The Minority Council (48 page)

The oldest streets of London hadn’t been built for heavy traffic. On crooked lanes and narrow alleys, between grand office blocks, lay patches of ground too small even for Londoners to build upon. I led Kelly to one of these places, where wooden benches stood near a tiny fountain shaded by pleached lime trees. She sat down, swivelled to face me, and declared, “Now, first things first, Mr Mayor, crayfish with rocket or halloumi and couscous salad?”

A plastic bag was opened as she proclaimed this, and the objects of the moment brought forth along with a bottle of water, a bright green apple, and an oatmeal bar.

I ate like a deprived animal, taste forgotten, volume all that mattered.

Through the crumbs and bits of damp salad, I mumbled, “Well? Where?”

“Would you like a napkin, Mr Mayor?”

“No! Where are they?”

“How about a lemon-scented hand wipe…”

“Kelly!”

She managed not to sigh, folding her hands in her lap. “I’ve got good news and bad news, Mr Mayor. I hope you don’t mind if I start with the bad news, but my mother always told me to get the bad news first, eat the things you don’t like before the pudding, and always try to do at least one unpleasant task per day so that it doesn’t have to prey on your mind when you go to sleep at night, and obviously at the time I thought she was talking utter nonsense but now I realise that she was right. But anyway, yes, the bad news: Templeman has disappeared.”

I paused on my last bite of sandwich. Then lowered it, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and said, cold and quiet, “ ‘Disappeared’?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “Isn’t it funny how these things happen? I mean, at first he was just ‘late for work,’ but then Templeman’s never late for work, is he? Then he was ‘not answering the phone’ and then he was ‘definitely not at home’ and then it was ‘by now he should have called’ and then he was ‘not at the local hospital’ and then he was ‘heavily warded from scrying attempts by a mass reflective shield spell’ and then he was ‘evading authorities’ and then, I suppose, by a process of elimination, he was ‘disappeared.’ The police like these things to take forty-eight hours before they say as much, but you know, I think, considering the circumstances, we can maybe, just this once, but maybe, skip the procedural stuff? So long as it doesn’t become a habit, I mean.”

“And you’re telling me,” I said, “that the Aldermen, psycho-bastards extraordinaire, can’t find him? That one guy, one murderous, murdering, murderer guy, can evade the lot of you?”

“Embarrassing, isn’t it?” she conceded. “But then again, you did, didn’t you, Mr Mayor? In your time. Which isn’t to say that he’s at all like you, I think even the Minority Council would admit that experimenting on beggars and betraying us all to the fairy godmother is, you know, a little out there… I’m just saying, it can be done, by exceptionally talented individuals. We aren’t Jedi.” She paused to blow her nose on a small white linen handkerchief. As she folded it neatly again she exclaimed, “In fact, you know, a few people are beginning to wonder where you are. And I mean, I am just your PA, it’s really
not within my remit to authorise the kind of operation I had to put in hand to track down Templeman and besides, no one can quite believe he’d do all that stuff, I mean, a lot of people are really quite fond of him, so actually, all things considered, it might be handy if you… maybe… told someone yourself? Which isn’t to say I can’t handle it, I’m completely on it, but, um… it’s just a thought.”

I stared at her, long and hard, until she turned away. Then I said, “Fuck it,” stood up, and marched over to the nearest bit of blank wall. I licked the end of my grimy finger, and on the stone surface began to write.

I wrote:

THEY THINK HE’S INNOCENT.

YOU BELIEVE THAT OR WHAT?

This done, I stepped back.

Where my finger had run across the wall, it had left a barely perceptible ashen mark.

A moment, a pause.

Then the mark began to deepen. It turned grey, grey-black, then solid coal-dust black, smoking black, burnt black, burning its way into the stone itself, giving off a dry, carbon smoke as it etched itself in deep.

We smiled and turned back to Kelly. “Someone will be by soon,” I explained, “to let the Aldermen know that they’re twats. What next?”

