Street Magic

waded through the voice directory for New Scotland Yard, and waited with her stomach flipping while the extension rang.
    "Ollie Heath." Ollie sounded as though he had a mouthful of shepherd's pie.
    "Ollie, it's Pete."
    "Pete!" he shouted. "Where the bloody hell have you been? Newell is shitting chestnuts!"
    "That sounds uncomfortable." Pete punched on speaker-phone and pulled up her mobile mail client. "Look, I'm sending you a name and I want you to e-mail everything you find to my mobile."
    "You got a lead?" Ollie said.
    "I will," said Pete. "Once I talk to him." She tapped Ol-lie's e-mail into the address bar and sent the message.
    "Got it," said Ollie a moment later. "Though Newell'll have my hide for helping you out." He whistled. "Caldecott, what the bloody hell are you doing messing about with Travis Grinchley?"
    Pete drew in a breath. A pointed question and a good one. "He has something I need to move the kidnapping cases. And to find Margaret Smythe," she said.
    "Be careful," said Ollie. "People that cross Grinchley end up in baggies. Little ones. For sandwiches."
    "Just send me the information when you have it," Pete snapped, "and don't editorialize."
    "All right, all right," said Ollie. "What should I tell Newell when he asks me
yet again
where you've gotten off to?"
    Pete stepped out of the shelter and headed for the Stepney Green tube, weaving between taxis stopped at a red light. "Tell him I went to the graveyard."
    In Hatton Cemetery, the headstones sat in neat lines, sentinels against the living. The grass stayed mowed and solitary figures and families moved among the rows, placing flowers or standing with their heads bowed.
    Pete pulled a few weeds from the base of Connor's headstone. A vase of pink carnations with rotted edges sat in front, tipped over.
    "MG, you sodding witch," Pete muttered, picking up the carnations and dumping them into the nearest trash can. Her sister came up from High Wycombe, always managing to miss Pete's own infrequent visits, left cheap flowers purchased outside the cemetery, but never cleaned the grave.
    Connor had encased MG's feet in stone when she wanted to fly, with peyote or boys or music. Pete's adventure in Highgate hadn't helped matters. MG never forgave either of them for clipping the wings of her wild, carefree, imaginary life.
    "I know you wouldn't approve, Da," Pete murmured, smoothing the turned earth over the grave. "But I know you wouldn't have me leave a little girl to get murdered, either." She sighed and stood, brushing the graveyard dirt from her knees. "What I'm saying is, if I don't come around for a while… Jack will take care of your spot. I think I can at least count on him for that."
    Her mobile burbled, and Travis Grinchley's address and relevant personal details appeared onscreen. Pete stood for a moment longer, reading Connor's epitaph.
May angels usher you on to paradise
.
    "I'm sorry, Da," she said, and left between the rows of headstones before she lost her nerve.

----
Chapter Twenty-eight

    Travis Grinchley's narrow Camden house was three stories of red brick veined with climbing ivy and granite-block bones. Someone had spray-painted no future across the bricks at eye level.
    "Bloody hooligans," said a reedy voice from Pete's left. A wizened man in a frock coat and spats clutched a cluster of plastic shopping bags filled with takeaway cartons.
    "You live here?" Pete said, finding both the fact that Grinchley had a butler and that he dressed the poor man like
this
vaguely unbelievable.
    "I'm Mr. Grinchley's manservant, among other functions," said the gnome, pulling himself upright with a creak of spine. Pete stepped in and took the bags from him, flashing her warrant card with her free hand.
    "It's imperative I speak with Mr. Grinchley. Is he in?"
    The butler coughed once, in what may have been a laugh a few decades and a few thousand packets of cigarettes ago. "Mr. Grinchley is always in, Inspector. Mr. Grinchley hasn't left his home in nearly fourteen years."
    Pete blinked at him, words failing. "Well," she said finally. "Then it will be convenient for me to speak with him."
    "I doubt it, miss," said the butler. He took an old-fashioned iron ring from the pocket of his coat and unlocked the double front doors with a skeleton key. "Mr. Grinchley hates being disturbed."
    Pete mounted the steps after him, putting on her brightest official smile. "I promise not to be a bother."
    The butler grunted and stepped aside to let her in. "Police