.’

  Tunstall stopped short. ‘You what?’ Then he slumped, a tremendous weight on him again. ‘Oh, right, I get it: you’re the good cop.’

  Costain pointed to himself, looking surprised. ‘Bad cop.’

  ‘Surreal cop,’ said Sefton, also pointing to himself.

  ‘Good cop,’ admitted Quill. ‘Relatively. Which is weird.’

  Ross just raised an eyebrow.

  Tunstall looked between them, unsure if they were taking the piss.

  Being interviewed by this unit, thought Quill, must sometimes seem like being interrogated by Monty Python’s Flying Circus. At least they had his attention. ‘Why don’t you tell us all of it,’ he said gently, ‘just the truth, as you saw it, and don’t edit yourself for something that’s too mad, because mad is what we do.’

  Tunstall sat down at the interview table. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘We have access to … certain abilities that other units don’t. Which means that, as Detective Sergeant Costain says, we are indeed willing to believe you. We know there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. So telling the whole truth now might really do you a favour.’

  The man looked more scared than ever.

  * * *

  It took until lunchtime to complete the interview and sort out the paperwork. Tunstall’s story was indeed impossible, and confirmed all the physical evidence. The man finally said he couldn’t remember anything else and needed to get some sleep. Quill ended the interview. He found his own attention starting to wander and baulked at the prospect of going back to the team’s nick for maybe only an hour or two of bleary discussion, so he sent his team home for the day and went back to his bed. Only to find that Jessica was home and wanted to play with trains. So that was what they did, until Quill lay his head down on top of the toy station and started snoring.

  * * *

  Kev Sefton felt that he was finally getting somewhere. Being the officer who’d become most interested in the London occult and who’d started to read up on it had given him some extra responsibilities, okay. But now, instead of being second undercover, he was first … whatever his new job title was. Doing that well made him feel better about being out of the mainstream of policing while London was going up in flames.

  He’d kept the phial with the silver goo in it in his fridge at home overnight, next to the beer, with a Post-it note on it that told Joe not to touch it. That summed up, he thought, the make-do way his team did things. He was used to having odd dreams now, as his brain dealt with all that he’d had to stuff into it, but those of last night were particularly weird. He felt as if he’d been rifled through and shaken out, as if large things were moving inside him. That phrase had brought a smile to his face as he drove through the gate that led onto the waste ground across the road from Gipsy Hill police station, the mud baked into dust by the early sunshine. No change there, then. He’d stopped on the steps of the Portakabin that served the team, exiled from the mainstream as they were, as an ops room and looked out across London. There was that smell on the warm air … smoke. Well, now they might be doing something to help restore order. He’d taken a deep breath and headed inside.

  Now, as the others watched, wearing oven gloves he’d stolen from the canteen across the way, he was using a pencil to encourage the silver goo out of the phial and onto a saucer. He was hoping that graphite and tea-stained china didn’t react with whatever this silver stuff was. Maybe it would tell them something if it did. He was trying to take a scientific approach to his London occultism. Sometimes that made him feel like Isaac bloody Newton, and sometimes as if he was barking up completely the wrong tree. It felt as if this London business only submitted to science sometimes, when it felt like it. The goo dropped onto the saucer. The others leaned closer. Sefton thought he could hear a faint sizzling. He took the thermometer he’d bought at the chemist’s and held it as close to the gel as he dared. He nodded and put on his most serious expression. ‘It’s … really cold,’ he said.

  ‘Like the insides of every ghost we’ve encountered,’ said Quill.

  ‘Only this is much more extreme, and, because we’re pretty sure that what we’ve seen aren’t exactly ghosts in the usual sense of the word, inverted commas around the g-word, please,’ said Sefton.

  ‘Is that it’s “really cold” the full extent of your analysis?’ asked Quill.

