The Knowledge E-Book

Martha Grimes

• Herausgeber: Grove Press UK
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: The Richard Jury Mysteries
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 512

Beschreibung

In the new mystery in the bestselling Richard Jury series, Martha Grimes brings London's finest on a double-homicide case that involves Kenyan art, rare gems, astrophysics and a long-fermented act of revenge. 'Read any one [of her novels] and you'll want to read them all.' - Chicago Tribune Robbie Parsons is one of London's finest, a black cab driver who knows every street, every theatre, every landmark in the city by heart. In his backseat is a man with a gun in his hand - a man who shot Robbie's previous pair of customers point-blank in front of the Artemis Club, a rarefied art gallery-cum-casino, then jumped in and ordered Parsons to drive. As the killer eventually escapes to Nairobi with ten-year-old Patty Haigh - one of a crew of stray kids who serve as the cabbies' eyes and ears at Heathrow and Waterloo - in pursuit, superintendent Richard Jury comes across the double-homicide in the Saturday paper. Two days previously, Jury had met and instantly connected with one of the victims, a professor of astrophysics at Columbia and an expert gambler. Jury considers the murder a personal affront and is soon contending with a case that takes unexpected turns into Tanzanian gem mines, a closed casino in Reno, and a pub that only London's black cabbies, those who have 'The Knowledge,' can find.

Leseprobe

To my awesome grandson, Scott Holland(who could pass this test withone hand on the wheel).

Also by Martha Grimes

Richard Jury series

The Man with a Load of Mischief

The Old Fox Deceiv’d

The Anodyne Necklace

The Dirty Duck

Jerusalem Inn

Help the Poor Struggler

The Deer Leap

I Am the Only Running Footman

The Five Bells and Bladebone

The Old Silent

The Old Contemptibles

The Horse You Came in On

Rainbow’s End

The Case Has Altered

The Stargazey

The Lamorna Wink

The Blue Last

The Grave Maurice

The Winds of Change

The Old Wine Shades

Dust

The Black Cat

Vertigo 42

Andi Oliver series

Biting the Moon

Dakota

Emma Graham series

Hotel Paradise

Cold Flat Junction

Belle Ruin

Fadeaway Girl

Other novels, short stories, and poetry

Send Bygraves

The End of the Pier

The Train Now Departing

Foul Matter

The Way of All Fish

Memoir

Double Double

MARTHAGRIMES

THEKNOWLEDGE

A RICHARD JURY MYSTERY

Copyright © 2018 by Martha Grimes

First published in the United States of America in 2018 by Grove/Atlantic Inc.

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Grove Press UK, an imprint of Grove/Atlantic Inc.

Cover design by Daniel Rembert

The moral right of Martha Grimes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

Text design by Norman E. Tuttle at Alpha Design & Composition

This book is set in 12 pt. Arno Pro by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.

Trade paperback ISBN 978 1 61185 502 9

eISBN 978 1 61185 936 2

Grove Press, UK

Ormond House

26-27 Boswell Street

London WC1N 3JZ

groveatlantic.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

Cover

Dedication

Also by Martha Grimes

Title Page

Copyright

Black Cabs

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Spooky Action

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Razorbite

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Heart of Dimness

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

The Blue Deer See

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Oceana

Chapter Fifty-Three

Back Cover

BLACK CABS

London

Nov. 1, Friday night

1

He was a dead man and he knew it.

As soon as he ceased to be of any use to this bastard, the guy would shoot him.

So Robbie Parsons had to keep on being of use.

He was glad he’d earned his green badge; he was grateful for all of those months of routing and rerouting himself around London that had qualified him to drive a black cab.

Robbie had maps in his mind. He would entertain himself, while cruising around looking for a fare, by setting destinations involving landmarks he would have to either pass or not pass in the course of getting to a certain location. Maps in his mind, so no matter where this black guy told him to go (and he’d told him nothing thus far), Robbie knew how to take the longest way round without raising suspicions. The guy behind him wasn’t a Londoner, but then most Londoners knew sod all about London, anyway. He was a South African, or Nigerian, or Kenyan—from Africa, not from one of the islands.

Robbie knew this because he’d been driving every sort of person around for thirty-five years. Still, he wasn’t clever enough to sift through all of the countries in Africa to pin down which one this guy came from. Ordinarily, bits of small talk in the back would float up—a passenger mentioning Cape Town or Nairobi or Victoria Falls, something like that—but his passenger tonight was not interested in small talk. The silence loomed. Robbie had never known silence so heavy.

But then he’d never known silence with a gun in it.

It had been less than an hour ago that he’d been driving down Ebury Street, poking around in Belgravia and turning into Beeston Place where sat the Goring Hotel. He’d seen the doorman looking for a taxi, and past the doorman, the couple he was apparently getting one for, while trying to shield them with a huge umbrella. Not easy in this rain.

They were a very handsome pair. Robbie pulled up in front of the Goring and the doorman yanked open the door and ushered in the woman, who was truly beautiful, hair as pale as moonlight, face like a pearl enhanced by her whitish-pink dress. The man was tall and dark and wore a dinner jacket beneath a black cashmere coat. He shoved himself into the cab, shaking the lapels of his coat to get the rain off, but careful not to get it on the woman.

Robbie slid the glass panel open, said over his shoulder, “Your destination, sir?”

“It’s a club in the City. I was told it’s on a hard-to-find street.”

Isn’t it all to the uninitiated?

“The name of the club, sir?”

“The Artemis. A casino?”

“Very exclusive club, sir, one of the best in London. You’re lucky to be getting into it. The waiting list is a year long.”

She said, “Why would anyone wait a whole year to get into a casino?” and then laughed.

“I see your point, madam.”

The man said, “They have all kinds of rules. You have to arrive at an appointed time and you really have to dress for it. Rather strange just to do a spot of gambling.”

Robbie melted into the traffic heading toward Knightsbridge. “I think the Artemis considers itself as more than a casino. I’ve heard about those rules. They don’t want too many people there at any one time and don’t want a lot of cars crowding the driveway.”

“I hope there’s no secret handshake involved,” she said, “because we don’t know it.”

