The Midnight Mayor

room, with three chairs already in place. We weren’t given a menu; I guessed it was bad manners to ask.

“It’s a very modern style,” offered Sinclair to my look of bewilderment. “The chef here likes to experiment with some interesting ideas . . . not really my thing, of course, but interesting, nonetheless. An experience.”

He knew us well.

I smiled, nudging a piece of cutlery in front of me that looked like it had escaped from an eye surgeon’s trolley.

“So,” said Sinclair calmly, “you’re the Midnight Mayor.”

“Yup.”

“And how is that working out for you, Matthew?”

“Not too well.”

“No, no, of course, no. It is of course none of my business and I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression, naturally, naturally, but as a friend I can’t help but notice that you look a little pale.”

“Yes.”

“May I, in fact, make a great leap of judgement, and forgive me if I go astray here, but were you not, indeed, not planning on becoming the Midnight Mayor? It doesn’t seem like the kind of career path you would choose.”

“I didn’t,” I snapped. “The phone rang and I answered and next thing I know, whack. Some arsehole has gone transferring titles down the telephone line and I’ve got a hand like a boiled beetroot and four angry spectres after me.”

“Spectres?”

“Four of them.”

“How unfortunate. I take it the encounter didn’t end too badly?”

“I got one in a beer bottle,” I replied. “The others scarpered. At the time I thought they were sent by the same person who attacked me down the telephone. But now I think about it . . . they weren’t sent to attack me, they were out looking for the Midnight Mayor. Drawn to it. You can’t have that kind of transference of power without some sort of hitch.”

“Spectres . . .” murmured Sinclair, “are unusual in this city.”

“Yes.”

Drink arrived — some kind of deep purple goo in a cocktail glass. Sinclair sniffed it and winced. “Yes,” he murmured. “Well, experimental cookery. I believe that it’s supposed somehow to complement the dishes, react with tannins or proteins or some such scientific curiosity. I won’t be offended if you don’t drink it, Matthew. Had you met Nair?”

He knew who the last Midnight Mayor was. Concerned citizens make it their business to know these things.

“No.”

“Interesting.”

I said nothing.

“You know, traditionally, the Midnight Mayor is . . . shall we call it a role? A duty, perhaps, a responsibility, something a bit more than a title. Passed on by the will of the previous incumbent to a chosen, well-trained and appointed successor. Usually an Alderman. Nair was an Alderman, before he was Midnight Mayor. It has been the way for generations. So why, dear boy, why do you suppose you have ended up with this . . . remarkable predicament?”

“I don’t know.”

“There must be a reason. Mystic powers, metaphysical forces, fate, destiny, choice, and so on and so forth. No such thing as coincidence, not in your particular, special line of work.”

A plate of . . . something was brought before us. It looked like mashed intestine garnished with thistles. I poked it nervously with the end of a thing that might have been a fork. I had a feeling the dim light was meant to disguise the full horror of the food. I closed my eyes, we speared a mouthful, and ate it.

Could have been worse.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Charlie sniffing it uneasily. Sinclair tucked in, napkin folded over his collar.

“I assume you’ve done your research, that the city really is damned — not that I doubt it for a minute. I mean, we’ve all heard the rumours, naturally, all seen a few signs and generally agreed that when the Midnight Mayor — I mean Nair — is brutally murdered then things are inclining towards the dubious, if you follow me. You must have seen a few things, asked a few questions — one does not reach these conclusions lightly!”

I said, “‘Give me back my hat.’”

“I beg your pardon?”

“‘Give me back my hat.’”

“Did you have a hat, or is this a metaphor the elaborate nature of which currently evades my higher faculties?”

“It’s everywhere. The words, the phrase. I didn’t notice before, didn’t look. But now I’ve started looking, and it’s everywhere. On the pillars below Waterloo Bridge, on the walls in Willesden, above the dead ravens in the Tower, on the shutters of the shop where the London Stone should have stood, on the Wall of London. Give me back my hat.”

“You are suggesting that this quaint request is somehow linked to your predicament?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. But wherever bad things happen, there it is. The ravens in the Tower are dead, the London Stone is broken, the writing is on the Wall. These things have always been protectors. Keeping out the bad things in the night.”

“What ‘bad things’?”

“I have no idea. If I knew that, then odds are the bad things wouldn’t have been kept out to begin with.”

“I see your point.”

“But as you said — spectres aren’t common in London. And they did come looking for me, when I answered the phone. You destroy the defences, kill the ravens, who knows what will come out from beneath the paving stones? Someone deliberately did that, killed the ravens, killed Nair. It can only be bad news.”

“And now you’re in the middle of it,” murmured Sinclair, more to himself than me, prodding a puddle of lumpy goo on his plate that might have been food. “How . . . controversial.”

“Yes.”

“And the odds are, Nair chose you.”

“Yes. Odds are.”

“Now why do you think he’d do that?”

I hesitated.

“You must have dedicated some thought to the question.”

“I saw the face of the creature that killed him. That killed Nair.”

“Oh? And what did he look like?”

“Just a guy in a suit. Pinstripe suit, ironed, clean. Slicked-back hair. Just . . . just a guy in a suit. He didn’t even touch him, and there was so much blood and Nair was just . . . meat and bones by the time he was finished. I’d never seen . . . we’d never imagined it was . . . we will not die like that.”

Sinclair leant forward, folding his chubby fingers together. “Ah. I think I understand.”

“He had no smell. The fox saw it all, and we asked the fox, and the fox smelt nothing. The creature that killed Nair wasn’t human. A guy in a suit and he wasn’t human. Nair wouldn’t have died if he wasn’t Midnight Mayor. That’s the reasoning, isn’t it? You get a brand on the hand, protector of the city: come gobble me up all ye nasties. Come hunt for me, spectres and shadows. We will not die like that!”

“You don’t know what it was? The thing that killed Nair?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“But he looked like a man.”

“Yes.”

“But wasn’t.”