power in them to summon the death of cities. Mr Pinner was summoned here by the traffic warden. I stole her hat, Mo said. That’s why Mo was left to die in the scrapyard; it was a punishment, vengeance on a kid who was scornful and contemptful enough of strangers to steal from them, just for a laugh. So, for revenge, a stranger poisoned him and left him to die as agonising a death as they could manage. ‘Give me back my hat’; that’s what it says on the walls. Think about the geography - Mo hangs around in Willesden, Mo is kept in Kilburn, Nair dies in Kilburn, the hat is stolen in Dollis Hill, in all these places just a few miles apart. Think about the writing on the wall, think about the timing of when Mr Pinner came, about what happened to the kid, about why Nair died, about the nature of all that has happened so far. There is no profession in the city more hated than traffic warden - not even the police get as much abuse or assault or common cruelty. Think about what that would do to an untrained sorcerer, who knows that the city is screaming to them, who can taste the life and the magic on the air, and finds in it nothing but hostility. Think about why you suspected me. A sorcerer could do it, a sorcerer is perhaps the only person in the city who could do it, who could summon something as powerful and vengeful as the death of cities. The traffic warden is the mystical disaster that is going to happen. She is going to destroy us, the death of cities is her vengeance on the contempt of a stranger.
“Of course, all of this is 99 per cent hypothesis.
“But unless you’ve got anything better to go on, I think we should find this traffic warden whose hat was stolen.
“Stop her, stop the death of cities.
“I think we should kill her, before it’s too late.”
Part 4: GIVE ME BACK MY HAT
In which a damnation is discussed, a hat is found, and the nature of strangers gets a thorough going-over on London Bridge.
Legwork.
Someone else’s leg, someone else’s work.
There’s pros to being management.
I sprawled across an ornate curly sofa at the back of an office just
below Mr Earle’s and waited.
Occasionally people came in. The office doctor who came to check on my stitches, take my blood pressure; the office caterer who came in with cups of coffee and biscuits of such quality and expense that our taste buds, accustomed to custard creams and jammy dodgers, found them slightly unease-making. Once or twice Oda. She seemed to have something to say, and then not, and would just look at us, nod as if to say, “still here, good, don’t try leaving” and walk out again.
Once - just once - Earle.
He came in with a big white box, put it down on the table in front of me.
“Open it,” he said.
I did carefully, expecting snakes.
It was a big black coat.
I said, “Umm . . .?”
“It’s for you.”
“Uh . . .”
“An Alderman’s coat. The symbol of our office.”
“But I’m not an Alderman.”
“No. But you are Midnight Mayor, and the relationship between our two offices has always been close. And your current coat is in sad need of replacement. There’s a card in there for a tailor, to make you a suit. You don’t own a suit, do you?”
I felt the comfort of my bleached and bleached again old coat, felt the little sticky enchantments stitched into the lining and did my best to smile. “No - but thanks,” I said. “I appreciate the coat. If it’s OK, I’ll keep this one on a little longer, just because . . . you know . . . there’s spells and stuff that’ll take time to sew. I’m sure you understand.”
He smiled a smile the width of a tapeworm’s eye, and walked out, leaving the damn white box with its damn black coat sitting in front of me.
Legs worked.
Afternoon drifted towards evening.
Evening turned the lights on in the great glass faces of the offices, sketching out mad mathematical patterns of light and dark across the towers of the city.
Somewhere in an office on another floor, someone who didn’t know why they had been given this task and didn’t understand what it was meant to achieve got their slightly grubby hands on a police report from Dollis Hill.
Somewhere else, another person who didn’t know why they were