The Clown Service (18 page)

‘Ah … But here’s the problem. As you say, we’ve both been playing this game for a long time. If I give you the information you want, I become dispensable. Not what I’d want at all.’

‘But maybe I’ll kill you anyway?’

‘Maybe you will. Either way I seem to be staring death in the face. Any advice on how I deal with it? You being a man with experience.’

‘Yes, I know all about death, August. I know how to receive it and how to give it.’

‘I wonder which side of that equation you’ll end up today.’

‘I too wonder … Perhaps we should find out?’

Shining’s contact within the Met was not what I imagined. My experience of the police had been having to handle jaded lifers– men who wore their years served with the same apathy as they did their tired suits and ties. After this, plainclothes detective Geeta Sahni was a breath of fresh air.

She met me a short distance from St Mathew’s. I could see the police tape and the predictable gaggle of journalists sniffing around it, digital cameras poised to snatch a juicy morsel of death for their pages.

I had expected she’d take some convincing to talk to me. Shining had clearly built a strong sense of loyalty with his assets and I was not the man she had been hoping to see. And yet she was only too happy.

‘About time he had a bit of help,’ she said, and that was it.

‘I thought it best if we kept our distance,’ Detective Sahni said. ‘There’s little left to see on site anyway – we had to let the CSEs
clear everything away. The last thing the brass wants is to see pictures of Jimmy Hodgkins all over the news. They’ve spent the last few weeks going on about how violent crime numbers have dropped over the last twelve months; pictures of a bloke with his skull beaten to a thick broth are “against the current promotional agenda”.’

‘I bet they are. What was it about the scene that made you think of us?’

‘Oh it’s a weird one, no doubt about that.’ She pulled out a USB drive and handed it to me. ‘I copied all the images I could – they’re not nice. Body was found by a dog walker at seven o’clock this morning. He chucked up all over the steps, which was lovely, and then gave us a call. The dead man’s name is Jimmy Hodgkins. Worked in advertising.’

‘No wonder someone wanted to kill him.’

‘I seriously doubt the attack was personal.’

‘You said his head was bashed in.’

‘Absolutely pulverised; nothing above the neck but burger meat.’

‘Sounds pretty personal to me.’

‘You’d think so, but there’s no way the attacker could have known him.’

‘You know who did it?’

‘No doubt at all. He was found a few streets away covered in the victim’s blood. Only one problem: he was dead.’

‘Maybe Hodgkins got a lick in early, a fatal wound that eventually took effect?’

‘No. You misunderstand me: the attacker was dead
before
Hodgkins. A long time before. Fifty years before in fact.’

OK, so that had my attention. ‘Explain.’

‘It seems impossible – which is why I called you, of course – but the attacker seems to be a man called Harry Reid; died of heart failure in 1963. Buried in St Mathew’s churchyard where, by all accounts, he had the good grace to stay. Until last night.’

‘You’re saying the other body was already a corpse?’

‘A remarkably strange one. The skin is almost like plastic, as if it’s been varnished for preservation. One of the CSEs touched its cheek and it cracked like porcelain.

‘It took us some time to confirm the identity. It would have taken even longer if not for a leap of logic on the part of one of the investigating officers.’ She smiled. ‘That would be me, in case you were wondering. Right next to the body of Jimmy Hodgkins was an open grave. I cross-checked the identity of the body interred there with the attacker, expecting there to be some link. What I wasn’t expecting was that it would turn out to be the same person. Can you blame me?’

I shook my head.

‘It looks – and I know how this sounds so please don’t argue – as if Harry Reid pulled himself out of his grave, picked up a rock and battered Jimmy Hodgkins to death. Reid then promptly ran up the street and got hit by a bus. The majority of his body was found, still writhing, under the rear left tyre. What’s left of him is currently strapped onto a gurney and defying all medical knowledge at the mortuary. It’s still
moving
. As is its right leg, even though it was severed on impact.’

I had no idea what to say to that. Neither did she. She just shrugged. ‘Like I said,
impossible
. There’s something else too …’

‘Oh good, I was beginning to think it all seemed too straightforward.’