Robbie laughed as he lifted his hand to the panel, thinking it would’ve been easier for Eurydice to find her way back from the Underworld if she’d just flagged down a black cab instead of waiting around for Orpheus. Strange to think of this couple in those terms. Orpheus, right down into the Underworld to bring her back. Robbie just had the feeling this man would do it, for her.

The man tapped on the panel and Robbie opened it again.

“You can find this place with just the name?”

“I can, sir, yes.”

“You don’t have a GPS, though.”

Robbie rolled his eyes. “No, sir. We don’t need those.”

“That’s astonishing. Cab drivers in Manhattan—you’ve got to be able to tell them the nearest cross street to your destination. Once I asked the driver to take me to the Waldorf and he’d said, in that grumpy way New York drivers talk, ‘Whatsa cross street?’ Can you beat that?”

The woman said, “I’ve always been amazed at how you drivers know this city.”

Robbie was amazed at her amazement. Her accent said she was a Brit, but his was American, definitely. What kind of service were Americans used to? New York. How could you drive around a city and know it so little? What fun was that, to be a stranger in your own hometown?

Now, having driven away from the Artemis Club, the black cab was in Old Broad Street in the City. The bloke in the back with a gun in his hand.

Robbie tried to be cool. It wasn’t easy. “If you could tell me your destination—?”

“When I need to tell you, I will. Drive.”

All right, then. He’d drive to some congested area in the West End—Charing Cross or Piccadilly—hoping that might give him an opportunity.

The quickest route would be to go around Bank and head down Walbrook to Upper Thames Street. Then to the Embankment. A route he had no intention of taking. This guy wouldn’t know the difference. Wherever Robbie was going, he wasn’t going in a hurry.

At this hour on a Friday night the closest most congested area would be Piccadilly—from Green Park past the Ritz to Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue with its theaters—so he decided to head in that direction. But first he snaked around and came out on the A40, which he drove along to Holborn Viaduct. In another few minutes he made a right into Snow Hill.

There he slowed down a bit as he looked around for police cars, but all he saw of police presence was a couple of uniforms coming out of the Snow Hill station. All of the police in the City should have been alerted by now. Carefully, he switched his bright lights on and off, on and off, and saw the coppers stop and turn and recede into the distance. The radio was out of commission, of course. The man had seen to that.

“That was a police station back there.”

“Yes, sir, there’s three thousand of them in London. Hard not to come on one.”

The guy moved to one of the jump seats just behind Robbie, stuck the gun through the open panel again and said, “Try.”

Robbie said nothing. He heard the weight shift back to the passenger seat.

“Where are you headed?” the man asked.

“West End.”

“Why?”

“As you haven’t given me an address, I’m just driving. As you said.”

The man merely grunted.

Jesus, thought Robbie.

Twenty minutes before, Robbie had pulled into the half-moon driveway of the Artemis Club and up to the front door, quite free of other vehicles. You’d have thought the Artemis never had customers, from the lack of cars. That was undoubtedly because patrons were told when they could come and also because attendants took the cars and drove them to whatever car park the club paid for.

Robbie had braked and was sliding open the glass panel when he was surprised to see an overweight woman in orange coming up the drive, her car possibly having been commandeered by one of the attendants. She was huffing up to the front door.

“Is this it?” said the beautiful wife.

“Yes, it is. You’d never know, would you?”

“Very sedate,” she said, as her husband got out and went round to open the door for her. He paid Robbie with a little “keep the change” wave, and it was some change—it was a huge tip. The two of them, looking rich and handsome, stood for a moment as the lady in orange was about to go in the door.

“Oh, I’m freez—” the wife started to say.

But it was the moment that froze. Robbie heard an unfamiliar crack and the husband stumbled before he fell straight down, right on his face. A few seconds later, another crack, and the woman fell beside him. At first perfectly still, she then slowly stretched her arm toward her fallen husband. And then, dead still. Those beautiful people; that beautiful woman: her pale skin and Grace Kelly hair, all blending in with the diaphanous dress—Robbie thought, when he’d seen her in the Goring’s driveway, she was so white and lightweight, so insubstantial that she could have been blown away by the wind and the rain, transparent and spectral.

A ghost, that’s what she’d looked like.

Now fallen, a ghost was what she was.

Robbie was completely befuddled; he shoved open his door, started to get out, when a large shadow fell across his path and he was pushed back behind the wheel, as, simultaneously, the intruder’s other hand put the radio out of commission by bringing the gun down on it like a hammer.

The man yanked open the passenger door and piled in.

“Drive,” said a deep voice.

That, mate, thought Robbie, as if the words were a broadax breaking through a frozen lake of fear, could be your first mistake.

From Snow Hill he drove to the Embankment, followed that into West End, took Grosvenor Road, turned into Chelsea Bridge Road and up to Sloane Square. On this side of the square there was a taxi rank.

When he saw a police car pulled up at the corner of the King’s Road he considered speeding up or even broadsiding it or running up on the curb. But then not only would he likely be dead, so would the driver of the other car.

Sloane Street was wide and handsome and undisturbed, not a glutted part of London. From where the police car was stopped, he skirted the square to the side that held the rank.

“This Mayfair?”

“Sloane Square. Chelsea, one side; Belgravia, the other. That’s the King’s Road up there.”

His passenger said nothing.

There were half a dozen taxis lined up at the rank, which surprised him as it was a wet Friday night, one of those times when people fought over cabs.

He drove past the line as slowly as he could without giving rise to suspicion. As he passed the taxis, Robbie switched on the FOR HIRE part of his sign, then switched it off again. He did this twice more as he looked out of the passenger’s window to see if he knew any of the drivers. He recognized Brendan Small, if not an actual friend, a good acquaintance; he also thought he knew another driver—James somebody, couldn’t think of his last name. But he didn’t think they’d spotted him. He knew he couldn’t go round the square again, so he had to depend on this single try.

He glanced in his side-view mirror and saw that Brendan was out of his cab, standing by the driver’s door and apparently staring in the direction of the King’s Road, which Robbie had just entered. Past Peter Jones, past a bus stop where several people, clearly tired of waiting for the number 22 or number 19, were trying to flag down a cab.

He killed the FOR HIRE sign, but that didn’t seem to deter them. One or two watched the back of his retreating cab with a “How dare you?” look. Taking umbrage, Londoners were so good at that.

