Broken Homes (PC Peter Grant) (35 page)

‘Are they the ones behind this bomb scare?’

‘It’s not a bomb scare,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the bombs and they’re real and unless you leave now there’s a good chance you will die.’

‘I can’t leave my garden,’ he said slowly.

‘Jake,’ I said, ‘we need you . . . as a witness against County Gard, amongst others, and if you die then they’re going to win. And then what the fuck was all your work for?’

How long?

Twenty seconds to make up his mind, thirty seconds to unchain his door and emerge onto the walkway. Another sixty to get him to the emergency stairs.

How long?

Last two flights of stairs to the twenty-ninth where I found that every single flat had a County Gard seal on it – there was no one up there to evacuate. I was just turning to start a dignified but hopefully swift descent, when I noticed that the security doors that blocked the stairs up to the roof were hanging open.

How long?

Long enough for there now to be the whole glorious multihued panoply of a Major Incident response down below. With Gold and Silver commanders and Bronze commanders spawning like frogs in concentric circles around Skygarden.

I went up the last flights of steps, because I had to be sure.

The Faceless Man was waiting for me up there – the bastard.

Another good suit in navy blue, matching scarlet cravat and pocket handkerchief. I don’t think he even bothered with the concealment glamour and his tan featureless mask reminded me disturbingly of Lesley’s.

He was standing leaning against the railings with the same studied nonchalance he’d shown the last time I’d met him. Good, I thought. He’s not going to blow up the building with him on top of it.

Hopefully.

I sauntered towards him, but veered slightly to the left so that I drew closer to the concrete cylinder that hid the
Statdkrone
. I thought it might serve as useful cover in an emergency.

I was within six metres when he languidly held up his hand to indicate I should stop – I took a couple of extra steps just on the general principle of the thing. Plus it put me closer to the cylinder.

‘I’ve got to ask,’ I said. ‘What’s with the mask – who were you expecting to meet up here?’

‘Your master,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘Or do you call him your guv-nor?’

‘Fair enough,’ I said sauntering a couple of steps closer to the cover. ‘Have you considered a cape? You’d look good in a cape. You could throw in an opera hat.’

‘Very funny,’ he said. ‘But I’m not the walking anachronism around here.’

‘He’ll be here soon,’ I said. ‘You know he took out your Russian witch?’

‘I heard,’ he said. ‘Very impressive.’

‘She was all like, “Oh no you don’t” and he was like – splat! And that’s all she wrote.’

‘Do you have a radio?’

‘What?’

‘A radio,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘A means to contact your superiors.’

I showed him my airwave.

‘Are you planning to surrender?’ I asked.

‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘I want to know if the building has been evacuated.’ He patted his jacket pocket. ‘Before I set off the fireworks.’

I keyed the airwave and asked for MS 1, the Walworth duty Inspector.

There was a couple of seconds’ silence and then a response; ‘MS 1 receiving.’ Then another voice; ‘Go ahead.’ An older woman with an old-fashioned estuary accent and lots of attitude – I bloody loved the sound of that voice.

‘I’m on the roof facing and talking to an unidentified Falcon-capable suspect who claims to have a detonator for multiple IEDs in the building. He wants to know if the building has been evacuated.’

‘The building has been investigated, EOD is with the device on the twenty-first floor.’

Meaning, yes of course the bloody building’s been evacuated and can you please get more information for the bomb squad.

I told the Faceless Man that the building was cleared except for the disposal team.

‘Tell them that I will detonate the device in five minutes, so they’d better pull everyone out now. If I so much as hear a helicopter in the distance I’ll detonate there and then,’ he said. ‘Make sure they understand I’m serious.’

‘He says you have five minutes to evacuate any personnel before he detonates the IEDs; if he sees or hears India 99 or a helicopter he will detonate immediately.’

‘Are you free to speak?’ asked MS 1.

I said no.

‘Is there anything you can do?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m totally buggered.’

‘Understood,’ she said and then my airwave went dead. They’d cut me off and from that moment on I was a hostage not an asset.

Five minutes.

