The Minority Council (40 page)

Through the haze of exhaustion, drugs and pain I tried to focus on Kelly’s cheerful face. “You had a cat… like the culicidae?”

“Well, no, not exactly like the culicidae, I mean, not in the sucking-out-your-soul monster way, I can see how that might not quite work, but I think what I was trying to say was that sometimes communication doesn’t have to be verbal to be poignant.”

“Kelly,” I asked, slowly in case the words came out wrong. “I don’t mean this personally, and please understand, it’s been a very stressful couple of days, but please tell me…”

“Yes, Mr Mayor?”

“Are you sure you’re real?”

She chuckled, smearing burn cream across our scalded fingers in thick cool dollops. “Well, as the great philosopher would say, I think therefore I am and that is all I can know and in fact, since it is all I can know, sense data
being prone to error and misinterpretation, the only thing I can say for certain is that I am real, whereas you might not be; but then again, you must think exactly the same thing so I suppose that doesn’t help you, does it?”

Our mouth was hanging open.

I closed it, took another gulp of hot coffee, then drained the cup, put it to one side and murmured, “I’d like to have a holiday now.”

“How about Swanage?” she asked.

“I don’t even know where that is.”

“That’s the beauty of it! No one would look for you in Swanage!”

“You know what,” I said. “You must be real. I don’t have the imagination to make you up.”

“That’s the attitude!”

“Thinking of all things improbable,” I added, “where’d you put the culicidae’s heart?”

“We’re taking it back to the office, Mr Mayor.”

“Is that wise? I mean, it is a sorta burning core of bile and rage.”

“Well, yes,” she sighed. “That’s exactly the problem. It’s the safe-disposal issue. I remember one time, when there was a firedrake summoned in Peckham, and the officers handling the case thought they could just dispose of its bile gland down the sewer and I am telling you, we were scraping off crispy parts for a month, such a mess! So I think we want to avoid that this time. Unless, of course, Mr Mayor, you have an idea?”

From anyone else, it would have been a put-down. Kelly’s face glowed with optimism.

Avoidance seemed only proper. “Where are the Minority Council?”

“Mr Caughey and Mr Fadhil have excused themselves…”

“Cheeky buggers!”

“Ms Holta and Ms Rathnayake are escorting the heart back to the office to assist with the clean-up…”

“Are they supervised?” I snapped.

“Well, there are other Aldermen there,” replied Kelly, a little taken aback. “And besides, I’m sure that everyone understands the necessity of tonight’s situation, the need to deal with this culicidae problem before it got out of hand; everyone’s completely on board with the message, Mr Mayor.”

“And Templeman?”

“Is waiting for you by his car.”

“Good. Do I have a schedule thing?”

She sat back on her heels, wearing an enormous grin, a woman who couldn’t quite believe her ears. “A schedule? Why yes, Mr Mayor, of course you have a schedule, and, in fact, you’ve even got an app to monitor your schedule remotely if you’ll just…”

“Tomorrow afternoon, me, the Minority Council, a sit-down chat, sandwiches, coffee, no guns, no offensive sorcery, several reasonably impartial witnesses—give Dudley Sinclair a call, tell him it’ll be dead miserable and right up his street—maybe a few biscuits—no, maybe a lot of biscuits—sound good?”

“Of course!” She was looking around now for tissues to wipe the gunk off her hands, folding each one into an immaculate triangle when done. “I’ll have it put into your diary and a room booked right away. Any particular kind of biscuits? I mean, I usually get the family selection, something for everyone, but Mr Nair liked butter short
breads and I know that some people think the family selection has too many artificial flavourings…”

“It sounds fine,” I groaned, dragging myself to my feet. How could pain still feel so novel? “No, wait, actually… Can you do custard creams? And those chocolate things; the ones with layers? The ones you break in two and lick the bit in the middle off, you know them?”

“Of course, we can do any biscuit you want…”

“We want those,” we said. “And maybe…”

“Yes?”

