Wolf in Shadow-eARC (13 page)

“And what magic do you use that for?”

“I don’t. It was a Christmas present from my Aunty Lil, albeit one to which I refuse to give house room.”

Frankie fussed around collecting items and placing them in a cardboard box. Rhian considered sitting on the wing of the car but decided to stand when she considered the likely impact on her new clothes. In fact, after looking around the lock-up, she chose to wait outside. Frankie eventually unlocked the driver’s door, got in, and leaned across to open the passenger door for Rhian. The car had red leather seats that were small and upright. Everything about the car was upright.

“Does it work?” Rhian asked, struggling with the seat belt.

“Of course it works. Moggies are extremely reliable,” Frankie replied, sniffily.

She switched on the ignition and pressed a button on the dashboard. The engine turned over with a grinding noise, coughed, and died. Rhian said nothing.

“I don’t use the car much, so the battery gets a bit flat,” Frankie said, defensively. “Perhaps it needs some choke.”

She pulled a knob, which slid out of the dashboard on a ratchet, and pressed the starter again. This time the engine fired.

Driving with Frankie was an interesting experience—interesting in the sense of the old Chinese curse. The car was heavy and underpowered so it built up speed only gradually. After stopping. The traffic flow often stopped in London. They soon had an escort of sales reps in hatchbacks and men in white vans bunched behind them. Stopping was equally leisurely. The brakes emitted grinding noises while slowing Mildred with a stately lack of haste more suitable for an oil tanker than a London car.

Finally, there was Frankie at the wheel. It was not that she could not drive properly so much as she would not. She talked excitedly about nothing and everything, pointing out things of interest to the left and right. Less than half her attention was on the road at any one time. Frankie actually took both hands off the wheel to demonstrate the enormity of the challenge she had faced on an earlier job. Rhian gripped her seat belt and surreptitiously checked the tension by pulling on the strap. Fortunately it appeared to be bolted to a non-rusty part of the chassis.

Frankie drove down the right-hand overtaking lane of the dual carriage at some twenty miles an hour too slow, oblivious to the flashing headlights of the frustrated drivers behind. Cars in the slow lane overtook illegally on the inside. Rhian could not find it in her heart to condemn the drivers.

Rhian discovered a
Guide to the Modern East End
on her phone; Max really did think of everything. She looked up Cyprus to steady her nerves. It gave her mind something to dwell on other than wondering about the location of the nearest accident and emergency clinic.

The Cyprus Housing Estate, built in 1881 to house workers employed at the Royal Albert Docks. Named in honour of the capture of the Island of Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire in 1878.

Well, that explained one mystery. She downloaded another page.

Cyprus was extensively redeveloped in the 1980s as part of the move of the financial industry to the area. It is largely private housing, with shopping centers, some offices, and The Docklands Campus of Whitechapel University. It is served by the Docklands Light Railway.

They passed the campus. The buildings were the sort that win architectural awards but are hell to work in. Some were shaped like ships’ funnels and others had strange roofs like giant sun shades on poles. Rhian was more interested in the robot light railway cars running past on the overhead railway. Patriotically painted red, white, and blue, they looked more like coaches than trains. The large windows must give a good view out over Docklands.

Frankie parked—well—more abandoned—the Morris in a shopping center car park. She struggled to fit an anti-theft device to the steering wheel. Privately Rhian thought it highly unlikely that anyone would want to steal Mildred, although a motor museum might make an offer. Frankie finally gave up, and they went to find their client’s office.

Mister Ferguson, their client, turned out to be a portly man in a baggy suit. His ruddy complexion suggested a liking for alcoholic refreshment and the high possibility of an imminent stroke. His secretary was a bottle blonde of a certain age who chewed gum with total dedication.

“Your eleven o’clock is here,” she said to Ferguson.

“I don’t care if your bloody mother has thrown herself off the roof. I need that order now, got it?” Ferguson shouted into a mobile phone while waving Frankie and Rhian towards chairs in front of his desk.

“Sorry about that, ladies,” Ferguson said, switching on a plastic smile. “Salt of the Earth, East End traders, but you have to be firm with them.”

“Perhaps you could brief us on your problem?” Frankie asked, adopting a businesslike manner. Rhian crossed her legs and balanced a notebook on her knee.