Something caught Robbie’s attention in the mirror. There was a light winking two cars behind him. It was a black cab and the FOR HIRE sign was going on and off. Brendan! You old bugger, you, you’re answering my signal. Then he saw that behind Brendan another cab was turning his sign on and off. And behind that, there was yet another cab. No wonder the people at the bus stop were going crazy: it wasn’t just Robbie, but also three other cabs with their signs lit up refusing to stop when people tried flagging them down.

How long would they follow? All he could do was consider his next move—getting from the King’s Road to South Ken, then Mayfair around the Green Park Tube station and the Ritz. When the fellow behind him suddenly said, “All right, all right!”—as if Robbie had been arguing with him all along—Robbie jumped.

“We’ve been long enough driving that nobody could be following—”

Not unless you consider three black cabs nobody.

“Greenwich.”

Greenwich, bloody hell. With its long lonely stretches of cavernous parkland, its scattering of terraced houses and empty playgrounds. “An address, sir?”

“You’ll get that when we get to Greenwich.”

Bugger all.

He wondered if London cabbies were as good as he thought they were, which was the best in Europe. Best in the world, even. Forget America; we’re clearly beyond that. Ask the passenger for a cross street? Don’t make me larf.

Robbie thought about all of the thousands of miles he and the other knowledge boys had to drive around London on their mopeds learning not just every street within a six-mile radius, but all of the theaters, like the ones on Shaftesbury Avenue, and in proper order, no, let’s not forget that; every bloody point of interest, every memorial, every monument—all of it etched on the mind. He could have crosshatched a sheet of paper with streets, monuments, restaurants and sports venues without referring to an outside source.

Many years before, he had done this test for sixteen months before he’d sat in a cab with an examiner. He’d had a bad moment when the examiner had directed him to go from Marylebone to St. Pancras without taking Euston Road or even going round Euston Station. The area they were in was a web of one-way streets and public works. There literally wasn’t any way through all of this without using Euston Road.

“Can’t be done,” Robbie had said.

“Really? So what do you do, lad, if you’ve a fare that has to catch the two o’clock Eurostar?”

“I wouldn’t be in this part of Marylebone in the first place.”

The examiner liked that; it was by way of being a right answer. Then he had posed a series of, if not actually trick questions, questions that took a lot of thinking outside the box.

He thought of all of this driving along the King’s Road. He turned into the Fulham Road toward the Old Brompton Road. What he was doing was going back, running a course parallel to the way they had come. His passenger must have been paying some sort of attention, for he said, as they passed the South Ken Tube station, “Thought South Kensington was where we came from.”

“Right. It’s a very large area. This is the section that borders Mayfair.”

“Mayfair? I just told you to take me to Greenwich, didn’t I?”

Robbie said smoothly, “Yes, but to get there, we have to go through part of Mayfair. And you need to give me an address. Greenwich is an even bigger area. I have to cross the river and need to know which bridge to take.”

“Take the nearest one.”

The first cab, which was probably Brendan, was right on his tail, and the driver had switched off the FOR HIRE sign. The others, if they were back there, had too, but Robbie couldn’t tell which were in his entourage and which were regular cabs with passengers.

As he approached the crowded pavements of Green Park Tube station and the Ritz Hotel, Robbie turned on the FOR HIRE sign, looked in his side-view mirror to see the cab behind do the same, and beyond that two other cabs between cars in busy Piccadilly were also alight.

At least a dozen hands shot up in the air, couples from the Ritz, black ties and velvet, and before their astonished eyes, Robbie, then Brendan plowed on by. As did the two other FOR HIRE cabs. This was unthinkable: a whole crowd of people were now yelling; some were running. A small mob of Londoners, incensed that here were cabbies violating a cardinal rule.

Robbie’s passenger—kidnapper, more to the point—twisted round and stared out of the back window at the fracas, which was now becoming a police fracas. There were uniforms around the Ritz and at least one police car had joined in.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Don’t know.” Robbie was delighted with the now stalled traffic.

“For God’s sake, get moving!”

“We’re stuck in traffic, aren’t we?” A couple of well-dressed middle-aged men had caught up with their cab and were banging on a window. Unfortunately, space opened and he had to drive forward. All the way down Piccadilly to the Circus, cars moved out of the way, right and left, as if every driver in front of him felt cold steel plugged against his neck.

Any other time, he thought glumly, nobody would have given an inch. You’d think he had the bloody Queen in his cab. He rounded Piccadilly Circus as far as Shaftesbury Avenue, where a hundred theatergoers should be wanting cabs if he weren’t too late.

“So how far’s Greenwich?”

A week away, he wanted to say. “Half hour, depending on traffic.”

Covent Garden, to Aldwych and the Strand. From here he could see Waterloo Bridge, but then so could the SOB behind him. Robbie guessed he’d better take it. There were plenty of places to get lost in in Southwark and Greenwich or wherever Wyatt Earp back there wanted to go.

Robbie was really mad at himself for missing his chance with the Met at the Ritz. If only he’d wedged his cab in a little between curb and cars, or if only … if only, if only. Moreover, he’d now lost his pals, who had probably got jammed up with the cops.

“This is Waterloo Bridge,” he said. Might as well point out the landmarks.

“Let’s get the hell across it.”

Southwark at the other end was heavily populated. They’d be passing Waterloo Station, the Old Vic. Robbie idled at a light directly behind a new dove-gray Mercedes. What about a little accident? Just a rear-ender, maybe? That would bring the cops. It would also bring a furious owner, barreling out of the driver’s seat, back to the cab. And the gun. No, Robbie couldn’t involve anyone else.

The light changed. The pristine Merc moved on. Robbie moved too.

The traffic fanned out near Waterloo Station and Robbie was about to take a left when the voice from the rear seat said, “Here.”

Sharply, Robbie turned. “What?”

“Here. Drive into Waterloo.”

“Waterloo Station? But you said Greenwich.”

“No. Here.”

Robbie shook his head and pulled into the station.

Was this it, then? Robbie swallowed hard. The chips he’d eaten two hours ago threatened to make a return visit. They were hard in his stomach, like fear.

