Chapter Text
I had thought I was early for breakfast, but I found Nightingale already up, immaculately dressed and ready to face the day, tucking into what appeared, on first inspection, to be a plate of mashed avocado and roast chickpeas on toast; although I had learnt the hard way never to take any of Molly’s creations at face value. On the whole, I felt that her embracing modern vegetarian cuisine had been a positive change, but the quinoa and kidney experience had led me to approach any plate with professional suspicion.
“Ah, Peter.” He looked up from his newspaper with a thin smile, but I detected the enthusiastic note in his tone that meant something was afoot, so I braced myself.
“I had a call last night informally letting me know of another possible Falcon case in Herefordshire.”
I raised my eyebrows. Not because I was surprised at the possibility of Falcon activity in that particular area of the country: I’d gained quite a bit of Herefordshire-related Falcon experience when I’d volunteered to help with Operation Manticore. This apparently mundane search for two missing eleven year old girls from a sleepy English village, ended up with me being rescued from Faerieland by the goddess of a small river in west London, who was now my girlfriend, driving a hundred-ton Victorian steam engine. It wasn’t the sort of case you forget.
I was surprised because I’d checked my emails and my phone before I came downstairs, and there hadn’t been anything from Dominic, the unsuspecting member of West Mercia Police Force who’d been having an entirely normal life until I’d been paired up with him and who’d been dropping me notes on the regular since his life had expanded to include talking foxes, and the joint guardianship of the infant river Lugg. He was the nearest thing to a Falcon capable officer that West Mercia police had.
As if he was reading my mind, Nightingale said “It’s outside of West Mercia’s jurisdiction, if you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from Detective Constable Croft directly.”
It took me a moment to parse that statement “Out of their jurisdiction? What, the Fae are reporting crimes to us now?”
Nightingale gave me a withering look. “Any crimes committed on military-owned installations, fall under the auspices of the Royal Military Police rather than the local constabulary.”
I thought of the helicopter that had swung low over our heads as Dominic and I had checked the Rushpool war memorial the tell-tale traces of spent magic, skimming over the tops of the trees and flooding us with the backwash of its rotors.
“The SAS are reporting a magical crime?” I said, this time with greater incredulity.
“Apparently there have been instances of inexplicable vandalism on the base, and the Major believes that there may be a supernatural element.”
I blinked. I don’t know what magical crime I’d been expecting the Special Air Service to be getting in touch about, but potentially supernatural vandalism hadn’t even been in my top ten.
“And you said we’d take a look?”
“I think that you, being the Falcon capable officer with the most local experience, would be ideally placed to attend. They were rather keen to keep the RMP out of it, but I think it would be an excellent time to start building a relationship with those particular colleagues.”
I’d covered the relationship between my role in the Met and the various other special branches in training, and I’d had Falcon-related dealings with the British Transport Police enough that I was on first name terms with a few of them, but the innumerable framework documents in which the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office formalised their rules of engagement were one of many mysteries in my life that remained as yet unsolved.
Since the Folly had been demobbed in 1946, it had no official relationship with the armed forces; although there had been a sympathetic, entirely below-the-table gentleman’s agreement that we could call on the assistance of 2 Para should we need to, and which I’d recently formalised into the small print of a little-known sub-section of Operation Temperer, the part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy that allows large scale military deployment to support the police in the event of a major terrorist attack. It had taken several quiet pints in The Queen’s Larder with Frank Caffrey for company and an equal number of tedious meetings in Whitehall before it was complete, but now it was official, actual policy that I’d written all by myself.
A thought occurred to me. “Have you dealt with them in an unofficial capacity?”
“In the years since the war, there have been several instances of misfiled items that needed to be dealt with: battlestaffs turning up in regimental archives, inappropriate souvenirs and the like. The regimental association knew to point them in our direction.”
Christ! I thought, thinking about the unexploded bombs still occasionally turning up during foundation excavations, still claiming victims eighty years after the end of The Blitz . I didn't even want to think about what arcane miscellania might still be knocking about out there unaccounted for.
