The Midnight Mayor (31 page)

“As a concept?”

“As a man.”

“Then no. I never have.”

“It’s a myth.”

“Like the Midnight Mayor?”

“In that sort of region, yes. Just a rumour, a legend. You hear stories. Stuff like . . . when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, there was a house right in the middle of the blast, at its very heart, untouched while the rest of the city was levelled. They say that there was a man in the house, who had his face turned towards the sky as the bomb fell and who just smiled, smiled and smiled and didn’t even close his eyes. But then again, you’ve got to ask yourself . . .”

“. . . who survived that close to the bomb to tell?”

“Right. It’s always the problem with these sorts of stories. Or they say that when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, there was a man who walked through the flooded streets and laughed and the water could not buffet him, or when they firebombed Dresden there was a guy untouched by the flames, or when the child tripped running into Bethnal Green station during the Blitz, that there was someone who knocked her down and climbed over the bodies piled up in the stairway. Myths. That’s all. Rumours and myths. And just in case these things aren’t scary enough on their lonesome, they just had to go and give this smiling, laughing, burning man a name, and call him the death of cities. Naturally, I don’t believe a word of it. And yes, of course I’m scared. Just in case.”

She looked, for a moment, like she was going to say something else. Then Kemsley was there, and his face did not glow with happiness.

“There’s nothing in the flat.”

I shrugged. “Makes a kind of sense.”

“If you thought . . .”

“I thought. I thought that Boom Boom probably wasn’t going to lie to me, what with me having my hand in his chest cavity at the time. Then I thought Nair came here; Nair was killed. It makes sense that whoever - whatever - killed him would only do so if Nair was getting close to something important. It makes even more sense to have moved that something to somewhere less likely to be found. Sorry. I just can’t pretend I’m surprised.”

“Then why are we here?” he growled.

“Think how stupid you’d feel if we’d known about this place and just ignored it,” I said, beaming as sweetly as we could in the face of his dentistry. “Let’s have a gander, yes?”

 

Kemsley was right.

The place was empty.

Surgically empty. You could have removed cataracts in the kitchen; you could have skated across the bathroom floor. It smelt of bleach, a stomach-clenching, eye-watering smell. No furniture, no curtains, no pictures, no nothing to indicate any sort of life. Even the carpets had been bleached a faded grey-white, even the pipes. An estate agent would have called it “full of promise”, and that’s all it was, four rooms of great potential and not much else, being walked over by size-twelve assault boots.

Kemsley said, “Nothing. See? This hasn’t helped at all.”

“Mo was here,” I replied firmly.

“How’d you know that?”

“The Executive Officer didn’t lie to us.”

“Sure. Because no one would.”

“Because we had our fingers closed around his heart,” we replied. I felt cold, hearing us speak so flatly of these things. “Because when a place is cleaned this thoroughly, it’s because there is something to hide.”

“Great. Good job the hiders, I think it’s pretty well hid, don’t you?”

I looked around.

He was right. It made our chest ache to think of it. Kemsley was right. There was nothing here.

Then Oda said: “There’s a CCTV camera in the entrance hall. So much for mystical stuff.”

I could have kissed her.

“A CCTV camera,” I repeated firmly, trying to hide our sudden thrill. “And only one way in and out, yes?”

“I think so.”

I beamed at Kemsley. All praise the poor fire regulations of North Kilburn. “We can use CCTV,” I said. “There’s . . . what? At least a dozen cameras around this estate alone, probably more in all the high streets. You lot seem like escapees from an American spy thriller, right? If they moved him, we can track it.”

“Assumptions . . .” began Kemsley.

“Not really,” retorted Anissina. “Not at all. We know Nair came here, and Nair was killed. We know that the shoes of this boy were regarded by Nair as important; we know they led us to Voltage, we know that Voltage led us here. We know that this room was sometime full and is now recently empty. We know that these things are connected. You’re wrong, Kemsley. If the boy was here, we must find him, and we can.”

We fought down the desire to say something triumphant, to stick our tongue out at Kemsley and hug Anissina round the middle, to hop on the spot and gloat that despite everything, despite our fear of
oh God
of too many things, we were
right
. This was
right
.