He was stopped in the line of cabs under the station’s long arch.

A hand thrust money through the open panel. It was not holding the gun. Two fifty-quid notes fluttered onto the seat. “Keep the change. You’re a helluva good driver.” The rear door opened and his passenger was gone.

Robbie sat frozen as the guy moved through the glass doors, faded fast into the crowd. For such a big man he was agile.

Not death, but a compliment.

Robbie was so dazed by the fact of being alive, he forgot for a moment that he’d just dropped off a killer. Do something, arsehole, don’t just sit here! he ordered himself. Ignoring the protests of the taxi rank chief, Robbie left his cab and ran inside, searching for the police. Had all the bloody cops in Waterloo taken a hike? He ran back outside and along the line of cabs, looking for drivers he knew. He found Brendan Small.

“He’s gone into the station. We’ve got to do something.”

“What the hell’s going on, Rob?”

“Who else was following?”

“Don’t know. They just took it up.”

“My radio’s out,” said Robbie. “We’ve got to find him. He’s over six feet, black guy. Gray overcoat, red scarf. He killed two people in front of the Artemis Club.”

“What?” Brendan’s eyes grew wide. “He kills two people, then takes a train?”

London, Artemis Club

Nov. 1, Friday night

2

Detective Chief Inspector Dennis Jenkins looked down at the bodies of the victims as a small crowd of people stood back, two City Police uniforms in front of them in case the little crowd decided to surge forward. But they seemed content to remain on the low stone step in front of the door of the Artemis Club.

The man, the shooter, “just came out of nowhere.” This was the observation of the middle-aged woman he was questioning, a woman wearing too vivid an orange for her age and girth.

Jenkins asked, “Could you think back to that moment? There’s not much of a ‘nowhere’ to come out of here.” He nodded to the left and right. The Georgian property that housed the Artemis Club was flanked on the right by a redbrick building with a brass plaque that read “Peterman Insurance”; on the left was an undistinguished gray stone structure, unsigned, unidentified. “No cross street, no alleyways, only a few trees and low bushes.” On the other sides of the three buildings here on this little rise of ground were rows of terraced houses that could have been private dwellings, but were also businesses, small ones. Jenkins had dispatched two of his men, right and left, to knock on doors.

The woman in orange was impatient at having her story called into question. “All I know is I had just stepped out of my car down there—” She pointed toward the street. “I was walking up the drive and was about to go into the club when this man just appeared.”

“What about the victims? Where were they?”

The word “victims” gave her a chill; she was not looking their way. “Well, they had got out of their cab—”

“You didn’t have an attendant park your car?”

“No. It’s a brand-new Lamborghini and you know how these people who park cars love to ride around in them.”

Jenkins didn’t know. “Did this man appear at the same time the couple got out?”

She put her beringed hand to her forehead, thinking it over. “I was here,” she said, pointing down. “The cab was there, the man with the gun there, walking toward them.”

“So you didn’t see him before that?”

“No, he was just there. As I said before.”

“Yes, you did. Sorry to make you say it again. We appreciate your cooperation. Now, if you could just describe him.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t get a good look at his face. He was tall. He was a black man, I think. Well, you must see how traumatic it all was. A person doesn’t take in everything—”

“Boss.”

This came from his detective sergeant, Nora Greene.

Jenkins looked up from his notebook. “What?”

“Do I get to question him?” She was looking toward the knot of spectators on the wide step.

Jenkins followed her line of direction. “Who?”

“That’s Leonard Zane,” she whispered excitedly.

Leonard Zane was neither film star nor sports icon. He was the owner of the Artemis Club and a well-known art dealer. The combination of art gallery and exclusive casino had fascinated the press.

“He wasn’t outside when it happened, Nora,” said Jenkins.

“That’s all you can say?”

“No, I can also say ‘no.’”

“Come on, boss, let me—”

“Burns talked to him, Nora. You go and talk to the parking guy.”

“Guv—” She was whining and standing first on one foot, then another, as if she had to pee.

“Nora.” Jenkins’s tone and eyes put a stop to her pleading.

Jenkins left it to the medic to shift the two bodies from the drive to the mortuary van. He made his way through the knot of bystanders to the front door. All had been briefly questioned by Jenkins’s men. The couple had been shot when the gamblers and diners were all inside, in either the casino or the restaurant. No one had been standing before the high windows looking out on the drive.

The Artemis Club was one of London’s hot spots; some would say, the hottest. The casino gave the gallery juice; the gallery lent the casino gravitas. It had been Leonard Zane’s idea, this one-two punch.

Inside, Jenkins had run his eyes over the restaurant on the right and over what looked like a library on the left, walls studded with books, upholstered chairs and library lamps. There was a beautiful wide staircase with a velvet rope drawn across it. Jenkins was about to unhook the rope when he heard a voice behind him.

“The gallery is closed.”

The man who spoke was the one that Nora had been so eager to interview: Leonard Zane.

“Mr. Zane? I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jenkins, City Police.” Jenkins held up his ID.

“I’m not sure what art has to do with this shooting, Inspector.”

Leonard Zane was in his forties. He was unmarried, rich, handsome. Jenkins knew this because Zane was so often in the paper. He hated having his photo taken, yet photographs kept appearing. He hated interviews, yet interviews were always turning up in newspapers or magazines such as Time Out. Zane put out his arm by way of invitation. “Could we sit down in my office and talk?”

“Of course,” said Jenkins as he followed Zane into a very snug room off the library. It was small and elegant: a lot of zebrawood and mahogany, oriental carpeting, paintings and a safe built into one wall. They sat down, Zane in his desk chair, Jenkins in a club chair on the other side of the desk.

Jenkins said, “I’m not sure what art has to do with it either. Only it’s part of the crime scene.”

“The crime scene is outside, surely.”

Instead of commenting on that, Jenkins said, “You didn’t know this couple?” Jenkins looked at his notebook “David Moffit and his wife, Rebecca?”

“They’d never been to the casino. I’d have said so, if they had.”

“Everyone who visits the establishment is vetted. That’s my understanding. No cold callers come here.”

“That’s true, Inspector. Only I don’t do the vetting. My assistant does that.”

“He is—?”