The Strata building overlooked Skygarden and might be close enough for a sniper, but I rather suspected the Faceless Man had positioned himself carefully so that the central cylinder blocked the line of sight.

‘What’s all this in aid of, anyway?’ I asked.

‘Can’t you guess?’

‘I know that Stromberg built this tower in order to harvest magic, but I don’t know why,’ I said. ‘I know you’re planning to steal it, but I don’t know how.’

‘Peter,’ said the Faceless Man, ‘you’re an exceptionally bright boy and I know you’ve been to the farm, so why don’t you stop pretending and tell me what you really know.’

‘I know that you used demon trap tech to engineer a sort of dog battery for storing magic. And I know you’ve got them connected to the plastic core that runs down the centre of the tower,’ I said. ‘What I don’t know is why. Since you’re obviously plugged in, why haven’t you siphoned off the power already?’

‘Dog batteries,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘Good one. Although they act much more like capacitors than batteries.’

‘Canine capacitors, then?’

‘Oh very sharp, yes, canine capacitors,’ he said. ‘Magic is not like electricity, it’s slippery stuff and much harder to manipulate. This tower is much like a cafetière, one of those coffee plunger things, the coffee grounds are held in suspension within the hot water and, in order to concentrate them, one must use the plunger.’

‘Have you actually ever made coffee using a cafetière?’ I asked.

‘I admit that I should have spent a bit more time on that simile, but you get the basic idea,’ he said.

‘You’re going to collapse the building, and that should drive the magic into the dog batteries,’ I said. ‘Then I presume you have a company that specialises in clearing demolition sites all set up and waiting to swoop in with a low bid – then they just load up the dog batteries and off you go.’

He has no idea about the
Stadtkrone
, I suddenly realised, that’s why he had to blow up the building. But how can he not know?

‘What do you want all that magic for?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I have done some extraordinary things with just the power of my body,’ he said. ‘Imagine what I might do with the forty years’ accumulated potential here.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I think they’ve had enough time to evacuate, don’t you?’

‘What about me?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid you’ve got to stay here,’ he said. ‘I may wish to avoid mass murder, but let’s be honest . . . I’d be extremely stupid to let you live.’

‘Why not just kill me now?’

Well done, Peter, I thought, let’s put that idea into his head.

‘Why should I?’ he asked. ‘Besides—’

I caught him mid-sentence. It was a beauty,
impello
with no modification, just the biggest impact I knew how to do focused down to a single point. He still managed to a get a shield up before I could strike. There was a crack like concrete breaking and he flinched – which made me feel better.

He straightened and made a show of dusting himself down.

‘Really, Peter,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d progressed a bit further than that.’

I let him think that I’d missed but before I could say something witty in reply, he drew out a wireless detonator and blew up the building.

I heard the charges go off below me, weirdly distant like something in a nightmare. I felt them as a thudding sensation through the soles of my shoes. I staggered towards the Faceless Man, expecting any moment for the roof to literally drop out from beneath my feet.

I felt it then, a great solidity, like the wave of power I’d felt come off the Thames at the Spring Court. Or the air that had so nearly floated me aloft when I was dancing with Sky. The building was holding itself up, trying to retain its shape.

I took the opportunity to close the range to the Faceless Man, until I’d got within three metres of him. But he didn’t seem afraid.

‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up,’ he shouted. ‘It’s not going to stay standing long.’

I heard people screaming far away and hoped that it was startled onlookers on the ground.

The trembling had become shaking – the wavelength of the oscillations lengthening. Once they reached a certain length, the tower would pull itself apart.

Come on Erik, I thought, if you’d wanted it to be a piston, why would you have put the bloody glass pimple at the top?

Then I heard a crack from behind me as, finally, the
Statdkrone
exerted enough pressure to open the fissure I’d smashed in the top of the cylinder.

‘Surprise,’ I shouted, and the blast knocked me to my feet.

And the
Stadtkrone
fell open in segments exactly like a practitioner opening his hand. Or more like a chocolate orange because, like every chocolate orange I’d ever opened, some of the bits stuck together.