“Um… may I ask, Mr Mayor, exactly why you don’t just tell us personally that we’re twats? I mean, obviously you’re a great inspiration to us all and I’m honoured to be working with you, but you’re not exactly renowned for not telling people that they’re twats when you think that they are, if you don’t mind me saying.”

I sat back down on the bench and ticked the points off
on my fingers. “Finger the first says that Templeman must have had help if he took my Penny.

“Finger the second says that help was probably from the Minority Council.

“Finger the third says that I still don’t know who was or was not Minority Council and therefore can’t necessarily trust a single one of you.

“Finger the fourth says that the fairy godmother is gonna be pissed at me and hunting and guess where he’s gonna look? Nowhere is safer than the streets, nowhere more dangerous than prancing around in black.

“Thumb the after-thought adds, everything the Aldermen have done up to this point disgusts and repulses me: the culicidae, the fairy dust, everything; and I would rather trust in the enemies of my enemies than put my trust in those who tell me that they are friend.”

Silence.

Then, “But you… trust me?”

“I dunno. Guess I must.”

The moment paused, wobbled on the tightrope, flailed its arms around, and moved on. Kelly’s face split into a delighted grin. “Oh, Mr Mayor!”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Obviously it’s important for a PA and her employer to have a mutual understanding, a relationship of openness and appreciation, but I had heard so many things, so many people had warned me off and, you know, they were completely wrong! Positive thinking
can
win the day, a cheerful attitude towards all the world’s vicissitudes, free and frank discussion, good sandwiches, decent coffee, these are the principles on which modern management should be based!”

I took a deep breath, let the words wash by. “You mentioned good news,” I intoned. “Talk to me about the good.”

“Good… ah, yes, good news! Yes, well, I’m sure this will help a bit in brightening up your day, Mr Mayor…”

“Something should.”

“… we found Mr Caughey.”

I sat up straight, food and drink forgotten. “Where?”

“Weybridge.”

“Weybridge? What the bloody hell—no, actually, never mind, don’t care. Have you approached him?”

“Not at all. I mean, I’ve been very discreet, it’s all been ‘Hey, has anyone seen Caughey?’ and ‘I’ve got this memo for Caughey’ instead of ‘I think the boss wants to throttle him’ or anything like that, because you know how it is, people might take that the wrong way and no one likes office politics do they, I mean, it only makes for friction, but anyway. And I did a bit of scrying—not really my thing but you know how it is—and he’s shielding but I realised that if I used his office keyboard, then there’s all this hair and skin and stuff between the keys, it’s really gross actually, I mean, things breed in there, but… you don’t really want to know about how I scryed for him, do you?”

“Maybe another time.”

“In that case, um… Weybridge.” She handed me a folded scrap of paper. It bore an address written in the bold capitals of the very neat dealing with the genetically messy. “He’s got this mistress who has this amazing house that she got from her second divorce and it’s got this amazing garden and I think you can play golf near there on this incredible course which you need these little
buggies to get round, but anyway, he went there and I think Lucy Holta’s with him and you know, the Minority Council are probably gonna have dinner there or something because they’re keeping their heads down after you shouted at them last night, so, um… you know, you could just say ‘Avengers Assemble!’ or something and we’d be like, in there. I mean, I know how you can’t trust Aldermen right now because of how you’ve been screwed over by the Minority Council, but I really think that Sean in finance would definitely be on board for something and, you know, Louis in the Department of Demons, Shades and Shadows always said that Caughey was ‘this totally stuck-up prick and I hate guys like that,’ and you’ve got me!”

If Kelly had owned a golden fluffy tail, it would have taken this opportunity to wag.

I found myself almost smiling. “That’s… very nice of you,” I said. “But if it’s okay with you, just this once, I’ll handle things… another way.”

“If you’re sure…?”

“I’m sure.”

“I just feel like I’m not being very helpful…”

“You found Caughey.”