“She. Maggie Benn. You’ll want to talk to her, I expect.”

“I will, yes. Tell me, what’s the maximum number of customers you allow on any given night?”

“Fifty. That pretty much fills the room. Of course, people leave the casino floor for the restaurant. If the crowd in the casino thins out enough, we let others come in.”

Jenkins was mystified by this. “You make it sound as if people are queuing at the door.”

“There’s no queue, though that might be fun—thanks for the idea.”

Thanks for the idea?

“City Police are full of them, Mr. Zane. But as there isn’t a queue, then how do these people know they’re welcome?”

“They get a call. They’re told that if they come right away they’ll be admitted.”

“And people go for that?”

Zane nodded. “I’m not sure why; I think it’s quite amusing.”

Dennis Jenkins thought it was quite outlandish. “Is there really that much cachet attached to your club?”

“Apparently.” Zane made it sound as if he didn’t figure in this transaction. “You’re City Police, is that right, Inspector?”

Jenkins nodded. “Chief Inspector, actually.” He thought he’d work a little of his own cachet into this.

“Oh. Sorry. I ask only because if these people were Americans, why isn’t the American embassy getting involved?”

“Who said they were Americans, Mr. Zane?”

Leonard Zane lobbed that ball back handily. “The fact that I don’t do the vetting doesn’t mean I don’t know who’s coming. I get the list of each night’s guests by around six P.M.”

“So this list told you the Moffits were from the States?”

“It told me more than that. It told me David Moffit was known in gambling circles—I leave it to you to sort out what percentage of the population that might cover—known for winning with some sort of system.”

The door was open and Jenkins heard steps approaching across the soft carpet.

“Leo!” A distraught, youngish woman appeared in the doorway. “My God, Leo—”

He stood. “It’s all right, Maggie. This is Detective Chief Inspector Jenkins. Maggie Benn, Chief Inspector.”

He stood, but she barely glanced at Jenkins; her attention was all for Leonard Zane. “Two people shot right in front of the club, in front of the Artemis Club!”

As if a shooting in front of any other club would have been acceptable, thought Jenkins. He found Maggie Benn to be an oddly dressed-down version of a casino manager. The place was glamorous; she was not. Jenkins had seen the chandeliers, the shadowed wall sconces, the crystal, the sweeping staircase. Maggie Benn hadn’t a touch of glamour. Her hair was pulled straight back in a bun; she wore no makeup except for a faint wash of lipstick, no jewelry except for a blue gemstone ring.

Jenkins said to her, “So you knew the Moffits were coming.”

“The Moffits? Of course I knew.”

“They were Americans.”

She shook her head. “He was; she wasn’t. She was British. Dual citizenship.”

“Did they live in London?”

“No. In the States. New York … at least he taught there.”

“I don’t get it,” said Jenkins. “It’s my understanding you have a waiting list a year long. How did he get in at such short notice?”

“Well, it wasn’t that short. He wrote from the States. And because of who he is.”

“And who’s that?”

“He’s a well-known professor of physics at Columbia University. He’s also a gambler.”

“You know a lot about him.”

“Ten minutes on the Web.”

Leonard Zane said, “Mr. Moffit had been asked to leave a casino in Atlantic City after something like seven or eight consecutive wins at the blackjack table. That’s improbable. He must have been cheating.” Zane shrugged. “If he wasn’t, I’d love to know what his system was.”

“Leo, the Mail has already called. They want an interview.”

“You know I hate that, Maggie. How in hell did they hear about this, anyway?”

Jenkins studied Leonard Zane. There was some inherent contradiction in him: he ostensibly hated publicity—photos, interviews—yet he was always being photographed and interviewed. But he managed never to say anything of substance about himself.

Smoke and mirrors, thought Dennis Jenkins.

Waterloo Station, London

Nov. 1, Friday night

3

“Where are the kids?”

“I’m gettin’ ’em,” said Brendan Small, tapping a number in on his mobile. “Jimmy—we need you to eyeball a guy and follow him. Tall, black, gray overcoat, red scarf. Get the word out. We want to stop him but don’t want you kids doin’ anything foolish … Yeah, very funny. Just see if you can keep this bloke in your sight. Henry can see through brick. He’s good … Oh, don’t be so touchy, kid. We know you’re all good or you wouldn’t be workin’ for us. Now get on with it.”

Henry could indeed see through brick, so to speak. His eyes were lasers and they were currently trained on a little drama taking place near the Portsmouth departure barrier: a guy in suit and tie who looked like a businessman but was really a dip had his hand in a big sequined bag casually slung over the shoulder of a woman dressed in splendid clothes and gabbing nonstop on her mobile, all unaware of the hand removing something. What? Henry’s eyes narrowed to slits—Wallet? Too thin. Passport? Likely. The thief then slicked off through the queue waiting for the Bournemouth train and the others just waiting. Henry would have done something about this theft, followed the guy and slipped a hand into his pocket and retrieved the passport or whatever it was. Henry being a dip himself, for there was nothing quite as satisfying to his trade as dipping a dip.

Only he got this call from Jimmy. “Okay. Sure. Right on it.” He hung up and punched in a number for Martin.

“Henry,” said Martin. “I’m right in the middle of something …”

“Drop it.”

“I just did.”

“I mean you’re to watch out for somebody.” Henry described the shooter. Martin stored the fake gold bracelet in his rear pocket, smiled at the sucker he’d been about to fleece, then knifed through the crowd to a place that served as a great vantage point for the station.

Almost immediately, before he could punch in Suki’s number, he saw him: big guy, hard square face, gray topcoat and still with the red scarf round his neck. Why not? Maybe he was meeting someone and the poppy-colored scarf was the sign. Fuck’s sake, did he have to choose a color that would tell the world?

He had Suki now. “Where are you?”

“Same place as always, at the caff.”

Suki would stand near the door of this café, her big brown eyes and her puppy looking starved. Martin had never known anyone who could look more in need of a meal than Suki. How she managed to suck herself in, he didn’t know, because she wasn’t thin. It never took Suki more than five or ten minutes before the mark—usually a woman—had her at a table, ordering food. Sometimes, the woman would ask Suki to watch her belongings whilst she went to the loo. The pockets of Suki’s little cargo pants would soon be stuffed with whatever was lying around—money, jewelry, lipstick.

