A moment’s hesitation. Kemsley drew in his lips, then smiled. “No,” he said. “You seem to understand the situation. Issues arising?”
“A few.”
“Deal with them.”
“So much for the contrite apology.”
“You know what’s at stake.”
“You killed my friend.”
For a moment, his eyebrows drew together. “Did . . . oh . . . the White. Vera whatever-her-name-was. I might say that she turned into a puddle of paint, rather than the usual corpse.”
“Yes, I noticed that. Curious, isn’t it?”
“She was a White. They have different expectations of life than the rest of us. I’m sure you understand.”
“If I’m Midnight Mayor, do I get to sack you?”
“What do you think?”
“Kemsley,” we said calmly, “if you so much as breathe out of tune, we will kill you as casually as Vera died.”
“I had no doubt. And for my part, may I say I find the idea of you as Midnight Mayor an abomination, a sickness, a degradation of the post and all the duties, age and time that it entails. But that doesn’t change the fact that for you to be Mayor, Nair must have wanted it. He must have known what would happen when he dialled his phone, he must have known that the blue electric angels would be waiting. For his sake, I will respect the choices that have been made, and hope that they have not damned us.”
There was almost a flicker of humanity in the man. The kind of human who pulled wings off flies as a kid, but still human. I smiled. “Well, it’s nice to have that cleared up. Anything else I can do for you, gentlemen?”
“You have a badge. A cross within a cross. It belongs to my colleague, Mr Earle. He’d like it back.”
“It’s in my bag. Is it significant?”
“Sentimental value.”
A lie. He knew that I knew, and brazened it out with a willpower that declared, yes, it’s a lie, and no, I’m not going to say more.
I waited for them to fetch it, remembered Earle’s face back in the flat in Bayswater, metalled over, and the shock when I’d pulled it from his chest.
Kemsley said: “We need to discuss strategy.”
I shrugged. “Sure. What the hell.”
“We need to find out who killed Nair. It makes sense that whoever - whatever - it was is connected to the other attacks in the city. We have links that could be of use. CCTV, police records, databases, forensic techniques . . .”
“What do you plan on doing with them?”
“We may be able to track the killer’s movements.”
“With CCTV? Good luck.”
“You don’t think we can do it?”
“I think that there’s nine million people in this city, and of them probably two million wear bad suits and have slicked-back hair. And they’re just the humans.”
“There are other ways to track . . . creatures.”
“And what do you intend to do, having found this creature?”
“Kill it.”
“Any idea how?”
Kemsley smiled again. It felt like fingers being dragged down the back of our eyeballs. “That, we thought we might leave to you, sorcerer.
Mister
Mayor. In the meantime we’re arranging for nine replacement ravens to be flown to the Tower.”
“You just think that’s going to fix the problem?”
“No. But I do think it might
help
with whatever the problem is. Even if it doesn’t, it’s better than sitting around radiating negative attitude.”
“Did you just say ‘negative attitude’?” we asked incredulously.
“I suspect you’re not a team player,” he added, all sucrose and teeth. “And what,” he added, “do you propose to do?”
I looked round the room. “Where are my shoes?”
“If you mean the boy’s shoes, Mo’s, they’re at the lab along with every other pair of shoes we could find in his bedroom. Also every pair of shoes we think you have ever worn.”
“That seems like an overreaction.”
“Nair thought the shoes were important - he didn’t say how. Your wandering expedition might have been for nothing.”
“You have a lab?”
“We consider all possibilities.”
“I want the shoes back.”
“Why?”
“To finish what I started before all this happened.”
“Do you think that will—”
“
We want them back
.”
He bit his lip. “You can have them in an hour.”
“Thank you.” A thought struck us, slowly catching up with the rest. We said, “What do you mean, ‘every pair of shoes in his bedroom’?”
“We acquired them.”
“From Loren’s flat.”
“Yes.”
“You talked to her?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“Not much. It’s better if civilians don’t know.”
“‘Civilians’? Where is she?”
