Wolf in Shadow-eARC (34 page)

Jameson made one of his rare visits to his office. Settling himself comfortably in his leather chair, he lifted his feet onto the desk and proceeded to go through the files on Shternberg. It was possible that might find something hitherto overlooked. The information provided by Inspector Fowler was particularly detailed, but, unfortunately, most of those details would be irrelevant. The task that faced him was like looking for a yellow peg in a sea of ripened wheat.

One little nugget of information caught his eye. Shternberg was a Freemason. This was not in itself suspicious. Many small-town businessmen, tradesmen, professionals, and local administrators spent a great deal of time exchanging funny handshakes and doing each other favors down, at the lodge but Shternberg was not a small-town sort of person.

Freemasonry had been innocent of involvement with paranormal entities or magic for some centuries, since Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati lodge was suppressed in 1784 by the Elector of Bavaria. Adam Weishaupt was of course an alias—Adam, the first man, and Weishaupt, wise head. His real identity was unknown, but he was definitely buried in Gotha. Suggestions that he was also known as George Washington were pure conspiracy theory.

Shternberg was a member of Lodge 492, known as the Guild of Bankers. That was unsurprising, given his line of work. However, he was also a member of the Badford Lodge in Essex, motto
alter ipse amicus
—a friend is another self. Jameson wondered why a city financier would bother with a bunch of Essex Masons who would be concerned mainly with flogging each other dodgy Fords from the Dagenham Works. He also wondered why Fowler should have drawn his attention to the matter. He had learned to trust Fowler’s instincts.

He glanced idly down the list of other lodge members. Many of them were members of the Metropolitan Police serving in East London. Of course, like taxi drivers, many East London policemen lived in Essex. There they could afford to purchase their own homes, something impossible in London on a policeman’s salary. He was not surprised to see Inspector Drudge on the list, nor the name of Charlie Parkes. Gangsters and Met policemen had an unfortunate tendency to belong to the same lodges. Campaigning journalists exposed this fact every decade or so, and politicians tutted. Not that it did the slightest good.

Fowler had put a star by one name, Frank Mitchell. Jameson thumbed through to the appendices at the back of the report, where he found an entire section on Mitchell, including photos. Officially, he was a pillar of Badford society, living in a gruesome detached luxury modern mansion in Chingford. It was a style which would have looked more at home in Dallas, the television program, not the city.

Unofficially, the man was better known as Mad Mitch, or Fearsome Frankie. He was the head of the Essex Mob that ran the recreational drug business from the West End to Southend, that is, from the sublime to the ridiculous. They controlled the import, transport, and retail of cocaine and ecstasy from the continent through small Essex ports into London. Anyone doing business of a certain brand in East London paid a tithe to the Essex Mob, in blood if not cash. Generous contributions to unofficial police hardship funds kept the authorities off their backs.

Jameson laughed out loud. Shternberg’s value to the spooks at MI6 was obvious. He must have the black on half the people in The City by supplying them with Colombian marching powder. Shternberg would be the financial backer behind the Essex mob. No doubt the man’s original and mysterious source of wealth lay in the drug trade.

Shternberg kept a private light aircraft at City airport and had a pilot’s license. They must have been very useful when he started out and had a more “hands-on” engagement in the drug rackets. Light aircraft were a ridiculously easy way of moving packages and people across the Channel without unduly adding to the workload of Her Majesty’s officials by going through Customs.

Not that this got Jameson any further forward. There had always been corruption and crime in London, and there always would be. None of this was The Commission’s problem. Jameson closed the file with a sigh. It was getting late, and Karla would be getting hyper and bored. A bored Karla was likely to get into trouble, so he decided to call it a day.

Rhian’s world settled into cozy predictability over the following days. Frankie paid in the check and kept a roof over their heads while picking up the odd commission, while Rhian worked at the Black Swan. It couldn’t last, of course. It never did.

She was working an evening shift when the next crisis erupted. The pub was empty, as it was early. Rhian was killing time by attempting to clean the coffee machine. Lack of use had gummed the thing up. She unscrewed everything that unscrewed and soaked the bits in hot water and detergent. She was puzzling how to put it back together and wishing she had taken notes, when her phone chimed.