Hearing Martin’s voice, Suki immediately lost her lost look, secured Reno’s thin rope leash and looked puzzled. “Why’s he still got the red scarf?”

“He’s meeting someone’s my guess.”

“But he must be catching a train. Why else Waterloo?”

“To get lost in. Move around in.”

“Wait. I think I see him … Near WH Smith … over there. Hold on, he’s talking to someone—Jesus, it’s the Filth.”

Martin said, “They got him?”

“He doesn’t look got.”

“This guy shot two people outside the Artemis Club.”

“Artemis Club? Oh, cool.” The Artemis Club was Suki’s notion of heaven. She’d never been inside, of course, being nine years old, but dreamed of it. “So this idiot’s wandering around Waterloo with a scarf like a flag … Unless …” she said to Martin, “the second guy isn’t really a cop.”

He wasn’t really a cop.

Suki, with Reno on his lead, followed the big man (now divested of his red scarf) through an exit to Station Approach Road. “Shit, they’re heading for a car. God, it’s a Porsche.”

“Get the reg and call Robbie.”

“Now they’re just standing there and talking.”

Suki let Reno off his lead and motioned for him to go. Reno trotted off toward the two men.

“That your dog, kid?” asked the one dressed as station security.

“Yeah. Did he bother you?”

“No. But he should be on a lead.”

The black man said nothing, only looked at her indifferently, as if he found the incident monumentally boring.

That annoyed Suki. She should garner more interest than that. “He’s always getting off his lead. I’m sorry.”

“Come on,” said the big man. “Let’s get going.” He had the passenger door open and a foot in the car.

But the other man was now focused on the dog. Then he put his foot in on the driver’s side. Suki heard him make a shuttered comment about Heathrow and the terminal and Emirates as he slammed his door.

“Heathrow, Terminal Three. Em—what’s that airline?” Suki said into her mobile when she called Martin back. “Who do we have?”

Martin groaned. “Emirates, maybe. Terminal Three’s a zoo. It’s its own fucking city. We’ve got Aero and Patty.”

“This guy is getting out of the country, so he comes to Waterloo to make the cops think he’s just getting out of the city, or what?”

“He has to get by passport control,” Martin said.

“Control to where? What country? How do they ID him? The guy shot somebody only—what?—a couple of hours ago? There wouldn’t be any pictures yet.”

Martin didn’t like it when Suki started reasoning. “Call Aero and tell him there’ll be two guys pulling into Terminal Three and that our guy is really big. And black.”

“There are a lot of big black guys.”

“This one’ll be getting out of a Porsche. He’ll know.”

Heathrow Airport, London

Nov. 1, Friday, 10:00 P.M.

4

Aero could canvass the entire arrivals section outside Terminal 3 in ten seconds flat. When Suki told him the big guy would be getting out of a Porsche, Aero said spotting him would be a piece of cake.

Twenty minutes after the call, Aero saw him—hell, the guy must have been six feet three or four. Hard to lose yourself in a crowd when you’re that big. And black.

Aero was spectacular on a skateboard. (Indeed he was good at anything that required balance.) But skateboards were not allowed at Heathrow, so he had outfitted himself with a pair of specially made skates that were so low to the ground all anyone could see was a kid moving very quickly along the pavement.

The skates themselves drew up into the shoes’ thick soles like the wheels-up of a plane. Aero could both fly and walk. The shoes were invented by his friend Jules, a man who made his living as a cobbler. He made custom shoes and had his shop on the ground floor of his little house in Notting Hill. Aero’s aunt and uncle lived in Notting Hill, an area of London that Aero couldn’t stand since that old film with Julia Roberts in it. Seeing Julia Roberts’s tits, apparently, was supposed to be the event of a filmgoer’s lifetime. Endless stretches of sand in Lawrence of Arabia were far more exciting than anything Julia Roberts had to offer.

He saw the guy. Damn! But that was some car! He took out his mobile and tapped in Patty’s number.

“We want to know where he’s traveling to,” she said.

“He’s flying Emirates as far as Suki could make out.”

“He won’t be queuing. He’ll be heading for a gate.” Patty flipped her phone closed and stuck it into the back pocket of her jeans.

Sometimes she was stopped by security, who wanted to know if she was okay, and who she was meeting, and other none-of-your-business questions.

“My mum’s right over there,” she’d say, pointing to any woman who happened to be looking in her general direction. Patty would wave, and sometimes the stranger would smile bemusedly and wave back for no reason. The guard usually would then leave her alone. If he continued to hog her air, Patty would go up to the woman and say something like, “You look just like my Aunt Mildred that’s supposed to be here,” and, as long as the guard was watching, continue with this vapid conversation. When he stopped, she’d say to the woman she’d just accosted, “Oh, there she is!” and skip off toward another stranger.

All this was really annoying; it pretty much ruined surveilling, having to interrupt to stage this scene. So if she was following somebody, she kept her mobile to her ear to make security think she was on it. Sometimes she’d run off into a group of strangers.

Once when a guard was being a particular prick she made her way to a young man with a bedroll sitting against a wall. The guard had actually had the nerve to approach him and ask, “Is this your little sister?”

Without blinking, he’d said, “Yeah. Y’r business? Why?”

No answer from the guard, who just walked away.

But tonight there was none of that problem; security seemed to be looking the other way. Maybe they were looking for him, the tall black guy in a gray coat. Aero had filled her in.

She had her passport (her “Smith” one; she had several more), but she needed a boarding pass and she needed it for Emirates, if that was the airline he was taking. She went toward the Emirates ticket counter and watched the line of passengers waiting to collect their documents. She took out a little notebook and a ballpoint pen and walked along checking the luggage identification, looking for a female “Smith.” No one paid any attention to her, until a heavyset woman, who probably had to know everything, asked her what she was doing.

Patty said, “I have to write an essay for school about the kind of luggage people carry.”

A couple heard that and thought it cute; a few others looked at her indulgently. That was when she saw the name on a bag belonging to a harassed-looking youngish woman: Alicia Smith. Alicia. That would do, although Patty would have preferred “Tricia.”

