‘Obsession thrives on surmountable obstacles. Yes, Felix, there is another way. Several movements set side by side in one casing would do the job. Each mechanism would still be in the standard range, but together they’d be able to do what you need them to do. What a job though! Not making the individual cylinders – that’s no effort at all. But making them work in time with each other . . .’
‘If you could do it,’ I said, ‘how much would it cost?’
She gave me a slightly surprised look. ‘Oh, more than you could afford, my lamb. A lot more than you could afford. But I assume there’s a story attached?’
‘Yeah, there is. Very much so.’
‘And I’d very much like to hear it.’
‘Done.’
‘I’d very much like to hear it at Claridge’s. Gastronomy Domine says Gordon Ramsay is back on form this year. A coarse and odious little man, but he knows how to cook.’
‘Cheap at the price, Evelyn.’
‘Then I’ll see what I can do. Keep your mobile phone on vibrate, Felix, and in your back pocket. When I goose you, you’ll know it’s time to come see me again.’
From Kensington I grabbed a number 14 bus back into town: not as quick as a cab but cheaper. Now that I was committed to dinner for two at Claridge’s, I was already counting the pennies.
Having Caldessa on the case gave me a sense of having made some progress, maybe spurious, but when your own wheels are spinning in the air it helps to know that other people are moving. In that regard, I called Nicky and asked him about the three stooges known as Tlallik, Ket and Jetaniul.
‘A couple more bites,’ he said. ‘One on Jetaniul this time, and one more on Tlallik. The references are really fucking old, like with the Grazimir citation. Again, just lists of names from a couple of early grimoires: translations of translations of translations, so far from the original context that it’s not worth chasing up. Nothing to indicate who they are, or what they are, or what they do. Judging by the company they keep though, they were pretty big players at one time. Which makes me wonder how come none of them stayed in the hit parade after the thirteenth century.’
‘And no known aliases?’
‘Not yet. I tell you what though: Juliet could ask her brother.’
‘Say again?’
‘She comes from Baphomet’s lineage, doesn’t she?
‘I don’t think she phones home all that often,’ I said. It was an automatic response, dating back to when Juliet was trying to keep her nose clean. After last night’s performance, maybe I’d need to revise that estimate.
‘Doesn’t hurt to ask, anyway,’ Nicky said. ‘I’m still on it, but I’m thinking this is a waste of time. These guys all closed up shop a long time ago.’
‘Do demons retire, Nicky?’
‘You can run that one past her too.’
I got off the bus at Trafalgar Square, then walked up St Martin’s Lane, where I found a bank and wired a ton, in pounds sterling, to the personal account of D. Anastasiadis. A hundred quid a book, he’d said, so now he could make a start on Rafi’s journals if he hadn’t done so already. If you’d asked me what I hoped to find in there, and what I thought I could do with it, I’d have had to admit I had no idea. Again, it was the illusion of moving forward that was comforting, even though forward doesn’t really mean anything if you have no clue where it is you’re going.
As I carried on towards Seven Dials and my rendezvous with Trudie Pax, I made one final call, to Juliet – or as it turned out, to Sue Book. She sounded scared and hunted, as though picking up the phone was an act that was fraught with danger. I asked her if Juliet had seemed okay when she got home last night.
‘Last night?’ Sue echoed, sounding uncertain. ‘She wasn’t here. She didn’t . . . I thought . . .’ There was a pause, and then the sound of another voice in the background. Sue answered the other person, but her voice was muffled now – a hand over the receiver, most probably.
‘Sue?’ I prompted.
There was a spate of rattles and clicks.
‘Who is this?’ It wasn’t Sue’s voice. It wasn’t Juliet’s either – or rather, not quite. It was close, but it had a ragged edge to it with oddly placed peaks and troughs, as though it was being played back on the wrong device and in the wrong format.
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Castor.’
‘She called you?’
The threat in the tone was palpable. ‘Uh . . . no. I called her. I just wanted to see how you were feeling. If you’re managing to . . .’ I groped for a circumlocution that avoided words like devour and soul. ‘If you’re keeping it together,’ I finished cravenly.
There was a long silence, long enough to make me think that the connection had broken, but Juliet spoke again just before I did.
‘Tell me where you are,’ she said.
From behind her, I could dimly hear a squeal of dismay from Sue. ‘Jules, no. He’s just a friend. He’s your friend too. It’s not—’
The crash that obliterated the end of the sentence was loud enough to make me flinch away from the phone. ‘Juliet,’ I shouted. ‘Don’t hurt her. Fuck it, don’t hurt her. I’m in town. On Seven Dials. What do you want?’
At that moment Trudie rounded the corner of Shorts Gardens, about fifty yards away. She waved to me, then registered my expression and lowered her hand. Only silence now on the other end of the line.
‘Juliet?’ I yelled again.
There’s a weird experience I get every now and then, where I look at my watch and I think it’s stopped, because the second hand doesn’t seem to be moving. It just sits there, seemingly for a whole lot longer than a second hand should, until finally it wakes up and jumps to the next notch. It’s just a second, but it’s a second you’re glancing at sideways somehow, and from that angle it looks longer. That’s probably what happened here. It felt like I was waiting for a night and a day, but since nothing else happened in that time, it’s a fair bet that it was no time at all.
‘She’s fine, Castor,’ said Juliet in her normal voice.
‘What do you mean, she’s fine?’ I snarled. ‘I heard you tearing the whole place apart.’
Her voice was eerily calm, and the dislocation from what had just happened was so complete it was terrifying. ‘I swung a chair against the wall, and it broke. Sue wasn’t hurt. But now she won’t let me touch her or come near her. Can I ask a favour?’
Trudie had come up to join me now, and was waiting silently at my side, trying to piece together what the hell this was about from my side of the conversation. ‘A favour?’ I repeated blankly.
‘I told you I’d send her away if I thought I might hurt her again.’ A pause. ‘She can’t stay here.’
‘I’ll be right there,’ I said. ‘Don’t either of you move.’ Inspiration struck, and I added, ‘Give Sue the phone.’ I looked around for a cab, but there were none in sight. I started walking rapidly along Mercer Street with Trudie in tow. I’d reached the end of the street before Sue’s voice sounded down the line again, breaking even on the single word ‘Hello?’
Plenty of cabs on Shaftesbury Avenue. I flagged one down with my right hand, holding the phone in my left.
‘I’m going to put a friend on,’ I said to Sue as we climbed into the cab. ‘Keep talking to her. Let her know if anything happens.’ I passed the phone to Trudie, adding ‘Royal Oak’ for the cabbie’s benefit, and we were away.
Thanks to Mr Livingstone and his wondrous congestion charge, we made good headway through the centre, but then got hopelessly snarled up as we headed up Edgware Road toward the Westway. Trudie was keeping up a non-stop stream of meaningless conversation with Sue Book the whole way, which was what I was hoping she’d do: taking Sue’s mind off the terror and at the same time letting me know that she was still alive. I sat with my eyes closed, thinking about Juliet, or rather thinking about the tune that corresponded to Juliet. If I had to fight her,
