“I know. Well, that’s how it is. The Commodore—busy, just as you warned me. I had a long wait.”
The duty officer didn’t seem completely convinced by this. “Funny, because she came down not long after you went up and she’s been here ever since.”
“Did I say we actually met up? I didn’t, did I? We missed each other, you see. Yes. Such a shame. I’ll catch up with her another time, when she’s not snowed under.”
“She’s just over there, though. Now’s your chance. You can at least say hello.”
“No, really, she’s doing something important with some important-looking people. Ex-military herself. She looks quite at home with them. So I shan’t bother her. I’ll just—”
“Father Dixon? Graham?” Commodore Macarthur was looking his way. “Thought I heard a familiar voice.”
Father Dixon’s pulse pounded in his ears.
Keep a grip
, he told himself.
You can do this. Be innocent. Act like there’s nothing untoward going on. There isn’t. There really isn’t
.
“To what do we owe the honour?” said Macarthur.
“Been waiting for you upstairs, he has,” said the duty officer. “Two hours.”
Couldn’t this busybody jobsworth keep his mouth shut, Father Dixon wondered.
“Have you? What for?”
“No reason. Just happened to be in the area and passing,” Father Dixon said. “Bad timing, though, obviously, I can see. Mustn’t disturb you. You carry on with your meeting.”
“If you were waiting for two hours...”
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I had my Bible with me. I didn’t let the time go to waste. Lost myself in a Good Book, as it were.”
“Commodore?” said one of the military men, tapping his wristwatch. “If we could perhaps get back to finalising the deployment ratios of our men...”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Macarthur nodded to Father Dixon. “Sorry we couldn’t coincide, Graham. I suspect I’d have been very interested in what you had to say to me.”
“Yes, well, I’ll be sure to come by again soon. Goodbye, Gail.”
“Goodbye.”
Father Dixon stepped lively to the door and out into the cool, early evening air.
Yes!
He cast a glance up to the sky and winked.
“You and me,” he whispered, “what a team,” and began the journey back to Ladbroke Grove.
As he left, a thought struck Commodore Macarthur and she interrupted her strategy meeting again, this time in order to go off to a quiet corner of the lobby and make a quick phone call.
“Khalid here.”
“Ibrahim, what are you doing right now?”
“Routine vehicle patrol to check SRA perimeters, then heading off to help the soldier boys.”
“Cancel that. I’ve got something else for you. Who’s in the car with you?”
“Qureshi and Heffernan.”
“Good. Heffernan’s a bruiser. You might well need that. Do you remember Father Dixon? Used to be a pastor here?”
“Sort of. I know his face.”
“He’s just left, and he was behaving... ‘squirrelly’ springs to mind. Not like himself at all. Said he’d come to see me but wouldn’t say why.”
“So?”
“‘So,
marm
?’” she corrected.
“So, marm?”
“He’s a friend of Redlaw’s. They still keep in touch.”
“And?”
“And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was Redlaw he came to see me about.”
“Meaning? Aaah, I get it.”
“Exactly. This is where he lives.” She gave Father Dixon’s home address. “Go round there. I’d lay good money that’s where our errant Captain is.”
“And then?”
“You know what to do. Arrest and detain.”
“And if he resists?”
“Try reasonable force first,” said Macarthur. “Escalate only if that fails. I want him here where I can keep an eye on him, and I want him in one piece.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Sergeant Khalid, but his tone said,
No promises
.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As dusk gathered and night fell, the streets grew increasingly deserted. It had been business as usual during the day, London dusting itself down, picking up the pieces and carrying on. There’d been inconveniences, like the traffic holdups, but there’d also been a determination in the capital—as everywhere else in the UK—not to let the events of the night before overshadow the day. People had gritted their teeth and forged on, as though battling through a massive collective post-binge hangover.
Besides, you could afford to be courageous during daylight hours. So long as the sun was up, even when screened by a layer of cloud, there was nothing to worry about. The Sunless were paralysed, unable to venture outside, stuck in whatever dark, cataracted hovel they called home. While a glimmer of solar radiance remained in the sky, you were safe.
