“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to throw it off once his strength returned, not unless you can do it so subtly that he doesn’t notice it.”

  “I’m not at all sure I can be that subtle.”

  “Then get someone else to do it. Toby maybe? Jack will know.”

  “We need a long talk with Jack this weekend then.”

  * * *

  I got an update from Sharon on Thursday evening.

  “We got the post-mortem reports, and we were right. They all died of gunshot wounds, and one has all the characteristics of being self-inflicted. The bullets have gone off for ballistics and we all expect that they will be from the same gun. The verdict is murder-suicide, case closed.”

  “And no link to Murphy?”

  “Nothing that would stand up in court, so it’s not going anywhere.”

  “But you, me and Mike all know there is.”

  “We do, and Mike certainly isn’t going to let it go. Don’t worry, there’s plenty more going on with Murphy. He’s on the radar of the NCA now. We’ll catch up with him eventually.”

  I had heard this before and didn’t feel any more positive about it now. “He can do a lot of harm before then, especially with Lord Faniel helping him.”

  “He can, and we’ll do what we can to stop him, but it has to be within the law. I know you find that frustrating but stay out of it. You were very lucky last time you went near him. He could have killed you. You know I’ll bring you in if there’s something you can do, but it’s tricky with the NCA involved. There’s so much more scrutiny.”

  What made it more annoying was she was right. Murphy was dangerous, and I’d got too close to the edge with him last time. I should leave them to get on with it and concentrate on Lord Faniel.

  “Okay. But don’t let him touch anyone, even for a moment,” I said. “And bring them to me if he does.”

  “We’ll make sure everybody knows. Mike’s not likely to forget. You’re not the only one with a personal reason for bringing down Murphy.”

  * * *

  Michelle agreed with Sharon.

  “Leave it to the police,” she said. Mother was at work, and we were in the sitting room of her cottage. “Have you forgotten how much it hurt last time?”

  “No! I haven’t.” It makes me sick just thinking about it.

  “Then stay away from him. We’ve enough to think about with Lord Faniel. I’m sure Jack will say the same. I don’t ever want to see you in that state again.” She sniffed and her eyes started to moisten. I reached out and put my arms around her ending our discussion. I would leave it to the police.

  After a pleasant diversion we walked down to our usual spot by the river to try for Jack. It took several passes through his summoning song, with a break for a pair of passing mountain bikers, before he appeared. He greeted Michelle with a hug and me with a firm handshake before Michelle brought out the chocolate.

  I recounted all I knew of Lord Faniel’s involvement with Peter Murphy and the Albanians while Michelle fed him squares of Fruit and Nut. He nodded sagely as I told the tale, savouring the chocolate.

  “Are you sure the compulsion you found was Faniel’s work?” he asked when I had finished.

  “No! But it wasn’t Peter Murphy’s. I know his work, and this was far too strong and tight.”

  He looked thoughtful and took another piece of chocolate, sucked on it for a while then spoke. “Lord Faniel had a visitor from this side recently.”

  “Murphy?” said Michelle.

  “I don’t know. All I know is that a man came through a gateway who was confused about where he was, didn’t speak our tongue but asked for Faniel.”

  “That could well be around the time the Albanians hit his house,” I said. “We know he said he went to ground. Question is, how did he find a gateway and know how to use it?”

  I glanced at Jack; he looked solemn but said nothing.

  “It has to be Lord Faniel,” I continued. “But why? What’s the connection between them? Could Murphy be Faniel’s son?”

  “I thought he was opposed to men from over there having children with women here,” asked Michelle.

  “No,” said Jack. “He is just opposed to them bringing those children over. That would not stop him finding a lover over here, but I have never heard that he did.”

  “Perhaps he just hid it well,” said Michelle. “You can understand why he would. It wouldn’t go down well with his supporters.”

  “Yes. That is very possible,” said Jack. “And would explain the connection which otherwise I cannot.”

  “Whether that is the connection or not, we need to find a way of stopping him coming over,” I said. “Murphy’s a major criminal who kills people, and Faniel is deeply involved.”

  “That’s not going to be easy,” said Jack. “He has broken his pledge to this father.”

  “Who is the heir after him?” I asked.

  “He has no brothers, nor does the King, so it will be a cousin, but he’s not been raised for the position,” said Jack. “Why?”

  “Maybe we should talk to him. If the police catch Lord Faniel this side it will go very hard with him,” I said. “He will not be back for a long time. If he thought this cousin is being lined up to take over from him, it might stop him coming over.”

  “I doubt Lord Faniel would consider that a serious obstacle,” said Jack. “And I doubt he has given your police a second thought.”

  “He will when they put him in a cell for a few days,” I said. “How long would it take for all the power to drain out of him?”

  “That’s hard to guess at,” said Jack. “I certainly notice if I spend a long time here, but I’ve never been here for many days. He’s stronger than me so it would take longer, but after three or four days, I think he would be essentially powerless. Remember how the King was when we brought him back?”

  “Would it be sooner if he was close to a lot of iron?” I asked.

