Broken Homes

dreadful city for good. And then when they announced that it was going to stay listed he looked like he was going to burst into tears. I say that, but it might have been hay fever – he was never what you’d call demonstrative. He said that he couldn’t leave until the tower came down.’
    ‘I want you to think very carefully,’ I said. ‘What were his exact words?’
    ‘Wait a minute,’ Louise held her fingers by her temples and wiggled them. ‘He said, “He won’t let me go until the tower comes down.”’
    ‘Did he say who “he” was?’
    ‘Might not have been “he”,’ said Louise. ‘It might have been “they”.’
    ‘I see,’ I said.
    ‘I’d have asked him, you know, but he wasn’t exactly sociable,’ said Louise. ‘I didn’t even know he was married, a mail order bride I heard – from Thailand or somewhere like that.’
    Okay, so dying to be helpful. But not actually particularly helpful except to point the finger at Skygarden again. Something that I reported back at the Folly during the daily seven thirty briefing session, otherwise known as the evening meal. Nightingale, running on some internal calendar of Mayan complexity, had declared that evening a full dress dinner. So me and Lesley donned our best approximation while Nightingale slummed it in an exquisite navy-blue evening jacket and his blood-red regimental tie.
    Molly always wore her most Edwardian servant’s outfit for these occasions and swept around the dining room so silently that even Nightingale was unnerved when she materialised suddenly at his elbow with the next dish.
    Fortunately the next dish was spinach tortellini with ricotta, herbs and parmesan, indicating that Molly had reached the pasta section of The Naked Chef and, judging by the absence of those esoteric animal offcuts that get the traditionalist all excited, was getting better at interpreting modern recipe books. Lesley and Nightingale were considering slipping in a Nigella, but I’ve got to say I was beginning to miss the suet puddings.
    ‘I thought Sergeant D’Averc’s notion had some merit,’ said Nightingale. ‘Even if we were only there for a short time it would give us easier access to the whole building.’
    I paused with a forkful of green pasta halfway to my mouth.
    ‘Us sir?’ I asked.
    ‘If the tower is indeed the fulcrum of this case,’ said Nightingale, ‘it must follow that the Faceless Man will be taking an equal interest. Now that we know he’s working with a trained Night Witch it would be extremely unwise if we didn’t operate as a mutually supporting unit.’
    I unpacked that to mean – I need to be close enough to intervene before you get yourselves killed.
    Me and Lesley exchanged glances.
    ‘You don’t think I’m capable of blending in?’ he asked.
    ‘Molly’s getting very handy with the parmesan,’ said Lesley politely.
    ‘Yes, you may be right,’ said Nightingale, considering. ‘However, I plan to position myself nearby in the event that you need reinforcing.’
    Lesley glanced down to where Toby, having established that this was to be a largely sausage-free supper, had curled up and gone to sleep.
    ‘Are we going to take the dog?’ she asked.
    ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Combination excuse to go out walking at odd hours and magic detector.’
    Lesley nodded and then looked back at Nightingale.
    ‘How will you know if we need reinforcing?’ she asked.
    ‘I think you’ll find I am perfectly capable of using a radio,’ said Nightingale. ‘And if that fails, I’m sure Peter here can be relied on to blow something up.’

11
A Machine For Living In
    W e went in early like a dawn raid, on the theory that if we were already in place when the locals woke up they’d just accept us the way badgers accept a naturalist’s low-light camera in their sett. The other reason we went in early was because we were borrowing a van from one of my relatives and he needed it back first thing. We couldn’t hire a removal van as we didn’t have enough stuff to make that credible, and we had more stuff than we could carry ourselves since otherwise we would look like squatters or, worse, undercover police officers.
    Not that we really were undercover police officers, because UC operations are subject to strict guidelines and operational oversight by senior officers. What we were doing was in fact an extremely subtle form of community policing. So subtle that, if we were lucky, the community could carry on, blissfully