“My problem is a load of superstitious bloody Poles,” Ferguson said, taking his gaze off Rhian’s legs with reluctance. “They’ve got it into their thick heads that one of our sites is haunted and have stopped working. I need you to go and pretend to exorcise the place with a bit of the old hocus pocus so that they will get on with the bloody job.”

His mobile phone rang. “What? Look, I’m working on it, right? I bloody know there are penalty clauses.”

He put his hand over the mobile’s mouthpiece, “June will tell give you directions and a contract.”

Correctly assuming that June was the secretary, Frankie and Rhian left the office, leaving Ferguson yelling into his phone. June was surprisingly efficient, if not exactly pleasant.

“Your contract, sign on the bottom,” June said.

Frankie took the pen but paused to look over the document. She blinked in surprise.

“The fee is non-negotiable, so don’t bother to ask,” June said, manipulating her gum from one side of her mouth to the other.

Rhian sneaked a brief glance at the contract. The fee was much higher than Frankie would have requested. She glared at Frankie, hoping the silly mare was not going to blurt that out. Frankie could be so naive.

June caught the nonverbal exchange and raised her eyebrows.

“My PA is trying to get me to reject the commission,” Frankie said. “She is right, of course, the fee is derisory.”

June looked down at the contract. Frankie took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at Rhian, who smiled and gave a thumbs-up.

“Well, maybe I could add some expenses, for travel and lunch,” June finally said. “In cash.”

Cash meant that it never had to appear on the books, so no taxes had to be paid. Technically illegal, but cash was untraceable.

“That’s acceptable,” Frankie said, signing. “Now we are here, we may as well get on with it, Rhian.”

“There’s a map to the site,” June said, her manner conveying that their business was concluded.

Frankie made no move to leave. “I need more information about the nature of the haunting. Mr. Ferguson was short on detail.”

“Does it matter?” June asked. “You just have to put on a good show to impress the Poles.”

“Humor me,” Frankie said.

“It started with stuff being moved around at night when the site was closed down.”

“What sort of stuff?” Frankie asked.

“Oh, tools, and pegs marking out trenches were moved into weird patterns. That sort of thing. You often get kids or drunken students messing around on building sites. The boss put some guard dogs in at night to keep out intruders.”

“But that did not work?” Frankie asked.

“For a while,” June replied. “But the Poles had been spooked by then, so they soon found something else to worry about.”

“Such as?” Frankie asked.

June shrugged. “They claimed spirits were throwing things around. The foreman was whacked across the back of the head with a shovel. The Poles claimed it just lifted up and hit him. I reckon one of them with a grudge decked the foreman and the others covered it up with ghost stories.”

“Okay,” Frankie said, picking up her copy of the contact and the dosh. “We’ll show ourselves out.”

They walked to the door.

“And then there was the accident,” June said.

Frankie turned and walked back.

“What accident?”

“A Pole fell off some scaffolding,” June replied. “He died.”

The map was only moderately inaccurate, so they only went wrong a few times before finding the building site. Blocks of yuppie maisonettes lay half-completed on a fenced-off wilderness. Two guard dogs paced forwards and backwards along the high wire fence.

Frankie retrieved a large cardboard box from the back of Mildred. Rhian was amused to see that the car had two cupboard-like rear doors instead of a vertically opening hatch. They walked along the fence until they found a gate by a grey prefab builder’s hut resting on bricks to lift it clear of the ground. The dogs flanked them silently on the other side of the fence. Somehow that was more sinister than if they barked.

Rhian could hear a radio on in the hut tuned to a local talk station. A deep debate raged about new traffic lights. The argument had just reached the Godwin moment where the local council traffic subcommittee were likened to Nazi Stormtroopers when Frankie knocked on the hut door.

“What?” The door opened abruptly, and an elderly man with very bad breath stuck his head out. The women took one step back.

“I presume you’re the watchman. We’re here to exorcise the site,” Frankie said. “Mr. Ferguson’s secretary should have rung about us.”

“The gates are unlocked,” the man said, disappearing back inside and shutting the door.

Frankie knocked again.

“What?” Another wave of halitosis passed over like the wind off a marsh in high summer.

“Aren’t you going to chain up the dogs?” Frankie asked.

