Mr Pinner tried to speak, couldn’t, his jaw was melting away into spinning thin shards. His shoulders dribbled down his back, his legs crumpled and began to give way, revealing thin tubes of cardboard, that bent and twisted beneath the little remaining weight of documentation on his torso.
“Hi, yeah, London Bridge. The middle of the actual bridge. There’s this guy . . . looks hurt . . . yeah, this other guy’s been mouthing off at me, but . . .” Penny’s eyes rolled over the skeletal paper remains of Mr Pinner. “. . . but I don’t think it’s gonna be a problem. Yeah. Ambulance. Yeah.”
“I . . . I . . . ah . . .” gasped Mr Pinner, and then there wasn’t a throat left to gasp with, a body left to gasp.
Bits of limp paper drifted by me.
I caught a few in my bloody fingertips.
. . . buy now and save £25 on the initial . . .
A water meter fitted to your system can greatly reduce . . .
. . . ISA investment profit projection of . . .
- GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS -
The last piece of paper to fall from Mr Pinner’s body was half the size of a sheet of A4, covered in small formal text. It said:
Penalty Charge Notice
Road Traffic Act 1991 (as amended)
(Sections 48, 66, 75, 77, Schedule 3 and Schedule 6)
Notice No.: 0215911Date: 03-10-2009
Time: 15.19
The Motor Vehicle with
registration number: L602 BIM
Make: Volvo Colour: Green
was seen in: Dudden Hill Lane
By Parking Attendent no.: 11092
Who had reasonable cause to believe that the following
parking contravention had occurred . . .
I let the paper go, watched it drift out over the edge of the bridge, spin into the air, fall down into the darkness above the river. Penny, standing on the edge of the pavement, lowered her phone and said carefully, “That guy just turned into paper.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “How about that?”
“Um . . .” she began.
“The city is a dragon, Penny Ngwenya. A great big, mad, insane, dark, brooding, furious, wild, rushing, fiery, beautiful dragon. Do you know what the spleen does?”
“No, I . . .”
“No,” I sighed. “Me neither.”
And then, because it seemed like the right and most sensible thing to do, I closed my eyes, put my head down on the pavement, and let the gentle rustling of the river below me and the whispering of paper falling through the air sing me into an endlessly falling darkness.
Epilogue: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
In which all things end, and something new and unexpected begins.
The Lord said, “Let there be light.”
And lo, mankind decided to capture said light, put it in a neon tube, install it in all hospitals everywhere, and leave it on at unwholesome hours when sensible members of the Homo sapiens line should have been sleeping.
For this reason, rather than because we felt like it, we opened our eyes.
A hospital.
Again.
Life suspended.
Not our favourite place.
A private room; nice. A wristband proclaiming “John Doe”. Also nice. A heart monitor that went “ping” without any good reason and with no explanation at random intervals. A woman asleep at the end of the bed. This is the sort of thing soppy single men in need of mothering dream about.
I said carefully, “Oda?”
The woman stirred slowly, looked up, said, “Who’s Oda?”
Next to the woman was a traffic warden’s hat.
An Alderman came to visit.
I didn’t recognise her, but the big black coat and hard expression were a giveaway.
She said, “Ms Dees. I’d offer to shake hands, but maybe when you’re not wired up to machines that go ‘ping’?”
I said, “Where’s Mr Earle?”
“Mr Earle . . . did not make it. We’re having a memorial service tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have some flowers sent in your name. Don’t worry about the cost. We’ll settle these things when you’re feeling better.”
“Did many . . .”
“Aldermen died; Aldermen lived. The details are unimportant,” she replied.
“Kemsley?” I asked. “Did Kemsley . . .”
“Mr Kemsley is in a stable condition. He has been moved from Elizabeth Garrett. He is scheduled for major reconstructive surgery to . . . iron out . . . some of the consequences of his encounter with Mr Pinner, just as soon as his body is strong enough to survive the procedure. You need not concern yourself with Mr Kemsley either.”
“What should I concern myself with?” I asked carefully.
“At the moment, very little!” she replied. “The city is saved, Mr Pinner is gone, the Midnight Mayor lives. I’d say that was deserving