Homeless people sitting bundled up in doorways, drinking forgetfulness straight from the can or the bottle. Soot-stained brickwork, darkened by generations of passing traffic. Posters slapped one on top of the other, messages from the past, advertising things long gone, faded and water-stained. When I finally got to the old building that housed my small office, most of the windows were boarded up. There were a few lights on, in the surrounding buildings. People too stubborn to leave, or with nowhere else to go. Rubbish in the gutters, and worse in the alley mouths. And what street lighting there was seemed faded and stained.
I was surprised my old office building was still there. I’d been half-convinced, half-hoping, it would have been torn down by then. The place had been officially condemned even while I was still living in it. I stopped on the opposite side of the street and looked it over. No lights, no signs of life. People had given up on it, like rats deserting a sinking ship. The front door was hanging open, hinges creaking loudly on the quiet, as the gusting wind gave the door a shove, now and again, to remind it who was boss. I stood there for a while, studying the gloom beyond the door, but I was putting off the moment, and I knew it.
I looked round the deserted street one last time, then walked briskly across the road, pushed the front door all the way open, and strode into the dark and empty lobby. It was dark because someone had smashed the single naked light bulb. The place stank of stale piss. And yet, the place couldn’t just be abandoned, or the local homeless would have moved in and claimed it for their own. No light, no heating, no signs of occupation; so why had the front door been left so conveniently open? An invitation—or a trap?
I smiled despite myself. Looked like this might turn out to be interesting after all.
I made my way up the narrow wooden stairway to the next floor. The steps complained loudly under my weight, as they always had. The tenants liked it that way, to give warning that visitors were coming. I paused at the top to look about me, my eyes already adjusting to the gloom; but there was no sign anyone had been here in ages. I moved along the landing, checking the open office doors along the way. Old memories of old faces, neighbours who were never anything more than that. Cheap and nasty offices that had been home to a defrocked accountant and a struck-off dentist, dark and empty now, cleaned out long ago, with no sign left to show anyone had ever used them.
My office was still there, exactly where I’d left it. The door stood quietly ajar, with just enough of the old flaking sign to make out the words TAYLOR INVESTIGATIONS. The bullet-hole in the frosted-glass window was still there, too. I should have had it repaired, but it made such a great conversation piece. Clients like a hint of danger when they hire a private eye. I pushed the door all the way open with the tip of one finger, and the hinges complained loudly in the quiet. I took a deep breath, bracing myself against something I couldn’t quite name; but all I smelled was dust and rot, so I walked right in.
My old office was completely empty, abandoned—lots of dust and cobwebs, and a few rat droppings in the corner. Amber light fell in through the single barred window, pooling on the floor. All the furniture was gone, but I could still see it with my mind’s eye. The blocky desk and the two functional chairs, the cot I’d pushed up against the far wall when I was sleeping in my office because the landlord had locked me out of my flat, as a gentle hint that he’d like some of the back rent paid. This was the place where I tried to help people even worse off than I was, for whatever money they had. I did my best for them. I really did.
I looked slowly round me. Hard to believe that I’d spent five long years here, trying to pass for normal. Trying to help real people with real problems, in the real world. Burying myself in their problems, their lives, so I wouldn’t have to think about my own. I found out the hard way I wasn’t that good as an investigator when I didn’t have my gift to back me up. I didn’t dare use it, not here. The Harrowing would have detected it immediately, known I’d fled the Nightside, and come after me. They could pass for normal, when they had to. They looked like people, but they weren’t. They wore plain black suits with neat string ties, highly polished shoes, and slouch hats with the brims pulled low, so no-one could see what they had instead of faces. They’d been trying to kill me since I was a child. They wouldn’t have hesitated to come into the real world after me.
One of the reasons why I’d come here. To be free of them. They terrified me. Dominated my life for so long. Gone now, at great cost to me and those who’d stood by me.