Then a voice from the door said, “There’s a guy in the courtyard.” Kemsley ignored it, turning to Anissina, face red, clearly trying to find something to say that wasn’t the grown-up equivalent of a farting sound, trying to be rational in the face of his own crippling irrationalities. We turned to the man who’d spoken. A trooper, an escapee from another world, all gun and big boot and only the slightest whiff, the merest tracery suggestion that on the inside of his bulletproof vest, someone had stamped a set of defensive wards. We walked slowly towards him, his face turned down across the balcony edge into the courtyard below. I could feel Oda watching me; the Aldermen busy in their bickering. The man on the door had a face like a swollen mushroom, from which peered a pair of sharp, smart eyes. I said, “What guy?”

He nodded down at the courtyard. “That guy.”

I shuffled to the balcony and looked down.

He stood in the middle of the courtyard, black shoes planted firmly on the cracked paving stones. His hair was dark brown, not quite black but doing its best, sliced back thin over his almost perfectly spherical skull. His suit was black, his hands were buried in his trouser pockets, buttoned jacket swept back behind his wrists, as casual as a primrose in spring. His skin was that special kind of pale that has been tanned by neon strip lighting. His smile was polite, expectant. His eyes were fixed on us.

We jerked back instinctively. Our heart, without asking permission, started doing the conga down our intestines, our intestines tried to throttle our stomach, our stomach tried to crawl up our throat. I looked at the guy with the gun; he looked at me and said, “Sir?”

“We have to get out,” we whispered. “We have to get out
now
.”

“Sir,” he muttered, and he was too well trained to pronounce fear, but it was there, we could smell it, “there’s more.”

We crawled like a child to the edge of the balcony, peeked over the edge. There was more. A kid in a hoodie had joined the man in the pinstripe suit, standing behind, bobbing to an unheard beat. I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t think there was going to be a face to see.

“We have to get out,” we whimpered. “We have to go!”

Oda had noticed. “Sorcerer?”

“He’s here. He’s here, he’s here, he’s here, he’s . . .”

She leant over the balcony. “Who, him?”

“Him!” She was reaching for her gun. “Don’t shoot!”

“Why not? He’s just a guy, and even sorcerers can’t stop . . .”

“Bullets don’t stop spectres.”

“The kids in the hoods?”

“Spectres, yes! You’ll just make holes in them.”

“All right. So how do I kill them?”

“Beer and cigarettes.”

“If this is one . . .”

“Beer and cigarettes! Get down!”

We dragged her down from where she was leaning over the balcony behind the protection of the yellow brick wall. She looked at us in surprise. “Are you really that scared?”

“Really, honestly and entirely. From the bottom of our being, yes.”

“But he’s just . . .”

“No just.”

By now, everyone was paying attention. Kemsley strode forwards, looked at us in contempt, peered over the balcony, turned to the man with the mushroom face and said, “What is this now?”

“Possible hostile down below, sir,” replied the soldier briskly.

“It’s just a man in a suit, and a couple of kids.”

“See the kids’ faces?” we snarled.

“Well, no . . .”

“Spectres!”

“And you propose what? Cowering behind a brick wall until he goes away?”

“It’s a sensible start.”

“Is this . . . did this man below kill Nair?”

“He peeled the skin from his flesh.”

“Then that is Mr Pinner?”

“I’d guess so.”

“Then this is it! This is our chance to end it, right here!”

“Didn’t you pay attention to the part where he peeled skin?”

“Someone has to do something.”

“Someone doesn’t know what that something is!”

“And you do?”

“No!”

“I don’t have the patience for this game . . .”

“Kemsley, if he could kill Nair without touching him, think what he’ll do to you.”

“Sir?”

It was the note of urgency, that ever so slightly unprofessional rise at the end of the trooper’s words, that brought all attention to him. He nodded down at the courtyard and said, “He’s gone, sir.”

We all peered over the edge of the balcony.

There was no one there.

“Well,” exclaimed Kemsley brightly. “Not so much trouble.”

“So much worse,” we whimpered. “So much worse.”

