London Falling

NINETEEN

Quill had asked for a BMW 5 Series from the motor pool, and had it parked outside last night. Now they all leaped into it, Sefton throwing his holdall in the boot. It was getting dark.

‘I’m the best driver,’ said Costain, almost pushing Quill out of the way.

‘I’ll assume you mean you’re a level-two driver, cleared to handle this unmarked car.’ Quill reached up to slam the magnetic blue light on to the roof, and plugged it into the ‘Kojack’ electrical socket in the dashboard. ‘I’ll get us a CAD number so you can jump the lights.’

‘Whatever.’ Costain looked over his shoulder and checked that the others were wearing their seatbelts.

‘Shall I say ETA twenty minutes?’ called Ross, already hitting buttons on her phone.

‘Twenty minutes? Sod that.’ Costain pushed down on the pedal, and mud flew from the wheels as they accelerated towards the gate.

Quill called Lofthouse first. ‘I want uniforms ready down there, ma’am. I mean a lot of uniforms, as suspect is armed and dangerous and has potential victims on the premises. Scene commander to let me know RV point-’

Ross didn’t register what he was saying. She was talking to Brockway at West Ham. ‘So Norwich haven’t taken him off?’

‘The fuckwits,’ whispered Sefton beside her.

‘We strongly advise. . we officially advise. . Okay, they know that, okay.’

‘What’s causing that?’ said Costain. ‘They’d never normally do that. Something’s influencing them.’

‘If he does score a third time,’ Ross continued, ‘as soon as he comes off the field, he stays put, security detail to surround him. Have you got everything we asked for ready?’ The West Ham chaplain was ready to bless the player, the room and the said coppers. Quill had speculated that, while being at the West Ham ground itself would presumably give Losley a great deal of power, she had so far proved unwilling to do anything awful there, and might not want to harm anyone directly connected with the club. Ross had already sold this approach to the club on the basis of what Losley herself believed. She now received assurances, switched off the phone, threw it down — and then grabbed it up again.

Quill switched the radio on, and they all fell silent, listening until it was clear a third goal hadn’t been scored. ‘If there’s a hat-trick, I’ll send whatever uniforms are at the location straight in, whether we’re there yet or not. She’ll be able to hold them off, we’ll likely lose a few, but I’d rather that than losing the kids.’ His tone didn’t sound to be inviting debate. He was again taking that responsibility on himself.

Sixteen minutes later, they spotted the cluster of unmarked vans ahead, two streets away from the Losley house, as arranged. In zero time, Brockley nick had done them proud.

Quill stepped from the car and shook hands with Inspector Ben Cartwright, who looked as if he’d just won the lottery.

‘Losley,’ he said, ‘on our patch. Result.’

‘You know what they call Method of Entry teams?’ said Sefton to Ross, as they watched Quill briefing some uniforms in the back of one of the vans, their enforcer ram held ready between them. ‘“Ghostbusters” — if only they knew.’ He was trying to keep talking, because she looked all closed in on herself, in a terrible way, now that she had stopped working and was just waiting. He could feel it in himself, too. We smell death near you soon. It had been written by someone who probably knew. They were going in now and they had almost nothing to protect them that they hadn’t had last time. They had no choice. He found himself again revolted by the thought of what Losley was intending to kill these kids for. Not out of madness or anger, but for what must seem to her to be a good, practical reason. To her, the sacrifices were fuel: a source of energy for any subsequent attack on the footballer. She lived in a London where that sort of equation must be commonplace. He thought back to holding Joe in his arms, in his hands, and took some comfort from that.

Quill and Costain came over to them, from where they’d been consulting with Cartwright, their breath visible in the street lights. The vans had pulled up beside trees that had cracked the pavement, in front of houses doubtless filled with busybodies already going frantic on Twitter. The radio in the car was still on: the match had reached half time, the restart due in two minutes. No further goals yet, thank God.

Quill turned to address the expectant uniforms, all clad in Metvests, whatever good that would do them. ‘We’re doing this old-school. One van at the back door, two at the front, the Ghostbusters do the door; my squad go in first, taking advantage of the suspect’s psych profile’ — the same excuse as at the football club — ‘to attempt an arrest. A unit from Specialized Firearms Command is on the way, but they won’t get here for another twenty minutes, and Inspector Cartwright shares my desire for urgency, given the presence of potential victims. Objectives of the operation as follows. One, any of you lot gets hold of one of the kids, you run straight out of that house with them, and keep going all the way to your nick. Do you understand me?’

The uniforms rumbled in assent. They enjoyed being bullied for something this big. Something where they might get home to their families and say, ‘I saved a kid today.’

He continued: ‘Two, regarding suspect herself. Leave her to us. Do not attempt to engage her. She comes in your direction, get out of the way. We’re talking poison needles in her clothes, hidden weapons, the lot. Objective three: suspect’s cat.’ He didn’t pause for them to react. ‘Information potentially hidden on it. And it’s dangerous. Again, don’t try and grab it. Leave it to us.’

Cartwright raised an eyebrow. ‘The cat is booby-trapped?’

‘Welcome to our world,’ said Quill.

Costain started up the BMW, and looked over his shoulder at the three others sitting in it with him. What that note had said — We smell death near you soon — they’d all be thinking about that. In the past he had never thought about death, even when he’d been in really deep and one wrong word could have meant a bullet in the head. He’d been so stupid then, every moment. What would a good person do right now?

‘Proud to know you,’ he said. ‘You’re good coppers.’ He reached over his shoulder, and just Ross and then even Sefton shook hands with him, because that was the thing to do, yet no passion in it. Quill quickly did the same.

And that was it. It didn’t make a difference because there was still Hell.

‘Fuck it,’ Costain whispered. And he gunned the BMW forwards.