They were only one of the reasons I’d left the Nightside. I wanted to at least try to be a man rather than a monster. To live my own life rather than the one planned for me by so many vested interests. I thought I’d be safe, in the real world, as long as I didn’t use my gift, or get involved with any unnatural situations. I should have known better. It didn’t take me long to discover that, without my gift, I wasn’t half the investigator I thought I was. I helped some people, solved my fair share of cases, but made damn all money doing it. I amassed a lot of debts along the way, and made a number of real-world enemies, human monsters. Because even in the real world, no good deed goes unpunished.
Because I wouldn’t take bribes, I wouldn’t back down, and I was too damned honest for my own good.
I later found out that my once-and-future Enemies in the Nightside had orchestrated the series of tragic events that sent me running from the Nightside with Suzie’s bullet burning in my back. Their idea of mercy. A second chance, to not be the person they thought I was, or might become. I did try to take the chance they offered. But it wasn’t me. My hand drifted to my lower back, where the scar from Suzie’s bullet still ached dully when it rained. A struck-off doctor dug it out of my back while I bit down on a length of cord to keep from screaming. Welcome to the real world.
Suzie hadn’t meant to kill me. It was just her way of trying to get my attention. We forgave each other long ago.
I looked round sharply, brought back to the present by the sound of someone approaching. Slow, steady footsteps ascending the wooden stairs, making no attempt to hide themselves. Someone wanted me to know they were coming. I moved quickly over to stand behind the open door. A white trench coat may be iconic as all hell, but it does make it difficult to hide in the shadows. I stood very still, straining my ears at every sound, as the footsteps made their unhurried way along the landing, ignoring all the other offices, heading straight for mine. They stopped outside my open door, then a man walked unhurriedly in. A short, middle-aged, balding man in an anonymous coat, so nondescript in appearance he was hardly there. I relaxed, a little. I knew him. I stepped out from behind the door.
“Hello, Russell.”
He turned his head calmly, not surprised or startled in the least. He nodded once, as though we’d happened to bump into each other in the street. Russell was a small grey man, always quiet and polite, always ready to do something illegal. If the price was right. He did some work for me, back in the day. Russell did some work for a lot of people. He was a grass, a runner, and a reliable supplier of dodgy items. He never got his own hands dirty; he made it possible for other people to do what they had to. He knew all the wrong people, drank in all the worst dives, heard it all and said nothing. Until you put money in his hand. No-one liked him, but everybody used him. Russell never complained. He had self-esteem issues.
He hadn’t changed much. A little greyer, a little more rat-like. Still giving the impression that he wasn’t really there. When he spoke, it was the same old polite, self-effacing murmur that I remembered.
“Well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Taylor. Back again, after all these years. How unusual, to find you in this old place again. Most of us assumed that you had shuffled off this mortal coil, or been shuffled off it, with important bits missing. Where did you disappear to, Mr. Taylor? No-one could find you, and some people looked really hard.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I said.
“Wherever you’ve been, it would seem to have agreed with you, Mr. Taylor. You are looking very well. One might even say prosperous. Do you by any chance have the money you owe?”
“Not on me, no.”
“Oh dear. I would have to say, that is most unfortunate, Mr. Taylor. Though after all these years, I would have to say that even if you did have the money, it would not be enough. It’s the interest, you see. The emotional interest; it accumulates. Certain people are very angry with you, Mr. Taylor. You are the one who got away. The one who set a bad example ...”
“Why are you here, Russell?” I said, interrupting a flow that threatened to go on forever. “I mean, even I didn’t know I was coming here. It can’t be a coincidence, you turning up like this.”
“Hardly, Mr. Taylor. Certain people have kept this place empty, but observed, all these years. In case you showed up again.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I didn’t owe that much.”
“You made certain people
very
angry, Mr. Taylor,” Russell said simply. “It’s no longer about the money; it’s the vengeance. No-one can be allowed to get away with defying the men in charge. It’s just not done. It might give people ideas.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m glad I achieved something while I was here. But having given the matter some thought, I would have to say that I don’t give a wet fart what the men in charge want.”
