The Naming of the Beasts

‘Good,’ said Jenna-Jane. ‘Because she’s here now. And given her background, I was very much inclined to make her part of our Asmodeus plan.’ She put the sheet back in the file, scribbled something on the inside of the file folder and closed it again.

‘The plan,’ I echoed sardonically. ‘You mean amplification, distortion, attrition and general masturbation?’

Jenna-Jane looked at her watch, a little theatrically. ‘I think it’s time to introduce you to the rest of the team,’ she said.

I followed Jenna-Jane, about as enthusiastically as Dante followed Vergil, down a maze of branching corridors into a room labelled STAFF LOUNGE. Even as a work-in-progress it was pretty well appointed: big enough for a couple of dozen people to chill out without bumping shoulders, widescreen TV, Tchibo coffee machine. I guess if you can afford to use pure silver as wallpaper, then a few comfy chairs and a coffee machine aren’t going to break the bank.

Three men - one of them Gil McClennan - and a woman were sitting in a group at the far end of the room, talking animatedly, but they stopped and turned to face us as we came in. The woman stood, seemed about to put out her hand for me to shake and then thought better of it. After the discussion in J-J’s office she came as no surprise, but I still found seeing her called up enough unpleasant memories to make me grit my teeth momentarily.

‘Trudie Pax,’ Jenna-Jane said.

‘We’ve met,’ I answered bluntly. The tall dark-haired woman flushed slightly and looked away. I noticed that she had several dozen thicknesses of string wound round each wrist. Where I conducted my exorcisms via music, Trudie channelled hers through the children’s game of cat’s cradle, making visual patterns where I made auditory ones. I also noticed that she’d cut her hair extremely short. It had been a good decision. The ponytail she used to wear made her resemble a Lara Croft strippergram, whereas now she looked as though she’d switched role models and gone for Ellen Ripley.

‘The newest member of our little family,’ Jenna-Jane was saying. ‘And she comes with truly impressive references. ’ Knowing all about Trudie’s references, I decided the safest bet under the circumstances was to nod and say nothing.

‘I’m not counting you as new, Felix,’ Jenna-Jane went on, in a teasing voice that set my teeth on edge. ‘I see you more in the light of a lost sheep who’s come back into the fold.’ She turned her attention to the two remaining strangers, who’d also stood. Gil McClennan remained resolutely seated. ‘This is Victor Etheridge,’ Jenna-Jane said, and the younger of the two gave me a nod. He had sandy-coloured hair, a slightly exophthalmic stare and a physique that made a hatstand look broad in the beam. He was wearing a jet-black suit over a jet-black T-shirt, which had the effect of making him fade into the background of his own outfit.

‘Felix Castor,’ he said. And then he winced, his head jerking to the side as though someone had punched him in the mouth. His eyes clenched shut, then opened again and looked at me sidelong. ‘I’m really . . . very . . . I’m pleased, because . . . Pleased to meet you. Because . . . Peckham . . . Peckham Steiner always spoke of you with respect.’

The kid’s head swung round again so that he could look at me full on. His expression was wide-eyed, expectant, as though he’d brought out the big guns and expected to see an appropriate response; but even leaving aside his curious delivery, dropping Steiner’s name didn’t impress me all that much. The crazed millionaire godfather of the London ghost-breaking scene had lost his marbles long before he died, and if this Etheridge character had been his protégé, he might be more of a liability than an asset.

‘You were a friend of Steiner’s?’ I asked, keeping my tone as neutral as I could.

Etheridge stared at me, looking slightly perplexed as though the question was a tough one that he hadn’t expected. ‘He was my patron,’ he said at last. ‘He . . . yeah . . . was going to start a school, if you . . . For exorcists. A school. To teach his own skills to a younger generation. It never really got off the ground, but there were . . . he . . . three or four of us . . .’ He tailed off, looking to Jenna-Jane like an actor asking for a prompt. She said nothing.

I resorted to the dumb nod again. I’d heard of that school before, and I knew damn well why it had never happened. In the last years of his life Steiner had had a million schemes. Some of them had come to pass - like the Oriflamme, the exorcists-only club on Castlebar Hill, and the exorcists’ hostel that had become known as the Thames Collective (built as a houseboat, because ghosts can’t cross running water) - but most had fallen by the wayside, forgotten, as Steiner moved on to the next big thing.