But the sun had now moved on, curtsying over the horizon. The terminator between night and day had passed across Britain.
And tonight was when the relocations began.
Shops closed early around Father Dixon as he walked through Bayswater and Notting Hill. twenty-four-hour convenience stores put up apology notices and brought down the steel grilles. Commuters dived into Tube stations or crammed themselves onto buses. Cinemas, pubs and restaurants shut their doors. At the enclaves of the wealthy—and W11 had a fair few of them—the spotlights went on and the ex-servicemen commenced sentry duty. Front doors slammed, latches were locked, bolts shot, blinds drawn.
By the time Father Dixon reached the vicarage, he was one of the last few pedestrians abroad. Motor traffic was still dense, but foot traffic was negligible. He strode briskly up the garden path and could not deny that he was glad once he was indoors, within walls.
He found Redlaw conked out in an armchair in the lounge, feet up on a pouffe. The man had plainly been through the mill and was exhausted. Father Dixon let him sleep a little longer while he helped himself to a pale ale and some leftover chow mein from the fridge. Then he went round the house turning on lights and drawing curtains to ward off the dark. Redlaw came to with a sudden sharp intake of breath.
“What’s the news?” was the first thing he said. “What did Wing find out?”
“See for yourself.” Father Dixon triumphantly presented Redlaw with the two sheets of printout.
Redlaw began reading:
Lab results—Delilah Wing, PhD
Abstract
Presence of unexpectedly high concentration of arginine vasopressin (AVP) in sample of bovine haemoglobin taken from BovPlas pouch, batch # BP5/7601H/PR.
Materials and Methods
Sample was subjected to a battery of standard tests, but for the purposes of this text only the results of endocrinology testing are relevant. AVP was found in the blood at a level of 25 pg/ml (picogrammes per millilitre), 500% higher than the median level commonly found in...
“You were right,” Father Dixon said. “Something very dodgy going on with the blood. Been tampered with.”
Redlaw, still studying Dr Wing’s conclusions, set his mouth in a grim line of satisfaction. “It fits. It’s cynical in the extreme, but it fits. Nathaniel Lambourne’s been manipulating the ’Lesses, and Parliament. He’s manufactured a crisis, and the Prime Minister has played right into his hands, giving his Solarvilles the go-ahead. All this is—all this has ever been—is a business proposition. The ’Lesses get out of hand, people get scared, but oh, look, Lambourne has the tailor-made solution. How handy.” He gave a disgusted grunt. “Never mind that people have died and vampires have been put to the torch. No, that doesn’t matter one bit. Long as Lambourne and his consortium make a killing on this.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“Put a stop to it, of course. Expose the whole miserable fraud for what it is.”
“But how do you—”
The doorbell chimed, startlingly loud.
“You expecting someone?” Redlaw asked.
“No,” came the reply. “But folk call on me at all hours. It’ll be some parishioner in a tizzy about something or other. It always is. That or Jehovah’s Witnesses. I tell them I’m at the rational end of the Christian spectrum but they keep coming back.”
“Ignore it.”
“I can’t.”
“Pretend you’re not here.”
“Every light in the house is on. The place is screaming ‘The vicar is in.’ What are you fretting about, anyway? No one knows you’re here.”
“I don’t know,” said Redlaw. “I’m just not happy.”
“When are you?” The doorbell went again, sounding somehow more urgent this time. “Whoever it is really wants me,” Father Dixon said. “And if they’ve made the effort to come over on a night when everyone is battening down the hatches, they must have a good reason. I have to go and let them in.”
“All right,” Redlaw conceded. He drew his Cindermaker and flicked off the safety.
“The gun, John? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Well, keep it out of sight. If you must.”
Father Dixon set off down the hallway. He didn’t have a spy hole in the front door. Spy holes were for the mistrustful, and that wasn’t him. He did, though, have a security chain. He wasn’t a complete idiot. He twisted the catch and cracked the door open.