“We have her in a safe house.”
We stood up slowly, pain dancing down our arm. “You took her away?”
“To keep her safe; to learn more.”
“You took her away and didn’t tell her why?”
“It is for the greater good.”
“If we hear those words one more time, we will set the sky on fire,” we snarled.
Kemsley seemed almost pleased. “Do you really care?” he asked.
“She is our . . . we said we would help her. She is lonely, afraid. We are . . . we will protect her. One hair of hers goes missing down the bathroom plughole, and we will tear you apart.”
He smiled. Stood and stared at us and smiled.
I said, “You total bastard.”
“Just covering base,” he replied.
“She’s not part of this.”
“I am impressed that you care - really, I am.”
“We will . . .”
“What? What will you do? What would you do if you weren’t as mortal and scared as the rest of us?
Mister
Mayor. Mister Midnight Electric Mayor. What would you do?”
We slumped back into the sofa. I stared at my hands. A mess. “What happens now?” I asked.
“There’s an inauguration.”
I laughed.
“I mean it.”
“I know you do. That’s part of the joke. Will there be cocktail sausages, and bits of pineapple on sticks?”
“No.”
“Sad.”
“The Mayor must be inaugurated.”
“What’s the point of a party without the punch?”
“You want to live? Take it seriously.”
“I am.” I rubbed the palms of my hands over my eyes. “We do. What should I expect?”
“Ghosts,” he said with a shrug.
“Thanks a bundle.”
“See me smiling?”
“Ghosts,” I repeated. “Terrific. When is this punchless, pineappleless inauguration thing?”
“Tomorrow, midnight.”
“Naturally.”
“You need to do it if you’re going to be Midnight Mayor, if you’re . . .” He trailed away.
“Going to live?” I suggested.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t save Nair, did it?”
“Nair was a man.”
“I thought he was Mayor.”
“He was a man who happened to be the Mayor. You’re something else.”
“Sure. Blame the resurrection business. Go on. Why not? If in doubt reminding a guy that he got killed, got torn to pieces by black claws on a black night, saw the white light and the long corridor and all the things you see before you die, breathed a last breath - sure. Go ahead. Because that’s really going to make me more inclined to help.”
“This is about need, Swift. You need us, and we need you, and while we can both hate it, the sensible strategy would be to deal with the issues and move on. Keep your phone switched on, Mister Mayor. Remember to answer it when we call.”
And that seemed all he had to say on the subject.
The Aldermen left.
All except Anissina.
She said, “I’m the shadow.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I’m the shadow. The one that’s going to keep your back.”
I jerked my chin at Oda. “She’ll do that just fine and she brings her own knives.”
“So do I,” she replied with a twitch of her lips that might have been a smile. “And mine need not end up
in
you.”
“Does the little sorcerer need protecting?” crooned Oda.
Anissina didn’t bother to reply. I sunk deeper into the sofa.
“Tea,” I said. “Tea will make it all better.”
I drank tea with a painkiller chaser.
It made things a little better.
Not hugely - but enough.
A knock at the door. Oda answered it, gun tucked away out of sight. A motorbike courier, all black helmet and padded jacket, presented a box. The box had a pair of shoes in it. We felt almost pleased to see Mo’s shoes unharmed.
“What use are these?” demanded Oda.
“They’re very good for walking in,” I replied, and put them on.
Anissina had a car. It had a driver. He wore a peaked hat. I took one look at it and said, “Let’s walk.”
“To Willesden?”
“To the Underground.”
Her nose wrinkled in distaste. Oda rolled her eyes. “Perks, sorcerer,” she snapped. “I am sure you understand perks.”
“I understand free lifts,” I replied. “I also understand that driving around in a black car with windows shaded black and a driver in a black silk suit who opens a door with a black handle and black leather upholstery inside is not as discreet as you might want.”
Oda grinned. “Not so easy to kill,” she said. “Still dead, though.”
“Remind me why you’re here?”
“Sooner or later, someone’s going to end up shot.”
