Chapter Text
It’s one of those well known clichés that to catch a crook you have to think like a crook, but it’s a cliché that’s survived because a lot of the time, it’s actually true. A big part of being a police officer is learning to think like the villains you’re trying to catch, so that you can track what they’ve already done, and then hopefully predict what they might do next. It’s also part of why at various points in history, including some quite recent ones, certain parts of the police have ended up about as corrupt as the average billionaire bad guy in a Saturday morning cartoon.
But with all that said, it’s not as if you get a lot of practice using some of the more hands-on skills, and that’s my excuse for why, in the small hours of an unpleasantly muggy night in early August, I was completely failing to break into my own nick.
And before you ask, yes, I had a good reason for doing it, and no, it wasn’t that I’d lost my keys.
Let me start at the beginning.
It had all started that morning at breakfast, which Nightingale insisted on attending despite the fact that he really should have still been on part time bedrest. He’d been in and out of the hospital a few times since his first discharge, and was using a wheelchair pretty much full time but, being Nightingale, he still dressed for breakfast. I know he does own pyjamas, because Molly had sent some to the hospital for him, but I’ve never actually seen him in them in the Folly, or for that matter even seen his bedroom. Molly has been dealing with that side of looking after him, and so I still only see Inspector Nightingale, properly dressed and respectable.
This morning, though, he looked like he should probably have stayed in bed, although I didn’t comment on that because you don’t, not to his face. He was grey-faced and pale, and he was wearing a green cardigan over today’s old-fashioned shirt rather than one of his sports coats, although he hadn’t forgone the tie. He looked old and tired, like he had in the hospital, although not quite as out of place in the Folly's Georgian and Victorian splendour as he had when he’d been surrounded by the modern, easy to clean decor of UCH.
“Morning, sir,” I said, sitting down and reaching straight for the coffee pot. Doing all the legwork for Folly cases while Nightingale was technically on sick leave was proving quite hard going, and I needed all the help I could get.
“Good morning, Peter,” he said. His voice was a bit hoarse, and I had a sudden worry that he might be coming down with something. The last thing he needed was a chest infection, or another brush with pneumonia. But he gave me a quick smile and I decided that, in the interests of not making it worse by irritating him, I’d maintain a watching brief for now. “What’s on your list for today?” he asked.
Dr Walid had had some stern words with both of us about it while Nightingale had still been in the hospital, but ever since he’d been well enough he’d insisted on a daily briefing on my activities. Technically he was still my supervisor, despite the medical leave, because leaving a junior constable in de facto charge of an OCU like the Folly was, as they say, not done, and Nightingale takes his responsibilities re: me a lot more seriously than he takes most of the other aspects of modern police bureaucracy. They’d mostly been evening briefings while he’d been in hospital, but now that he was convalescing at home, we’d switched to doing it over breakfast. I’d tactfully tried to suggest dinner, or at least lunch so he could sleep in a bit, but with my schedule breakfast was the only meal that was reliable, and also Nightingale had given me that frown he’s got that says if I push things we’re going to have an argument.
So I’d given in, and got in the habit of the breakfast briefings, plus an end-of-day update over dinner whenever I made it back at a reasonable time. This morning, that briefing mostly concerned the continuing hunt for the nightclub penis-eater, although Nightingale frowned at me if I referred to her like that, and my ongoing efforts to introduce myself to all of Nightingale’s various and sundry informants. (And I do mean both various and sundry - you wouldn’t believe the variety of folks I’d met over the last couple of months. Bridge trolls had been just the start of it.) I went over my action list for the day while shovelling scrambled eggs into my face and trying not to watch as he picked at his own food in quite an uncharacteristic way.
That was one reason why, when I’d finished my food and the briefing and was passing my empty plate to Molly, I wasn’t entirely surprised when he stopped me from getting up to leave in order to say something.
“Peter,” he said, and looked suddenly awkward as he said it. “I realise this is rather short notice and something of an unorthodox request, but would it be possible for you to sleep in the coach house tonight? And to take Toby with you?” I frowned. It was an odd request, and not what I’d been expecting.