‘There was a word, written in Hodgkins’ blood, daubed over the tombstone next to his body.’ She pulled out her mobile, scrolled through her images folder and showed me a picture of the word:

Чернозем

‘Russian,’ she said, ‘Apparently it translates as “Black Earth”.’

I’d picked up my mobile from Oman before heading out of the office. Now, walking away from the Aldgate crime scene and the disturbing light it cast on things, I couldn’t resist turning on the app and hearing the countdown once more.

‘
Nine hundred and fifty one, five, five, seven
…’ it intoned.

The countdown would reach zero at midday on the 31st. Was that time significant? The fact that it was precisely midday was portentous; it suggested that the countdown had been precisely timed. Was it timed to coincide with something in particular or was it simply a threat in and of itself? No. We’d triggered the countdown by entering the warehouse, that much seemed clear. So the timing had to be a coincidence. I tried not to let my imagination run away with me. The business of Section 37 naturally leans towards the fantastical and dramatic, but it would be a mistake to jump to firm conclusions just yet. Had the body of a long-dead man been not only strangely preserved but reanimated? Was that the threat of Operation Black Earth?

I called April.

‘Darling, I can’t work miracles. You’ve only been gone an hour. I haven’t found anything yet.’

‘It’s all right. I hadn’t expected you to. I want you to look
into something else though.’ I told her about what I’d found at the crime scene.

‘How ghastly. So you need me to look into anything similar?’

‘I do. Might any of those bragged-about connections of yours extend to someone who could give us post-mortem information?’

‘Oh yes, I know just the man.’

‘Then once you’ve finished there, I need you to get me the details on both Hodgkins and Reid. If the latter really did dig himself out of a fifty-year old grave, and now refuses to go back in one, we need to know.’

‘I can’t see how anyone could dig their way out of a grave. Surely it’s physically impossible?’

I’d already thought about that and where my thoughts led didn’t please me. ‘It’d only be physically impossible if the person doing the digging was troubled by such things as
needing to breathe
. Just because the body was unnaturally preserved doesn’t mean anything else was. The casket would have rotted away long ago. I’m not saying it would have been quick. I imagine, dead or not, it would be a long business pulling your way up through several feet of earth but it
could
be possible.’ I laughed at what I was saying. ‘Possible! What am I talking about? You know what I mean … it’s possible within the fucked-up remit of this section.’

‘I understand.’ She paused. ‘He was right about you.’

‘Who was?’

‘August. He said you showed potential.’ She hung up, leaving me feeling both patronised and complimented.

So what next?

I sat down outside a coffee shop, trying to collate everything I knew into something coherent.

Fifty years ago, Shining had been investigating an operation known as Black Earth. The man leading that operation had died and yet now seemed active again. He was not alone in that, as Jimmy Hodgkins had discovered to his cost. So – and I gritted my teeth as the fantasies piled on top of one another – if I accepted the fact that death might not be the inarguable full stop any sane man would consider it, Black Earth had something to do with reanimating the dead. To do what? On the evidence of Harry Reid, it seemed mindless violence was the goal. But what was the point of that? Disturbing, yes, but not in itself world-shattering. Jimmy Hodgkins might have had something to say on that score, but it was my job to look at the bigger picture. Presumably, when the countdown finished, something massive was expected to occur, something game-changing.

Krishnin had taken Shining. Where to? How did you simply vanish into thin air? That one was beyond me.

What had we seen during Derek Lime’s experiment with time? I had recognised someone. I was sure of that. A familiar face amongst the crowd of men who had been working for Krishnin. I tried to bring the face to mind but the memory was elusive. It had only been a brief glance, not long enough to commit the man to memory. Perhaps that was the wrong way of looking at things, though. I was new at Section 37. My experience was limited. How could I have recognised someone? Was it something I had seen in the handful of reports I had read? No. I had recognised the man because I had
met
him. And, having settled on that, the whole thing fell into place.

I headed back towards King’s Cross.

It took Gavrill some time to answer his door. This didn’t surprise me. I had no doubt his tardiness had little to do with his old age.

‘Yes?’ he asked, looking at me as if he didn’t recognise me, a calculated and admirable impression of a vague old man, fearful of what a knock on the door might bring.

‘We met yesterday morning,’ I told him. ‘I was in the company of August Shining. You remember, I’m sure?’