“Any idea who?”
“I’ll write you a list.”
We took the Jubilee Line. The station was new - glass doors and glass panels in front of the platform, just in case someone wanted to jump. The train driver missed on his first attempt, didn’t slow down fast enough, didn’t quite manage to align the doors of his bright new train with the shining glass panels. He had to reverse a few clunking inches, while the platform’s scant inhabitants sighed and waited. Hard to tell which annoyed them more - delays caused by overshooting trains, or bodies on the line. It was going to be one or the other.
The Jubilee Line took us back north. Back to Dollis Hill. Darkness, cold, a slow sideways rain that came in across the streetlamps and stained the pavements, glaring reflective orange. I knew the route now, knew which way the shoes wanted to go, knew the swagger they wanted to walk with. Easier now, despite the drugs addling my brain and the ache in my bones. Despite being scared, despite the company. Easier to find a rhythm and strut like a seventeen-year-old jackass who should not, could not, must not be, and very clearly was, involved in this mess.
Back walking the streets with the swagger. Easier - much easier now I knew at least the beginnings of where we had to go. The empty skater park beneath the railway line, still empty, still dark, dry paint fading on old wood slopes. The pub showing the football, Arsenal up at half-time, an empty wall where the kids should have sat drinking booze, a pavement stained with the leftovers of some long-ago binge, the off-licence, shutters drawn down over the windows, no lights on inside, and on the shutters a scrawled warning:
Along with the usual mess of scratched letters and names.
Anissina said nothing. Oda said, “If you’re wasting our time . . .”
I ignored her. The swagger ignored her. It knew when it was dealing with the ignorant, not worthy of respect.
A patch of concrete that might possibly, sometimes, be a garage. A length of chain drawn low across the fence. Inside, a public phone, the receiver hung neatly on the hook, under a single fizzing neon bulb. We wanted to stop and stare, to look at it for hours and will the night to be another night, some time before; but the shoes wanted to keep on walking, and I didn’t have the time or energy to care. It was how it was. The rain had washed off our blood.
I kept on walking. Unfamiliar territory from here on, never got past the phone in the garage last time. I turned my head down towards the pavement and watched the stones pass underfoot, trusting - despite our better judgement - in Oda and Anissina to warn us of impending cement lorries - and let the shoes do the walking.
I don’t know exactly where we ended up. Somewhere to the south, doubling back on our previous route. It was a shopping street doing its very best to be trendy, and not quite making it. Pubs were pretending to be wine bars, condensation on the windows and punters pouring out into the streets, despite the rain; restaurants had hiked their prices up by two quid and added aubergine, even the curry houses, and the newsagents advertised local “cultural events” by amateur theatre groups or community choirs. We walked past it all, feeling water seeping through our shoes and itch inside our socks, shimmering bright blackness sparkling down the streets into the spitting drains. The rain drained away the usual smells of the streets - kebabs and bus exhaust - and left cold numbness in their place, invigorating until it started to stick.
Nor do I know how long we walked. Time was measured in strides, not seconds; distance in the warmth of our legs, rather than metres or miles. It seemed nothing at all. Oda said it was a long way.
And without warning, we stopped and turned, toes pointing in at a street wall. I looked up. The wall was an ordinary terraced house which had had extraordinary things done to it. Its entire surface was covered over with bright aluminium, into which a thousand glittering would-be diamonds had been implanted around a core of plastic purple jewels, the bulbs just visible within them, pulsing out in a hypnotic rhythm the blazing word “
VOLTAGE
”.
Beneath the sign, a pair of aluminium doors, reinforced on the inside and padded with purple silk, had been swung back. They led into darkness; a red cord strung from a brass stand marked the beginnings of a queue line into this place. A man in black with a radio stuck in his left ear was standing on the door, gloved hands folded across his belly, one on top of the other. He stank of treacle, of deep dark maple syrup without the sugar, all thickness and no charm, a stench of magic that reminded me of Charlie, Sinclair’s loyal assistant.