The flashing icon indicated that Max desired to speak to her. With a sigh, she keyed the icon.

“Snow White, I’ve got a job for you, right away,” Max instructed in his best alpha-male manner.

“It’s not convenient at present,” she replied.

“Tough,” Max said, “I need you now.”

She considered telling him to go and rotate on it but remembered whose money was paying the mortgage.

“Very well, I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “I’ll ring you back.”

Gary had installed an intercom between the bar and his flat after recent events, so Rhian keyed it.

“Gary, can you release me from my shift tonight; I’ve something to deal with.” Rhian asked.

“It’s hardly convenient at this short notice,” Gary replied. “Can’t you reschedule it, whatever it is, to some other time?”

“It concerns Max,” Rhian said.

“Ah, I’ll be right down.”

The bell over the door dinged, and the first students of the evening drifted in.

“What can I get you, gentlemen?” Rhian asked.

“You’re the famous Welsh barmaid,” one said, in delight.

“What?” Rhian asked.

“Your photo is on the notice board at the student union—pint of bitter, love.”

“Someone has posted a photo of me?” Rhian asked, outraged.

“Easy enough to do with a camera phone,” the student replied.

“I suppose it’s something to do with that stupid bet?” she asked, pouring his drink.

“The pot gets bigger all the time,” he replied.

He paid in small change that he sorted from a small leather purse. A man with a purse was one of those novelties with which Rhian became acquainted only after moving to London. She did not approve. Women used purses for purely practical reasons, lacking trouser pockets. A man with a purse implied a meanness of character.

“Do you know what a Welsh rarebit is?” he asked, switching subjects.

“It’s a traditional dish made by pouring a savory melted Cheddar cheese sauce over toast, usually flavored with Worcestershire sauce,” she replied, fixing him with a gimlet eye that just dared him to add the punch line.

“Oh, right,” he said, and scuttled off.

Gary appeared. “So, he didn’t have the nerve to suggest a Welsh rarebit was a Cardiff virgin.”

“Apparently not,” Rhian replied.

“Not surprised, you are rather scary,” Gary said.

Rhian looked at him in astonishment—her, frightening? Rhian the little Welsh mouse who was pushed about until she slipped away? Had the wolf changed her that much, or was it simply events molding her character into—what?

“That’s why the pot on the bet to take you out is so big. Who dares wins, only the brave, and all that,” said Gary.

“I’m really sorry to ruin your evening,” Rhian said.

“Not a problem, you can take my shift tomorrow. You watch yourself around that Max character, Rhian.”

“I will,” Rhian replied.

She got her coat and walked outside before phoning Frankie. She hoped the woman hadn’t been on the river water.

East London was getting to her. River Ouse equals booze. When did she start thinking in rhyming slang? When did she become a Londoner? What was next, dressing up as a Pearly Queen, doing the Lambeth Walk, or rioting at regular intervals? Nobody riots like the London mob, who over the centuries, have brought down kings and prime ministers.

Frankie’s landline rang and rang. Come on, Rhian thought. She was about to ring off and try the woman’s mobile when the line clicked.

“Yes?”

Frankie sounded sober.

“I’ve had a call from Max.”

“Ah!”

Why did everyone say “ah” at the mention of Max’s name? This was going to be seriously irritating if it carried on.

“We have an immediate commission,” Rhian said.

“Oh goddess,” Frankie moaned.

“I suppose you don’t want to give the money back,” Rhian said, nettled.

“You suppose correctly,” Frankie said, pulling herself together. “Since I no longer have it.”

“I’ll ring Max to get the details while you drive over to pick me up,” Rhian said. She redialed. “Okay, Max, it’s set up. So what’s the job?”

“I want you to close an Otherworld gate that will open shortly at the ExCel Exhibition Center in the Royal Docks.”

“Oh, right, an Otherworld gate,” Rhian repeated, trying to be blasé but getting that “through the looking glass” feeling that seemed to occur so frequently lately. A thought occurred to her. “This gate, there’s nothing coming through, is there? Nothing dangerous, that is?”

