Broken Homes
Nightingale. ‘As I believe you have both impressed upon me often enough that the currency of modern policing is information.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But we didn’t think you were paying attention.’
My corn bread arrived with a slab of grilled beef. I thought the corn bread was a bit dry, but according to Nightingale that was how corn bread was supposed to be. I slathered on enough chilli sauce to moisten it up, which I gathered from the waitress’s approving looks was exactly what I was supposed to do.
‘Can you actually taste the meat?’ asked Lesley, who was cutting her omelette into squares small enough to fit in the mouth hole of her mask.
‘It’s the combination,’ I said.
‘One thing does puzzle me,’ said Nightingale. ‘Why would Stromberg build himself a Stadtkrone and then wrap it up in concrete?’
‘I got that figured out,’ I said. I’d checked the enclosing cylinder before heading downstairs. ‘Everything in Skygarden is either constructed of formed concrete or breezeblocks.’ In the case of the formed concrete, with the ridges and irregularities of the mould left on the finished surface – the better to emphasise the basic honesty of the design and ensure that small children could pick up really painful grazes while playing in the corridors. ‘But the cylinder is constructed of vertical strips with a narrow rectangular cross section that have been cemented together.’
Nightingale and Lesley gave me glazed looks.
‘It’s durable enough to survive the weather outside,’ I said. ‘But in the event of an overpressure event inside, I think it’s designed to flower open like a Chocolate Orange.’
Me and Lesley then had to explain Terry’s Chocolate Orange to Nightingale.
‘Not unlike a practitioner’s hand opening to reveal a werelight,’ said Nightingale.
‘Not unlike at all,’ I said. Yeah exactly like that I thought.
‘And then what?’ asked Lesley. ‘What did Stromberg expect to happen then?’
‘Inspired by the light of reason,’ said Nightingale, ‘the good people of Southwark would march arm in arm into a utopian future.’
‘I think he needed to get out more,’ said Lesley.
Nightingale sipped his coffee, his brow furrowed.
‘In view of his discovery,’ he said, ‘Peter will go back to the Folly and have a look at this German book in case it can shed some light on what Stromberg thought he was doing.’
‘My German’s non-existent . . .’ I began, but Nightingale held up his hand.
‘What the pair of you have discovered makes me even more certain that the Faceless Man has a strong interest in this particular locale,’ he said. ‘If there’s even a chance he, or our Russian friend, might turn up in person then this is an opportunity I can’t pass over. If we can put just one of them out action we’ll be cutting the threat in half.’
‘So you’re leaving Lesley hanging out as bait?’
‘I have much more faith in Lesley’s sense of self-preservation than in yours,’ said Nightingale. ‘In any case, the Faceless Man has your measure as a practitioner, while Lesley will be an unknown. I’m counting on his caution.’
I wasn’t sure I found that particularly reassuring, but in the event of an attack I wasn’t going to be as much use as Thomas ‘Oh sorry, was that your Tiger Tank?’ Nightingale. So after we’d finished breakfast I hopped on a 168 bus back to Russell Square.
I went in the front and, as I’d expected, there was a courier-delivered parcel balanced on top of the pile of junk mail that constantly accumulated on the occasional table just inside the atrium. I looked around for Molly, who usually appeared to greet us when we arrived home – if only to ensure that we understood we lived here purely at her sufferance. I thought that the atrium seemed strangely quiet, which was funny when you consider the deathless hush that hung over the place when I’d first moved in.
She wasn’t in the kitchen when I stepped in to raid the pantry. I made myself a cheese and pickle sandwich, tucked the parcel under my arm and headed out the back door for the coach house. When I climbed the spiral staircase to the first floor I found that the door was unlocked, so I wasn’t totally shocked when I opened up and caught Molly in the tech cave, feather duster in hand – mid dust.
She paused and turned her head to look at me.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you were in here.’
She gave me a reproving look and, with a
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