  “Yes, that’ll have a big effect. I notice it with just a short trip in the car.”

  “So if we catch Lord Faniel on this side and chain him to a big lump of iron then would he get weak enough for you or Charlie to put a compulsion on him,” said Michelle.

  Jack didn’t reply immediately and took another piece of chocolate. He sucked on it before replying. “Yes, I think so.”

  “What happens when he goes back through the gateway and recovers his strength?” I asked, suddenly nervous; this was the key answer.

  Jack again took his time to answer. “I don’t know. I have never heard of this situation.”

  “Who would know?” asked Michelle.

  “I don’t think anyone would know for sure,” said Jack. “I will ask some of them, but I doubt I’ll get a firm answer. Is that your plan then?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a plan yet, just an idea,” I said, embarrassed that I didn’t have more substance to offer. “I just wanted to know if the basic idea was flawed.”

  “You should keep thinking,” said Jack. “This sounds very risky.”

  “Everything’s risky with him,” said Michelle. “And the biggest risk of all is doing nothing. If he’s broken his word to his father about coming over here, then what other promises has he broken?”

  “I haven’t heard anything to suggest that he’s doing anything else,” said Jack.

  “Perhaps he has learned how to keep his plans quiet,” I said. “Would it be so great a surprise for him to be plotting a takeover? How many would truly stand against him? He had a lot of support last time.”

  “There would be plenty to oppose him.”

  “Would they be enough?” I asked. “And would they actually do anything?”

  “That’s hard to know. I think they would. But this is all guesswork.”

  “It is,” I admitted. “But it’s based on what I’ve learned about Lord Faniel, both directly and from you. He’s a desperately ambitious bastard who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants and will hurt anyone who gets in his way.”

  “That is all true,” said Jack.

  “And we got in his way,” said Michelle.

  “Yes, we did,” said Jack. “And he will not forget that.”

  “Damn right he won’t,” I said. “You might think its guesswork, but it will go hard with us if he takes over. He’s not a patient man. I expect him to make a move.” I don’t really know where that intuition came from, but it felt right as soon as I said it.

  Jack nodded slowly looking thoughtful. “It could be. I cannot say he will not. I will urge greater vigilance when I return. Now show me your latest glamour.”

  Recognising the end of the conversation I showed him “old Charlie,” embarrassed that I hadn’t practised as much as I should.

  “You need to practice more,” Jack said. He turned to Michelle. “Make him practice. Twice a day.”

  * * *

  “Do you really think Lord Faniel will try to take over?” said Michelle as we walked back to the cottage.

  “The more I think about it, the more likely it seems,” I said. “He was humiliated by what happened, and I reckon he wants revenge big-time. Anyone who stood against him is going to be made to suffer for it.”

  “And Jack is top of the list. He seems very relaxed about it.”

  “He does, and that worries me.”

  Just then her phone pinged with an incoming message. She pulled it out and looked at it.

  “Dave’s got a new girlfriend,” she said. “Looks like I’ve got rid of the bastard then.”

  “Who says?”

  “Becky. She’s Liam’s girlfriend. She’s not really a friend. I think she wanted to get a reaction out of me.” She quickly typed out a reply as we walked.

  “What did you say?”

  “She has my sympathies.” She grinned at me.

  * * *

  I gave the Lord Faniel problem a lot of thought during the next two days but came up with nothing. I wondered how long we had before he moved; that he would move seemed a near certainty. In the meantime, I was preparing the components to test my cyclisation with more substituted substrates. This should give more information about the reaction mechanism, make it more generally useful and a stronger publication. It could also make the reaction go in reduced yield or stop it dead; it is amazing how much difference a methyl group can make in the right (or wrong) place.

  I was vaccing down the product from such a reaction when Nigel called just after lunch on Tuesday.

  “Do you have time to talk today?” he asked.

  I thought about it a moment. I wanted to get on with the chemistry, but this sounded important; Nigel was too busy to do social calls. “I can make time.”

  “I can be there in half an hour; would that suit you?”

  He must want something fairly urgently. “That’s alright with me. I’ll meet you in the foyer.”

  I had just enough time to finish vaccing down the product, make up a sample of it, and add it to the queue on the NMR machine. Nigel arrived in the foyer moments after me wearing the same plain suit. At least his shirt was different this time; a daring shade of pale blue rather than white.

  “Is there anywhere quiet we can talk?” he asked.

  At this time of day, the seminar rooms were usually empty, so I bagged one of those.

  “Thank you, Charlie,” he said once I’d closed the door and sat down. “I want to talk to you about the last two people you saw for us.”

  It took a moment to remember; I’d had a lot going on. “Mo and Tareena?”

  “Yes. Those two.” I noted that he didn’t take his phone out to record the conversation. “Their engagement with the deradicalisation programme has been remarkable. The best responses we’ve had, which seemed too much of a coincidence until I recalled that Mohammed Husain recognised you. You said it would not be a problem, which leads me to believe that you did something more to him than just extract information. Is that so, Charlie? Is there more you can do?”

