‘No,’ Danielle said. ‘What do ya want?’

  He shrugged. ‘Saw you looking in the Hob,’ he said. ‘Don’t open until midday.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not going in …’

  She looked down at her swollen belly. He followed her gaze.

  ‘Nah.’ Then he said, ‘You visiting, are you?’

  ‘No, I live here,’ she said. Then she wondered whether she should have told him but then thought, fuck it. What was some little old geezer going to do to her?

  He said, ‘You don’t sound like you come from round here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She knew what he meant, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  ‘You ain’t posh,’ the old man said.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Why do I need to be?’

  The old man smiled again. She had the distinct feeling he was playing with her.

  ‘Course,’ he said. ‘They’re all bankers and briefs round here. Middle class. You married to one of ’em, are you?’

  ‘Maybe. Why?’

  ‘Don’t get people like us round here,’ he said.

  ‘You’re here,’ Danielle answered.

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘Course I am. I’ve always been here, me.’

  The young man was called Jordan and he was a constable in the City of London Police. It had been this young man who had found the body of the baby. Like Wilko, he had a day off and, as far as Mumtaz could tell, the two of them had met up to talk about it. It must’ve been a terrible thing for such a young man to experience. Mumtaz felt that she and Lee should really leave them alone. It wasn’t, after all, as if they could share details about the incident with anyone outside the police.

  But Wilko was now in full flow.

  ‘Christopher Wren was a Freemason,’ Wilko said. ‘Well known. If you know where to look you can find all sorts of Masonic motifs all over the cathedral. The Square Mile has always been the centre of this country’s spiritual life, long before Christianity. Long before the Romans.’

  Jordan, who Mumtaz felt wanted to talk to his colleague alone, said, ‘Yeah, but not really the point at the moment …’

  ‘Oh no,’ the older man said. ‘Sorry, I get a bit carried away with all the history. I’m that rare thing, Square Mile born and bred.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mumtaz said, ‘where?’

  People born in the City were few and far between and she was curious.

  ‘Leadenhall Street,’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad was caretakers of an old office building. Long gone now. Full of insurance companies it was. Used to have to climb six flights of stairs to get to our old place. My old man had a roof garden long before all these roof terraces advertised with them posh flats you see for sale these days. Geraniums, my dad grew.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ Mumtaz said. ‘You should write a book about it.’

  Wilko shrugged. ‘What, me? Who’d be interested in that?’

  ‘Social history’s really popular these days,’ Mumtaz said.

  Jordan poked his mate with his elbow. ‘Told you,’ he said. Then addressing Mumtaz, he continued, ‘He’s got loads of stories about the City in the sixties and seventies. It was like another world. And not that long ago, you know.’

  ‘No.’

  Wilko shuffled his feet. He wasn’t comfortable with this subject, even though it was he who had originally invoked it.

  Lee, who knew him rather better than the other two, said, ‘Well, we ought to leave you boys to your chat now.’

  The older man said, ‘Good to see you, mate.’

  They shook hands again and Lee and Mumtaz began to walk away. Once out of earshot, Lee said, ‘Sorry about that. Once Wilko gets going about the City, he can drone on for hours. We were lucky to get away before he started about the Temple of Mithras.’

  Mumtaz frowned.

  ‘Roman,’ Lee said. ‘We learnt about it at school. Can’t remember much now except that Mithras was a Roman god worshipped by their soldiers. Back in the fifties a Mithras temple was discovered when they were digging out the foundations of a new building in the City. Wilko’s dad used to go down there and watch, so he says.’

  ‘Wilko seems to be quite the local historian,’ Mumtaz said.

  ‘Oh, he can bore for Britain.’

  ‘You say that, and yet he has given me an idea,’ she replied.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About how to ingratiate myself with the residents of Carter Court.’

  FOUR

  Up above, in the world, it was sometimes dark and sometimes light. Down in the earth it was always black. Was that because in such overwhelming absence – an absence that could be tasted, heard, smelt – even seen, albeit only in the mind’s eye – there was no day or night? No way to measure time except through the occasional outburst into the world?