“When I insisted we would only deal above board they were less than enthusiastic. I believe they are quite uncommonly paranoid, which perhaps makes sense given the circumstances in which they are deployed, but I suspect will make official dealings with them a tad challenging. In the end, I was able to point out that their desire to see the miscreant responsible apprehended could be augmented by making an example of them under military law as a means of public deterrent against further instances. That seemed to outweigh their misgivings.”
“Really?”
“There was a lot of talk about slitting the gizzards of the person or persons responsible, which I am hoping is their way of talking about the application of the due military judicial process.” He gave me a thin, humourless smile.
So in a state of apprehension and curiosity, I packed an overnight bag and, pausing only to give Beverly a brief update on my intended absence, retraced my steps back up the M4 as I’d done the year before. Back then, the countryside had been sweltering in the heat of an unnaturally warm summer, but this time, I ploughed through the cold drizzle of a grey February morning, the heaters roaring and the windows tightly wound up against the winter chill.
All the events of Operation Manticore had centred around Rushpool, a village a few miles outside Leominster in the northern part of the county of Herefordshire. I’d only briefly ventured south to the big smoke of Hereford itself, with its cathedral and its Anne Summer’s, after the case was closed. I’d also spent a pleasant day before I finally packed up in the national booktown of Hay-on-Wye with Beverley, and being inspired by the idyllic, pastoral beauty of the surrounding countryside, I indulged myself by buying a folio edition of The Hobbit before we retired to a hotel overlooking the river, and made our own entertainment until dinnertime.
Stirling Lines stood on the edge of the village of Credenhill, a few miles west of Hereford itself, and fitting with the secretive and paranoid nature of the regiment garrisoned there, unmarked on maps, unknown to my satnav and with zero preparatory signage until the absolute last minute, when a completely normal black and white information-giving road sign advised me to ensure I was in the right lane, and I had to commit an offence under Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act (1988) to do so. This resulted in a justifiable angry honk from the car behind me, and meant that my approach to the base was treated with significantly, although understandably, more suspicion that I intended.
Currently on guard duty were two almost identical middle-aged, White guys in battenburg-marked black caps, rendered spherical by the thick thermal jackets over their tactical vests to keep out the winter chill, and who formed part of the small detachment of MoD police assigned to guard the gates against whatever marauding forces might decide to drive up and tell the Special Air Service to have a go, if they thought they were hard enough.
The first man took my warrant card, and apologetically asked me to step out of the ASBO whilst his colleague nosed around the inside with bored detachment. This far off my manor, about to enter part of England that didn’t officially exist on any map I could lay my hands on, I had no idea whether this was a stupid power play to get one over those fancy, soft London coppers, or due diligence in the best interests of national security, but as they were polite, and were still pointing some brutal looking assault rifles towards my undefended body, I went along without argument. Five minutes later, satisfied that I wasn’t about to attempt to overthrow the place by use of force, sandwich crusts or Iain M Banks novels, they waved me through.
Behind the perimeter berm that concealed the complex from the main road, Stirling Lines consisted of squat, utilitarian, red-brick buildings spaced at regular intervals across the site. As instructed, I parked up in front of the main block, which had apparently been designed by someone who clearly wanted to acknowledge the great military building projects of the thirties and forties with their slim, minimalist windows, curves and sweeping lines, nodding to the grandeur of Art Deco without the ostentatious trimmings, but had been haggled down to a tiny, rounded portico with two supporting pillars around the door of an otherwise bland and soulless frontage.
Making her way across the car park in front was a short, middle-aged, White woman of medium height and heavy build, with dark hair cut into a short crop beneath a scarlet beret, dark brown eyes and a freckled, heart shaped face with a snub nose and a small mouth set into a serious expression. Before I’d met Molly, I would’ve described her as elfin, but now that I knew better, I was fairly certain that she was human; although given that most of her was concealed beneath her uniform, and I had spent enough time in the demi-monde to learn the hard way not to judge a book by its cover, I reserved judgement.