Ross felt almost nothing as they turned the corner, and accelerated towards their target. She was saving any feeling for when she had Losley right in front of her. She hoped that, like a hero in a story, how she felt would make some difference to what then happened to her. She held on to that thought.

‘Go go go!’ yelled Quill.

Costain launched the car, at high speed, straight at the garden fence, its headlights illuminating the woodwork-

And then they were through it, and slamming to a halt in that empty square of garden, wet soil and grass flying up and spattering the side windows. ‘Out!’ he yelled, though he didn’t need to, because they were all leaping out already. Sefton hauled his holdall along with him. The house above them shone brown and chitinous, polluting the air around it in waves, seeming fleshy cold in the night. The exterior looked exactly the same as the Willesden house, down to the type of front door.

He wasn’t up to this, was he? He was missing something inside him. He wasn’t what he pretended to be.

Fuck that, he’d have to do.

The uniforms were running in around them, the Ghostbusters forming up on the door in their usual reassuring, exhilarating way. The silent gestures, the sudden movement — and together! They swung their ‘master key’. The door burst in. They swung it back again and stepped aside.

Quill ran inside, yelling. His team went in along with him.

He had faith in his team. More than in himself, in fact. And faith in the uniforms behind them, who’d die to get those kids out. The four of them ran into the hallway, and stood looking around at what the exterior of the house should have already told them: it was exactly the same inside too.

‘Strangers!’ yelled the head perched on the newel post.

The uniforms rushed in behind them, astonished at the filth even they could detect.

Then the smell hit Quill. Could that just be hot water? ‘Cooking smell!’ he bellowed. ‘Up!’

They sprinted up the stairs that confused their senses, not caring about what they saw or where gravity was, falling and scrambling, while the uniforms made it look easy, in their ignorance, and came thundering up behind them. They rushed to the point where the attic access was directly overhead. There was noise from up there: a radio. . a radio football commentary.

Quill looked round for the ladder, and realized that, of course, here there wasn’t one. He jumped up on to Sefton’s shoulders and heaved himself upright. He burst up through the hatch and shoved it aside.

There she was, Losley. Offending the world, and him, with how she looked.

There were three naked children huddled in a cage beside her: Charlie aged five, Hayley, six, and Joel, seven, and they were screaming and sobbing but all alive, still alive. The room was full of information, pent up with it, as if it was all nearly ready, as if it could only be seconds more. And there was the soil, and there was the cauldron, the water in it boiling, on top of an impossible blue fire that crackled and sparked like bright animated paper. The noise of the radio filled the room, sounding perversely normal, and Losley was already turning to start screaming something over its racket-

Quill got one foot onto the floor and he ran at her. He was vaguely aware of the others, his three and the uniforms, clambering up, following. He grabbed the crucifix that Franklin had sent over, the one with the Bishop of London’s seal on it, from his throat and bunched it into his fist. He hadn’t felt any power in it, but he’d convinced himself that he believed in the power of horror movies and how it would be enough.

She was yelling at him, hurling threats. There was that outraged screech in her voice, as if she was amazed they’d kept trying, that she was so much more powerful than them, that-!

‘Kiss this!’ he bellowed, and smashed her in the teeth. She went back and down. She spun up again. She’d rolled up like a table footballer. The crucifix had done nothing more than his fist and surprise impact would.

But the cage had already been cracked open with bolt cutters, the kids were in coppers’ hands now, and they were running for the trapdoor.

Losley spun round to stop them-

‘Hoi!’ shouted Costain.

He kicked over the cauldron, sending water that smelled like decay roaring across a floor that exploded with dust on contact with it.

She turned to deal with that-

‘Losley!’

That was Ross, yelling what she was doing so the witch could hear it, as Ross unloaded the first super-soaker professional-standard water-pistol carbine full of piss and London holy water into her new container of soil.

But it wasn’t working! It kept flying off it. Something was protecting it-

The witch had thought of that. She’d changed it.

Losley spun back again to Quill, triumphantly.

But the uniforms were out of there now, the kids were gone.

And now Sefton had thundered up behind Quill, on his run up, throwing something with great weight right past his shoulder. The bagful of Millwall FC soil caught Losley full in the face. She screeched — like nails on a million blackboards. The uniforms must just be seeing an old woman screaming at all the ridiculous things they were doing to her but, for all that, Quill’s team were being proved right.

Yelling something incoherent, Ross ran into close quarters and let fly with the second carbine, pumping pure London holy water all over Losley. They had no idea if it would work, but the more the merrier.

Quill took the silver handcuffs from his pocket. ‘Off her feet!’ he yelled.

The four of them grabbed her at once, and they overcame their fear and they lifted her as if she was nothing — a bone frame with special effects attached — and they made for that table with her, keeping her feet from the floor. They had the advantage of surprise this time. They had learned this time. They had conquered their fear.

But the soil was intact, they knew. All the power was still there. They were terrified of her, and only their velocity was saving them, and that might give out any second.

The uniforms were all out of there; they’d got the children safely away.

Costain grabbed her hands and wrenched them over her head, behind her back. She screamed again, the very sound clawing at the air. The silver handcuffs snapped on, and they slammed her flat onto the table again.

Quill felt a huge frightening triumph rise up inside him. ‘Mora Losley!’ he yelled, making himself somehow keep his voice level, because now she was going to have a trial and a brief — she was going to be dragged through one now, like normal people, like scared little people on their level, for wanting to fucking boil children, and she was going to cut a deal with them along the way and turn it all back to the way it had been, and this was his tribal cry: the victory that would mean he was the thing he thought he was, ‘you are under arrest in connection with multiple charges of murder, you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence-!’

‘You can’t stop me,’ she cried. ‘History is on my side.’

And then they all fell through the floor.