“It's possible,” I said. “Can I ask why?” Nightingale sat up straighter, not that you couldn’t have used him as a ruler before, and did his best to cover up that he'd ever had that moment of awkwardness. His poker face has taken a bit of a hit thanks to still being in what must be a fair amount of pain on the regular, but I’ve been doing my best to politely ignore that.
“There's a ritual that Molly would like to perform tonight, with my assistance,” he said, with the slightest pause to glance at her where she was still hovering by my elbow before the word ‘ritual’. “It has to do with the Folly's defences. She hasn't done it since you moved in and isn't sure what effect other inhabitants in the Folly might have.” I nodded, slowly. I could tell he wasn't telling me the whole story, but this was to do with Molly, who had sucked my blood to drop me into the world of ghosts not even two months ago. Who knew what other weird stuff she got up to that she and Nightingale had decided to introduce me to slowly?
I looked up at Molly myself, and flashed her a quick smile. Things had been… odd between us ever since the aforementioned blood sucking, but I was doing my best to make it clear that I was actually very grateful for her help in dealing with Mr Punch, and wasn't at all offended by the fact that she'd tried to eat me afterwards. And it was mostly true, although I don't know if I'll ever stop jumping when she sneaks up on me. She didn’t smile back, her eyes flickering straight back to Nightingale, but at least she wasn’t avoiding me anymore and I was going to take the small win.
“I suppose I can deal with a night on the chaise longue if you think it'll help,” I said, looking back over at Nightingale myself. “And I don't mind a bit of dog-sitting.”
“Good man,” he said, looking relieved. “Thank you.” I really wanted to ask more about the ritual in question, because the Folly's so-called defences were something I definitely wanted to know more about and I hadn't even realised that Molly was involved in maintaining them, but unfortunately I didn't have the time. I had a busy day ahead of me, and as much as I wanted to satisfy my curiosity, I had to get going. I’d just have to bother him about it later.
“No problem, boss,” I said, and went off to find my coat.
It became a bit of a problem later that evening, though, when I was about to decamp to the coach house for the night and we couldn't find Toby anywhere.
Nightingale was sitting in his wheelchair in the middle of the atrium while Molly and I searched, directing things. He'd tried to stand up and join us, but a very sharp look from Molly had put an end to that before it had even gotten started. So instead he was micromanaging the search, which I didn’t mind so much because I still don’t know every nook and cranny of the Folly nearly as well as the longer term residents, but Molly had clearly found aggravating enough that she’d disappeared off to search the basements on her own.
After yet another dust-sheet-shrouded room on the ground floor proved disappointingly short on small yappy dogs, I rejoined Nightingale in the atrium.
“Why is it that the dog is perpetually underfoot on every occasion but the one in which we’re trying to locate him?” he asked the world at large, irritably.
“It’s a talent,” I said. “Would it really be such a problem if he was around during this whatever-it-is you two are going to be up to?” Nightingale looked up at me sharply.
“Yes,” he said, equally sharply. “It would.” I actually took half a step backwards from the force of his expression, which was only a notch or two down from a glare.
“Okay, okay, forget I asked,” I said, raising my hands slightly. Nightingale grimaced, and then let out a short, frustrated sigh.
“I apologise, Peter, that was unforgivably short of me,” he said, reaching up to rub at his eyes with one hand. He didn’t look any better than he had that morning, and in fact I’d say he looked a bit worse. There was tension in his shoulders and his face, and I’d noticed him gripping the arm of his wheelchair hard enough to turn his knuckles white a few times when he’d thought I wasn’t looking.
“Don’t worry about it, boss,” I said, waving it off. Then, since I’d survived this far without getting my head bitten off and he was so obviously currently in pain, I decided to risk a health enquiry. “Are you feeling alright? Can I get you anything?”
“I’m perfectly – fine, thank you,” said Nightingale, making a mid-sentence effort to modulate his tone so he didn’t snap again. “I’m dealing with it.” Well, that was as good as an admission, but it was also a ‘do please fuck off and stop asking silly questions you already know the answer to’, something I’d been getting good at recognising ever since he came home from the hospital. Not for the first time, I felt a burst of sympathy for Dr Walid. Nightingale must be a terrible patient.