  ‘If we can get hold of some specialist tools, like maybe a temperature sensor that I could actually risk inside this stuff, then I’d do better. But that’d only get us so far. Only we can see this material. It’s too plastic for mercury, too metallic for some sort of oil by-product, and it’s keeping itself and the things around it cold, like a fridge, but without being plugged into a socket. If it’s an element, it’s one we’ve discovered.’

  ‘Seftonium,’ said Costain.

  Sefton used a teaspoon to put the goo back in the phial. ‘So-called spirit mediums used to pretend to be able to project something they called ectoplasm, which usually turned out to be glue and other gunk. Maybe the original idea for that came from this.’

  ‘Like in Ghostbusters,’ said Costain.

  ‘It reminds me of what I saw inside those “ghost ships” on the Thames,’ said Ross. ‘They had a sort of silver skeleton inside.’

  Quill went to the corkboard which served this team as an Ops Board. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘we’ve got enough to start building the board, to list the objectives and to name this mother.’ All the board still had on it – the artefacts of the other half-arsed would-be operations they’d considered lately having already been consigned carefully to drawers – was the PRO-FIT facial description picture of the Smiling Man and the concepts list, which now was just a series of headings referring to files on their ancient computer (and the phone number of the Smiling Man, which Quill had labelled ‘the number of the Beast’). At the very top of the board was a card with a question mark on it, over which Quill now pinned a new blank card because the name of the operation was about to be decided. Beneath all that Quill added a picture cut from a newspaper. ‘The victim: Michael Anthony Spatley, Liberal Democrat MP for the constituency of Cheadle. Chief secretary to the Treasury, which is a cabinet position. Jewish by birth, atheist by inclination. Forty-six years old. Wife: Ann. Daughter: Jocelyn. Son: Arthur. I’ve put in a request for us to search his home and offices too, which, judging by the tone of voice of the PA I spoke to, will be regarded with incredulity by those who’ve already had the main op through. But we shall persist.’ He attached a red victim thread upwards from the picture and pinned a sheet of white paper above it, on which he drew a very rough cartoon of the Toff figure.

  Ross took a new square of paper and added ‘Brian Tunstall’ to the suspect area, also attaching a victim thread between him and Spatley. She drew a dotted line beside both threads, indicating uncertainty. ‘Two suspects,’ she said.

  ‘Despite the fact that only one of these “suspects” was observed fleeing the scene,’ noted Costain.

  ‘Yeah, because we make assumptions only when the specialized nature of our work forces us to. And then we take care to note them.’

  Sefton looked between the two of them. Costain had always been the sort of officer who’d insisted on the importance of first-hand street experience, and Ross’ intelligence-based approach always felt that that procedure was missing the wood for the trees, but now … He knew that Costain, when Ross had been unconscious in hospital after the Losley case, had stayed by her bed, had slept in a chair. Sefton had wondered, during those few weeks when Ross had been full of the joys of spring, if they were going to get together. That looked impossible now, which was tough on these two, because he
and Quill had someone to talk to about the impossible stresses this team were under, and they didn’t.

  Costain picked up a card of his own and drew a squiggly mass of people on it, then he attached it to Spatley with a dotted thread too. ‘Maybe it’s the “spirit” of the riots? Losley said there were two ways to power in London: to “make sacrifice” or “be remembered”, and it’s not like it’s only the old or famous stuff that gets remembered. We hadn’t heard of that green monster thing Kev met. Maybe this is the sort of collective will of those protestors made solid, or something.’

  Quill nodded. ‘Good. But I hope that doesn’t bloody turn out to be the case, ’cos it’s going to be hard to nick a manifestation of the collective unconscious.’

  Sefton had something to add. ‘All the “ghosts”’ – he made the speech marks gesture – ‘we’ve seen have been really passive. Everything “remembered” as part of what seems to be a sort of collective memory on the part of London just kind of hangs around, in classic haunting fashion. They didn’t hurt anyone. Not even the remembered versions of Losley.’