A size-thirteen boot kicked from the other side, hard, snapping the security chain and ramming the door into Father Dixon’s face with stunning force. He was thrown back against the wall, and fell sideways. He grabbed the coatrack for support, but it toppled with him, and he hit the floor tangled up in an anorak and a mackintosh. He heard feet thudding down the hallway. Next thing he knew, hands were grabbing him, freeing him from the coats, hauling him unceremoniously into a sitting position. He stared up into the face of a uniformed SHADE officer.
“Just sit there, reverend,” the man said. One side of his face was badly scarred. “Be a good boy and don’t move a muscle. This’ll all be over in no time.”
Sergeant Khalid burst through the lounge doorway to find Redlaw standing in the centre of the room, his Cindermaker levelled. He skidded to a halt. The second shady, Qureshi, pulled up behind him. Redlaw covered both of them with the gun, which trembled slightly in his grasp.
“Now then, Redlaw,” said Khalid. “There’s no need for that. Put that thing away. No one here wants any gunplay. We’ve come to take you in. Just let us.”
“Why would I let you? So you can dump me in a holding cell and hand me over to the cops?”
“That’s the general idea, yes.”
“I can’t allow that to happen.”
“You can’t afford for it not to happen. What are you trying to prove, anyway? You’ve been haring all over the city like a lunatic. Give it up. Just admit that you’ve snapped. Whatever’s been eating you these past few months has finally got the better of you. I’m sure with counselling and medication you’ll soon be right as rain.”
Redlaw laughed, roughly. “I’ve not gone crazy, Sergeant. You’re the one who’s crazy, thinking you can just bash down my friend’s door and come stampeding in. If Father Dixon’s not all right...”
The gun-wielding arm drooped. With effort, a grimace of pain, Redlaw raised it again.
“You’ll what?” said Khalid. “You can barely keep that gun up. And you aren’t going to shoot me or anyone, because that’s not who you are, Redlaw.”
“Try me. This injury’s your fault, anyway. Don’t think I don’t know it was you who set me up on the Isle of Dogs. You somehow warned those ’Lesses I was coming.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you’d say that, wouldn’t you? But I know.”
“Honestly, Redlaw, this isn’t just crazy any more. It’s beyond crazy. I don’t like you, yes, but not so much I’d arrange to have you killed. I’m not that... that
petty
.”
“Well, maybe you aren’t.” Redlaw firmed his grip on the Cindermaker. “But maybe
I
am.”
Khalid took a step towards him, arms out to the side, presenting his own chest as a target. “Go ahead, then. Do it.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“You’re not that sort of man.”
“You keep telling me I’m crazy. Crazy people do all sorts of things they wouldn’t normally.”
“Even so, you don’t kill. You won’t. Especially not a SHADE officer.”
“All right. Perhaps not.” Redlaw angled the gun so that it was pointing at Khalid’s thigh. “But how about shoot to wound?”
“Too great a risk with Fraxinus-round calibre. You could easily hit my femoral artery. I could bleed out. You want my death on your conscience? I think not. Sura 5:32, ‘If anyone slays a person, it will be as if he slays the whole people.’”
“Forgive me for not being swayed by a quotation from a scripture that has no value to me.”
“Do not belittle the holy Qu’ran, Redlaw,” Khalid rumbled. “Do not dare mock my faith.”
“Out of my way. You too, Qureshi. I’m leaving. You’ll regret trying to stop me.”
Redlaw sidestepped around the two officers, making for the doorway. His Cindermaker remained poised between him and them, but the cost of keeping it there was too great. The gun dipped, and Khalid smashed it sideways with a whipcrack backhand swipe. Redlaw’s hand hit the door jamb and he involuntarily discharged a round into the floor. In the ear-ringing aftermath of the gunshot Khalid drove the heel of one palm into Redlaw’s collarbone. Redlaw howled like a whipped dog as his shoulder impacted with the wall, and Khalid twisted his wrist, forcing him to drop the Cindermaker. He attempted to follow this up by putting Redlaw into a wrist lock, but Redlaw jerked his hand back, driving a left-handed uppercut at Khalid’s jaw. Off-balance, he cuffed Khalid on the ear instead.