She shook my hand, and introduced herself as Sergeant Julie Rideout of the RMP.
“So,” she said brusquely. “You’re in charge of the weird stuff?”
I figured her for a local, or at least from a bordering county, by the West Country lilt to her words. I confirmed that whilst I wasn’t specifically in charge of the weird stuff, I was indeed PC Peter Grant, of the Special Assessment Unit, sworn member of the constabulary and serving member of the Metropolitan Police’s weird stuff division.
“We’ll get you sorted out, and then, if you don’t mind, head up to see the Major. Don’t suppose you can shed any light into what we’re here for?”
I shrugged. “My guvnor said there’d been acts of vandalism?”
She nodded. “That’s the brief I got too.” She took a deep breath and let out a very put-upon sigh. “Oh, well. Guess we’ll find out what’s what soon enough.”
We walked in silence across the car park for a few moments before she asked. “You an Army man yourself?”
I shook my head.
“Serving family members? Interest in military history?”
I said I had neither, and asked her if this would be a problem.
She sucked her teeth and said “I think the less you know, the better. One of the downsides of a ‘celebrity’ regiment, so to speak is that people can come over a bit star-struck, and it’s not really conducive to an impartial investigation.”
I nodded. “Is there anything in particular I should know?”
“By numbers , they’re actually less hassle than your average squaddie. They’re all volunteers, and the last men standing after eighteen months of being put through the wringer, which generally weeds out the less level-headed, and if they’re not good little boys, they’ll be RTU’d back to whichever regiment they came from with their tail between their legs, so they’re quite well incentivised to behave. But as far as you and I are concerned, they’re a massive pain in the arse. All that interrogation resistance training means that unless you’ve got special remit to actually kick shit out of them?”
I shook my head.
“Shame” she replied, sounding genuinely disappointed. “Well, then unless they’ve been ordered to actively cooperate, you might as well be questioning a brick.”
I followed her through the doors inside and she welcomed me into the bland, pine-veneered, pastel-themed reception area that could have been excised from any office block in any part of central London about twenty years ago, except for the oppressive, repetitive signage that reminding us that we were to see nothing, say nothing and preferably, drink until we forgot what it was we didn’t see.
We sat down in a secluded corner of the lobby, behind a glass brick wall and a dusty plastic cheese plant, and the desk sergeant: a middle-aged, clean-shaved, thick-set man with medium brown skin, close-cropped black hair and small, deeply suspicious jet-black eyes thrust a clipboard under my nose that reminded me of my responsibilities under the Official Secrets Act (1989). Under his baleful glare, I signed to acknowledge whilst Julie filled me in.
“The biggest issue for civvie cops is getting your head round the fact that out there ,” she waved her arm to indicate the world beyond the perimeter fence “isn’t the same as in here.”
“How so?” I asked.
“In here, you kick shit out of some guy giving you grief in the mess, no one bats an eyelid. After all, if you train a bunch of guys to solve problems with violence, you can’t really complain when they do. Slap on the wrist if anyone cares at all. On the other hand if you’re caught with your fingers in the till, the whole military justice system comes down on you like a ton of bricks, when out there, you’d just be let go with no reference and they'd just write off the loss. In here, that’s a stint in the glasshouse, no messing. Disrespecting the military structure, biting the hand that feeds. That’s serious. ”
“Is that why they’re so riled up about the vandalism?” I asked.
She tutted. “If it’s an inside job, that’s really going to piss a lot of people off. It’s not showing the proper respect, and that’s a big deal. If it’s affecting actual equipment or stopping other guys doing their jobs, then that could be considered sabotage and that’s a whole other kettle of extremely angry fish coming right for your bollocks.”
“What if it’s not an inside job?”
She sucked her teeth “Let's just say that I wouldn’t want to be that guy when we catch them.”