guffaw. And then I want you to raise your napkin to your mouth as though embarrassed. Doing this will help mask the nervousness that has started to manifest itself in your body language.’ He looked up. ‘One table away. Oh, yes, and if you are asked, you live at Twenty-Three-A Morgan Street, and your name is Delores Delight. Now laugh!’
It was hysteria that drove the laugh and once Ella had started she found she couldn’t stop. She found that she had to raise the napkin to her mouth to try to muffle her squawking. It took the appearance of the huge, black- uniformed Checkya sergeant alongside their table to terrify her into silence. She pushed the napkin and her hands back under the table.
‘Papers, Comrade,’ he snapped.
Vanka handed his over and the man, beetle-browed and sporting a huge handlebar moustache, studied them carefully. ‘Says ‘ere you’re from Rodina.’
‘That’s right, Sergeant, I’m in the Rookeries on business.’
‘And where are you residing whilst in the Rookeries?’
Vanka flipped a card out of his top pocket. ‘At the Hotel Metropolitan, it’s…’
‘I knows the Metropolitan,’ the Sergeant interrupted brusquely. ‘Wot business is you about ‘ere in the Rookeries?’
‘I’m a Licensed Psychic, Sergeant.’ Vanka flashed his licence and a smile. ‘I’ll be giving seances at the Prancing Pig all next week.’ He gave the Sergeant another smile. Vanka was a great smiler. ‘If you let me have your name I’ll arrange for complimentary tickets to be left at the door.’
‘I ain’t a great one for the occult, Comrade, it gives me the heebie-jeebies, it does. Best left to experts like His Holiness Comrade Crowley.’ The Sergeant turned to Ella, letting his eyes wander leeringly over her body. ‘Papers, Miss.’
Ella almost passed out, but realising that this might be her last act as a free woman she dug her hand into the right-hand pocket of her coat to retrieve her papers.
They were gone!
A wave of ice-cold panic washed over her.
‘I’ve lost them!’ she spluttered.
All Vanka did was chuckle. ‘Calm yourself, Delores, my dear, the Sergeant won’t bite. I distinctly remember you placing them in the inside pocket of your coat when we left the hotel this evening.’
Baffled by Vanka’s certainty, Ella pushed her hand into the pocket he had suggested and there, to her astonishment, were her papers.
Well, not her papers exactly but certainly a set of papers. She handed them to the Checkya Sergeant, who studied them carefully. ‘Address?’
‘Er…’ For a heart-stopping instant she thought she had forgotten the address Vanka had given her. ‘Twenty- Three-A Morgan Street.’
A disappointed sniff from the Sergeant. ‘And wot is your relationship wiv this man, Miss Delight?’ he asked brusquely.
Before Ella could utter a word, Vanka had answered for her. He reached over and took her trembling hands in his, skilfully covering her small dark-skinned ones with his larger white ones. ‘Delores is my assistant on stage and my fiancee off it,’ he said, beaming a puppy-dog look at Ella.
‘Seems to me, Miss, that you ain’t much cop as a psychic’s assistant iffn you don’t even know which pocket your papers was in.’ He handed them back.
Ella tried her best to make her reply as normal as possible. ‘Oh, even a PsyChick can be forgetful occasionally, Sergeant.’
‘You ain’t wearing no engagement ring neither,’ observed the Sergeant. It was then that he noticed the colour of Ella’s skin. ‘Would I be right in finking that you are ov the Shade persuasion?’
Vanka didn’t miss a beat. ‘Ours is a somewhat unofficial engagement, Sergeant.’
‘Yous being a citizen ov the ForthRight, Sir, must be aware ov the Seventh nuCommandment that condemns the practice ov miscegenation. I would be grateful iffn you would raise your veil, Miss Delight, so that I might confirm your racial bone fids.’
Ella’s heart sank. Now there was no escape. She slipped her left hand into her pocket and closed her fingers around her derringer. If necessary she would shoot her way out.
She could hardly believe this was happening. Two hours ago she had been a student, a part-time singer and now here she was contemplating murder. She caught herself: it was an indication of how real these Dupes were that she could think of killing one as murder. The Demi-Monde was so persuasive a place that it was almost impossible for her to suspend belief.
‘Sergeant,’ interrupted Vanka very sotto voce, ‘I would prefer it if my fiancee did not do that. Our tryst here tonight has not met with the approval of my family nor of the authorities.’ He smiled and pushed a five-guinea note across the table in the direction of the Checkya Sergeant. ‘You’re a man of the world, Sergeant.’
‘Is yous trying to bribe me?’ asked the Sergeant disdainfully. ‘
Yes,’ confirmed Vanka as he added a second five-guinea note to the first.
‘Then look here, I am a member of the Checkya and we’s…’
In desperation Ella reached out and grabbed the Sergeant’s hand. ‘Please… Sergeant Stone… I implore you…’
‘‘Ere, ‘ow do you know my name?’
Fuck!
Thank you, PINC!
That was the problem with knowing everything about everybody: she had to remember what she shouldn’t know about somebody.
Or something like that.
Swallowing hard, Ella tried desperately to think of a way out. There was only one thing for it. ‘I know your name because I’m a clairvoyant, Sergeant. My abilities allow me to commune with any man or woman I meet and to know their innermost secrets.’
The Sergeant eyed her suspiciously. ‘That right?’
‘Yes, Sergeant, perfectly right. If you really want to know what fate holds in store for you, why don’t you take up the Colonel’s kind offer of those tickets and come along to see us at the Prancing Pig?’
‘Very kind ov you, I am sure, Miss. But that does not alter the fact that yous a Shade and your identity papers state yours racial type to be Grade One: Anglo-Slavic and this being the case I ‘ave no alternative but to…’
‘I’ll make sure there are two tickets waiting for you; you will, after all, be accompanied by Arthur.’
The Sergeant eyed Ella carefully. ‘‘Ere… wot do you know about Arthur?’
‘Everything,’ said Ella, the single word replete with ominous meaning.
The Sergeant’s face blanched. ‘But… you won’t be saying nuffink to nobody about Arthur, now will you?’
‘My lips are sealed, Sergeant. If you forget all about having met me, then your wife and your superiors will never hear about Arthur.’ Ella touched the sleeve of Sergeant Stone’s black uniform. ‘And we both know how severe Vice-Leader Beria is regarding members of the Checkya engaging in zadnik-like activities, don’t we, Sergeant?’
‘How…?’ began Vanka as he watched the bemused Checkya Sergeant shuffle, with a couple of worried backward glances and ten guineas of Vanka’s money in his pocket, out of the coffee house.
‘You first, Vanka. How did you pull that stunt with the papers?’
Vanka shrugged dismissively. ‘Nothing to it. I knew there was a chance that the Checkya would start checking papers so I found the girl in the crowd that was the closest match to you in terms of age and hair colour and lifted her papers. Of course she was a Blank, but in the circumstances it was the best I could do. There aren’t that many Shades in the ForthRight.’
Ella bridled at the use of the word ‘Shade’ but decided to let it roll. After all, the man had just saved her life.
‘I substituted them for yours while we were walking into this place,’ explained Vanka as he drained his coffee and then grimaced. ‘Foul,’ he mumbled, dabbing his lips with his napkin.
‘Amazing: you must be a very accomplished pickpocket, Vanka.’
He chuckled. ‘All stage magicians – close-up magicians, that is – are good with their hands. If you can’t palm things then you’ve no right calling yourself a magician.’ His gaze settled on Ella and his face took on a more serious
