The Bride Wore Black Leather (3 page)

I looked around the office. “What are you going to do with all this . . . stuff?”

“I’ve already made arrangements, boss. The really good stuff goes with me, and what I can’t sell I’ll chuck in the nearest Timeslip, so it can be someone else’s problem.”

“Okay,” I said. “Down to business. Cathy, I want you to find me one last case, as a private investigator. Nothing too big or too complicated because I want it all over and done with before I get married tomorrow. But something really good, to go out on.”

And then I stopped, as a thought occurred to me. I looked around the office. “How much am I paying for all this?”

“You never wanted to know before,” said Cathy, which I couldn’t help noticing wasn’t really an answer.

“I wasn’t getting married before,” I said. “Everyone’s been telling me that can be very expensive.”

“Relax, boss. Let’s say that thanks to the expert way I have been managing your finances and investments all these years, you can afford it.”

“I’m solvent?” I said. “When did that happen?”

“You never did have a head for figures,” said Cathy, shaking her head sadly.

“Am I rich?”

“Well, by the Nightside’s standards, you are comfortably well off.”

“Damn,” I said. “I really must run out and buy something expensive, on principle. It’s been years since I indulged myself.”

“Not what I heard . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing, boss!”

Cathy fired up the various computers and monitor screens built into the surface of her desk and made a point of studying them carefully. She gestured meaningfully at the piled-up paper in the trays, marked In, Out, Urgent, and Pay Now. I grabbed a few handfuls and sorted through them while Cathy called up all the most recent e-mails. People still write a lot of letters in the Nightside, sent by personal messenger, because paper can’t be hacked. My office has also been known to receive communications from any number of alternate futures. Usually marked Not To Be Opened Till . . . I sorted those out and placed them carefully to one side. Never trust messages from the Future; they always have their own agenda.

“That’s nothing,” said Cathy, noting my interest. “Sometimes things appear here in the office, arriving out of nowhere by supernatural methods. I only ever open those wearing my special protective mittens. And there’s always the ravens, of course.”

I looked at the handful of ravens, gathered together on a wooden perch at the far end of the office, patiently waiting their turn to deliver their magically imposed messages.

“I don’t know how they get in, boss,” said Cathy. “Especially considering this office doesn’t have a window. I never ask them what their messages are because then they’d disappear back to whoever sent them. And I’m not doing anything for anyone who’d treat living creatures that cruelly. So I let them hang around here until their messages are safely out-of-date, then I find them good homes.”

“You soft and soppy sentimental thing, you,” I said.

“And the ones I can’t find homes for I make into pies.”

I said nothing. Often, I find that’s the safest course. I concentrated on sorting through my papers while Cathy worked her way through the e-mails.

“I have programs in the computer to weed out the time-wasters along with the spam,” Cathy said finally. “But sometimes messages by-pass the system completely and drop onto my desk out of nowhere, punching their way right through the office’s protections and defences. I always treat those messages very respectfully because anyone with that kind of power wouldn’t be bothering us unless it was something really urgent.”

“Hold everything,” I said. “I just noticed that you’re using a whole new computer system. Whatever happened to that silver sphere thing, holding rogue AIs from the Future?”

“Oh them . . . They went home again, a few months back,” said Cathy. “They were basically data junkies. At first they were as happy as pigs in shit because they thought they’d never run out of fresh new data to investigate and correlate, but eventually even they had enough. They announced one day that the Nightside was too weird, even for them, and it made their heads hurt. And since they didn’t have heads, they were going home. And off they went. To wherever or whenever they came from. The computers built into my desk now are state-of-the-art thinking things that fell off the back of a Timeslip. And no, you really don’t want to know how much I paid for them. Before they were fitted into my desk, they looked like Robby the Robot’s head, if its designer had been having a very bad day while out of his head on really dodgy blotter acid. Sometimes it thinks so fast it gives me the answer before I’ve even worked out the question. It’s called Oliver. Don’t upset it.”