  ‘So maybe one of the protestors has made a sacrifice and is deliberately making this happen,’ said Costain.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Sefton was glad to hear Costain making deductions like that about his world. Sefton couldn’t do this bit alone, and it always pleased him when the others had a go. He was the opposite to Ross in that respect because his speciality was bloody terrifying and hers wasn’t. ‘But Losley was very set in her ways and didn’t acknowledge things she didn’t approve of or know about. She didn’t mention various powerful items, for instance, like the vanes that were used to attack Jimmy. I don’t think we should imagine she knew or was telling us about every mechanism that exists to do … the sort of stuff we know objects that are very London can do. Speaking of which…’ He stepped forward and added, down the left-hand side of the board, in the space which their team and only their team used for concepts, ‘Cold residuals. Meaning that silver goo.’

  ‘But which now sounds like something you’d need to talk to your agent about,’ said Quill.

  ‘Nobody outside the car saw anything,’ said Ross. ‘Nobody felt the suspect move through or above the crowd. Tunstall’s testimony is what you’d expect of someone who was watching an attack by an invisible assailant. And I should add…’ She used her own pen to write ‘Can walk through walls (slowly)’ under the cartoon of the prime suspect.

  ‘Like Losley,’ said Costain.

  She also added ‘Can vanish’.

  ‘And again.’

  ‘Remind me to cover that up at the end of the day,’ said Quill. ‘We don’t want to terrify the cleaners.’ He paused as he stepped back from what was once again a blankness. ‘We need to do proper police work on what’s up there,’ he said. ‘We need to find meaning, a narrative. We work our three suspects: in the real world and in what, horribly, I’m starting to think of as our world.’

  Sefton saw that now was the time to announce the plan he’d been putting together. He was a bit proud of this, the sort of cross-discipline package that, in normal police work, would have been a boost to his CV. Now Lofthouse had made it obvious that she was aware of what they did – whatever the implications of that were – it might still be a good career move. ‘I’ve been assembling a list of people who seem to be on the fringes of the subculture we encountered at that New Age fair. I know a few places where they hang out. I could start to attempt undercover contact, get some sources for general background on all this stuff and work towards specifics concerning the Spatley case, if you think it’s time to risk all that.’

  ‘I do.’ Quill nodded. ‘Go forth and make it so, my son.’ He turned back to the wall and began pinning up a big sheet of paper on the right of the board. ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for … operational objectives!’ He picked up a marker and began to write.

  1. Ensure the safety of the public.

  2. Gather evidence of offences.

  3. Identify and trace subject or subjects involved (if any).

  4. Identify means to arrest subject or subjects.

  5. Arrest subject or subjects.

  6. Bring to trial/destroy.

  7. Clear those not involved of all charges.

  ‘Maybe it’s a bit vague,’ he admitted, standing back to admire his work, ‘but for us it’s always going to be. Even writing the word “destroy”…’ He let himself trail off. ‘But that’s how it is for us. And, of course, this list mirrors the objectives of Forrest’s SCD 1 murder inquiry, which, if we’re not careful, may lead to conflict and ire. Now, instead of drawing the names from the central register, I say we continue to name our own ops because that’s how we roll and I like it. So for this one, where we might well be venturing into Gothic and clichéd portrayals of our fair metropolis, how about…’

  He wrote on the card at the top of the Ops Board:

  OPERATION FOG

  The rest of the day was spent assembling all the evidence they had and building their initial Ops Board to the point where they all felt they were looking at everything they knew. They kept the news on in the background, but no fresh details came to light in the press. Ross had set up a bunch of hashtag searches on Twitter, but, as the day went on, they only revealed that London was panicking and gossiping in many different ways about the murder; no one signal was poking up out of the terrified noise.