“… those kind of cheese twist things…?”

She walked with us, up towards the street, getting out a pen to take notes with as we went on our way.

Templeman was, as promised, by his car.

As I approached, with Kelly taking down the last of tomorrow’s menu, he waited, until she’d scurried off to find a taxi and a catering company still trading at two a.m. The Aldermen began to leave, for whatever duties called them in the cold hours of the night. No one paid us much attention; the assumption seemed to be that if Templeman thought something was okay, it was. Questions were put to me, but answers were looked to from him. The fact that they pretended to ask me anything was an improvement of sorts.

When, finally, we were alone, I said, “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“Making all this happen. Getting them to stick with it and deal with the culicidae. I know they wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t made them.”

“The culicidae was a failure,” he replied. “They would have seen that in time—I merely helped convince them a little faster. Besides, in all good relationships there must be some give and take.”

“I know, I know. I just don’t like committee meetings. Christ, there’ll be minutes, won’t there? And that thing you get where some guy keeps saying ‘can we stick to the agenda please’ and someone else saying ‘if we can just discuss the issues here’ and… God it’ll be crap. Do you think anyone would mind if I ran away?”

“Many people are surprised you haven’t run already,” he said, and added, “I mean, in regard to your other problems, rather than as a personal reflection on your character.”

I groaned. “Oh Christ, yes, the fairy godmother. Hold on—before the good feeling goes…” I felt in my pocket for my phone, flicked it on, dialled Nabeela.

Templeman watched me, and as I listened to it ring he asked, “Someone at this hour?”

“Oh, this social worker who put me on to the culicidae in the first place. I figured she’d want to know it had a happy ending. Sort of.”

The phone kept ringing.

“Maybe she’s asleep,” suggested Templeman. “It is an unsociable hour.”

“Yeah,” I muttered, thumbing off after longer than I’d meant. “Maybe it is at that.”

Then I pulled my phone out again, dialled Penny.

It rang, and kept on ringing.

I let it ring for a whole minute.

Then two.

No answer.

“Problems?” asked Templeman when I hung up to the still busy sound of buzzing.

“Maybe. Maybe not. What were you saying?”

“Would you like a lift? Whatever retribution the fairy
godmother is planning, I’m sure we can keep you safe for a few more hours.”

“That would be good. Thank you. I… no, wait.” I dialled Penny again, let it ring, still no answer, hung up, dialled again, no answer.

“Matthew?” Templeman’s voice was polite and neutral as ever.

“Penny would answer,” I snapped. “She would answer dammit, she would answer! Or if she didn’t, Nabeela would.”

“You think the fairy godmother has them?” he asked quickly.

“I don’t know, I don’t know! Maybe. Jesus, but Penny is… she knows that he’s after me, she’s not thick, she’s got skills, she’s been trained, she summoned the death of cities for Christ’s sake! Wait wait wait…” I stood still, forced us to be still, mind racing. “Wait,” we breathed, taking control. “If the fairy godmother has Penny and Nabeela—which I’m not saying he does—but if he did, then he’d use them against us. He will attempt to trade them for us, their safety for our blood. That means they are unharmed. Which means there’s still a chance.”

Then Templeman softly said, “The fairy godmother won’t give them to you alive.” Our eyes locked onto his as he said, “I have experience dealing with the fairy godmother’s ways. He knows your record, your personality. If he has taken your apprentice, then he knows you must destroy him, that you will destroy him. They aren’t hostages—they’re bait.”

“Bait?” I echoed. Our mind was racing, too much, too many thoughts, all at once, tumbling together. “How the hell does that even work?!”

“He hopes to trick you into submission, into making a mistake. Matthew, you cannot let your personal feelings get in the way of…”

“Damned be to personal feelings and damned be to the Midnight fucking Mayor!” I roared. “She’s my apprentice, she’s my bloody apprentice; I’ve already lost one apprentice and I’m not going to… if he’s got Penny and Nabeela then he’s going to let them go or we swear that he will burn. The dusthouses will burn and we do not care what forces of God or nature he throws up in our way!”