“Yes, but like I said and, really, once you’ve got the keyboard it’s all downhill from there anyway and besides, you’re not eating right.”

“Thinking of which…”

She was already reaching in her bag, pulling out a purse. It was small, clip-closed, made of woven white and purple beads formed into a tulip pattern. She saw my face and blushed. “It was a present,” she explained. “From my mother.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

She opened the purse and passed me every note inside it.

“I don’t need…” I began.

“Yes, you do!”

“It’s… he asked, ‘Can you walk without pride?’ and you did say these are the vestments of the Beggar King; it’s…”

She put her hand to her mouth in sudden comprehension and snatched the money back. “Oh God!” she exclaimed. “You’re so right, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t even thinking, you’re wearing the sacred vestments! Wait a moment…” The notes were stuffed into her pocket and the purse itself tipped out into the palm of her hand. Coppers were separated from silver, silver from tarnished not-ever-gold. She sorted through the smallest change, eventually picking out nearly six pounds fifty, which she dropped into my open hand. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I sometimes forget how these things work, you know, I mean, it’s like inviting a troll to munch on ogre bones, it’s completely disgraceful and I’m so, so…”

“Thank you, I’m… I’m grateful. I know it seems like… but I am grateful. For what you’re doing.”

She beamed. “Just doing my job, Mr Mayor.”

“No,” I replied, tipping the fistful of coins into the seemingly bottomless pocket of my coat. “No—much more than that. I’ll be in touch.”

Weybridge.

Did the citizens of Weybridge even get to vote in London elections?

On the train out of Waterloo it was harder to stay
unseen; the magic of the Beggar King was only solid in the street, in places where you were expected, and expected to be ignored. Here I was an anomaly, and people glanced at me with polite uncertainty. I had a group of six seats to myself, three facing three, and a table just big enough to lean on. A free newspaper, the crossword puzzle torn out, offered
Saucy Celebrity Gossip
and advice on
New, In, Chic—Get The Look For Your Home.

Small factories and frugal-looking streets gave way to semi-detached villas, then golf courses and wooded commons. At Weybridge I was one of four people and a baby in a buggy who got off. The sun shone with winter clarity on a platform far too long for our suburban train. Outside the station, a wall-map included the road whose name Kelly had given me.

I walked.

It was a place where the magic of the city stretched thin.

Still there, still just there, but like the sound of the ocean heard beyond a towering dune, the smell of salt though you cannot see the water. We were close to the green belt, far too close for comfort; to that place where the magic of the city and the country met like hot and cold air riding a storm front. We knew of country magic, could sometimes even feel it, in the raw power of the wind on the cliff, or the rustling of leaves in the forest, but it was a thing alien to us, distant and untapped. Outside the comfort of walls and light, we were vulnerable, mortal.

At first there was no sign of any town, or even a suburb. The station seemed surrounded by forest. I followed a road that took me through a dense oak wood—but not past anywhere you might confuse with real countryside. A
wide pavement lay on either side, and the traffic was fast and heavy. I passed bus shelters for routes across the centre of London, as well as notices declaring, “Bridleway.” The paths beneath the trees looked as if hundreds of people, dogs and riding-school ponies trampled them each day.

I came to an area of large houses, many on roads announcing, “No Thoroughfare” and “Private Estate.” In some windows, half hidden by trees, I glimpsed Neighbourhood Watch stickers; with a shudder, I also saw a large black-and-white image showing a large, watching eye.

Three doors down, the words running in thin white paint, someone had written on a garage door:

It has claws

After more than a mile of turnings that announced names like Cedar Grove and Forest Chase, I came to the quiet side road I was looking for. It looked much like all the others. The house was pastiche Georgian, in the style of much smaller new homes on more crowded estates; it looked like it was made from giant plastic Lego, and included a three-car garage with white automatic doors. It stood in a half-acre of recently cleared woodland, and had a professionally tended garden of mown grass and dwarf conifers. An ugly rockery featured floodlights and a small electrically operated cascade.