“Living, Mr Swift. Simply living.”
“You believe Bakker is a threat to people?”
“Honestly, sir, I do. I have little proof beyond hearsay and a series of violent deaths within a certain community, but I do, sir, consider Mr Bakker to have an agenda that could be of great concern to us.”
“What ‘agenda’?”
“From what I understand, he is gathering to himself certain items, individuals, objects and abilities which, combined, could render him disproportionately influential, if you understand my implication.”
“I think I may.”
“In this light, I hope you won’t consider it rude if I enquire as to the nature of your dispute with Mr Bakker?”
“I won’t consider it rude; but, again, I’m afraid I will not answer.”
“Will you at least concede as to whether it had any bearing on the hypothesis I have proposed?”
“I believe… I
“Indeed, indeed, it is close. Is it true?”
“I knew Bakker was a danger before I came to meet you.”
He nodded vigorously. “Good, good, yes, of course. And, I take it, you were considering some investigation of his activities yourself?”
“Perhaps.”
“Naturally, yes. The circumstances of your demise led me to assume there must be some link.”
“I take it you wish in some way to limit his threat?”
The question seemed to take him aback. “Let us speak bluntly, Mr Swift. I wish him killed.”
“I see.”
“I take it you do not agree with this course of action?”
“I don’t agree with it, no. But we think it may be necessary.” I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. “Mr Sinclair, I apologise if my behaviour appears unhelpful. I learnt a harsh lesson when… you are correct in thinking that these things change a man. As for the nature of my continued survival, we intend no harm. You wish to kill Bakker. I will not pull the trigger, but I will not condemn it; and, if I can, I will help you in any other way, so long as when we require assistance, you are willing to reciprocate.”
The big words tumbled out of my mouth, matching him pomp for pomp.
This time the smile was real, and it was frightening for it. “Good. Good, Mr Swift. Good. Yes, indeed. I think this will be a most profitable relationship. In fact, if you would be so kind, I’d like you to meet some friends of mine.”
He had a silver Mercedes parked in one of the little, squat-housed streets near Waterloo station. It had mirrored glass thick enough to be bulletproof. The young man with milk-chocolate skin drove, while we sat in the back on white leather upholstery. Dudley Sinclair offered me a Turkish delight from a silver-edged box. We were tempted; I said no. That was the end of any conversation as we drove back across the river.
We made our way north-west, past Hyde Park and Marble Arch, crawling up Edgware Road with its shopfronts in curling Arabic script, bars selling shisha, and windows full of expensive, gaudy lampshades. Five times a day Edgware Road is lined with men kneeling on mats dragged hastily out of car doors or onto the floor of restaurants, praying to Mecca, while all around the traffic edges sulkily past the congestion charge zone. We turned off into the narrower byways towards Marylebone High Street, where the red-brick terraced houses have flower- filled balconies, tall windows, spiked black railings, and wide steps leading up to their giant front doors.
In one such street we stopped, got out; and Sinclair marched, as best his bulk allowed, up a flight of steps to one such door, where a buzzer showed the house to be divided into five flats. He rang three times, twice short and once long, and the door clicked open without question. The hall beyond was wide, with black-and-white marble flooring and a thickly carpeted staircase curving upwards. Sinclair headed for a surprisingly plain lift, with a rattling metal door, and warped mirror walls that made our reflected faces look diseased. All of us – myself, Sinclair and his ever loyal, ever silent companion – piled in, an act of intimacy more than any handshake as we compressed ourselves to accommodate Sinclair’s bulk, and rode the straining contraption to the top floor. It didn’t open up on a shared hallway, as I had expected, but straight into a flat itself, whose walls were papered in white with a swirling reddish floral pattern, and whose pale blue carpets almost caressed our shins with their freshness. Sinclair waved us on towards a light shining beneath a door, from beyond which I could hear voices.
As I pushed open the door, all conversation stopped – a reaction I’d always hoped for in my secret dreams, but which had never happened until now.
Seven people were sitting or standing, round a glass-topped coffee table, on which stood half-eaten bowls of crisps and glasses of wine. I recognised the fortune-teller, now more comfortably attired in a dark, semi-formal dress that clung in a way that suited her. The rest were so mixed, and the odours they gave off, both natural and unnatural, so diverse, that I hardly knew where to begin.
Sinclair started for me. Sweeping into the room with a “Good, good, excellent, glad to see you all, yes…” he had a glass of wine in his hand before he’d finished, “… you all know why we’re here, yes, naturally, and of course you’re eager to get on.”
Looking round the room, I noticed that the curtains were closed and the lights turned down. Next I became aware of the tension in one man, with a long, pale, horselike face, who sat hunched forward, knees locked together, white-knuckled fingers clasped on his lap; also how the fortune-teller glanced nervously around, looking away the instant anyone looked at her.
Only one person seemed relaxed. She was sitting in a corner with a bowl of peanuts in her hand, wearing a faded pink woollen cardigan that had every dire symptom of being hand-knitted, a grey knee-length skirt of somethick material, a woolly hat with a bobble on it and a pair of furry slippers. At her feet were a number of large plastic bags. Even from across the room, they emitted strange smells of curry and grease and, to my consternation, traffic fumes, spilling out from the largely empty space around her. She looked me over with eyes sunk deep into a face like a map of the Pyrénées, and shrilled between the gap in her front teeth, “Raisins in the bottom of the bag!” Then her eyes narrowed and in a smaller voice she added, “I sees you hiding in that skin. Heard in the wire, ain’t it? Heard it go away.”
We shifted uneasily in the force of her gaze.
“Hah!” she shrieked. “Bollocks arseholes!”
“Thank you, Madam Dorie,” intoned Sinclair. “As always, your contribution is scintillating.”
“Up yours, walrus-bottom!”
No one seemed particularly bothered by this statement – clearly Madam Dorie’s contributions were often along these lines.
“Gentlemen, ladies,” Sinclair ploughed on. “You all know why we’re here.”
“I don’t,” I offered.
“Is this a sorcerer?” asked one man, who wore what I assumed was some sort of African tribal costume, despite his being as pale as snow in December, and ginger. His voice was like the last hum of a fading siren. “He looks like nothing.”
“You look like a twat in a dress, but you’re only a warlock despite it,” I retorted. I have never liked warlocks. They lack the intuition of a sorcerer and the academic aptitude or patience of your hard-working wizard. Instead, as a short cut to power, they align themselves with the ancient spirits of the city – Lady Neon, the Seven Sisters, the Beggar King, Fat Rat and so on – doing their will in exchange for a quick-fix magic trip. It’s a lazy, risky profession.
The horse-faced man made a snuffling noise that might have been a laugh, hastily repressed. The fortune- teller’s lips twitched, Dorie ate a handful of peanuts, Sinclair showed no reaction at all. Of the other two in the room, one was a woman in jeans, with skin the colour of roast coffee, and a tight black jacket which bulged in odd places; she looked like she was ready to set something on fire. The other, a large man in the vast trousers and jacket of someone who rode motorbikes and took it seriously, laughed so loud the glasses on the table shook.
The warlock in the tribal costume glared at him, and this just seemed to make the biker laugh even more, and exclaim through it, “Sinclair, have you found something interesting to talk about at last?”
“If you will…” Sinclair cut in, “Mr Swift is willing to help us with our mutual concern. I thought it wise for us