  All in all, Sefton was glad to have put in such a productive day and, with the Portakabin getting stuffy, he was pleased when Quill sent everyone home. Home was now a tiny flat above a shop in Walthamstow with, on good nights, a parking space outside. Tonight he was lucky. The flat was half the size of the place he’d used as an undercover. It was like suddenly being a student again. Joe, who lived in a bigger place, had started coming over and staying most nights, which neither of them had commented on, so that was probably okay. Tonight he found Joe had just got in, using the key Sefton had had made for him two weeks ago, and was planning on heading straight out to the chippy. ‘Best news all day,’ Sefton said, after kissing him, and they headed off.

  The streets of Walthamstow were full of people, loads of office workers coming out of the tube in shirtsleeves, jackets slung over their shoulder, women pulling their straps down to get some sun. They looked as if they were deliberately trying to be relaxed, despite the smell of smoke always on the air, even out here. But even the sunshine had felt sick this summer, never quite burning through the clouds, instead shafting through gaps in them. It felt as if the whole summer was going to be dog days. Or perhaps all that was just the perspective of the Sight. It was impossible for Sefton to separate himself from it now. Every day in the street he saw the same horrors the others did, startling adjuncts to reality. ‘The opposite of miracles,’ he’d called them when Joe had asked for a description. There was a homeless person begging at the tube entrance as the two of them passed, an addict by the look of him, thin hair in patches, his head on his chest, filthy blankets around his legs. He was newly arrived with the ‘austerity measures’.

  ‘So,’ said Joe, ‘what did you do at work today?’

  ‘Can’t tell you.’

  ‘I thought you told me everything.’

  ‘Everything about the … you know, the weird shit. Nothing about operational stuff.’

  ‘Ah, so now there is operational stuff.’

  ‘Yeah. Kind of big, actually.’

  ‘Oh. Oh! You mean like what everyone’s been talking about all day?’

  Sefton sighed. Why had he been so obvious? ‘And now I’m shagging a detective.’

  Joe worked in PR for an academic publishing house and was now doing the job of what had been a whole department. His work stories were about dull professors who couldn’t be made interesting.

  He lowered his voice. ‘I saw about the murder on telly and thought the same as everyone else is saying, that it had to be the driver—’

  ‘I can’t—’

  ‘—which means it must really be someth
ing only you lot can see, like, bloody hell, another witch or something, like maybe there’s one for every football club? The witch of Woolwich Arsenal? The witch of Wolves? It can only be the alliterative ones. Liverpool doesn’t have one. Liverpool has a … lich. Whatever one of those is.’

  Sefton put a hand on his arm and actually stopped him. ‘Could we just get those chips?’

  * * *

  They sat on the low wall of the car park outside the chippy and breathed in the smell of frying. The old woman in a hijab they always saw around here trod slowly past, selling the Big Issue. Sefton bought one.

  ‘How are your team getting on now?’

  ‘I can’t talk about the case.’

  ‘Which is why I’m asking about the people.’

  ‘I think there’s something up with Ross.’

  ‘Really?’ Joe followed the people Sefton talked about as if they were characters on TV, never having met them, and Sefton almost laughed at the interest in his voice.

  ‘Ever since she got into the Docklands documents, she’s kind of suddenly gone back to how she was: all curled up against the world. Maybe it’s that she’s found something terrible and doesn’t want the rest of us to have to deal. Maybe she’s waiting until she’s got all the details.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if she and Costain are rubbing each other up the wrong way or…’

  ‘Just rubbing each other?’

  ‘I hope it’s that. It’s weird when I get a feeling about a person now. I’m trying to let myself be aware of the Sight all the time, to listen to something whispering in my ear, but, doing that, you start to wonder what’s the Sight and what’s just you. If I’m not careful I’m going to start being like one of those toddlers that notices a bit of gum on the pavement and hasn’t seen that before, so he squats down and keeps looking at it until his mum goes, “Erm, no – big wide world, more important.” The others want me to keep looking into the London occult shit, to be that specialist, and, you know, I like that responsibility, but they don’t really get that that kind of leads you away from being a police officer. Crime stories: all about getting everything back to normal. This stuff: there is no normal.’