I put it on. It was that, or shiver and be undignified. More undignified.
Oda made supper. It was grey splodge served with undercooked pasta. Fanatical psycho-bitches clearly had different priorities from the rest of us. We ate it anyway, and tried not to look as grateful as we felt. We let the Aldermen wait. We could do that, at least.
It was 6 p.m. when Oda let the Aldermen in. I sat on the sofa; they stood in a row in front of me. Earle wasn’t there. I wondered which way he’d voted in the should-we-shoot-him ballot. I wondered who’d voted for life.
Unfortunately, Earle’s absence was not a total blessing. Kemsley stepped forwards.
“Mr Swift,” he said through the corner of his slit-mouth.
“Mr Kemsley,” I said.
“I am here as a representative of the Aldermen.”
“I guessed.”
“There are certain things that must be rectified between us. May I say firstly, on behalf of the Aldermen, that we offer an unconditional apology for the treatment you have received. We were acting on the best of intelligence, and I am sure, in time, you will come to see the reason of our ways.”
“That’s not unconditional, but let’s stick with it for the moment.”
His fingers twitched, but he managed to keep his face austere. “We have chosen to accept your appointment as Midnight Mayor.”
“Big of you.”
“It is unconventional.” The word came out between his lips like thin bile when there’s nothing left to vomit.
I folded my arms and waited.
“Mr Swift, I am sure you understand that the situation is complicated.”
“It seems very simple. Someone is trying to destroy the city’s defences, and you’re too scared to stop it by yourselves. You want us to go and fight for you, find out why Nair was interested in the shoes, find out what’s behind ‘give me back my hat’. In short, you want me to be the one to find the guy who can flay people alive without laying a finger on them, and deal with the problem. Have I missed anything?”
A moment’s hesitation. Kemsley drew in his lips, then smiled. “No,” he said. “You seem to understand the situation. Issues arising?”
“A few.”
“Deal with them.”
“So much for the contrite apology.”
“You know what’s at stake.”
“You killed my friend.”
For a moment, his eyebrows drew together. “Did . . . oh . . . the White. Vera whatever-her-name-was. I might say that she turned into a puddle of paint, rather than the usual corpse.”
“Yes, I noticed that. Curious, isn’t it?”
“She was a White. They have different expectations of life than the rest of us. I’m sure you understand.”
“If I’m Midnight Mayor, do I get to sack you?”
“What do you think?”
“Kemsley,” we said calmly, “if you so much as breathe out of tune, we will kill you as casually as Vera died.”
“I had no doubt. And for my part, may I say I find the idea of you as Midnight Mayor an abomination, a sickness, a degradation of the post and all the duties, age and time that it entails. But that doesn’t change the fact that for you to be Mayor, Nair must have wanted it. He must have known what would happen when he dialled his phone, he must have known that the blue electric angels would be waiting. For his sake, I will respect the choices that have been made, and hope that they have not damned us.”
There was almost a flicker of humanity in the man. The kind of human who pulled wings off flies as a kid, but still human. I smiled. “Well, it’s nice to have that cleared up. Anything else I can do for you, gentlemen?”
“You have a badge. A cross within a cross. It belongs to my colleague, Mr Earle. He’d like it back.”
“It’s in my bag. Is it significant?”
“Sentimental value.”
A lie. He knew that I knew, and brazened it out with a willpower that declared, yes, it’s a lie, and no, I’m not going to say more.
I waited for them to fetch it, remembered Earle’s face back in the flat in Bayswater, metalled over, and the shock when I’d pulled it from his chest.
Kemsley said: “We need to discuss strategy.”
I shrugged. “Sure. What the hell.”
“We need to find out who killed Nair. It makes sense that whoever - whatever - it was is connected to the other attacks in the city. We have links that could be of use. CCTV, police records, databases, forensic techniques . . .”