I don’t know what Stromberg had been expecting to see from his roof garden in Highgate. Something
Lord of the Rings
, I expect – streamers of light pouring upwards into a rapidly opening circle of clouds. Instead it was a barely visible shimmer, like a column of heat haze. But I felt it. A wave of cooking smells and tastes, grease and peppers, green curry and macaroni cheese, spirit gum, the feel of wet papier-mâché and children crying. People ironing, shaving, singing, dancing, grunting and fucking.

‘Here’s Bruno!’ I shouted. But the Faceless Man wasn’t listening to me. He was staring at the
Statdkrone
and, even with his mask on, surprise and anger were written along the length of his body. The roof lurched underfoot, dropped a centimetre, stopped, dropped again – Skygarden was not about to defy gravity for much longer.

The Faceless Man turned, took three steps and threw himself over the railing.

I ran after him and followed him over.

What else could I do – it’s not like I could stay on the roof, was it?

Besides, the Faceless Man didn’t strike me as the suicidal type. And if he had some plan to survive the fall, then I didn’t think he should be allowed to keep it to himself.

Otherwise, I was going to have to think of something on the way down.

I didn’t fall far before landing on his back. Then I threw my arms around his neck and hung on. He was definitely doing some sort of magic, a spell involving
aer
I thought, that caught hold of the air like a parachute. Or more like a para-wing, because we were gliding rather than falling.

‘You just keeping going, my son,’ I whispered in his ear. ‘Because I’ve got nothing to lose.’

He must have carefully calculated it against his own weight, but with mine added he fell dangerously fast. I made sure that I was the one riding him down – thinking heavy thoughts. We must have been falling at the same speed as the tower, because I could hear rending and crashing of concrete behind us and see billowing, dense grey and brown clouds reaching out around us.

We were roughly heading for the gap in the blocks where Heygate Street met Rodney Place. There, I presumed, he’d have a getaway vehicle standing by. But he wasn’t going to make it with yours truly on his back. And he couldn’t even squirm without breaking his concentration.

Serves you right for being an arrogant dickhead – if it had been me, I’d have tripped the explosive from the viewing gallery in the Shard.

I looked down and saw the big wide world rushing up to meet me fast. I really hoped it was going to be friendly.

We came down in the garden just short of the far edge. He hit first and tried to roll, but I made a point of breaking his centre of gravity so that he went down hard. Unfortunately, so did I. Then the dust cloud rolled over us and we were fighting blind, only he was in a suit and I was wearing Doctor Martens. Before he could get up I got one good kick to his head, and down he went. I put him face down, and got hands behind his back in the approved fashion and cuffed him.

‘You’re nicked, you bastard,’ I said.

I heard Lesley calling my name.

‘I’m over here,’ I shouted, but you couldn’t see more than half a metre because of the thick, rolling clouds of dust.

I choked on it, so did he. I hauled him up until he was sitting upright. I didn’t want to risk positional asphyxiation.

Lesley called again and I shouted back – the dust seemed to be settling.

‘I am genuinely impressed,’ he said.

‘I’m so pleased,’ I said.

‘I believe this is the moment of decision,’ said the Faceless Man.

‘I already made up my mind,’ I said and reached for his mask.

‘Sorry,’ said the Faceless Man. ‘But I wasn’t talking to you.’

Lesley tasered me in the back of my neck.

I know it was her, because she dropped the taser half a metre from where I was lying. It matched the serial number of the one she’d been issued. However, she didn’t drop it before tasering me again when I tried to get up.

It’s painful and it’s humiliating, because your body just locks up and there’s nothing you can do.

The Faceless Man’s shoes appeared in front of my face. I noticed they’d got quite badly scuffed during the fall.

‘No,’ said a muffled voice that I later decided had been Lesley’s. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal.’

And then they walked away and left me.

S
ometimes, when you turn up on their doorstep, people are already expecting bad news. Parents of missing kids, partners that have heard about the air crash on the news – you can see it in their faces – they’ve braced themselves. And there’s a strange kind of relief, too. The waiting is over, the worst has happened and they know that they will ride it out. Some don’t, of course. Some go mad or fall into depression or just fall apart. But most soldier through.