The Midnight Mayor

“Mr Earle.”

“Have you slept well?”

“I slept. What news?”

“We have been working on finding the boy, Mo.”

“And?”

“There is some progress. CCTV cameras in the Kilburn area saw the boy being removed two nights ago from Raleigh Court and loaded into a van. He appeared to be unconscious but alive. We are attempting to trace the men who moved him, but most likely they were just hired help.”

“Was Mr Pinner there?”

“No. We do, however, have his face on CCTV from your encounter, and are circulating it to all relevant areas. We were unable to find further information on Anissina. The smog obscured all imaging.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t immediately relevant,” he replied with a shrug. “The focus of our investigation must be on the boy, as he appears to be the strongest link we have to this Mr Pinner, this death of cities. So far we have tracked the vehicle entering and leaving the congestion charge zone on the same night. It appeared to be heading in a southwards direction, leaving the congestion charge zone after crossing Waterloo Bridge.”

“You can access the congestion charge database?”

“Of course.”

“And where is the vehicle now?”

“There are teams working on it.”

“Teams?”

“Human Resources allocated us some appropriate assistance.”

“When will you have an answer?”

“Mr Swift,” he said, fingers whitening on the edge of the table, “do you know why Big Brother isn’t watching you?”

“Because he has my death certificate on file and a literal mind?”

“Because, Mr Swift, because, in this city there are anywhere between eight and nine million other people to watch. In a single day, tens of thousands of people will pass through one Underground station alone; in a single week, hundreds of thousands, all moving, all turning. Millions of vehicles every month will pass in and out of the congestion charge zone, millions, and at any given moment you can be certain a train is breaking down or a pipe is bursting under the strain or a police car has been called to clean up the blood or a window has been smashed or a bomb threat has been issued or a fire alarm has been sounded or an ambulance has been caught up in traffic behind a stalled pair of traffic lights and a confused learner driver. Big Brother isn’t watching you, Mr Swift, because there’s just too much for Big Brother to keep an eye on. You are . . . not important.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yes. I understand. You mean that I should be patient a little while longer and let you people find Mo in your own time, right?”

“Essentially. Yes.”

“You want us to wait.”

“Yes. Besides, there are other matters.”

“What other matters?”

“Inauguration.”

I sighed. “Oh, yes. This pineappleless, cocktail sausageless party of an inauguration.”

“There’s more to it than you think.”

“There usually is.”

“All the Midnight Mayors have to do it.”

“Of course.”

“It can be dangerous.”

“I was waiting with baited breath for you to say that.”

“You were?”

“It seemed like you were building up to something — ‘dangerous’ made a certain inevitable sense. What do I need to know to live — you do want me to live, don’t you?”

He took just a moment, just a moment, too long to answer. “Of course. We’ve made the investment in you now. We need to see it come to maturity.”

“Then tell me.”

He sighed, swivelled slightly in his chair. “Do you know,” he said at last, “how the Aldermen are chosen?”

“Nepotism. And the old boys’ club.”

“You might be thinking of our more mundane counterparts . . .”

“Perhaps. I don’t know much about them.”

“It is not nepotism,” he said. “It is about dedication. To an idea; to a cause bigger than any individual. To become an Alderman requires a lifetime of study, work and commitment, and most of all, it requires an understanding of the smallness of man within this great machine of the city. London is an antheap, Mr Swift. It is a great, sprawling, beautiful nest, built by two thousand years of man, so deep and so dark that its people can never see or know it all, but live their lives rather in this or that complex of the city, burrowing deeper and deeper into their little caves, because to know the full extent of the nest is to realise that you are nothing. An insect crawling down tunnels which only exist because two thousand years ago, a thousand, thousand other insects also crawled this way, each one as unimportant as you, each one a stranger. There is nothing that binds these ants together, that stops them from ripping each other apart, save that they share the same structure, the same city, the same physical structure that only exists because, for two thousand years, the ants have carved. We are tiny, Mr Swift. We are insignificant, living in a world of life and wonder and miraculous existence and excitement, not because of who we are, or whom we know, but because the construction around us, the bricks and stones of London, shapes and guides us, and gives unity to the millions of strangers who inhabit its caves, so we can all say, ‘I live in the city’. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then this is what the Aldermen are. We are the ants who climbed to the top of their hill, who looked down from the highest tower of the maze and saw the darkness and the time and the caverns, and realised the smallness of man within this heaving world. We are the ones who saw this, and were not afraid. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I have been told that for sorcerers, magic is life, that to live is to be magical. The same is true for Aldermen. We find our magic in being nothing. Ants on top of a heap. Do you understand?”

I smiled. I tangled my fingers together between my knees. “Yes,” I said. “I understand what the Aldermen are.”

“Then you understand why the Midnight Mayor has always — usually — come from the Aldermen’s ranks.”

“Maybe.”

“It is the city, Swift. The city is so old, now. So many millions of dead men and dead women buried beneath it. They all scuttled through the streets and made the city what it is, and now they are forgotten. Millions of wandering forgotten ghosts; but the city! It is so alive. The Midnight Mayor must protect the city. Do you understand what this means?”

“I understand what you think it means.”

“Swift . . .”

“I have a theory as to why Nair made us Midnight Mayor.”

“Well?”

“I think he knew the Midnight Mayor couldn’t fight Mr Pinner. Of course he knew it, he was dying as he made the phone call. But I think it was something more, something earlier.”

“Go on.”