I decided I needed a break. I got up out of my chair and marched over to the futuristic coffee-pot standing on its special stand. A gleaming metal Moebius monstrosity that somehow never needed refilling and produced steaming-hot black coffee on demand. As long as you were very polite while demanding it. Far too many things in the Nightside have minds of their own. They’ll be forming unions next . . . As I waited for my mug to fill, I couldn’t help noticing a line of empty champagne bottles stacked up on the floor behind Cathy’s chair. Good vintages, too. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. The mug finally filled, steaming thickly. I took a good sip, and then spat it half-way across the office. I swear the coffee machine sniggered. I glared at Cathy.

“What the hell has happened to the coffee? It tastes like battery acid that someone’s pissed in!”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Cathy innocently. “I haven’t touched that stuff since the machine had its nervous breakdown. Personally, I think it’s a cry for help. It’s only for clients and visitors, these days. I drink vintage bubbly, and the occasional bottle of Stoli. Here . . .”

She fumbled beneath her desk as I put the coffee mug carefully to one side and settled myself in the visitor’s chair again. Cathy emerged again, offering a pale blue bottle.

“If you want, you can clear your mouth out with this. Viennese Creme Violette. A desperate and downright threatening thick liquor whose taste could punch through steel plate. This is industrial-strength palate cleanser. An old client of yours sends us a new case every Easter, to say thank you.”

“What for?” I said, looking closely at the bottle, then shaking my head firmly.

Cathy grinned as she made the bottle disappear again. “There’s never any name. But . . . free booze is free booze! If there’s any left over at the end of each year, I go out and hand it over to the homeless. They’re always very grateful. I think they use it to thin out paint-stripper before they drink it. Or to start a fire when it’s cold.”

“I have also just noticed,” I said, “that your state-of-the-art sound system has been replaced by what appears to be an old-fashioned wind-up gramophone, complete with metal horn.”

“Oh that!” said Cathy, wriggling excitedly in her chair. “It’s the latest thing! You can put on any record you like, adjust the dimensional tracking system, and it will play any variation of the record from any number of alternate timetracks! It’s super cool!”

“Sometimes you make me feel very old,” I said. “What’s wrong with CDs?”

“Vinyl rocks!” said Cathy.

I returned determinedly to my stack of papers, trying to find something that appealed to me . . . and then looked up again, to consider Cathy thoughtfully.

“It’s that look again,” she said resignedly. “What is it this time, boss?”

“I did wonder,” I said carefully, “whether you might want to take on the office, and the business, after I’m gone. Be a private investigator in your own right.”

“Oh hell no,” Cathy said immediately. “Not my thing. I only stayed on here because it seemed to me you needed a secretary and a helper.”

I had to smile. “And I let you stay on here because I thought you needed something to do, and keep you occupied, while you found your feet in the Nightside.”

We both laughed quietly together.

“I have enjoyed being your secretary,” said Cathy. “Going out drinking and dancing in all the best clubs and bars, to keep up with the latest gossip and useful information. And getting paid for it. Best job ever! I might keep that part going . . .”

“Are you still in contact with your mother?” I asked.

“We have regular little chats, on the phone,” said Cathy. “We get on much better, now there’s a distance between us.”

“Any chance of your going back, to visit her?”

“Best not,” said Cathy, very firmly. She flashed me a bright smile. “So it’s definite, then. No more John Taylor, PI. No more faithful girl secretary. The end of an era.”

“What are you going to do once this place is shut down?” I said.

“Oh, that’s already been decided, boss. I’m going to help Alex run Strangefellows. I love organising things. And people.”

“Will you be sad, to see the back of this place, after so long?”

“Nostalgia is for old folks, boss. I always look forward, never back.”

I sat up a little straighter in my chair, so I wouldn’t look like old folks, and concentrated on the papers before me while she ran through the e-mails. And soon enough, we both started coming up with interesting cases. Luckily, none that involved looking for that notorious black bird, the Maltese Falcon. Which is a very real object, in case you were wondering. Not that I’d touch it with an enchanted barge-pole.

“I’ve got an intriguing little e-mail here, from last week,” said Cathy. “Katherine Karnstein wants you to find her lost innocence.”

