important than form, and it’s a lot sturdier than the regular kind.’
‘It’s perfect, Caldessa.’ I kissed her on the cheek, and she yelped because my stubble was more than usually obtrusive. ‘I’ll be in touch about that date, as soon as I’m done with this. I’ll even shave.’
‘You needn’t bother as far as that goes,’ Caldessa allowed. ‘Your louche charm is a selling point, Felix. A shave and a manicure would just make you look like a used-car salesman.’
She had a point. I never did scrub up more than halfway decent. I thanked her again and retired with some of my dignity still intact.
No answer from Pen’s house, or from Nicky either at the Gaumont or on his mobile. Fatigue was catching up on me with a vengeance now, and my eyes were doing that thing where they only stay open while you’re actually making them, and close by infinitesimal degrees whenever your attention slips.
It was only six thirty or so, more than five hours yet before I had to be at Super-Self to head Gil McClennan off from his Little Big Horn. I bowed to the inevitable, caught a Circle Line train running widdershins through South Ken, and put my head down for half an hour.
Well, half an hour was the plan. When sleep opened its black throat at my feet I lost my balance and pitched in head first, like a drugged honey cake into the gullet of Cerberus, and lulled by the motion of the train we both went rocking into the dark together.
It was a sleep that was almost deep enough to be dreamless: or at least the things that populated it were too primitive and unformed to resolve themselves into actual images or sounds. They were just inchoate feelings, made up of unease and familiarity in equal amounts. It was as though I was sliding down an endless helter skelter of déjà vus.
What woke me was the sound of the PA system at Moorgate reporting a good service on all lines. It’s like they say: there are lies, damned lies and London Underground service announcements.
I was groggy and crumpled and slumped into a corner of the seat. The first thing I realised was that I’d slept with my tin whistle jammed against my third rib, so that I winced in discomfort every time I breathed in. The second was that the man in the snow-white mac sitting opposite me, staring at me with an expression of distant, contemplative calm, was Father Thomas Gwillam.
‘Good evening, Castor,’ he said solemnly.
Evening? I looked at my watch. Half past nine. I’d slept for three hours. Still no need to panic, but this had to be my last turn on the merry-go-round.
‘Evening, Father,’ I muttered. ‘It’s been sixteen years or so since my last confession.’
Gwillam’s thin lips pursed slightly: he doesn’t like it when people make light of grave matters. His pale eyes blinked and then opened again slowly, like a cat’s. ‘I’ve been excommunicated,’ he reminded me. ‘I’m therefore no longer qualified to take confession. Your sins will have to remain on your conscience a while longer.’
I looked around me as I came awake properly, belatedly taking in the fact that Gwillam wasn’t alone. Two of his team – a very young woman and a man built even more solidly than Mr Dicks – stood to either side of me, close enough to intercept if I tried anything that smacked of lèse-majesté.
‘You’re playing a very dangerous game,’ Gwillam told me.
I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself; it was just so obviously something he’d heard someone say in a Bond movie.
‘What do you suggest?’ I asked him. ‘Twister’s no good. I’m just not as supple as I used to be.’
‘You set this thing free in the first place, Castor. All the deaths that have resulted from that act are on your hands. And it’s your responsibility more than anyone’s to see that it’s destroyed before it can do any further harm.’
Anger crawled up my throat like bile. In spite of his two bodyguards – and I was under no illusions that the girl was at least as dangerous as the bruiser – I was tempted to lunge across the aisle and take a poke at him. One good whack on his self-satisfied snout: that would almost make up for being beaten into lumpy porridge immediately afterwards.
But I still had promises to keep.
‘It was your people who set him free, you fuckwit,’ I snarled instead. ‘I got him out of the Stanger, but your hit men opened his fucking door and let him walk right out. It’s on you as well as me.’
To my surprise, he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It’s on me too. I don’t deny that. It’s the reason I’ve allowed you to operate as a free agent. I know what you’re trying to do. I don’t hold out any great hope that you’ll succeed, but the smallest chance that you might outweighs the risk that you’ll sabotage our own operation.’
He paused for a second, frowning at me. He tilted his head to one side to get a better angle on the only slightly faded bruises on my face, the ones left over from my first encounter with Asmodeus down in Brixton.
‘But we suspect that the demon has plans of his own in train,’ he said. ‘Plans that are already far advanced. So I’m swallowing my pride, Castor. I’m here to suggest that we work together to bring him down.’
‘No thanks,’ I said.
Gwillam didn’t seem surprised, but his eyes narrowed into a severe frown.
‘You’re making no progress alone. You’re flailing in the dark.’
I laughed again. ‘Gwillam, do you think I’m an idiot?’ I demanded. ‘You’re here because you’ve fired every shot in your locker and you didn’t hit a blind thing. You’re coming up empty. This is no-stone-unturned time, and I’m probably the last stone you got to. But you think offering to share will play better than asking if you can pick my brains for free.’
Gwillam’s expression didn’t change. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Your cynicism demeans you, but it’s understandable, to some extent. It’s true that we haven’t run Asmodeus to ground, any more than you have, but we’ve succeeded in closing down his support system.’
‘The American satanists,’ I translated, and I took a certain pleasure in seeing in his face the surprise he tried to hide.
‘Exactly,’ Gwillam confirmed. ‘The remnants of Anton Fanke’s organisation, now completely eradicated. Whatever Asmodeus is doing, he’s been thrown back on his own resources. We have a window, and if we use it wisely – if we cooperate and pool our intelligence – we can bring him down.’
I shook my head firmly. ‘No,’ I said, ‘we can’t. Because that – bringing him down, I mean – is exactly where we part company. You want him dead; I just want him caught.’
‘I want the demon dead,’ Gwillam corrected me.
‘And you don’t care who else gets left in the dirt – or under it – along the way. I’ve seen you work, Gwillam. I chose Jenna-Jane Mulbridge as a partner over you – that ought to tell you a lot.’
‘Suppose I swore – on the book that I love – not to kill Ditko unless it’s absolutely unavoidable?’
‘You’re excommunicated. You’ve got nothing to lose now, have you?’
The train pulled into the next station, and Gwillam stood. The young woman turned her head to stare at him, but he moved his hand in an almost imperceptible horizontal gesture:
‘You can call me,’ he said. ‘A message left at the house in St Albans – where you tracked me down last time – will still reach me. Don’t let false pride lead you astray, Castor. You’re right that my word on this thing, even my sworn word, is worth nothing. I’ll break any promise and betray any trust, to cauterise this evil. But if your methods were a little more like mine, fewer people would have died. Consider. And when you reach the end of your own pathetic Calvary, let me know. My offer will still be open.’
He stepped down, followed by his two asymmetrical minders. Four stops to go before Paddington. I used the intervening time to get my head together and to try to shake off the lingering atmosphere of that fucking dream.
The estimable Mr Dicks was on duty at the front desk again, and his flatulent grunt as he pressed the gate release said louder than words that seeing me had made his day. I walked on by, whistling a slightly out-of-tune ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica’.
The place was dark and all but deserted. Another guard was checking windows in a desultory way, but I didn’t see anybody else around until I got up onto the second floor and noticed the faint glow coming from between the slatted blinds of Jenna-Jane’s office. I went by on tippy-toe, very keen not to alert her to my presence.
The map room was in darkness, but when I turned on the light I found that Trudie was there all the same. She’d been sitting in the dark, up to her knees in shredded paper. That at least explained where the map had gone, although not why.
She looked up and gave me a hollow-eyed stare. She looked as though she’d been crying, but she wasn’t