  He had me bang to rights, but his tone was interested not accusative, so I decided to come clean. “Yes. I can do more. I gave them both a vision of an angel denouncing them as heretics, and I made Mo Husain forget he’d seen me.”

  Nigel nodded slowly. “And is that the extent of it, or can you do more? If you have further abilities, they could be very useful to us. Obviously, we would pay an enhanced rate for this.”

  I liked the sound of an enhanced rate. “What sort of things would you want?”

  “We been able to do a lot with the information you’ve given us, but there’s no substitute for someone on the ground. Could you help us with that? You would be working with people who’ve committed to going on Jihad.”

  “Have the angel tell them to work for you?”

  “Essentially yes. If you can do that.”

  “Isn’t that putting them in danger?”

  “These are people who have already decided they will die for a cause,” said Nigel. “You’ve seen something of what we are facing, and we’ve been able to frustrate a lot of plans, but we only have to fail once, and people will die. You would be saving lives, possibly many lives.”

  I thought about Ifti the headbanger’s plans to bomb pubs I go to. He would have killed dozens of people on a Friday or Saturday night and glorified in his cause. The people who set him up for it would rejoice and create more like him. I remembered how he felt about the people around him and decided I didn’t owe him, or others like him, anything.

  “I think I can do that.” In fact, it should be easy. A straightforward obey compulsion like Peter Murphy used on Mike Scott would do it, but I was sure that with a bit of thought I could come up with something more elegant.

  “I’m glad to hear that. Would you be available tomorrow? It will need several several hours of your time.”

  Tomorrow? He must have been confident I would agree and several hours sounded like a lot of money. “If it’s OK with my professor.”

  “I’ll talk to him directly. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the importance of it.”

  Which meant there was no way Prof would object. “What time tomorrow?”

  “Can you be here for eight? We have a fair distance to go.”

  Earlier than usual, but not a problem. “Sure. Do I need to bring anything?”

  “I don’t think so. The facility is well-equipped, and there’s a reasonable canteen for lunch.” Nigel stood up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  As usual he did not shake hands. I saw him out then went to see if my NMR had run.

  * * *

  I had the rest of the day to think about what I was going to do. It was good to know that the fiery angel had been effective on Mo and Tareena, so I didn’t intend to change much; just refine it a bit. It would still denounce them as a heretic, then add that they were far down the road to hell and unless they worked to destroy the enemies of God they had so foolishly joined with, then they would never know God’s favour. This assumed that they were believers, but every jihadist I had encountered so far had been, though it was a small sample.

  I didn’t tell Sharon about it; she was late in anyway and bitching about the IPCC. I poured her a glass of wine, fed her, and listened without comment to her complaints. She did mention that the ballistic results had confirmed what they thought, which meant the official line was that the case was closed.

  “We all know Murphy’s involved, but we don’t have anything we can use,” she said. “Yet.”

  I left that there. I knew Peter Murphy was in the system now and they would bring him down eventually. I had other priorities right now, like Lord Faniel.

  * * *

  I got to the department well before eight, but Nigel was there ahead of me. He was wearing the same shirt; that made me think he had stayed locally and underlined how important I had become to them. He greeted me with a business-like “good morning,” but said nothing more as we walked to his Focus in the visitors’ car park. We got in and he drove off heading towards the M3.

  It was peak rush hour so I could understand Nigel needing to concentrate on his driving. The traffic eased off once we were past the A34 junction, but he still didn’t talk.

  I asked him where we were going and got a terse “South-East London” and nothing more. I gave up; South-East London was at least an hour and a half away, so I sat back and tried to doze.

  It was ten thirty by the dashboard clock when I woke up. The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge was visible behind Nigel’s shoulder as we turned off the approach road onto the A206 heading for Thamesmead. I had no idea where we were going until we turned into an entrance road with a sign for HMP Belmarsh and Courts. I figured we weren’t going to the court. We parked up in the Visitors’ Car Park and walked to the main entrance.

  After a brief consultation, Nigel’s ID got us an escort straight past security, down a corridor, and into a small waiting room with a coffee machine. We both had a coffee while our subject was made ready for us.

  “Is today’s subject as religiously motivated as the others were?” I asked Nigel.

  He took his time over answering, no doubt considering his words carefully. “He has spent months arguing with the imams in the deradicalisation programme and has not moved his position a millimetre. For every verse they quote he has an answering verse. It is reported that he reads Islamic scriptures all the time in his cell.”

  So deeply religious; the fiery angel for him then.

  “Excellent,” I said. “That’ll assist my approach.”

  “Good. My colleagues will be very interested to see how this plays out. He is very influential among the jihadi prisoners here.”

  “It will be interesting to see how the other prisoners react,” I said. “Do you want him to talk to them about it?”

  “No, they have channels that can pass on information about any changes. He would be blown before we even started.”

  “That would be inconvenient.” Just as well he mentioned it. I’ll need to include an instruction for him to keep his revelation to himself then. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t talk about it.”

 

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