The Midnight Mayor (30 page)

I kept walking, nearly running now. A few hundred yards ahead was a pub, still open, lights still on, a place for men with puffy noses and not much conversation. I pushed through the door, past the flashing bingo machine and tables an inch thick with old dried spillage, looked around, saw the sign, followed it, marched into the toilets. They were dirty, everything chipped, toilet paper across the floor. Who these people were who came into public toilets and threw paper around, I did not know. A guy with a faintly ginger beard and a ruffled blue shirt was already in there. We said, “Out.”

He left without a word. Oda marched through the door behind me, while Anissina, more discreet, loitered in the opening. It took three taps before I found the one hot tap that was working. I stuck my hands under it and scrubbed, felt thick dust and clogged blood break free from my skin, saw it swish down the sink in red dribbles and little black lumps where the two had combined. My hands were shaking, we were shaking, as strange a physical reaction as we had ever experienced. I stuck my head down as far into the low sink as I could get it, threw water over my face, buried my face in it, closed my eyes and let the warmth seep into them, leach dust from my eyelashes, let it run over my lips and into the mortar-filled cracks of my skin. My sleeves were stained with blood, not mine, and I scrubbed uselessly at them with toilet paper and cold water until Oda said, “You know, that’s not the way to do it. You need to get it in a soak.”

“No time.”

“OK. Why not?”

“I know where the kid is.”

She gave a little laugh. “So all that walking was for something. Did this guy at the club do it?”

“No. He’s just logistical support. A guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who has a van and a few friends who don’t mind lifting a kid quietly off the street and carting him away with a gag in his mouth. He’s just a bit of executive muscle, nothing more. Mo’s in Raleigh Court.”

Anissina looked up sharply. Oda shrugged. “And . . . is this is an ancient Indian burial site?”

“It’s where Nair died,” said Anissina quickly. “It’s where the Midnight Mayor died.”

“Does that make it mystically significant?”

“Not of itself,” I said. “But I got a hint as to who killed him.”

“You’re full of it today, sorc . . . you’re full of it today,” she said. “Go on, then. Who did it and will they die quiet?”

I wiped my soaking hands on my coat, felt water drip off the end of my nose and trickle under my chin. “His name is Mr Pinner. That’s who killed the Midnight Mayor.”

“A name is a start. Anything else?”

“Yeah. He said he was the death of cities.”

“How typically pretentious of the man,” muttered Oda.

Anissina said nothing, but her eyes were locked onto mine. She knew, she said nothing, but she knew; she was that smart. “Oda,” we sighed, “has it ever occurred to you that, if there’s mystic protectors out there protecting us, there might be mystic nasties out there we need protecting from?”

“Sure it has,” she said evenly. “That’s the problem with all things mystic.”

“That’s the problem with life,” I snapped. “By your logic, the communists would have nuked the capitalists and the capitalists the communists and never a bomb would have been irrational.”

“Is this the time to talk philosophy?”

“No. Please shut up and go away.”

She shut up. She seemed surprised. She didn’t go away.

Finally, Anissina, seeing that Oda wasn’t going to, said, “Raleigh Court?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“I’ll call back-up.”

“You have ‘back-up’?”

“Of course.”

“Like guys in bulletproof vests?”

“Something like. Even sorcerers can’t stop bullets.”

“I don’t think I like you either.”

“I’ll make the call,” she replied, and reached into the depths of her black coat for a phone.

 

Back to Raleigh Court.

The bus was full of late-night revellers going home. At the bus stop, a guy with curly hair was bent over the nearest bin, bile dribbling down from the corner of his mouth. On the bottom deck, a young woman’s mascara had run from crying and now she sat stoically next to a middle-aged stranger who looked older than he was, and who politely ignored the tears in her eyes. Three separate pairs of lovers were holding hands. Two of them were doing a bit more than that. On the top deck, a group of six revellers with big boots and matching black hair were jovially exclaiming on the woes of the world in loud, cackling voices, punctuated every now and then by a cheerful “Oops! Had a bit too much!” followed by more hysterical laughter.

The revellers thinned as the bus journeyed on, staggering away in small groups into the drizzle at the bus stops. A thick, rattling wind was picking up, a proper north-west stonker that came in sideways round every street corner and whistled across the chimney tops. We didn’t want to go back to Raleigh Court. We didn’t want to meet Mr Pinner, more than anything else, we did not want to meet him. There was more than just mindless pretension to the name of the death of cities.

Lights going out in the houses, streets reaching that moment when passers-by stopped being safety in a company and became lonely dangers walking through the night. Urban foxes poking their noses out, lured by darkness and the smell of wasting food, trotting down the pavement closer and closer to the wanderers every year, less fearful of humanity, stretching their thin bodies through the railings of public parks, the masters of daylight invisibility, and night-time rulers of the streets.

The driver of the bus, as his vehicle became emptier, began to drive like a proper night racer, the empty streets tempting his feet towards the accelerator and fingers over to the higher gears. We were at Raleigh Court quickly - too quickly for my taste, and the three of us got off, as unlikely a collection of mystic storm troopers as had ever assembled.

Anissina said, “Kemsley is bringing support.”

“Support and back-up - you do take your work seriously.”

“Yes,” she replied flatly. “I do.”

I looked at Oda, half-expecting her to want to charge straight in. She saw my look, and said simply, “It’s only in computer games that you get to reload after the zombie kills you. I can wait for support. I am good at waiting.”

“We’re not.”

“Deal with it.”

I waited.