“They have been watching and waiting for years, Mr. Taylor, on the chance ... And here you are! Back again, after all this time. Certain people are going to be very happy about that.”
“People have been watching my old office for years? Why?”
“For the reward, Mr. Taylor.”
“There’s a price on my head? I feel strangely flattered. How big a reward?”
“A significant amount, Mr. Taylor. In fact, I would have to say, quite a substantial reward.”
I looked at him thoughtfully. “Is that why you’re here, Russell? So soon after my return? For the reward money?”
“Not exactly, Mr. Taylor. But you know how it is ... And if I’m here, others won’t be far behind.”
“How long have I got, before word gets out?”
He smiled for the first time. “They’re already here, Mr. Taylor.”
I moved quickly over to the barred window and looked out at the street below. Several cars were parked outside that hadn’t been there before, and more were arriving. Car doors slammed loudly as armed men spilled out onto the street. They didn’t care if I knew they were there. The trap had been sprung. The men in the street were large men, serious men with serious intent. They carried their guns like they knew how to use them. I was flattered they saw me as such a dangerous threat. Everyone else was quietly disappearing off the street, including the homeless. None of them wanted to be witnesses to whatever was about to happen. Being a witness wasn’t good for your continued health.
I smiled down at the men milling outside the building. It had been a long time since anyone had come after me with only guns to back them up. But, of course, these people only knew the old me, from when I was still hiding my gift under a bushel. I looked forward to disillusioning them. Still, given the sheer number of hard men who’d turned up, it would seem Russell was right when he mentioned a substantial reward. I turned back to look at Russell. He hadn’t moved—a small grey presence in a half-lit room.
“It occurs to me,” I said, “that the reward isn’t for money returned but for me personally. Somebody wants to lay hands on me, and not in a good way.”
“Somebody bears a grudge, Mr. Taylor. Someone wants you to pay, in blood and suffering.”
There was a gun in his hand, pointing at me. I was actually shocked. I’d never seen Russell with a gun, in all the time he’d worked for me. But the gun didn’t look out of place. Something in the way Russell held his gun told me he was used to it.
“You never used to like shooters, Russell,” I said reproachfully. “You were never a violent man. First out the pub door when the fight started. What happened?”
“You happened, Mr. Taylor.” He was aiming his gun at a spot directly above my groin. A disabling shot but not a deadly one. He didn’t want me dead. Not yet. Which gave me the advantage even if he didn’t realise it. I raised an eyebrow, to indicate that he should continue, and he couldn’t stop himself. The words came pouring out, as though he’d been rehearsing them for years. “After you went away, after you abandoned me, I had to look after myself. Turned out I was really good at it. I never realised how much you were holding me back. I stopped working for other people and went into business for myself. And now ... I’m the boss. I’m the man. I run things in this territory. I bought up all your debts and put a price on your head. You owe me, Mr. Taylor.”
“The money, or for not saying good-bye when I left?”
“You never valued me, Mr. Taylor. Never respected me. Even after all the things I did for you.”
“I paid you the going rate, like everyone else. And I treated you better than most. I thought we had fun along the way. Didn’t we have fun, rescuing the good people from the bad guys, righting wrongs, and dropping the ungodly right in it? I may not have been the most successful private eye in London, but I like to think I made my mark. With your help.”
“Don’t talk to me like I was your friend, or even your partner. You used me.”
“That’s what you were for, Russell. You were an informer, the lowest of the low, despised by all. You had no principles and less dignity. You would have sold your mother’s organs for transplant while she was still alive for the right offer. At least I gave you a good purpose in life. Now put the gun down, Russell. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Oh, but it does, Mr. Taylor. With you gone, and all the enemies you’d made circling like vultures, I had to learn to look after myself. And the first thing I learned was that a gun makes all the difference. A small man can be a big man if he’s got a gun, and the guts to use it. Much to my surprise, I found I had. Actually, I enjoyed it. I’ve come a long way since you were last here, and I enjoyed every nasty bit of it. Kneel down, Mr. Taylor. Kneel down and say you’re sorry.”