and listened to the echoes in my mind. They were still strong. I?d come very close this time, and I had no doubt at all that Abbie had not only heard me but seen me, too. Across the night, across the city, we?d stared into each other?s eyes.
?I?m coming for you,? I murmured. ?Don?t be afraid. Whatever you?ve been through, little girl, it?s almost over now. I?m coming to find you.?
?Lovely,? said a man?s voice right beside me. ?Can I quote you on that?? My head jerked around so fast it almost came off my shoulders?or at least, that was how it felt; the ache seemed to have become both sharper and deeper.
The man leaning on the crash barrier next to me had a slender, hawk-beaked face, black hair as slick as an otter?s arse, and the sour, what?s-this-stink-under-my-nose expression of a hanging judge faced with a drunken football hooligan at a Saturday night remand hearing. He had the kind of build that people call wiry?skinny, but the overall impression was of a stick that?s been sharpened for a purpose, not something that?s just wilting for lack of sustenance. His white raincoat was pristine, and it contrasted so boldly with the black suit underneath it that I found myself thinking of a priest?s robes. Yeah, that was it: not a judge, a priest taking confession. Your sins will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.
?Felix Castor,? he said. His voice was soft and cultured, and so empty of emotion it reminded me for a moment of the programmed voice of Stephen Hawking?s vocoder.
?Hey, me, too,? I answered, holding out my hand. ?What are the odds on that??
He looked at my outstretched hand for a moment, then studiedly looked away. Pity. Skin contact might have told me a lot, and I could have done with some crib notes right about then.
?Playing it for laughs,? he observed. ?Well, why not? The gift of laughter enriches life. No, you can call me Gwillam, if you want to call me anything. And my sense of humor mostly turns on things that would make you weep.?
It was hard to believe, from that bloodless face and voice, that he had a sense of humor at all, but I played along, nodding as if I understood and approved. I did approve, in a way: when a guy starts off by telling you how tough he is, in my experience he?s mostly overfinessing because he?s actually got the moral fiber of a blancmange and he doesn?t want you to suss him right out of the gate. It gave me something to work from, at least.
?So tell me a joke,? I suggested.
?Perhaps I will.? His gaze flicked past my shoulder and I knew without looking that he wasn?t alone. A second later, that guess was confirmed as a boot scraped on gravel a few feet behind me. ?I?ve found out a lot about you in the last two days,? Gwillam observed, almost absently. He looked away again across the river of traffic, narrowing his eyes as the smoky breeze played across his face. ?You?ve got something of a name for yourself, and from what I?m hearing the name is
His words stirred up echoes of an earlier conversation, and I suddenly got an inkling of who I might see if I turned and looked behind me.
?Why I?m doing what, exactly?? I asked, understudying sweet little Buttercup.
Gwillam frowned and breathed out deeply through his nose, but the level tone of his voice didn?t change by an inch or an ounce. ?I?m not a fool, either, Castor. It will do nothing good for my mood if you try to play me for one.?
?Okay,? I said, ?I?ll bear that in mind.? I don?t have the patience for fishing at the best of times. I could never be bothered sitting by the ice hole for hours on end when you could just chuck in a grenade and have done with it. ?You want to know what I?m doing over at the church, and whose heart is beating in there. You?re wondering what that heartbeat has got to do with all this shit that?s going down in West London right now, including the riot tonight. Maybe you?d also like to know who Juliet Salazar is and where she figures in all this. Right so far??
He gave me the kind of pained, wondering stare you?d give to an aged relative who?d just tried to put their underpants on over their head.
?I was talking about the girl,? he said, very quietly. ?The little girl you just made your heartfelt promise to. Unless that was a different little girl. Perhaps this is a hobby of yours.?
Just for a second I had a sense of events accelerating away from me in a direction I wasn?t braced for?like I might go sprawling on my face and lose what was left of my dignity. I really didn?t feel too good now: my head was spinning, and there was a smell in my nostrils like the very faintest hint of rotten meat.
