‘Frank, baby, are you all right?’ sobbed the red reptile. ‘I’m sorry, cherry pie.’
‘Where’re you going?’ said Roxy, coming out of her bedroom. AJ was opening the front door.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t be coming back.’
He ran down the stairs, only vaguely noticing Elsie and Vera. Elsie called after him and Mrs Perkins from the bottom flat said she’d rung the police.
‘Someone could be murdered up there.’
‘Yeah, me,’ said AJ and slammed the outside door.
He was so angry there was no way he could stop moving. It felt as if sparks of fire were flying off him, such was his frustration with his family, with all the shit that was his life. Fireworks exploded in the sky, sparks of gunpowder as red as his rage.
He squeezed through the gap in the fence next to the locked park gates and was drawn to the clatter of wheels and the sound of a skateboard as it hit the ground. AJ sat on a bench, not saying a word, watching Leon flip and olly down the bank.
‘Safe, man,’ said Leon after a while and handed AJ his skateboard.
AJ was nowhere near as good a skateboarder as Leon and Slim but it was a release just to be on the board, to feel his body twist and turn, his breath coming deep and fiery.
The police were at Bodman House when they passed it. Leon lived two blocks away.
‘What happened, bro?’ he asked as he put the key in his door.
‘Mum and Frank,’ said AJ.
‘Shit,’ said Leon.
The flat Leon lived in with his mum could at best be described as raw. The place stank of mould, weed and cat’s piss. The carpets almost moved without you walking on them. For all that, it was a darn sight more cosy that night than AJ’s flat. They watched Night of the Living Dead, smoking weed, neither of them saying much. AJ fell asleep on the sofa.
At lunchtime the next day Slim turned up with pizza and Cokes.
‘What went down at your manor last night, dude?’ he asked AJ, who was in the kitchen trying to find a clean mug.
‘Nothing much,’ he said, turning round.
‘Wowzer,’ said Slim. ‘That is one impressive bruise.’
AJ glanced at his black eye in the mirror. It wasn’t good.
‘I can’t go to work like this.’
Leon and Slim studied him.
‘I don’t know. The girls will love it,’ said Slim.
‘Shut it,’ said AJ.
By Sunday evening it had been decided that AJ would stay at Leon’s, at least until his mum came home. He’d pay Leon some rent – a bit more dosh would come in handy. AJ popped round to Elsie’s to ask if he could use her washing machine.
‘That looks bad, love,’ she said. ‘Hold on a mo.’ She went to her bathroom and came back with a tube of arnica. ‘When Debbie visited me from Australia, she brought this. Said it was good for everything.’
AJ didn’t like to say that it was so long since her daughter had visited that it might not work any more. Nevertheless, he allowed Elsie to put the cream on his face and the touch of her paper-soft skin made him feel better.
‘What happened with the police?’ he asked.
‘I think they cautioned Frank. Jan said it was a “misunderstanding”. There you go love, nothing changes.’
Monday came too soon, too bright. On his way to work, AJ felt the key in his pocket. The sharp, cold iron brought back the overheard conversation and the stranger’s words. I will see you at Jobey’s Door.
He shuddered at the thought. He knew what he was going to do. Give the key to Morton. And he wasn’t going to ask about the Jobey file. Life was already complicated enough.
Chapter Seven
When AJ was small he had seen letter boxes as metal mouths waiting to trap him, keyholes were eyes watching him. Still to that day, he felt a front door told you more about the inside of a house than anyone needed to know. Finding Baldwin Groat’s door wide open that morning, he thought the chambers felt naked, vulnerable.
Morton was already attached to his phone.
‘I’m trying to find out where Mr Baldwin is. No, he’s not in chambers. If he was I wouldn’t be calling. Neither is he at the Old Bailey.’ He put down the phone. ‘Mr Jobey,’ he said. He paused and took in AJ’s black eye before continuing. ‘Stephen is off sick – you will be assisting Louise Finch.’
