The Minority Council (47 page)

I found a doorway where I could huddle out of the wind, and away from the watching eye of the CCTV cameras.

Kelly strode into the square a few seconds behind me, walked by as if I wasn’t there, then paused, bent down to check something in her briefcase, couldn’t seem to find it, cursed quietly under her breath and, in a single movement that was all innocent frustration, moved into the gloom beside me, every inch the harried businesswoman accidentally sharing a corner with a stranger.

Without glancing at me, and with no change to her expression as she searched through her case, she exclaimed, “Good morning, Mr Mayor! May I say how glad I am to see you not dead today!”

“Morning, Kelly,” I groaned.

“You’re not here for your 9.30 are you?”

“My…”

“You have an appointment at 9.30 with representatives from the Church of Our Lady of 4 a.m.; something to do with a missing goddess and a dog. It
was
on your schedule.”

“I’m really not here for that.”

“Ah, well,” she said, snapping the briefcase shut and
glancing up, just once, with a gaze that encompassed the entire square. “I’m sure we can rearrange; did I mention that last night every scryer we have woke up screaming in the night, reporting symptoms ranging from an overwhelming sense of dread through to actual visions of death and destruction raining down upon the earth? I sent you an email, but I wasn’t sure if you’d got it.”

“Funny thing, I kinda haven’t.”

She barely flinched, smiling her way through her disappointment. “Something to do with—and I apologise for the vagueness of the details—a creature of light and fire suddenly becoming manifest on the earth and attempting to rip the heavens into hell, unleash damnation upon the earth and so on; you know I really must talk to the scryers about finding more precise and less melodramatic language in their reports, it only encourages hysteria.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“They said it was in Heron Quays.”

“Well if I was going to bring about Armageddon, that’d be the place.”

“It went away again,” she concluded. “Although, funny thing is, someone did mention something about the fairy godmother having some sort of investment interests in Heron Quays, I think there was a row with the council about building permissions for a swimming pool or something, anyway, this probably isn’t helping you, I’ll have someone check with the planning office.”

She finished, the words all coming out in one breath, and, for the first time, turned and looked directly at me, her smile widening. “Mr Mayor,” she exclaimed, having surveyed my present state, “have I ever spoken to you about the wonders of a health spa?”

“No.”

“They’re wonderful!”

“Really.”

“I have a friend who does aromatherapy.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mr Mayor,” she chided. “Last night someone unleashed magical forces like unto which the city has rarely seen, you stopped answering your phone and are now, if I may say so, dressed as a beggar in both body and magic, hiding outside your own office… How about acupuncture?”

“Templeman took Penny.”

The words happened a long way off.

Kelly’s smile stayed fixed, but the light went out behind her eyes. Then even the smile began to fade. She looked down, bobbing her head as if to ease the digestion of this news. Finally she said, “Why?”

“He’s been using fairy dust to conduct experiments on beggars. Making concoctions to enhance magical capabilities without killing the subject. He tried one on me. It’s got a few side-effects.”

“Are you all right?” she asked. “I mean, alternative medicine is all very well and good, but I really do think that MRIs are one of the most astounding scientific achievements of the age.”

“I’m… fine.”

“You say that, Mr Mayor!” she exclaimed. “But you say it in your special brave voice and, you know, I’m really not sure if I can trust your special brave voice these days because, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mr Mayor, there’s a very thin line between being brave and six months of physiotherapy and liquid foods.”

“Kelly! Please! I need you to listen.”

She pursed her lips, and raised her eyebrows at me to go on.

“Templeman,” I tried again, “did it. The culicidae, the Minority Council, fairy dust—he’s there, just out of sight, moving through it all. He took Penny.”

“Why? Why would he do that?”

It came out flat and fast now, tick-tack-tock, sharp and cold. “He was being blackmailed by the fairy godmother. The dusthouses supplied Templeman with the initial dust for his experiments, and in return the fairy godmother got what he thought was a tame Alderman in his pocket, someone he could rely on to do whatever he wanted and turn a blind eye.

“That’s why, for so long, the Aldermen have been ignoring the dusthouses, why Templeman didn’t dare move openly.

“Then along I come, and I start kicking up a fuss and the Beggar King gets involved and, suddenly, Templeman sees an opportunity to get rid of the fairy godmother without actually getting his hands dirty because what am I?

“I am dangerous,” I spat the words, “unstable, reckless, quite possibly psychotic, the kind of Midnight Mayor about whom your hard-working Alderman can say ‘I tried to stop him, I really did, but he’s just out of control.’

“Templeman used me. He used me to destroy the dusthouse in Soho, and he wanted to use me to kill the fairy godmother, to end Oscar Kramb’s hold over him without ever alerting the Aldermen to the fact that he, Richard Templeman, is a traitor.

“He sent us to kill the fairy godmother and we… we were… it was… I could have done it. I could have I could
have killed him, we could have killed them all, I could have and I… he took Penny. He took Penny and let me believe that the godmother had her, let me believe that she was dead she’s dead she’s dead she’s…” I choked on the words, pressed my hands, tasting of ash, over my mouth to stop the sound.

Kelly put a hand on our arm, trying to say words she couldn’t find.

“Where is he?” I asked at length. “Where is Templeman?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s at the office. I can find out.”

“He’s dangerous.”

“You said he’s killed beggars?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’s violated his contract. I mean, we don’t like to talk about it, but sometimes Aldermen have to do jobs that would cause gossip at the Met Police; but beggars… and the Beggar King, I’m guessing he’s annoyed?”

“You could say so.”

