Broken Homes (PC Peter Grant) by Ben Aaronovitch Read Free Book Online Page A

happened?’
    Jaget contemplated his coffee for a moment and then asked, ‘Is it possible to make people do things against their will?’
    ‘You mean like hypnotism?’
    ‘More than hypnotism,’ he said. ‘Like instant brainwashing.’
    I thought of the first time I’d met the Faceless Man and the casual way he’d ordered me to jump off a roof. I’d have done it, too, if I hadn’t built up a resistance to that sort of thing.
    ‘It’s called a glamour,’ I said.
    Jaget stared at me for a bit – I don’t think he’d expected me to say yes.
    ‘Can you do it?’ he asked.
    ‘Do me a favour,’ I said. I’d asked Nightingale about glamour and he’d told me that even the easiest type was a seventh-order spell and the results were not what you’d call reliable. ‘Especially when you consider that it’s hardly a chore to defend against,’ he’d said.
    ‘What about your boss?’
    ‘He says he learnt the theory but he’s never actually done it,’ I said. ‘I got the impression he didn’t think it was a gentlemanly thing to do.’
    ‘Do you know how it works?’
    ‘You activate the forma and then you tell the target what to do,’ I said. ‘Dr Walid thinks it alters your brain chemistry, making you unusually suggestible, but that’s just a theory.’
    Not least because me and Dr Walid’s putative experimental protocol, zap some volunteers and check their blood chemistry before and after, was at the far end of a long list of other things we wanted to test. And that’s assuming we could get Nightingale and the Medical Research Council to approve.
    ‘You think our Mr Lewis was compelled into suicide?’ I asked. ‘Based on what? Where he jumped from?’
    ‘Not just that,’ said Jaget and cued up another mpeg on his tablet. ‘Watch this.’
    This one was stitched together from close-ups of Richard Lewis’s head and shoulders as he rode the escalator up to the concourse. The resolution on CCTV cameras has been rapidly improving and the London Underground, a terrorism target since before the term was invented, has some of the best kit available. But the image still suffered from the grain and sudden lighting changes that hinted at some cheap and cheerful enhancement.
    ‘What am I looking for?’ I asked.
    ‘Watch his face,’ said Jaget. So I did.
    It was your bog-standard commuter’s face, tired, resigned, with occasional flickers as he spotted something, or someone, that caught his eye. He checked his watch at least twice while riding the escalator – anxious to catch the early train to Swindon.
    ‘He lives on the outskirts,’ said Jaget and we shared a moment of mutual incomprehension at the inexplicable life choices of commuters.
    The image was good enough to capture the moment of anticipation as he stepped off the escalator at the top and the scan for the least crowded ticket gate. He checked his watch once again and set off purposefully for his chosen exit. Then he stopped and hesitated for a moment before turning on his heel. Heading for the down escalator and his date with the business end of a Mark II 1972 rolling stock.
    It looked like he’d just remembered that he’d forgotten something.
    ‘It’s too quick,’ said Jaget. ‘You forget something, you stop, you think “Oh god I have to go all the way back down the escalator, do I really need whatever it is that badly?” And then you turn.’
    He was right. Richard Lewis stopped and turned as smartly as if he was on a parade ground and had been given a command. As he rode back down his expression was abstracted and intent – as if he was thinking about something important.
    ‘I don’t know if it’s a glamour,’ I said. ‘But it’s definitely something. I think I need a second opinion.’
    But I was already thinking it was the Faceless Man.
    ‘Tricky,’ said Nightingale after I’d lured him into the tech cave and shown him the footage. ‘It’s a very limited technique and an Underground station at rush hour is hardly an