“Fair enough,” I said, and I was just contemplating if there was a diplomatic way to suggest that he get to his bed early and leave Molly to handle her ritual whatever on her own when Molly herself re-emerged from the stairs that led down to the kitchen.
“Ah, Molly, excellent,” said Nightingale, as he spotted the writhing, wriggling lump of fur in her arms. “Good catch.” She’d found Toby, and he didn’t seem best pleased about it. Before I could volunteer to take him off her hands, she glided quickly across the atrium and thrust the dog into my arms. I managed not to drop him despite the wiggling, and as soon as I had him securely Molly actually hissed at him, short and sharp, which made him subside a bit.
“Who’s got his lead?” I asked, and Nightingale passed it up to me. Or rather tried to, as Toby, quite unlike him, started growling as soon as he raised his hand. “Stop that!” I said, giving him a little shake. “What’s gotten into you?”
At the growling, a flicker of expression had crossed Nightingale’s face that I recognised as as good as a full-body flinch from someone else, and he’d actually backed up slightly in his chair. He passed the lead to Molly instead, who hooked it onto Toby’s collar for me and then handed me the end. I didn’t put him down, though. Toby is notorious for being able to slip his lead whenever he likes, and right now it was just an extra precaution. He was still growling, and it was weirding me out because he normally never reacts like that unless there’s something weird and magical going on nearby, usually ghosts.
I turned to Nightingale. “What happened, did you run over his paw or something?” I asked. It was the only reason I could think of why Toby might be holding a grudge against him of all people.
“I suppose I must have,” said Nightingale, whose expression was doing something complicated that I couldn’t read. “At any rate, you have him now,” he said, his voice turning business-like. “Best get him out to the coach house before he gets any more ideas about running off again.”
“Good plan,” I said. “‘Night, sir. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, Peter. Goodnight.”
I’d already transferred Toby’s basket and various other doggy accessories out to the coach house before he’d made us go on a dog hunt, so when I got to the Tech Cave I made sure the door was closed behind me and let him off his lead. He immediately jumped down and went for the bowl of meaty chunks I’d left out as a bribe, although one I knew I’d probably regret when he woke me up at 3am to take him outside.
“At least you’re easily distracted,” I said, and kicked my shoes off before wandering over to collapse on the chaise longue. I’d slept in the Tech Cave before, and with a lot less planning than this time, so I knew the chaise wasn’t the worst bed in the world. It wasn’t the best either, but with my good pillows from my room in the Folly proper, I could cope. And, unlike my room in the Folly, the Tech Cave has my flatscreen, positioned perfectly to be watchable from a reclined position.
I stuck on the football and, with one last glance over my shoulder to make sure Toby had everything his doggy heart could desire, got started on settling in for the night.
It was about 2am when I was woken up by the sound of Toby going ballistic.
I struggled out from under my blankets, my heart pounding in that adrenaline way hearts do when you’re woken up suddenly by a loud noise. I made it to my feet, and then almost tripped up when the duvet wouldn’t let go of my ankles. It was a warm night, but the coach house heating still leaves a bit to be desired, and I did a bit of swearing and undignified hopping as I got myself untangled and properly upright and stomped over to find out what the hell the dog wanted.
Toby had somehow managed to climb on top of one of the low shelving units under the windows out onto the courtyard, and he was staring directly at the dark bulk of the Folly opposite. He was barking fit to burst, his little front legs bouncing up and down as he did it, and I realised that I hadn’t seen him this agitated since Molly had tried to eat me. So, not just wanting out to take a shit, then.
“What's gotten into you this time?” I asked Toby out loud, but he completely ignored me. Concerned, I peered out of the window myself, half expecting to see that the Folly was on fire or something, but there was nothing, at least not that I could see. Then my brain finally shook off the last fuzziness of sleep enough to remind me about Molly’s magic ritual, and I realised what must be going on. Whatever she and Nightingale were up to over there, it was safe to say that it had broken the Yap Scale. (Copyright Peter Grant, and still under development as a way of quantifying magical activity because I’ve got sod all else that seems to do the job.)
