stealing old guys’ shopping, no more doing, just because it could be done. All at once, they had just vanished.
They’d done something shameful.
A gang of kids, bored, arrogant, cocksure, cock-up kids, who liked to go to a club in Willesden, just vanished.
I could have told her I thought they were still alive.
It would have been a lie, and one that she would probably have come to hate.
So I just told her nothing, just the same tune as before.
I’ll look, I promise. I’ll find Mo.
We went to see Earle.
Harlun and Phelps were trust fund managers.
I wasn’t entirely sure what this meant. I associated it with suits, shiny shoes, gleaming teeth, polished hair, questionable moralities and big glass foyers. I wasn’t disappointed.
The sunlight falling on Aldermanbury Square was promising a glorious spring and a scorching golden summer, just as soon as this part of the planet could get on and lean closer to the sun. The sky was the glorious blue, with clouds of fluffy whiteness, that you find in a child’s drawing. Trees, spindly half-grown afterthoughts, lined the space between the buildings of the square; and the old guildhouses nearby competed with the giant glass growths of modern offices. Overhead, concrete walkways from the heady 1960s, when everyone believed the Future To Be Today, jutted across the slim gaps between constructions.
The foyer of Harlun and Phelps was three storeys high of itself, a great swimming-pool expanse of slippery white marble in which a small forest of potted plants and trees had been installed. Water ran down one wall behind reception, into a small pond of zen pebbles designed to create an impression of serene, expensive tranquillity; and even the receptionists, sitting behind desks adorned with artfully twisted metals including labels (to assure you that they really were art), had the most expensive, modern headsets plugged into their ears. The future is here, and it wears pinstripe.
“The majority of employees here are civilians,” explained my Alderman guide/protector/companion/would-be-executioner as we strode without a word to the security guards through the foyer towards the lifts. “They conduct themselves within perfectly standard financial services and regulations. There is one specialist sub-operational department catering to the financing of more . . . unusual extra-capital ventures, and the executive assets who operate it have to undergo a rigorous level of training, psyche evaluation, personality assessment and team operational analyses.”
We stared at him, and said, “We barely understood the little words.”
“No,” he replied. “I didn’t think you would.”
The lift was all in green glass, even the floor. It crawled up the side of the building, faced outwards to the falling city below. Aldermanbury Square became just a blob within a maze of streets, alleys, bus-clogged roads, cranes, building works, Victorian offices and gleaming new towers, and then lost amid the snake of the river and the sprawl of the city, the familiar floodlit landmarks of London, the sun fading into evening towards Richmond, the early winter gloom spreading in from the estuary.
Earle’s office was on the very top floor. From there, presumably, he could stare down and survey all his little people toiling below, from his nest of triumphant endeavour.
The office itself was in the same stylised, soulless vein as the rest of the building. It took ten seconds to walk from his door to his desk. Ten seconds is an eternity, when it’s just you and another guy in a room that could have hosted the Olympic curling championship.
He wasn’t dressed like an Alderman. His black coat was hung on a deliberately old-fashioned coat stand behind his black marble desk. He wore a suit, dark, dark blue with a matching navy-blue tie, and cufflinks on which were engraved a pair of ebony keys on a background of pearl. As I approached across the endless floor, he smiled. It was done for good manners’ sake, not that that was a cause for which he had much time.
“Mr Mayor.” He waved me at a chair designed to give you good posture and a bad temper.
“Mr Earle.”
“Have you slept well?”
“I slept. What news?”
“We have been working on finding the boy, Mo.”
“And?”
“There is some progress. CCTV cameras in the Kilburn area saw the boy being removed two nights ago from Raleigh Court and loaded into a van. He appeared to be unconscious but alive. We are attempting to trace the men who moved him, but most likely they were just hired help.”
“Was Mr Pinner there?”
“No. We do, however, have his face on CCTV from your encounter, and are circulating it to