After this woman collected her boarding pass and checked her luggage through and turned and walked off, Patty followed her. Alicia Smith had stuck her boarding pass into an outside pocket of her big carry-on bag (how stupid!), which she flung over her shoulder, where it pounded against her back along with her camera and binoculars. She was also pulling a bag on wheels.

That was far too much to jam around her seat and certainly too much to keep track of. As soon as Patty had the boarding pass in hand, she ran around Alicia Smith and sprinted to security. She got there way ahead of Alicia. She could hardly stand behind her, or she’d have to listen to a hysterical Alicia Smith bewailing the loss of her boarding pass. Then Patty wouldn’t be able to use it.

Naturally, they would question her being by herself with a passport that read “Patricia,” not “Alicia.” To the baggage security guard who started in, she said breathlessly, as she jigged from one foot to the other, “My mum’s just over there; we got separated.” Pained look, jig, jig, jig. “Please tell me where there’s a toilet, quick!” Jigjigjigjig—

The guard pointed the way.

Patty jigged off.

The man had not gotten far ahead of her. When he came to the next set of restrooms, he hurried into the men’s, and Patty went into the ladies’ for thirty seconds and then came out again to stand by the water fountain and wait.

When she saw him exit the restroom, she quickly turned to the fountain, drank and continued following. They were coming to the last stack of shops along this corridor. After the shops it would be gates, where it would be harder to run into him by accident. She hoped he’d stop—

He did.

There was a line in this newsagent’s as it was the last place to buy reading matter, candy, refrigerated drinks before going to the lounge and waiting for the plane’s departure. He wasn’t in the line yet; he was looking over the newspapers. Patty went to the refrigerated unit and pulled out a bottle of water, then moved to the magazines, where she looked for something that might get his attention if he saw it. Nothing in magazines; she went to the books.

When he appeared to be moving toward the counter, she snatched up a book about cards and got there before him so that she was standing in front of him. When the woman ahead of her left with her chewing gum and lotion, Patty set her water and her book on the counter and got out her change purse.

“That’ll be six pounds ten, love.”

Six quid! Good grief, books were expensive. She handed over a five-pound note, a pound coin, and ten p in change. As she was picking up the water, she shoved the book onto the floor. Of course he picked it up and looked at the cover before handing it back to her and receiving her thanks.

“Poker: Small Stakes Strategies. This is what you do in your spare time?”

“Me? No, it’s a present for my dad. He likes to gamble.”

And, of course, he spoke to her as she stood in the open doorway looking left and right, puzzled.

“Looking for your family?”

“What? Oh, no, I’m just wondering which way is Gate Twelve.”

He smiled. “Same way I’m going. Come on.”

As they walked, he said, “Your family is going to Dubai?”

“No, just me. My aunt’s meeting me there.”

“You’re alone? That’s a very long way for someone to go alone.”

He meant, of course, for a child to go alone.

“Well, I travel a lot. It’s my dad. His job takes him to a lot of different countries. My mum’s dead. I stay with aunts and uncles a lot.” That, she thought, sounded sloppy.

“You know, you’re the same age as my great-niece. I wouldn’t like her to be on her own in airports and on planes.”

“Neither does Pop. But what can he do?”

They were in the foyer of Emirates now. He put out his hand. “People call me B.B. Bushiri Banerjee. Father was Bengali, my mother Kenyan. How do you do?”

“I’m Patty Smith. They got my boarding pass wrong and put down Alicia instead of Patricia.” She showed him the pass she’d lifted from Ms. Smith. Winsomely, she added, “It’d be nice if we could sit together.”

B.B. seemed to be thinking this over. “I might be able to fix that.” He had his boarding pass out and took hers too.

Patty watched him as he went up to the flight attendant, spoke to her. She nodded and turned to her computer. She turned back and said something and he took out his credit card and handed it to her. After this transaction, he returned to Patty and handed her a new boarding pass.

Her eyes widened. “This is first class!”

“Well, that’s how I’m going. We won’t be sitting together because we’ll each have our own room, but we can visit. It’s very nice on this airline.”

She thanked and thanked him and wondered if this guy was such a careless killer, such a hapless hit man, that he could be conned by a kid.

Or was she just a really, really clever kid? She gazed up at B.B. with a thankful look, preferring to believe the latter.

Her mobile twittered. “Hi.”

It was Aero.

“It’s my aunt. Would you excuse me a minute?” Patty went out into the aisle, out of B.B.’s range. “His name … let me think … Anyway, flight’s to Dubai on Emirates. Where in hell are the cops? This plane is going to leave and the gate’ll close in another five minutes.”

B.B. was standing now and motioning to her.

“Trouble is, this guy you’re following hasn’t been identified by anybody but us.”

“What about Robbie? Why isn’t he here with the police?”

“Don’t know.”

“So the Filth hasn’t got it together.”

Aero chuckled. “Why d’ya think they’re called the Filth?”

“This is London’s finest?”

“No, Robbie and them’s London’s finest.”

“The plane’s about to take off. Have I got to go to Dubai just to keep an eye on him? Where’s Dubai?”

“My God, Patty, don’t do that! Are you crazy?”

“Somebody’s got to be. His name’s B.B. Or that’s what he’s called. The plane’s leaving! Bye.”

Patty ran to the line and to where B.B. stood near the gate. “That was Aunt Monique. She was calling from Dubai; that’s why I couldn’t hear too well.” How ridiculous.

The attendant behind the counter moved over to take the boarding passes when their flight was announced. She smiled at B.B. and looked benignly at Patty, and said, “Aren’t you the lucky girl?”

Patty agreed that she certainly was.

What she wanted to say was it wasn’t luck, lady.

Islington, London

Nov. 2, Saturday morning

5

Detective Superintendent Richard Jury was dealing with his own smoke and mirrors in the person of his upstairs neighbor, Carole-anne Palutski, not a policewoman, although at times she thought she was. She had come into his flat early on Saturday morning with a pint of milk and his Times.

She handed him the milk and sat down on the sofa to read the paper by opening it wide, ignoring the important news, looking for ads for whatever Christian Louboutins or Jimmy Choos might be walking her way. After a bit of this browsing, she looked up at him. “You were awfully late coming in on Thursday night. And you forgot our date to go down the Mucky Duck.”