Every second we spent standing by the bus stop, looking up at the square slab wings of Raleigh Court infuriated us, made our skin itch, hair stand on end. But I’d seen the films, and I knew - the guy who went in first was either the first one dead, or a tortured hero going solo because no one else could do it. I wasn’t prepared to be either. So I waited, fingers turning blue, hair slowly soaking through with drizzle, laced with a slight sting of acid.

I knew it was Kemsley the second I saw the big blue truck turn round the corner at the end of the street; I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it. When it lumbered to a halt in front of us, the back doors opened and five men with body armour and rifles got out. I laughed. We couldn’t help ourself; I put my head back and laughed.

Kemsley climbed out of the front seat and glared at me. “Funnies?” he asked.

“Sorry. Serious face.”

“You wanted back-up?”

I jerked a thumb at Anissina. “She wanted back-up.”

“Any good reason why?”

“You don’t seem pleased to be here.”

“And you don’t seem to consider the cost to the local councils this little operation will incur,” he replied. “Overtime fees, vehicle rental, health and safety, logistic support, equipment and maintenance, property damage, personal and third-party insurance, property insurance. Management and finance aren’t your specialities, are they, sorcerer?”

Our jaw tightened. “We’re looking for a . . . thing calling itself - himself - whichever - Mr Pinner. I imagine he’ll introduce himself something like this. ‘Hello. My name is Mr Pinner. I am the death of cities. Do you think bullets can really stop me?’ I mean, I’m just speculating, but that’s all I’ve got at the moment. Thanks for coming.”

“What do you mean ‘the death of cities’?”

“I don’t know. It’s a bit vague. I mean, on the one hand, it might be a pretentious title adopted by a man who spends too much time playing online fantasy games or an attempt to confuse and befuddle his opponents - in which case congratulations to him for a successful scheme! On the other hand, it might be exactly what it says on the cover. A walking talking thing in a pinstripe suit who is, quite literally, the death of cities. The embodiment of the end made flesh upon this earth, one of the riders of the urban apocalypse and so on and so forth. It’s just not clear yet.” We put our head on one side, stared straight into his eyes. “Are you going to stick around to help us find out?”

Now it was Kemsley’s turn to tense. “Tell us where and when, and we’ll handle the rest - if you’re not up to it.”

I pointed into Raleigh Court. “In there. Where Nair died. We’re looking for a safe house run by an individual called Boom Boom. The Executive Officer of a nightclub called Voltage who got a little bit scared of a guy in a pinstripe suit and agreed to help him kidnap a kid who liked to visit his club. That’s where the shoes went, by the way. They like clubbing. Pity the owner lacked moral fibre. And a heart. But anyway - somewhere in here, we hope, is the kid Mo. And that would all be fine and grand of itself, except, you may have noticed, this is where Nair got the skin peeled from his flesh. It’s number 53, top floor. Shall we meet you up there?”

“You know,” murmured Oda, “testosterone is one of the many ways in which God tests our natures - women, as well as men.”

“Sorcerer . . .” began Kemsley.

“I swear, I
swear
, the next person to call me ‘sorcerer’, as if I
didn’t
have a name and a small intestine, will get a sharpened pencil shoved firmly up their flared nostril.”

There was a slightly taken-aback silence. Then Kemsley said, “Mr Swift.”

“Yes?”

“Are you ready?”

“Sure.”

“Good. As Midnight Mayor . . .”

“You want me to go first?”

“No. I want you to stay as far back as you can.”

“With pleasure.”

 

They did the assault/SWAT thing. Rifles, corners, kneeling, standing, running, climbing, gestures - fist, two fingers, flap, twiddle - the whole lot.

We tried not to laugh as we trailed along behind. Even Anissina was playing along, pistol in hand. You have to have a lot of training to be a storm trooper, we concluded. It wasn’t just about learning when to duck and when to fire; it was about learning to take yourself seriously as you did it. I looked at Oda in the hope she was appreciating the humour. It was a naive look.

As council estates went, the interior wasn’t so bad. Someone had recently painted the stairs an unoffensive pale blue, and there was a general soft smell that I associated with my gran’s cooking and fat cushions on padded chairs, and the regular shifting of dirt by plastic brooms and warm soapy water. The troopers stormed the stairs; I shuffled along behind. Number 53 was, as promised, on the top floor, a long balcony punctuated by the occasional bike, kitchen windows and wilting geraniums. The Aldermen and co. clattered along to the green door, spread themselves out around it, and at a cry of “go!”, kicked it open with a heavy studded boot, and threw something in there that went
snap!
There was a burst of bright light and a high buzzing noise. I leant against the edge of the balcony and looked down into the courtyard below, wondering where Mr Fox had gone and if my furry friend was eating enough kebabs. The armoured men counted to three, then burst inside the flat, shouting impressive things like “clear!” or “go go go!” as they did. Oda said, “Gum?”

“You chew gum?”

“No. But I always carry it, to use as barter when visiting prisons.”

“Do you see how I’m not asking?”

“Smart. So, how scared are you?”

Inside I could hear the thumping of many heavy boots, the slamming of many light doors, the rattling of many, probably futile, loaded weapons.

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“If you insist.”

“Where one is ‘so doo-lally-happy I could jump off a cliff and whistle numbers from
The Sound of Music
on the way down’ and ten is ‘can’t open the window in case the air eats me’ scared?”

“If you feel obliged to use these assessments - then yes.”

“Pretty much up there.”

“Why?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because,” she said carefully, as in the flat lights began to be turned on and orders barked in brisk military voices, “being, as you are, an arrogant spawn of the nether reaches of creation, for something to have frightened a creature so relentlessly self-certain as you, it must be significant. It is in my interest to know about it.”

I smiled sideways at her. We respect honesty, even if we can’t stand its owner. “You’ve never heard of the death of cities.”