Louise Finch was a barrister, a tall elegant woman, and AJ, with a young connoisseur’s eye for the ladies, would have described her as fit. Weighed down by briefs, wig and gown, they piled into a taxi and set off to the Old Bailey.
Ms Finch looked intently at her iPad while AJ looked out of the window and thought of the thousands and thousands of doors out there – maybe millions – each one with its own lock; of all the keys that guaranteed entry into homes, businesses, shops – each with an address and every address known to the key’s owner. Here he was with an ancient piece of ironmongery, with a named door to call its own, that left an orange mark on his hand. The only thing he didn’t have was the address. All weekend he had thought about the key. The more he thought, the more the key itched at him, for it gradually began to occur to AJ that it might unlock a door at the place shown on the map that he’d photographed in the Museum. He took out his mobile and studied the image, blew up the spot marked X as big as it would go. Curiosity nibbled the edge of his resolve to be rid of the thing.
It was a truth, he knew, that a mystery was almost irresistible. Take Bluebeard’s wives, he thought. Bluebeard gave them the keys to the castle to look after while he was gone, told them they could open any room but one – and look what they did. They just couldn’t resist it. He put his hand in his pocket, almost expecting to feel the key sticky with blood. A vision developed before him of this unknown Ingleby waiting in the shadows, a man with a blue beard.
‘This is a forgery case,’ said Ms Finch.
AJ jumped.
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your daydreaming, Aiden, but I thought you might be interested in a little background to the case.’
‘Yes,’ said AJ. ‘I am.’
‘Our client, David Purcell, is an antiques dealer.’
‘What sort of antiques?’ asked AJ.
‘He specialises in rare snuffboxes, pocket watches and miniatures from the late seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries.’
‘Is there a big demand for that sort of thing?’
‘Yes. Two years ago an eighteenth-century porcelain snuffbox made for King Augustus III of Poland was sold for 1.4 million dollars at auction in New York. Let’s just say that our client deals with the top end of snuffboxes.’
‘You know snuff means dead?’ said AJ helpfully. ‘As in, “he snuffed it”.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ms Finch with a smile.
AJ had never imagined walking into the Old Bailey, let alone on the right side of the law. Yet here he was, sitting on a bench outside the robing room, waiting for a barrister.
‘Now, Aiden,’ said Ms Finch as she came out of the robing room, ‘the procedure is that you follow me into court and stay at the back in case I need something.’
It was a day for firsts. AJ hadn’t been sure what Court Number Two of the Old Bailey might look like. It definitely wasn’t like any of the court rooms that you see on TV dramas – it was much more dignified: panelled walls, with a long bench in front of a row of leather-seated thrones, carved in oak.
The man in the dock, their client, was dressed in a snappy suit that was cut to impress, but without a tie the suit looked insulted. Mr Purcell sat impassively in the dock with his head up as if an unpleasant smell was wafting from the cells below.
‘Order, order. Will the court rise for His Lordship,’ said the usher.
Everyone stood as an impressive judge in a red gown and wig entered and sat down. The court waited for the serious matter of the day to begin.
The first witness for the defence was a Mr Paggs.
‘Mr Paggs,’ said Ms Finch, ‘your expertise is in antique snuffboxes???
?
‘Yes.’
‘Please look at the snuffbox shown in photograph 401 in the evidence.’
The jury shuffled through the documents to the right page.
‘You have examined this snuffbox. Would you say that it is a fake?’
‘No,’ said Mr Paggs. ‘It’s a puzzle.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well, the case is in mint condition and the snuffbox looks as if it was made thirty years ago but it wasn’t. All the materials used are authentic and there is no doubt that the artist is van Draydon, whose work in gold and miniature enamel painting is highly prized.’
‘Mr Paggs, are you saying that it is a fake or an original?’
‘I would stake my reputation on it being an original. We have had it X-rayed and the processes involved in making an enamel snuffbox such as this no longer exist.’
‘And if this is an original, as my client claims, how much is it worth?’
‘One and a half million – and that is a conservative assessment.’
‘Is it your professional opinion,’ said Ms Finch, ‘that none of the items you have examined for this case are fake?’