  Or was it because the darkness soaked up blood?

  Arthur, the old man she’d met outside the Hobgoblin pub, had proved to be an intriguing bloke. Like a lot of people, Danielle had assumed that all the residents who lived in the area around the cathedral were young, new people. But there were, so Arthur had told her, more old residents than people might think. He claimed his own family had been in the area for centuries. He’d also told her that Charles Dickens had set his most famous murder scene – that of Nancy in Oliver Twist – at the end of London Bridge, beside the church of St Magnus the Martyr, just east along the River Thames. She’d been to see the church, for want of much else to do, and was now looking it up online when Henry came home.

  Unlike her dad, her mum, her sisters and their partners, Henry didn’t kiss Danielle when he came home from work. He just said ‘Hey’ and she said ‘Hey’ back, and then they talked about food.

  ‘I fancy going out to eat tonight,’ Henry said.

  He stood in the middle of his great white living room, a tall, dark and handsome man in his late thirties. Soon he’d be going on about carpaccio or crushed something or other and Danielle would want to punch him. Why was it that posh men always felt the need to discuss ingredients now? Henry even photographed his dinners and talked about them online.

  Not eliciting an answer from Danielle, Henry said, ‘What are you looking up?’

  ‘A church,’ she said.

  ‘What church?’

  ‘St Magnus the Martyr. It’s at this end of London Bridge.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s where Charles Dickens set the murder scene of Nancy in Oliver Twist,’ Danielle said.

  ‘Oh, learn that online, did you?’

  ‘No, I met an old man in the street today,’ she said. ‘He told me. Lived round here his whole life, he said.’

  ‘Really?’ Henry frowned. ‘Thought all these places were new.’

  ‘He lives in Carter Court,’ she said. ‘He was right about the murder of Nancy and that church is really old too. Really dark …’

  ‘So what about dinner?’

  He wasn’t interested.

  ‘I was thinking The Harrow on Whitefriars Street,’ he continued. ‘Nice selection of healthy options …’

  ‘Whatever.’

  He walked into their bedroom to change for the evening. Danielle remembered the smell of incense from inside the church and the darkness of the images of its saints.

  ‘This is going to be a lot of work,’ Lee said.

  Mumtaz rolled her eyes. ‘No, it’s not,’ she said. ‘There’s loads of stuff about the history of that area.’

  ‘So why’d anyone want to write a book about it, if it’s all out there?’

  ‘Because as I said to Wilko, there’s still a lot of social history to be explored,’ Mumtaz replied. ‘And that young constable agreed with me.’

  ‘Bit of a looker, him,’ Lee said.

  She punched him playfully on the shoulder. ‘Oh shut up. People these days want to know how ordinary people lived. It’s not all about kings and queens and great cathedrals.’

  He sat down beside her at her computer.

  ‘So what’s gonna be your angle then?’ he said.

  ‘I’m looking for people who have lived experience,’ she said. ‘People who still live and work in the remaining old buildings. I’ll start with the pub, The Hobgoblin.’

  ‘You. In a pub.’

  She couldn’t decide whether he was being deliberately obtuse or just forgetful.

  ‘I’ve done it before,’ she said. ‘And if you do happen to remember, I wasn’t wearing my hijab and that was fine, and I was drinking orange juice and that was fine too.’

  He raised his hands in surrender. They both knew their relationship was odd. Mumtaz was religious but she had very much her own relationship with Islam, which involved being an independent working woman who just happened to have a non-Muslim lover. Lee, on his part, adored the ground she stepped on. There was a lot of laughter in their relationship, but no talk of marriage which, since they’d been together for a number of years now, they both appreciated. They were comfortable where they were, even if others were not.

  ‘There was a sign on the door that said “Food”,’ Mumtaz continued. ‘And so I’ll go tomorrow for lunch.’

  Lee put a hand out towards her and said, ‘Quid says it’s mystery meat pie and chips.’

  She shook his hand. ‘Done. I think you’re onto a winner. But I’ll take one for the team.’

  ‘You’re a soldier.’