Jury had turned to take the milk into the kitchen and now turned back again. Why was she waiting until now to upbraid him? Now was Saturday morning. And this alleged “date” he had no memory of making. Which was often the case. But all he said as he continued into the kitchen to pour milk into tea was, “At the Yard.” In case she’d forgotten where he worked.

“Doing what?”

He debated bringing up the Starrdust, as he didn’t want to get into a discussion of her psychic powers and David Moffit’s dark future. And he certainly didn’t want to go into his dinner with the Moffits at the Goring. So he lied. “Working overtime.” He walked the two mugs of tea back into the living room. She thanked him with a sighing insincerity when he handed hers over.

She said, “You’re a superintendent. You shouldn’t have to put in overtime.” She was holding the paper the way no one holds a newspaper who’s really reading it. Front page—citing the usual outrages—and back page visible, paper fanned out in two parts.

David’s worried look came back to Jury and he said, “Someone came in who needed to talk to a detective.”

“He could have seen any detective.”

“I happened to be there.”

“Probably, he saw you go in and followed you.”

Jury frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“People know you after all the publicity.” She turned a page of the paper.

“Carole-anne, that was over a year ago.”

“You think people can’t remember back that far? And excuse me, but don’t you have reception at New Scotland Yard?”

“We do have a front desk that’s manned by a couple of uniforms. We don’t call it ‘Reception.’ We’re not the Connaught.”

“And they just send anyone upstairs who walks in and says they need a cop?”

“No, they do not. They get a detective to come down from ‘upstairs.’”

“And that happened to be you. Ha.” The “ha” sent this piece of information into the deductive hinterland where it belonged. “There’s a new gym opened in Islington. Called the KO.”

“That’s in the Times?”

“No, it’s in Essex Road.” She lowered the paper and looked him up and down as he stood in the kitchen doorway with his mug refilled. “You never took my advice and joined a gym.”

“That is correct.” He drank his tea.

“You need exercise. You’ll lose what looks are left.” She went back to her paper, turned another page.

“I’m glad there’s any left at all.”

As she resettled herself, the front page of the paper fell away and Jury could see the inside page and nearly dropped his mug of tea. His mind shouted, No! His mouth went so dry he couldn’t seem to move his tongue to shout it aloud. In two steps he was at the couch and grabbing at that page.

Carole-anne looked up in alarm. “What’s wrong?”

Jury stared at the photo of David Moffit. Then on the other side of the printed column at his beautiful wife, Rebecca. The headline read: Couple Shot Outside Trendy London Club.

Jury dropped the page and fell into his easy chair. He put his head in his hands.

Carole-anne had quickly retrieved the page of the newspaper and said, “Oh, my God. He was in the Starrdust on Thursday. Did you know him?”

Jury didn’t answer.

Carole-anne read the brief account aloud:

“The prestigious Artemis Club in the City of London was the scene of a double murder when Americans Rebecca and David Moffit were shot down in the courtyard as they exited a cab.

The gunman ‘came out of nowhere,’ to quote one of the customers, ‘got into the same cab and drove off.’ City of London Police, led by Detective Chief Inspector Dennis Jenkins, came to the scene when they got the emergency call. Dr. Moffit was a physics professor at Columbia University in New York, where the couple lived.”

She looked over at Jury. “Super—?”

“I met him at the Starrdust.”

Her frown turned to surprise. “That handsome guy! I told him his fortune!” She had the grace not to add, “I warned him.”

The only bit of good news in all of this was that it was Dennis Jenkins who’d got the case. Jenkins was a good friend. Jury got up and moved to the telephone.

“I’ve got to make a call.” He dialed the Snow Hill station and asked for DCI Jenkins.

When Carole-anne saw how he looked, she walked over and put her hand on his arm, and made to leave. Jury’s phone calls she ordinarily took as part of her domain, but not this time. “I’m sorry, Super. If you need anything, you know where I am.”

As he waited for Jenkins to come on the line, Jury sat staring at a rubbed spot on his carpet, hardly aware that a tear had run down his face until he saw the drop fall on the worn place. He was thinking of two days before, remembering the Starrdust and David Moffit.

SPOOKY ACTION

Covent Garden, London

Oct. 31, Thursday afternoon

6

“Would you look at that, sir?” said Detective Sergeant Alfred Wiggins.

As if Jury were blind to this shopwindow with its assortment of miniature ghosts, ghouls and graves, more than one of which had been disturbed by a skeleton or moldering body pushing its way out of the ground. The ghosts and ghouls were equally active, some on the ground, some in the trees, a few flying about a church spire. The lighting was key, professionally done by means of tiny LEDs that moved within the scene, spotlighting whichever figure was performing from one moment to another.

Wiggins went on, brave companion and guide in the country of the blind, reporting back to his boss, Detective Superintendent Richard Jury, New Scotland Yard CID, on the action in the window: “See there, that zombie on the left, he’s about to pour—there it goes!—that tiny bucket of blood all over the top-hatted man strolling along the path. Got him! Covered in it, he is.”

Jury was about to punch him, when Wiggins quickly pointed out the Frankensteinian figure coming out from behind a tree. As Wiggins stood giggling, Jury said, “Good. Now if you’d just hand me my cane, Wiggins, I could tap my way into the shop.”

These two were not the whole of the audience for this little Hallows Eve extravaganza, for they were surrounded by kids of varying ages. The shop was the Starrdust, one of the most popular venues in Covent Garden. Jury was very fond of its owner, Andrew Starr.

“Cane, sir?” Wiggins then lost interest immediately, turning again to the action in the window. “I just don’t see how they do it.”

“They” were the shop assistants, Meg and Joy, who, with the help of Andrew Starr’s electrical engineer, had been “dressing” the windows of the Starrdust for years, paying particular attention to the night sky, the constellations, the planets. Andrew Starr made as sure as Copernicus would have done that they got that part right. Andrew was a much admired and respected astrologer. He made up horoscopes for some very important Londoners who had been consulting him for years; Andrew was also canny enough to see the drawing power of Meg and Joy, who didn’t take it seriously at all. Hence the unfolding drama of miniature goblins and buckets of blood. Andrew knew the value of entertainment.