“Nothing you won’t be able to handle, I’m sure. I’ve every confidence in you, Snow White,” Max said.

Patronising git, Rhian thought. What she said was, “And our fee?”

“Five thousand sovs,” Max replied.

Sov was the street word for one of The Bank of England’s Pounds Stirling, but Rhian half-wondered whether Max was using the original meaning of Sovereigns. She had this mental image of the urbane Max down by the shore digging up a chest of gold coins, probably with a parrot on his shoulder—and a crutch. She giggled.

“What?”

“I said—each?” Rhian asked, brightly.

“Don’t push your luck, Fido.”

The line went dead before she could think of a suitably witty reply.

Rhian googled the ExCel Exhibition Center on her phone while sitting in Mildred on the way to the job. She had never been there so was curious. It was also a distinct advantage to be distracted from monitoring Mildred’s erratic progress through the heavy traffic. She steadfastly refused to look up, even when car horns blared nearby.

The Center was not quite what she expected. At the back of her mind she held a vague preconception of redbrick and Victorian chimneys interspersed with 1960s concrete crap, but it was nothing like that at all. ExCel was huge, ultramodern, avant-garde even. It looked like a giant rectangular white tent with a roof hung from pylons. She was not entirely surprised to read that it was owned by an Abu Dhabi company. It would not have looked out of place on the coast of the Persian Gulf, an air-conditioned chip reflecting brittle white sunlight across the desert. It was as out of place on the banks of the Thames as a Mayan pyramid.

Frankie drove around the inner lane of a roundabout twice to get her bearings. Spotting a sign, she cruised majestically across the front of an articulated lorry. It nearly jack-knifed under braking to avoid them. She exited the roundabout on the south road, towards the River.

Rhian recognised landmarks, like the Whitechapel University Campus and the overhead pylons of the Docklands Light Railway. They also passed an old and imposing three-story Victorian building that she could not recall seeing before. It was completely isolated on a patch of wasteland by fast carriageways, cut off on all sides. Rhian was not surprised to see the windows and doors boarded up.

She GPSed their location to discover whether it had a name. It did, the Admiral’s House. Intrigued, she Googled to find the building’s story. Everything in London has a story if you dig deep enough. The admiral in question was the commanding officer of the old Royal Dockyards. It was a listed building so could not be demolished, but it had no function in this new landscape of university campuses, hotels, and yuppie flats. Its preservation was, she reflected, such a very English compromise. The English mixed a sentimentality that refused to sweep away the past with a hardheaded pragmatism that would not allow a penny to be wasted on conversion. So there it sat, a sad and useless relic, now just a forgotten backdrop to the vibrant new East London Docklands.

Battersea Power station in the west had suffered a similar fate. No longer wanted, it was an architectural white elephant, but its four chimneys were such an iconic part of the river frontage that it was listed. The gutted shell of the largest art deco brick-built building in Europe had slowly decayed for half a century. It was near collapse through neglect.

Rhian sighed, thinking that she was in no position to criticize. What were the Welsh, if not siblings of the English in Celtic sentimentality but devoid of the strand of Germanic realism that ran though English culture like a Roman road. Her people clung to the past with a hysterical grip as if to a comfort blanket. They persisted in speaking a language so minor that it no longer ranked second or even third on the island.

Frankie swung off the carriageway onto the ramp that ran down to the Exhibition Center car park, mounting the pavement at the apex of the corner. Mildred’s unyielding 1960s suspension faithfully transferred the energy to Rhian’s bottom. The shock wave catapulted her against the seatbelt, breaking her mood of morbid introspection.

“Whoops,” Frankie said, adjusting her glasses.

They deposited Mildred under one of the railway pylons. Frankie produced the bright yellow steering lock from under the driver’s seat, but, noting the expression on Rhian’s face, put it back. She hauled two rucksacks out of the back and handed one to Rhian, who slipped it over one shoulder, wearing it like a bag.

Frankie took out a single L-shaped wooden divining rod from the second. The smaller length of the L fitted loosely into a copper tube that doubled as a handle, allowing the rod to move freely.

“Don’t you need two of those?” Rhian asked. “One in each hand?”

“How would I carry my rucksack?” Frankie countered.