?The girl?? I repeated.
Gwillam looked just a little irritated, as if the edge was starting to wear off his patience. Compared to the robotic calm he?d shown up until now, it was almost a relief. ?Abigail Torrington,? he said. ?Or Abigail Jeffers. Whichever you prefer.?
?Oh,
Gwillam frowned sternly, two straight-edged vertical lines appearing in the center of his forehead. ?Peace is completely irrelevant,? he said. ?Obviously we appreciate what he did, but his motives being what they are, we can?t trust him to follow through. No, it?s Abigail we need to find. And we need to find her before anybody else does. We?re not prepared to consider any other possibility. After all you?ve seen since Saturday, you ought to know exactly what?s at stake.?
I played this back at various speeds, without much luck. ?It?s funny,? I said, giving it up. ?All the words you?re saying make perfect sense, but somehow when you put them all together it comes out as shite. Why should Abbie matter to anyone besides her parents? Or is this a question of the sparrow that falls in the marketplace? Do you guys look out for every lost soul that comes down the pike? I mean, that?s inspiring, but it?s also a little hard to??
I stopped because a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I was twisted around about ninety degrees to the left. I found myself staring into a hostile face dominated by a massive barricade of eyebrow.
?Show respect,? said the loup-garou sternly, showing me his teeth.
?Po.? Gwillam?s tone was mild, but very efficacious. The huge loup-garou let go of my shoulder and stood back, almost like a soldier called to attention. I could see Zucker now, standing over by the Civic as if they thought I might cut and run and they were ready for the possibility. Their own car?another off-roader, even bigger than the Jeep?was pulled up onto the curb about a hundred yards or so farther down. They?d walked the rest of the way under the cover of my playing.
Gwillam didn?t look concerned, either for my well-being or about the possibility that I might abscond. I guess he just wanted to have his say more than he wanted to see me get my throat ripped out.
He nodded to the loup-garou at my side, acknowledging the swift obedience with silent approval, then turned his attention back to me.
?Pythagoras is meant to have made a clever comment about levers,? he murmured. ?Levers, and moving the world. I was never entirely convinced?it sounds a little too post-Enlightenment to me. But I?m sure you know the one I mean.? He stared at me expectantly for a moment. Being in no mood to play straight man, I stared right back. ?Well,? Gwillam went on, ?that?s what the little dead girl is. A lever large enough to move the world. Which is a troubling thought, to me at least. Because insofar as I have a preference, I?d like the world to stay where it is.?
This was still about as clear as Mississippi mud. Time for another grenade, I thought.
?Are you just speaking for yourself?? I asked him. ?Or for the Catholic Church as a whole? Which, incidentally, has to be a fucking sight more catholic than I thought it was, given who it?s employing.?
There was a moment?s silence, during which Gwillam just stared at me, nonplussed. Then he nodded, not at me but at Po. And then an explosion of pain in my left side made me crumple and fall, thudding against the crash barrier on the way down. A kidney punch, administered with finely measured force, designed to cause spectacular agony but stop short of actual rupture.
It was a long time before I tuned into my surroundings again?half a minute, maybe, but I?m not the best judge. Given that for a lot of that time I was struggling to suck in a breath without moving a single muscle on my left-hand side, it felt a fair bit longer to me.
?You were warned once,? said Gwillam, his voice sounding hollow and distant. ?But from what Zucker and Po said, I was afraid that you might not have taken the warning seriously enough.?
I still couldn?t get enough breath to answer?which might have been for the best, since the words uppermost in my mind right then were ?fuck you.? As I knelt there, folded up around my pain, something cold and hard was pressed against the back of my neck.
?We
?And yet . . . ,? I grunted, wincing as the effort of speech tugged at muscles that weren?t quite ready to move again, ?. . . I can?t help noticing . . . I?m still alive.?
?Yes.?
The pressure on my neck disappeared, and a
