then I must have worked for them somewhere else.”
“Yeah,” I said, sounding regretful. “That must be it. Just my luck. It’s a tough nut, and I wanted to bounce some ideas off you.”
“You can still do that,” said Gabe. “Why not? We’re both professionals, right? I stroke your dick, you stroke mine. Shit, I can’t find any glasses. Give me a second, will you?”
He came back around the desk, past me, and on out of the room. I leaned forward so I could look through the open doorway and saw him heading up the stairs. Maybe he was going to borrow some crockery from the Indian head masseuse.
In the meantime, the devil finds work for idle hands to do. I crossed to the filing cabinet and gave the top drawer a tug. Locked. But three quick steps took me round to the driver’s side of the desk, where Gabe had left the top drawer open. It was full of the usual strata of desk-drawer shit, and I could have excavated for five minutes without finding anything more useful than pencil shavings and paper clips. But I got lucky. A small ring with two identical keys was lying against the bottom right-hand corner of the drawer, where it would always be ready to hand in spite of the apparent chaos.
I went back to the filing cabinet and tried one of the keys. It turned, and the drawer slid open with only the smallest squeal of reproach.
Armitage
Ascot
Avebury
Balham
Beasley
Bentham
Brooks
Damn. I went back and checked again, but there was nothing there. No Bonnington file, no smoking pistol.
But there were no footsteps on the stairs, either, and I suddenly noticed that the file right at the back of the drawer was a
Two strikes. Damn again.
I wasn’t expecting anything now, but for the hell of it, I slid a finger in between Dascombe and Crowther and pushed them apart. There was another folder hanging in between them that had no file tag. Instead, the name DAMJOHN was written on the inside edge in black felt-tip. Gabe must have run out of the little plastic tag holders.
The wonderful thing about a Russian army greatcoat is that you can carry a Kalashnikov, a samovar, and a dead pig underneath it without making any noticeable bulge. It’s not so easy with a trench coat, because it’s a thinner and more figure-hugging sort of garment. But it was a thin file, and it just about fit in. I slid the drawer closed and made it back to the desk just as I heard Gabe’s footsteps coming down the stairs.
“You okay taking it straight?” he asked, setting two cut-glass tumblers down on the desktop. “I don’t have any soda.”
“Straight is fine,” I said. He poured me a stiff measure, another for himself.
“So tell me about the case,” he said.
I turned the glass in my hand, watched the facets catch the light. “Ghost takes the form of a young woman with most of her face hidden behind a red veil. Multiple sightings, persistent over time—about three months, give or take—but spread out over the building, so there’s no locus where I can easily read her from.”
Gabe shrugged with his eyebrows. “So you hang around until she shows up. Doesn’t sound like she’s particularly shy.”
“No, she’s not,” I admitted. “To be honest, I think I’ve got a hook halfway into her already. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
I took a tentative sip of the whisky, swirled it on my tongue. “The furniture,” I said—furniture being exorcists’ slang for any aspect of a haunting that’s not directly tied in to the ghost itself.
Gabe snorted. “Spend too long looking at the furniture, you’ll end up tripping over your own feet. Didn’t you tell me that?”
“No. Can’t say I did.”
“Well, it’s true anyway. Just do the job and draw your pay. Fuck do you care?”
“I’m starting to care.” I put the glass down. Whatever cheap-ass generic whisky Gabe had decanted into it, the only time Johnny Walker had seen that bottle was if he ever used it to piss in. “And I’m starting to see complications. Did you ever meet a man named Lucasz Damjohn?”
Not a flicker. Gabe consulted his memory, then shook his head. “Nope. Don’t think so. Does he work at this archive place?”
“He runs a strip joint off Clerkenwell Green. With a different kind of establishment over the top, in case fancy begotten in the eyes wants to take a quick stroll elsewhere.”
Gabe looked a question. I ask you, what’s the point of an Oxford education if nobody gets your Shakespearean references? “He’s a pimp,” I clarified.
“Okay. So how is he connected to your ghost?”
“I’m not sure yet. I think maybe he killed her.”
Gabe’s jaw dropped. Only for a second, then he reeled it in again and tried to look unconcerned, which was interesting to watch. “How do you even know you’ve got a murder?” he asked. “What, is she wearing wounds or something?”
“Or something,” I said. Then I glanced casually at my watch, did a double take, and stood quickly. “Oh shit, Gabe, this is going to have to wait. I just realized I’ve got to meet someone at five.”
“You’ve got to meet someone?” Gabe repeated. “What, you set up appointments in the middle of the night? Sit. Have another drink. I can’t help you unless you tell me the whole thing.”
He tried to refill my glass, which was already mostly full. I moved it out of his reach. “I’ll catch you another time,” I said, and headed for the door.
He jerked to his feet. It was clear that some idea of stopping me was going through his mind. But I kept on going, out into the hall and then into the street, crossing over to where Pen was parked. Seeing me coming, she threw open the passenger door and started the engine.
As we drove away, I saw McClennan standing in his doorway, watching us go. For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder what he had been doing to get himself so wasted.
“Take a left,” I directed Pen. “Then another.” While she drove, I opened the file and took a look inside.
The contents were meager. There was a letter, not from Damjohn but from a firm of solicitors, discussing the terms on which Gabriel McClennan would be placed on retainer to Zabava Ltd., “a company incorporated in the United Kingdom for the provision of leisure facilities in the Central London area.” A copy of the contract was stapled to the letter. It said that McClennan would provide “services of exorcism and spiritual prophylaxis” to all of Zabava’s premises for a fixed fee of a grand a month. The contract was signed by McClennan and by someone named Daniel Hill.
Then there was a sheet of paper with a list of addresses on it—most of them in the East End—and another with dates printed on it in columns (all except the last one had been checked through with yellow marker), a scrawled note on half of a torn sheet of A4, which read
I was hoping for a smoking pistol. This didn’t even qualify as a spud gun.
Pen had us heading back to Soho Square now. I told her to pull over, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and dived out of the car. “I’ll see you later,” I promised.
“You bloody well be careful, Fix,” she called after me, but I was already sprinting for the corner and back