“But he gave you his sacred vestments—that was sweet.”

I glanced down at the ragged clothes I wore. After a while, I’d even stopped noticing the smell, forgot what I was wearing. “These?” I asked.

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “I mean, it’s not my field, obviously not, it’s not something I really specialise in, but I can recognise the blessed vestments of the austere and ignorant masters when I see them—you know, they’d fetch an amazing price with the collectors. If you don’t mind the curse that would befall you if you tried selling them, that is.”

In vain I tried to process Kelly’s words. I said, “There’s something else I need.”

“Of course, Mr Mayor, anything at all!”

“I need the culicidae’s heart.” Though her smile stayed locked in place, her lips thinned. “What?” I asked, harsher than I’d meant. “What’s the new disaster?”

“The culicidae’s heart…” she began. “Now, about that… Mr Caughey and Ms Holta took it.”

I pressed my head back against the wall, closing my eyes against the rising glare of the day. “I’ve been gone for less than twelve hours—
less than twelve
—and already two prats in black have gone and pinched one of the nastiest bits of magical pollution in the city?”

“Um, that would appear to be the case.”

“Kelly, I’m going to use my special authoritative voice, and I want you to know this, so that when I actually do use it, you’ll understand exactly what it is and not say anything annoying, or flap or ask stupid bloody questions; are you ready?”

“Yes, Mr Mayor,” she confirmed. “Authoritate away.”

“
Find them
. Find me the culicidae’s heart, find me the Minority Council. And Kelly?”

“Yes, Mr Mayor?”

“Find me Templeman.”

Kelly set to work.

At least, I assumed she did.

From outside the office, huddled in the shadows, it was hard to tell.

Businessmen and businesswomen passed me by and spared me not a glance.

A city constable on a bicycle, yellow jacket pulled over
his bulletproof vest, paused on the corner beside me, and looked down, and round, and through me, as if I wasn’t there, and looked bemused, and cycled on.

(“But he gave you his sacred vestments—that was sweet.”)

A pair of tourists stopped not a foot in front of me and argued furiously in Spanish about the way to St Paul’s. A child was with them. She was no more than four years old, and proudly wore a striped purple and green hat with knitted braids hanging down by each ear. She looked me in the eye and grinned. I smiled back. Her parents pulled her on, in not quite the right direction.

I sat until I was too cold and stiff to sit any more.

My knees clicked like castanets as I clambered to my feet.

The CCTV cameras looked away as I approached, moving to stare at an empty wall or a quiet street.

Though it was hard sometimes to recognise, through the plate glass and sounds of traffic, this was the oldest part of the city, where every bollard bore twin red crosses, the mark of the Lord Mayor of London, responsible for daylight things, and the Midnight Mayor, lumbered with all the rest.

Look hard enough and you could maybe perceive the anomaly of things beneath the surface. When life started moving to the cities, magic came with it, and when the magic started moving, so did all the creatures that lived within it. If you wait until the dead, dead hours of the night, when the only texture on earth is street-lamp glow, you might see the metal of an ornate lamppost part and the grey-skinned city dryads peep out into the darkness from their wiry home.

There, above a stone doorway built by men who
believed in empire and cricket, the statue of a woman in classical drapes, face turned downwards to mourn an unknown loss and whose stone eyes, which should be sandstone beige, are framed with redness from weeping.

And just below the artificial waterfall that glides down black marble into a pool beneath an iron grid, a shadow moves in the water that might be an infant kelpie, its skin the colour of the copper coins, tossed in with a wish, on which it feeds.

Had I told Penny about kelpies?

Of course I bloody had; I mean, how do you miss telling someone about kelpies? Once creatures of the sea and shore, worshipped by the fishermen who taught their children how to whistle to secret songs, they had migrated first up the rivers, then the streams, then into the drains, then the pipes, then the fountains and secret pools of the cities, adapting to their new environment as readily as the elves had taken up casino management and the dwarves had learnt a love of the London Underground.

I’d told her.

Just because I couldn’t remember, didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

On Cheapside a security guard stood in the door of a delicatessen.

The windows were full of shining, egg-painted pastries and fresh breads.

The smell of rising hot yeast was being pumped through the store.

Men and women sat drinking coffee topped with whipped milk and sprinkles. I stood in the window, hands pressed against the glass, and watched the steam rise and fall around my fingertips with each pulse of my heart.

The security guard’s eyes swept over me and did not see; but his nose twitched and his back stiffened as he detected the stink of my beggar’s clothes. His gaze turned on me again and, now that he looked to see, he saw, with a look of instinctive hostility.

I ducked my head and walked on.

(“Can you walk without pride?”)

Hunger, thirst.

They must have been coming for a long while, but the sight of others eating and drinking brought such feelings to the fore.

I thought about the soup kitchen at Tottenham Court Road. Where did a guy even get a drink round here for less than ten quid?

I thought about stealing.

It would be easy—so easy—not an alarm would trip, not an eye would flicker; this was still my city, and I stood at its heart.

(“You’re one of us now. Don’t screw it up.”)

Maybe not stealing.

Not today.

What was Kelly doing?

Where was Templeman?

I drifted back towards Guildhall, sat down in a doorway out of the wind, and waited.

Kelly Shiring didn’t come out of the office until half past two.

She walked briskly to Guildhall and, not seeing me there, paused to check her mobile phone, using this ploy to scan the square, seeking me out. I detached myself from the opposite side of the street, walked up behind her, then straight on past. Her eyes locked onto my back and,
with a sigh at some unseen annoyance on her mobile phone, she fell into step behind me, keeping a careful distance.