I marched round to the car door and wrenched it open, but Templeman was already there, putting himself in my way. “Listen to me,” he said, and his voice was low, urgent—had I ever heard Templeman urgent before? “I can help you get your apprentice back, I can help you fight the fairy godmother, but you have to listen to me. The dusthouses are powerful but so are you; I have means that will help you, ways to help you bring them down, get your apprentice back, but you have to trust me.”

We dragged in a slow breath, let it out shuddering; and now, when we met his eye, he flinched. “ ‘Did she say anything?’ ” we asked, soft now.

Confusion stirred in his face. His mouth formed a question that wasn’t spoken out loud.

“ ‘Did she say anything?’ ” we repeated. “We said, a beggar escaped from the dusthouse in Enfield. A beggar ran and a beggar died. And you said, ‘Did she say anything?’ Perhaps it was just a slip of the tongue, perhaps that’s the way you think, only it’s not, is it? It’s not how these things work. Even women ask ‘Is he okay?’ as a default position when they don’t know gender; it’s just one of those social things, same the world over.

“And you hate the dusthouses, I mean… really hate them. But that story about your brother, you told it cold, dispassionately, a lecture in bad politics, not a tale of death and horror. What could you have against the dusthouses that is so much worse? To go behind your colleagues, to help me without another thought, to question nothing too far but the right things so specifically…

“Prince made a phone call to an Alderman while I was in his car, did I tell you that? He made a call to check up on the Midnight Mayor and I thought ‘This is it, I’m done for,’ but somehow he heard what he needed to hear and I remember thinking at the time ‘That seems lucky’ and I am not a lucky guy.

“Who ignores the Beggar King, seriously, when he comes knocking and says ‘Someone’s killing my people’? You don’t ignore him, but somehow the Aldermen did, and, say what you will, Templeman, you are great with the Aldermen, I mean, they all look up to you, they all do what you say; it’s an amazing trick you’ve got going and I wish I had it. And yet I’m glad that we don’t.

“And the fairy godmother offered to sell me the name of the man who’d been dabbling in fairy dust behind his back, the man who’s been experimenting, and you know what, I hate the dusthouses for preying on the needy, but we truly despise those who prey on the helpless.”

His breath was coming fast now, short shallow puffs in the cold night air.

“So you see,” we concluded, “we return to this: ‘did she say anything?’ ”

My words hung there.

Stretched.

His face frozen, his breath lingering in the air.

Then he smiled, and it occurred to us that we’d never seen him smile quite like that before.

He said, “I apologise, Matthew. I had hoped we had more time.”

We felt something bite us in the crook of our arm. Small and sharp, so brief we almost ignored it. But Templeman’s eyes had darted aside, and we followed his look.

The hypodermic was thin, barely more than a safety match of clean fluid, the last droplets vanishing through our shirt and into our arm. As I tried to pull free he grabbed my hand, easily as holding a puppy by the throat.

Someone’s knees buckled, and I guessed they were mine.

Someone’s throat was dry, but that was a long, long way off.

Someone was tasting something bitter in their mouth.

Someone was turning out the lights.

Templeman caught us as we fell, eased us down onto tarmac, supported our head as it came to rest against the back of the car.

Not my head.

Someone else.

I heard him say to a stranger, “I’m sorry, Matthew,” and it occurred that Matthew might be me, “you can’t save yourself.”

That was all.

Waking, we thought we were with Meera.

Her flat had been near Waterloo Bridge.

The night we stayed, a south wind had carried the sound of the trains in the early morning.

Her fridge contained a microwave chicken tikka, a lump of goat’s cheese past its best, a half-bottle of nonde
script “tropical fruit drink” and two eggs. Breakfast had been a sausage sandwich from the greasy spoon across the street.