“Not on your life,” the man said. “I’m not stupid enough to go near them.”

He retreated back inside his hut. Frankie banged insistently on the door, but he responded by turning up the radio.

A small group of workmen gathered in the middle distance, materializing from tatty caravans parked beyond the hut. They stood watching, arms folded.

“This is hopeless,” Frankie said in exasperation. “I’ll have to go home and get something to knock the animals out.”

“No need,” Rhian said. “I’m good with dogs. I’ll deal with them.”

Frankie pointedly looked at one of the dogs trying to gnaw through the wire to get at them, then back at Rhian in exaggerated astonishment.

“I’m Welsh,” Rhian said. “You know Wales, lots of sheep, lots of sheepdogs. You stay there.”

She pulled open the bolt on the gate and slipped inside the compound.

CHAPTER 8
INCURSION

Jameson was not happy, not happy at all. He was summoned to the seventh floor for a strategy meeting. Strategy meetings were, in Jameson’s experience, largely pointless bitching sessions where the main preoccupation was the old bureaucratic game of passing the buck. He was also late. No doubt everybody else would be disgustingly punctual, allowing Randolph to bitch at him.

The lift stopped on the fifth floor. The doors opened with the grind of misaligned rollers to reveal a young man in a blue leather jacket. He jumped in, pressing the button for the ninth. Karla examined him with interest. Jameson recognised the signs. She was bored, and a bored Karla could be a cruel Karla. She was like a cat. Even when not hungry, she liked to toy with her food.

She slid across and stood far too close to the young man, who smiled at her uncertainly. She smiled back, exposing long canines. The young man twitched. He stopped the lift on the sixth and jumped out.

“I think I’ll take the stairs,” he said, to no one in particular. “The exercise will be good for me.”

The doors slid closed.

“You promised to behave,” Jameson said, accusingly.

Karla laughed, her teeth now small, neat and white.

“I just played with him a little,” she said.

“Well, don’t,” Jameson said, exiting on the seventh floor.

The conference rooms were large soundproofed glass cubicles. Such horrors were apparently currently fashionable in corporate circles. Jameson yearned for The Commission’s old headquarters in Westminster. He recalled fondly the wood-paneled walls and the faint smell of decay and death-watch beetle. The beetles had finally won and the structure had rotted around them. The bean-counters persuaded the Board that it would be more cost effective to move to a new glass tower in Docklands. It was bright, airy, and completely sterile. Jameson spent as little time there as possible.

Everyone else was already in the cubicle.

“Nice of you to join us,” said Randolph when they entered.

“Heavy traffic on the A13,” Jameson shrugged.

“You could always use public transport,” said an elderly, shriveled woman, who gazed at Jameson and Karla with distaste.

“I could also crawl over broken glass if I was really desperate, Miss Arnoux” Jameson said, lightly.

Miss Arnoux was head of Magical Support, the group known to everyone else as The Coven.

“Some of us are busy.”

“Sorry, I realize you probably have a cauldron to stir or something.”

“I’ll have you know—”

“If we can get on,” Randolph said, interrupting. “Kendrics?”

“Ah, um, yes.”

Kendrics was a geek, who would have been tall if not for his habitual stoop. Dark brown hair erupted from his scalp as if he had been recently wired to a Van der Graaf generator. He rose, revealing brown corded jeans. His jacket, slung over the back of the chair, had bulging pockets. The weight pulled the chair over with a clatter.

Randolph looked at him with studied patience.

“Sorry,” Kendrics said.

Karla focused on Kendrics, snapping out of the quiescent mode she tended to adopt in meetings. Her attention did nothing for the hapless geek’s inadequate coordination. He righted the chair but was flustered so failed to remove the jacket before letting go. The chair promptly rolled over again.

Karla partially extended her canines.

“Leave it.” Randolph snapped, when Kendrics moved to pick up the chair once more.

Randolph glared at Karla, who smiled at him, her teeth now normal. Jameson couldn’t stand Randolph, but the man had no fear, or possibly no imagination. He treated Karla with the same supercilious disdain he reserved for all Commission staff. She could kill him, but she could not frighten him. In return, she treated Randolph with casual familiarity. This was a league above the way she regarded most people.