I closed my eyes and did the best I could under the circumstances to quiet my mind, but despite Toby’s agitation I wasn't getting anything much beyond the usual coach house background. Which was weird, and now I was starting to get a slight prickle of worry again.
I’d asked Nightingale for more information about the ritual when I’d gotten back to the Folly that evening, but he’d been weirdly reticent about it. All he’d told me was that it would take most of the night, and that he’d explain more in the morning. I’d gotten the funny feeling that he was lying to me about something, or at least not telling the whole truth, which is weird because he tries not to do that. I know, ‘I never lie to you’ is something that all the liars say, but Nightingale doesn’t claim that. We’re both well aware that there are things he knows that he hasn’t told me yet, but also that if I were to ask about directly, he’d tell me. Or tell me to my face that he didn’t want to talk about, and I can respect that.
But he almost never lies outright, not to me. So it had bothered me, suddenly feeling like he might be. But I trust him, mostly, so I’d decided to, no pun intended, let it lie for now. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.
I went back and picked up my phone from where it had ended up on the floor, and stared down at it as I contemplated my options. I could phone the Folly landline and hope that Molly or Nightingale would pick up, but that risked interrupting their… whatever it was they were doing. And a call on the landline could often be urgent police business, so I knew Nightingale would make an effort to answer if he at all could. I also knew that he’d be quite acerbic with me if all it turned out to be was me calling to check in, and not some crisis. And that wasn’t even mentioning all the unpleasant things that could happen to a wizard interrupted in the middle of a ritual spell, which I’d learned all about when I’d been swotting up on how to summon Nicholas Wallpenny.
No, phoning just to check in was a bad idea. Once again I cursed the fact that Nightingale didn’t have a mobile, or at least a landline with caller ID, and mentally underlined ‘buy the boss a decent phone for Christmas’ on my three mile long to-do list.
So what options did that leave me? There was always option number 1, ignore it and hope it goes away, which was seeming more tempting by the minute. Nightingale knew what he was doing, and Molly probably did too, they didn’t need me or Toby checking up on their work.
But, said the part of me that always worries, what if they did? What if something had gone wrong, and that was what was freaking Toby out so much? I paced a couple of steps up and down the room, Toby’s still incessant barking not exactly making it easy to think.
No. The last thing I needed was to wander over there for breakfast tomorrow morning and find out that something had gone horribly wrong and I wasn’t there to help. Nightingale wasn’t at anything like full strength, he could barely even walk unassisted, and it wasn’t as if Molly could call an ambulance on his behalf. There were too many things that could have gone wrong for me to just leave it alone. And besides, I’m a policeman. It’s my job to go investigate weird shit in the middle of the night.
My mind made up, I dug out a tracksuit to pull on over my pyjamas and stuck my feet in the first pair of trainers I found, making sure to stop and lace them up properly. You look like a right pillock if you trip over your own shoelaces during an incident, and once in my life is enough for that, thank you very much.
I also picked up Toby’s lead, figuring that he clearly wanted to have words with whatever was going on in the Folly and was also my best bet at tracking down the source of the disturbance quickly.
But he wouldn’t come. The second I moved towards him with the collar, he started growling again, switching his attention between me and the window and making it clear he had no intentions of moving from his perch.
“Suit yourself, then,” I said. “But I’m blaming you when Nightingale gets cross at me.” Despite the banter, wasted on a canine audience as it was, I was thoroughly weirded out now. What was going on in there that he felt the need to bark the place down about but didn’t want to go anywhere near?
I keep one of the same type of big, ancient, vulcanised-rubber torches that Nightingale keeps in the Jag in the Tech Cave, in the event of magic-induced power cuts and also so I don’t have to conjure werelights around my expensive electronics, so I grabbed that from its spot by the door. And then, with another frown over at Toby, who was still barking and showed no signs of stopping any time soon, I stepped out into the night.
And that, as you’ve probably figured out by now, finally brings us back to my embarrassing failure to find a way back into the Folly proper.