‘August?’ He pretended he was trying to remember.

‘Give it a rest,’ I said, pushing my way past him and stepping inside his flat. ‘You know exactly who I am. You took over the Russian department for …’ I realised I had no idea what the counterpart to Section 37 had been called, ‘preternatural affairs? I’m sure you lot would have given it a much more longwinded title. Doesn’t matter. You took over some time after Olag Krishnin’s death in the ’60s.’

‘I’m not sure I …’

‘Shut up, I haven’t time. The thing is: you knew Krishnin, didn’t you?’

I continued moving through the flat, wanting to make sure we were alone. Gavrill took that opportunity to make a break for it. I wasn’t worried. Oh, I swore like a trooper as I dashed out onto the balcony after him, but the day a seventy-year-old man manages to give me the slip I’ll accept any harsh criticism my superiors offer and retire.

I caught up with him on the stairwell, offering as reassuring a smile as I could to a woman peering at us through the window to her apartment.

‘Come on, Dad,’ I said at some volume, ‘you don’t want to cause a scene, do you? You’ll only embarrass yourself.’

He sighed and gave a nod. ‘Fine, we’ll talk. I don’t want any more trouble.’

I led him back to the open door of his flat, pushed him inside and closed and locked the door behind us.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m an old man; all of that is a long time ago. Ask Shining – he knows. I’m retired. I’m a UK citizen now, and I don’t want to go raking all that up.’

‘You mean you don’t want your comfy lifestyle threatened by past crimes?’

‘Crimes? I committed no crimes. You know. This work we do – it’s above all that. We do what our country tells us; we’re tools not ideologists.’

‘You’re clearly not, or you wouldn’t have moved here. Or are you still working for your old employers?’

He sighed and settled down into a ratty-looking armchair, gesturing for me to do the same. ‘My old employers? Who are they? My country is gone. Russia is a new world, full of businessmen and crooks. Who can tell the difference? In the ’80s we stood against your Thatcher and Reagan, said we had principles. Bullshit. We’ve become the same. I don’t care. Like I say, I was never an ideologist. Life is more comfortable here.’

‘I’m glad you like it. So tell me about Krishnin.’

‘He was a monster. Mad. We disowned him even before he was shot.’

‘What about Operation Black Earth? Was that a state-backed operation?’

He looked at me in genuine discomfort. ‘You know about that?’

‘Not as much as I’d like. Why do you think I’m here?’

He rubbed his face with his hands. Whether this was an attempt to prevaricate or because he found the subject hard to discuss was neither here nor there. I didn’t care how difficult he found it. He was going to tell me everything he knew.

‘We need a drink,’ he said.

‘This isn’t a social visit.’

‘I don’t care.
I
need one if I’m going to talk about this. I would suggest you need one if you’re going to hear it, but that’s up to you.’

I reluctantly agreed – anything to get the old Russian’s mouth working. Of course, I needn’t have worried on that score: like all these old buggers, once he started talking I thought he’d never stop.

April Shining got out of her taxi, paid the fare to the penny (she considered having to listen to the driver’s loathsome views on racial immigration more than sufficient by way of a tip) and made her way down Morrison Close.

At the far end stood number thirteen, looking out on this dull bit of South London with dirty, apathetic windows. The small front garden was an unruly cultivation of grasses boxed in by privet. The front gate seemed determined not to let her in but she’d got past better security in her time. April Shining prided herself that there was not a building in the land that could keep her out if she was on form. She had once dropped in on Tony Blair to give him a piece of her mind and ended up staying for a distinctly awkward afternoon tea. If you were forced to describe her in one word you would likely fall back on ‘indomitable’ but you would consider ‘terrifying’, ‘incorrigible’ and ‘dangerous’ first.

Unlike her brother, April hadn’t followed a linear path through the Civil Service. She had flitted from one department to another, from the foreign office to a brief position in the Cabinet. She had dallied in various offices, embassies and battlefields during a long and amusing life. She had retired into a small flat in
Chiswick with nothing but a state pension and an irascible cat to while away her dotage. This had been in character, revealing what little value she placed on social progression, how uninterested she was in encumbering herself with possessions.