  He kissed her.

  Afterwards she said, ‘I just hope we’re able to get to the truth about this boy. There’s part of me wants to break that blue door down and go in there and get him out. But until we can find out more …’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  DI Scott Brown wasn’t the type of man who minced his words. If he didn’t like an idea, he said so. Tall and thin, with enormous, sad brown eyes, he looked like a Byzantine saint. But not only did he swear like a sailor – he also had no patience, the morals of an alley cat and a rumoured addiction to cocaine. Any suggestions by anyone about his work were not welcomed, especially when they came from an old git in uniform. But Wilko ploughed on. He was used to Brown.

  ‘I’m not saying we get him in to deliver the place …’

  ‘Well, woop-di-doop!’ Brown said. ‘Thank fuck for that!’

  ‘I’m just saying that how the kiddie was killed and where its body was found could, could, indicate some sort of ritual behaviour.’

  ‘Could, but it might not and chances are, it doesn’t,’ Brown said. ‘I’m investigating a murder, Wilko, not some bloody case of fucking possession!’

  ‘I just think a historical—’

  ‘Mate, this is happening now,’ Brown said. ‘Not in thirteen fucking ninety. Know what I think? I think this is County Lines.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think it’s gangs. Some fucking seventeen-year-old godfather’s got his thick as pigshit white girlfriend up the stick and killed the result,’ he said. ‘You know what these kids are like! Some muppet on some sink estate thinks he’s a cross between Boyz n the Hood and fucking Fast and Furious. Whacked up on ketamine …’

  ‘Father George knows the City and he knows his history.’

  ‘So let him do an exorcism on the ghost of Robert Maxwell,’ Brown said.

  ‘He doesn’t want to do an exorcism.’

  ‘So what’s he want to do then?’

  ‘I want him to look at the site and I want to share some details about the offence with him,’ Wilko said. ‘DI Brown, you’ve seen the corpse. What was done to that kiddie was strange and unnecessary and …’ He wanted to say ‘evil’ but managed to stop himself. ‘Deliberate. That wasn’t some desperate girl who found herself knocked up, getting rid of her kid out of desperation. I don’t even believe it was some young blud off the estates. There’s something altogether … It’s weird, disturbing, and given what I know about the City …’

  ‘Alright.’ Brown waved a submissive hand as he sat down at his desk. ‘Alright, have your bleedin’ exorcist—’

  ‘Deliverance minister.’

  ‘Whatever. Have him look at the site, tell him about it and see what he thinks. But don’t think for a moment I go along with all this mumbo jumbo. Me and my team’ll pursue the bad bastards while you and Father Ted—’

  ‘Father George.’

  ‘Whatever. While you fiddle with your rosaries or whatever the fuck you people do.’

  The old man had been down the chippy. Dinner was meat pie, chips with a saveloy on the side. There wasn’t a vegetable to be seen.

  Jordan sat down at the kitchen table and began eating.

  Granddad Bert, who was drinking the gravy from the pie by tipping the plate into his mouth, swallowed and then said, ‘Get your Christmas presents, did you?’

  ‘Er …’ He’d forgotten that was what he’d told the old man. Spending the day effectively in Wilko’s head had pushed that out of his mind.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Bert said, ‘I know you, you done your own thing and I know that was probably to do with your work. I s’pose it could have been a young lady, but then why you’d start courting now …’

  ‘Granddad!’

  ‘Well, you never bring no one home, do you?’ he said. ‘Not girl or boy …’

  ‘I’ve told you, I’m not gay.’

  ‘Couldn’t give a tupp’ny shit if you are.’ He finished the gravy and then wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. He began attacking the chips. ‘Just wish you had someone,’ he said. ‘You’re a good lad. It’s not right you’re on your own with an old bleeder like me.’

  ‘I like being with you!’

  ‘Yeah, but you’d be happier with a young lady. You don’t remember your grandma Doris, but she was the light of my life. Loved her from the moment we first met down the old Ilford Palais.’