‘Most definitely. I have never seen such beautifully preserved antiques in all of my forty years in the business. It’s as if they’ve been handed to us through a loophole in time.’
There was a ripple of laughter.
The usher brought in a note and, bowing to the judge, gave it to Ms Finch. She read it then asked the judge if she might approach the bench. Whispering became chattering and it grew louder and louder until the judge shouted, ‘Order, order. This case is to be adjourned for the rest of the day. I will see the counsels in my rooms.’
AJ waited at the side of the courtroom while everyone else filed out. When they’d left, AJ went up to Ms Finch. She was re-reading the note that had brought proceedings to such a sudden halt.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
Ms Finch said quietly, ‘Mr Baldwin was taken into hospital on Friday night with suspected poisoning. He’s in intensive care.’
Chapter Eight
At four o’clock AJ was sent home. He sat on the top of the 38 bus, his mind tumbling. He was a thousand miles from calm, and everywhere he didn’t want to be. He had told Ms Finch that he had worked late on Friday evening, sorting out the files in the Museum and she had asked him casually if he had seen or heard anything strange. The words had lined up on the tip of his tongue to tell her about the man called Ingleby and even about Jobey’s Door and the key with his name and date of birth on it. As luck went he had been saved by the bell of her mobile phone and he quickly swallowed the information deep into him. She didn’t look as if she was expecting an answer.
It wasn’t rational but he felt guilty, as if in some way he was responsible for Mr Baldwin having been poisoned. AJ had been responsible for everything bad since the day he was born. He told himself that the last thing he could let happen was to lose his job. Better by far to keep shtum. Anyway, who would believe him? AJ felt that his world had gone spinning off its axis.
It was at Mount Pleasant that he spied the professor with his lopsided walk, his stick in his hand. AJ jumped off the bus and sprinted after him.
‘Wait,’ he called. ‘Professor Edinger, wait.’
The professor stopped.
‘Ah, here you are, AJ,’ he said as if he had been expecting him. ‘How very good to see you again. Are you hungry?’ The professor didn’t wait for an answer and AJ, who hadn’t eaten at all that day, realised he was starving. ‘I always find that when one hasn’t eaten, life feels decidedly perilous.’
He lead AJ to a café on Rosebury Avenue.
‘What would you like?’ he said when they’d sat down.
AJ felt the miserable collection of coins in his pocket.
‘Tea would be good.’
The professor ordered sausages and mash for them both.
‘On me,’ he said.
They ate in silence. Mouthful by mouthful AJ began to find his feet again.
‘You still have the key?’ said the professor.
‘How do you know about the key?’
‘Just a guess. Baldwin never found it then?’
‘Why was he looking for it?’
‘Another cup, AJ?’
‘I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t want the key.’ He took it out of his pocket and put it on the table. ‘I don’t need any more trouble.’
‘May I?’ asked the professor. He picked it up and looked at the label.
‘Second of October nineteen-ninety-six. Your date of birth.’
AJ nodded.
‘Do you know where to find the door that it belongs to?’
‘I have an idea. Look, this is all crazy and I’m miles from safe. Tomorrow I’ll have to tell the police what I saw – and what I heard.’
‘No,’ said the professor. ‘No. I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that – not right away. The door has your name on it – surely it’s at least worth investigating?’
AJ leaned forward. ‘Look, I could be in deep shit here. I could lose my job. This is not a game.’
‘No, far from it, AJ. It is a very weighty matter indeed and one that I am not sure you are up to, which is a pity.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk? His mother sends Jack to market with a cow. The boy has not had the best start in life. He sells the cow for three beans. His mother is furious and throws the beans out of the window. The next day a giant beanstalk has grown there. Now, this is the interesting part: Jack has curiosity, he has courage. He is brave enough to take a chance and climb the beanstalk. And by doing so he changes his future.’
‘So what?’ said AJ.
The professor put a gold pocket watch on the table and opened it. Inside was a painted scene of a house and garden. It was exquisite.
‘How old would you say this is?’
‘I don’t know. It looks brand new.’