“Pull yourself together! My God, you’re supposed to lead us! Sorcerer, angel, Mayor, get your arse in gear, Swift!”

I climbed to my feet, leant against the balcony wall, looked, looked again, saw nothing, staggered back, pressed our back into the wall behind us, safe and solid and reassuring. I turned to Anissina and said, “Call 999.”

“You want me to bring the emergency services?”

“Yes, fire, ambulance, police and the Good Samaritans too, please. Do it! You -” I turned to Kemsley. “Find out if this place has a big and loud fire alarm. Then start it. You -” I looked at the trooper with the mushroom face. “I don’t suppose you know anything about magic?”

The end of his nose twitched as he thought about it. “
Yes
, sir,” he conceded. “But to tell the truth, there’s nothing a magician can do that a shotgun won’t do better.”

“Don’t hold on to that thought,” I sighed. “Get back inside the flat. Watch windows and doors. And walls, for that matter - you never know where they’ll decide to come in. You -” I stared at Oda. “You know, I have no idea what it is you do to stay alive, but I guess you must do it well, so do that.”

“Leadership skills,” she retorted. “You can look them up another time.”

We were going to say something rude, but nothing seemed to come to mind. We hustled back into the flat, a tumble of black coat, armoured soldier, armed fanatic and sorcerer in “What Would Jesus Do?” T-shirt. What
would
Jesus do, we wondered? He seemed to have an occasional temper.

The last man in was Kemsley. He closed the door behind us, pulled the chain across, as if that would make a great deal of difference, and hustled us all into the largest room of the flat, at the end of the hall. The troopers took up various armed-to-the-teeth positions, and I found myself shuffled to the back wall. The street was behind us, neon yellow light sifting through the curtainless glass, the occasional distant swish of traffic. I could hear Anissina on the phone, whispering quietly and urgently.

“Yes . . . they’re armed . . . armed men . . . shotguns . . . and burning bottles. Raleigh Court, they’re at . . . yes . . . yes . . . no, Raleigh Court . . .”

I thought of the phone in my bag. Where was the Midnight Mayor to rescue us? I’d died once before and the bastard hadn’t shown up then on a chariot of winged steel, and now that we had the job, who was going to get us out of trouble? I opened my satchel, looked inside at the spray paint and old socks. Nair’s phone sat sullen and silent in one pouch. I pulled it out. There was a number there, it occurred to me, just one number in that great list that might actually be some use. Not yet, though - not quite yet. I slipped his phone into my pocket and looked up at the door. Kemsley half-turned and whispered, since this seemed to be what the moment called for, “What now?”

“Oh, you just had to . . .” I began.

The lights went out. They went out on the balcony outside, and in the stairwell. They went out in the streets behind us, in the streetlamps and the little “ready” LEDs on the TV sets in the houses opposite, they went out in every room of every flat in the court, they went out in number 53, they went out in the waiting warning lights of the sleepy cars below.

Londoners almost never see proper darkness, not true, black-as-black, turn-from-the-sun, smother-the-moon darkness. Even when the curtains are drawn in their darkened rooms, there will be the shimmer of street light through the tiny gaps at the edges of the window frame, or the ready waiting light of a radio, or the glow of their mobile phone left on in the dark. There is no darkness darker than the darkness of the city, when all the lights go out. The stars and the moon are lost behind the bricks of the buildings. I snatched a sliver of neon as the last lamp went out outside, cradled it to my chest, let it warm the skin of my face and my curled fingertips, a tiny yellow shimmer in perfect black suffocation.

Then a trooper said, “Lights.”

I heard the racketing of equipment, the tearing of velcro, and as the first torch went on, it nearly blinded us; we flinched away from its white glare. Oda had a torch too - where she had concealed it I didn’t want to speculate - and for Anissina and Kemsley . . . we had to look twice, but yes, for certain, as I looked at the Aldermen, their eyes glowed. The mad, wild, spinning marble glow of the dragon that guards the gates of London. The sinking red vortex of an angry tiger burning bright, the kind of stare that looked at you and saw just an inanimate object standing between it - for those eyes weren’t human - and some more worthwhile meal. There’s reasons people fear the Aldermen.