  ‘Yes, you’ve said. But I’ve never met anyone who makes me feel like that,’ Jordan said. ‘And it’s not for the want of trying, whatever you may think. Part of the reason I won’t go over to Brixton is because Nana Willi likes to introduce me to “suitable” girls.’

  The old man burped. ‘Well, you’re a good kid,’ he said. ‘Them lovely God-fearing girls at them churches they have down there can’t find fault with you. There’s that lovely West Indian girl in Call the Midwife. I mean you couldn’t do any better than someone like her.’

  Jordan wondered whether he should even grace an observation based on a TV show with an answer, and then decided that he shouldn’t. Besides, nice as the character of the God-fearing West Indian midwife in the programme was, he didn’t want to be with anyone like that. He was the son of two junkies who had needed to be withdrawn from smack just after he was born. Jordan tended to pass on God. And since the discovery of the dead baby in St Paul’s Churchyard, he’d been even more averse to the great whatever it was in the sky.

  In spite of finding Wilko with a couple of his mates first thing, Jordan had spent most of the day with the older man. They’d both seen the pattern of stab wounds on that baby’s body and, while Jordan hadn’t made the connections that Wilko had, he’d known it was strange.

  One wound had been to the throat, then two more at the shoulders, followed by two others at the tops of the legs. Precise, planned, equidistant stab wounds from front to back. And while Jordan had, right from the off, felt there had to be something ritualistic at play here, he hadn’t known what. But he’d known that if anyone had a theory it would be Wilko.

  They’d sat, Wilko smoking, Jordan slurping down coffee after coffee in the churchyard for hours, talking. Wilko had been the first to use the word ‘ritual’.

  ‘It’s an old, old thing, the ritual sacrifice of a child when opening an important building,’ he’d told Jordan.

  ‘But St Paul’s is centuries old,’ the young man had replied.

  ‘Oh not this case, no,’ Wilko had said. ‘Just saying it was something that used to be done. Some people believe there’s the body of a child underneath Christ Church in Spitalfields. I dunno. The architect, Hawksmoor, was some think, a magician. He was certainly a Mason …’

  ‘That’s not relevant.’

  ‘No?’ Wilko had shaken his head. ‘Tell me, Constable Whittington, them five stab wounds on that poor nipper’s body, what would they make if you joined them all up?’

  Jordan had thought for a moment and then he’d said, ‘Well, I suppose a sort of a house shape, a square with a pitched roof …’

  ‘No!’ Wilko had rolled his eyes. ‘No, joined across the body! They make a five-pointed star, a pentagram.’

  ‘Oh.’

  In Jordan’s limited experience pentagrams were associated with pagans and goths, who liked to wear them round their necks or have them tattooed on their arms. Nana Willi was very anti such things and was of the opinion that pagans and goths worshipped the Devil.

  ‘And that is a powerful thing, that pentagram,’ Wilko had continued. ‘If you draw it with the top pointing down it’s supposed to be a sign of the Devil. Probably the most important occult symbol there is.’

  He’d said he was going to speak to a friend who was a vicar. This vicar, he’d told Jordan, specialised in something called ‘deliverance’ which was actually exorcism. It all sounded very far-fetched and Jordan wondered what the man in charge of the case, DI Brown, would make of it. Probably not much.

  After Jordan had finished his dinner he went into the living room to watch TV and drink beer with the old man, and then he went to bed. But he couldn’t sleep. The sight of that baby, whose skin was the same colour as his own, kept on replaying in his mind.

  FIVE

  Lee grabbed hold of the bloke’s shoulder and forced the papers into his hand.

  ‘Snaresbrook, next Thursday,’ he said as he walked away from him. ‘Be there.’

  The bloke, an enforcer for an up-and-coming family of Kray-a-likes from Ongar, smirked.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.

  Lee wanted to go back and beat the shit out of the little toerag. Called to appear on a charge of petty theft, Billy Adams was so much more. A classic clean-freak mummy’s boy, twenty-eight-year-old Billy had a record for assault on women, only some of which had stuck. That he was now up on a shoplifting charge was laughable. The greedy git had got light-fingered in Aldi, apparently.