‘Precisely. It is new – about forty years old. But it was in fact made in 1790.’ He put the watch back in his pocket. ‘I have made an extensive study of the phenomena of portals to other times.’
AJ stood up.
‘Thanks for the meal but this is all way too weird for me.’
‘Wait,’ said the professor. ‘You say you know the location of the door that the key belongs to?’
‘I worked it out. I found a map in a file marked Jobey and I took a photo of it on my phone. It’s the waste ground at the side of the Mount Pleasant sorting office. It’s used as a car park.’
‘Go there. Look for a lintel in an old wall – there is a dead buddleia root above it. You don’t have to unlock the door. Shall I meet you back here … let’s say, twenty-four hours from now? Then perhaps you will be able to answer the riddle of my pocket watch.’
AJ felt unreasonably cross as he walked back towards the bus stop. The professor definitely had several screws missing from his toolbox. Who did he think he was? A deranged time lord? He shoved his hands in his pockets and felt the key.
‘Beanstalks,’ he muttered. ‘Off his bloody rocker.’
Tomorrow he would tell Morton all he knew. Then he would tell the Old Bill how he had heard Baldwin with someone else in his chamber, and about the voice in the fog. That was the only way to swim back to the shore of normality.
But AJ didn’t catch the bus. Not the first one, nor the second. Instead, in the gloom of a darkening Monday afternoon, he made his way towards the car park in Mount Pleasant.
Chapter Nine
It occurred to AJ as he climbed over the wall at Phoenix Place into the deserted car park that it was nearly always dark in horror films when perfectly sane people decided to do insane things. The waste ground at the side of Mount Pleasant sorting office looked terminally spooky. The old, jagged brick walls cast long shadows on the tarmac. His mind’s eye saw white-faced zombies pushing through solid bricks, creeping out of grooves and cracks.
What it couldn’t see was a door. Best to leave, he thought. One other thing he knew about horror movies was this: even when the violin screeched out a warning to the actors that going alone into an empty car park where the zombies lived was a stupid idea, they never listened.
‘Stop it,’ he said to himself, his mind churning.
He looked again at the photo of the map on his mobile. Phoenix Place wasn’t marked on it but as he turned towards the sorting office he saw the wall the professor had described to him. The shrub, no more than a dead root, appeared in the shadows as a devil’s head with antlers. AJ was certain that at any moment it was going to speak.
He had spooked himself out of all rational thought. The only comfort was the feel of the concrete solid beneath his feet. Just when he believed he was mastering his fear of zombies, everything took a turn for the worse. A fog began to seep up through the cracks in the ground.
‘This is well out of order,’ he said aloud.
He felt genuine fear rush through him. The fog was now all-encompassing, as thick as the one outside Raymond Buildings. He tried and failed to get his bearings. Panic was about to swamp him when the fog cleared and there it was: the door. How had he not seen it before? It wasn’t the kind of door you could miss. A red door, set into the wall, framed by two wooden columns. Above it a stone face looked down at him in a not-altogether welcoming manner. The sight of the face alone gave AJ the heebie-jeebies. He turned to walk away then caught sight of the door knocker – cast iron, moulded in the shape of a man’s hand. Carved into the door was the name JOBEY.
AJ took the key from his pocket then remembered that the professor had said that the door wasn’t locked. Trembling, he tried to push it open. It was heavy and had been so neglected that its hinges seemed to have seized up. Taking a deep breath and listening to the tribal drums of fear beating in his body, he leaned on it with all his weight. Quite suddenly it swung open and AJ found himself staring into a wood-panelled hall. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the morose darkness of his surroundings. The dust that lay thick on the floor was evidence that few people walked there. It smelled of damp mustiness, wax candles and coal smoke. More than the dust, more than the smell, the complete stillness, the absence of the never-ending hum of the city, made him aware that he had stepped over an unknown threshold. He waited, his heart drumming to a hip-hop beat, for the sounds of the London he knew to rush in upon him. He waited and there was nothing, just the patient tick-tock of a clock measuring a different time. Was it possible that the professor was right?