The Midnight Mayor

Just because I didn’t trust him didn’t mean he couldn’t be useful.

A while passed before a voice answered. It was surly, with a slight lisp. “Yeah? Who’s this?”

I said, “This is Matthew Swift. I need to speak to Sinclair.”

Silence for a second — the kind of second it takes to recognise a name, dislike it, and muster a polite reply. “OK. Hold on.”

I held on. This involved hearing tunes by the Beatles played on what sounded like a reed nose-flute. I held on a little longer, drumming my fingers. It’s hard to stay psyched up for anything in the face of a nose-flute rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. We nearly hung up.

When Sinclair spoke, his voice boomed out so loud and sudden that I nearly dropped the handset. “Matthew! So good to hear from you! How are you keeping?”

“Mr Sinclair,” I said. “I think you should know that someone has cursed the city.”

Not a beat, not a moment. “Really, dear boy?” he intoned. “How tedious of them. Any idea who?”

“No. But the ravens in the Tower are dead, and the London Stone is broken, and the Wall of London has been painted on in big white paint, and the Midnight Mayor was flayed alive without ever actually being touched, by a man who has no smell and is therefore probably not a man. Someone is systematically destroying all the magical defences that the city has.”

“What a pain,” sighed Sinclair. “And you have no idea who might be indulging in this scheme?”

“No.”

“Pity. I suppose this means that all sorts of nasties are going to get out onto the streets and start tormenting the innocent. Well, so much for the Christmas bonus.”

“Mr Sinclair, there’s something else I think you should know.”

“Of course, dear boy, of course, you know I always enjoy our mutually beneficial working arrangements!”

“Mr Sinclair,” I said, taking a deep breath, “I am the Midnight Mayor.”

“Really? Good grief, when did that happen?”

“About the same moment that the last Midnight Mayor expired down the telephone.”

“Oh, I see. How . . . unexpected. Yes, really, that is . . . that is most unusual and rather remarkable. I suppose it must have come as something of a surprise to you too?”

“I’m a little freaked, yes.”

“Well, naturally, yes, of course, yes, you would be! But naturally. Yes . . .” His voice trailed off. “You know, Matthew, I am very rarely surprised by much I hear these days, and I must admit, in a spirit of frankness and free exchange, your phone call and this somewhat remarkable information concerning your current mythical status is undeniably different. Are you absolutely sure of all this?”

“Yes.”

“Including being the Midnight . . .”

“Yes. It makes a sickening sense. Mr Sinclair — I think I might need your help.”

“Well, naturally, anything for you, dear boy, naturally, naturally!”

“I’ve seen the face of the . . . the creature that killed Nair.”

“Creature? Not a man, then, a creature?”

“Yes.”

“And you say you saw him?”

“Yes.”

“Remarkable! Yes, that is a remarkable thing, I must admit, I was wondering how you might have . . .”

“There was a fox that saw the whole thing. We shared a kebab and a few reminiscences. Mr Sinclair — the creature that killed Nair didn’t even touch him. I’ve never seen anything like it. And we have no reason to believe that, if it killed Nair for being Mayor, then it won’t do exactly the same to us, and we don’t know if we can stop it.”

Silence, a long while. I have almost never known Sinclair to be silent.

“All right,” he said at last. “Let’s meet.”

Purpose.

Purpose meant reason.

Reason meant thought.

Thoughts meant . . .

. . . dead men not humans just meat dead meat on the slab dead Midnight Mayor ten thousand paper cuts not even touched dead meat lost of all faces and nature and just . . .

Stop it.

. . . dead ravens GIVE ME BACK MY HAT dead ravens broken stones shattered wards broken protections GIVE ME BACK MY HAT end of the line end of the line make me a shadow on the wall no smell no smell just killed him dead meat and the fox hid no smell end of the line end of the line I am Midnight Mayor Midnight Mayor dead on a slab kill an idea kill an idea kill a city kill a city idea ward protection something coming make me a shadow . . .

We didn’t like thoughts.

We tried to muffle them in our walking.

Walking meant rhythm.

Fleet Street. Pinstriped trousers, perfect silk suits, swished-back hair, black leather briefcases. Lawyers and bankers, the common, rich men of the city. Did these men smell? Hard to tell in the exhaust from the buses, the coffee from the open doors, cakes and the smell of yeast from the expensive bakeries, perfect drenched cleanliness from the cafés, stiff cleaning powders from the dry-cleaners. Did their hearts beat, did they breathe, did their throats draw in and out inside the collar of their shirts? To look was to stop walking too fast, to walk slow was to think, to walk slow was to be noticed, and who knew who would be watching? And we saw endless blotchy anonymous faces blurred into pinkish-grey passing shadows moving in and out of the streetlamp glows, sharp polished leather shoes snapping on the paving stones, white shirts and crisp ties, and what colour had the tie of Nair’s killer been? We couldn’t remember, it had been smell and terror and sense and blood. Ten thousand little deaths all at once, every one stinging sharper than the finest razor on the flesh, all at once, ten thousand little deaths from a face . . . just a face in a pinstripe suit. And it didn’t get much more pinstriped than Fleet Street.

This was my city.

Royal Courts of Justice. News crews, knobbly stone spikes and bright white lights. Aldwych. St Clement’s Church, ringing out “Oranges and Lemons” above the tree-shaded bus stops, the London School of Economics, all chips, ring-binders and scuttling shoes, a bank, the BBC, statues of big ladies holding burning torches, the Indian embassy, swastikas and curly lettering in stone — and did that kid over there in the hood have a face? Cafés and theatres. Bright lights that drove away shadow and imagination. Cheap sandwiches, packed bus stops. We could taste the magic on the air, bright, hot, red, like strong curry settling over our stomach, filling our veins, pushing us further forward, giving us courage. We couldn’t imagine these lights ever going out, no harm here, too many people, too much brightness, too much we could use.

Drury Lane, one show that had run for ever, one show that would die in a week, five different kinds of restaurant and one warehouse piled full of furniture that no one would ever sit on, and everyone would always admire. I went for the backstreets, wiggling round the back of Covent Garden, watching my back, running my fingers over the railings, round the streetlamps, over the walls, listening with much more than ears, staying smart. I did two whole circuits of Covent Garden before I finally chose to go inside, looping the loop round the back of St Paul’s Church, its yard shut up for the evening, round the cobbled street that threaded its quiet way south of Long Acre, back towards Bow Street, into the Royal Opera House. Glass, steel, marbled pillar and thick red carpet. I rode bright new escalators up past a glasshouse laden with candle-lit restaurant tables. In the bar I ordered a packet of peanuts, a big glass of orange juice and rights to the darkest, tightest corner there was. It cost the price of a small dowry, but we were not in the mood to complain. There we sat and watched.

Theatre-goers in London’s West End are unique unto themselves. Opera-goers are a step beyond. Women in big throat-clutcher necklaces, fat silver brooches pinned above their silk-clad breasts; jackets that looked like shawls, coats that wished they were cloaks left over from some forgotten era when the top hat was still sexy, handbags on gold chains, fine-rimmed spectacles balanced on the end of ski-slope noses. For the men, suit and tie