I sniffed loudly. “I don’t think so. I know the lady in question, and she didn’t lose her innocence; she threw it away with both hands, first chance she got.”

“All right; how about this one? A Mr. William Everett wants you to find lost Atlantis.”

“It isn’t lost,” I said. “It’s hidden. There’s a difference. Move on.”

“The SAS are offering a seriously large amount, for you to find the Holy Grail for them.”

“The Salvation Army Sisterhood should have known better than to ask,” I said. “They’re probably trying to get me in trouble again. They’ve never approved of me. I had enough problems tracking down the Unholy Grail. What else have you got?”

“A Reverend Lionel wants you to find the last of the Merovingian line.”

“Forget it,” I said. “That line’s been broken so many times down the centuries that properly speaking it isn’t a line, any more. Far too many pretenders to the throne, so to speak.”

“All right then, Mr. Fussy Pants, what have you got?”

I looked dubiously at the paper before me. “Someone who prefers to remain anonymous wants me to find out why the Moon in the Nightside sky is so much bigger than it should be. Which is actually a fair question. And I am tempted; I always wanted to know the answer to that one. I think it implies that the Nightside isn’t actually when we think it is . . . But no. This would be a long-term case, with lots of footwork and asking questions, and I don’t have the time.”

“Hmmm. Odd little e-mail here, boss. Says, Let the sun shine in.”

I looked up at that. I’d seen that same sentiment graffitied on a wall in the underpass. It felt like it meant . . . something. I shrugged mentally. No doubt I’d find out, eventually. And then I sat up sharply as I discovered something genuinely interesting. A letter from someone signing himself, An Anonymous Gentleman, on good-quality paper, in that old-fashioned copperplate hand writing that no-one teaches any more. I put the other papers aside. I held the sheet of paper up to the light and made out a watermark from the Londinium Club. That revered and very private club for the real movers and shakers of the Nightside. I tossed it across the desk to Cathy.

“By any chance, is this one of those missives that appeared on your desk out of nowhere?”

“Got it in one, boss. It was here when I turned up this morning. It does look like the real thing, doesn’t it?”

She tossed it back to me, and I read the communication out loud. It seemed the Anonymous Gentleman wanted me to find the secret of immortality. And not just for him, but for everyone. Apparently, a serum existed that could make anyone who took it live forever. He created it, and brought it to the Nightside, looking for someone to mass-produce and distribute it; and, of course, someone stole it. The main suspects were the existing immortal beings of the Nightside, who didn’t want any more competition. The Gentleman claimed that the thief would be presenting the serum to the annual meeting of the Nightside Immortals, at the Ball of Forever. Where they would ceremoniously destroy it. The Gentleman wanted me to attend the Ball, find the thief, and recover the serum, for the good of all.

“It does sound like a good case to go out on,” I said.

“Can you use your gift to find the Ball of Forever?” said Cathy.

I looked at her. “I don’t need to, child,” I said patiently. “I know where the Ball of Forever is held. Everyone does. They hold it in the same place every year. It gets major coverage in the society pages of the
Night Times
.”

“Will you be taking Suzie with you?” Cathy said artlessly.

“Not this time,” I said. “She’s far too busy arranging everything for tomorrow’s ceremony, and I’m not going to be the one to interrupt her. In fact, one of the reasons I came here looking for one last case was to get out of her way.”

“Whipped,” said Cathy. “Utterly whipped. I’m going to be her maid of honour, you know! Even though technically speaking, I’m not qualified. And haven’t been for a long time . . .”

“Too much information,” I said firmly. I looked at Cathy for a moment. “Would you like to join me, on this case? Be my companion, one last time?”

“No,” said Cathy. “It’s time to cut the cord and cut it clean. You run off and have fun, and I’ll make all the necessary arrangements to shut this place down.” She looked at the filing cabinets. “What do you want me to do with all the old case records? There are a lot of secrets in there that a lot of people would probably rather prefer remained secret.”

“Burn it all, then put the ashes through the shredder,” I said. “And then scatter the ashes in the cellars under Strangefellows. That should do it.”

Cathy looked me square in the eye. “Any idea of who this Anonymous Gentleman might be?”