my chin at Oda. “She’ll do that just fine and she brings her own knives.”
“So do I,” she replied with a twitch of her lips that might have been a smile. “And mine need not end up in you.”
“Does the little sorcerer need protecting?” crooned Oda.
Anissina didn’t bother to reply. I sunk deeper into the sofa.
“Tea,” I said. “Tea will make it all better.”
I drank tea with a painkiller chaser.
It made things a little better.
Not hugely - but enough.
A knock at the door. Oda answered it, gun tucked away out of sight. A motorbike courier, all black helmet and padded jacket, presented a box. The box had a pair of shoes in it. We felt almost pleased to see Mo’s shoes unharmed.
“What use are these?” demanded Oda.
“They’re very good for walking in,” I replied, and put them on.
Anissina had a car. It had a driver. He wore a peaked hat. I took one look at it and said, “Let’s walk.”
“To Willesden?”
“To the Underground.”
Her nose wrinkled in distaste. Oda rolled her eyes. “Perks, sorcerer,” she snapped. “I am sure you understand perks.”
“I understand free lifts,” I replied. “I also understand that driving around in a black car with windows shaded black and a driver in a black silk suit who opens a door with a black handle and black leather upholstery inside is not as discreet as you might want.”
Oda grinned. “Not so easy to kill,” she said. “Still dead, though.”
“Remind me why you’re here?”
“Sooner or later, someone’s going to end up shot.”
“Any idea who?”
“I’ll write you a list.”
We took the Jubilee Line. The station was new - glass doors and glass panels in front of the platform, just in case someone wanted to jump. The train driver missed on his first attempt, didn’t slow down fast enough, didn’t quite manage to align the doors of his bright new train with the shining glass panels. He had to reverse a few clunking inches, while the platform’s scant inhabitants sighed and waited. Hard to tell which annoyed them more - delays caused by overshooting trains, or bodies on the line. It was going to be one or the other.
The Jubilee Line took us back north. Back to Dollis Hill. Darkness, cold, a slow sideways rain that came in across the streetlamps and stained the pavements, glaring reflective orange. I knew the route now, knew which way the shoes wanted to go, knew the swagger they wanted to walk with. Easier now, despite the drugs addling my brain and the ache in my bones. Despite being scared, despite the company. Easier to find a rhythm and strut like a seventeen-year-old jackass who should not, could not, must not be, and very clearly was, involved in this mess.
Back walking the streets with the swagger. Easier - much easier now I knew at least the beginnings of where we had to go. The empty skater park beneath the railway line, still empty, still dark, dry paint fading on old wood slopes. The pub showing the football, Arsenal up at half-time, an empty wall where the kids should have sat drinking booze, a pavement stained with the leftovers of some long-ago binge, the off-licence, shutters drawn down over the windows, no lights on inside, and on the shutters a scrawled warning:ŞAPKAMI GERI VER
Along with the usual mess of scratched letters and names.
Anissina said nothing. Oda said, “If you’re wasting our time . . .”
I ignored her. The swagger ignored her. It knew when it was dealing with the ignorant, not worthy of respect.
A patch of concrete that might possibly, sometimes, be a garage. A length of chain drawn low across the fence. Inside, a public phone, the receiver hung neatly on the hook, under a single fizzing neon bulb. We wanted to stop and stare, to look at it for hours and will the night to be another night, some time before; but the shoes wanted to keep on walking, and I didn’t have the time or energy to care. It was how it was. The rain had washed off our blood.
I kept on walking. Unfamiliar territory from here on, never got past the phone in the garage last time. I turned my head down towards the pavement and watched the stones pass underfoot, trusting - despite our better judgement - in Oda and Anissina to warn us of impending cement lorries - and let the shoes do the walking.
I don’t know exactly where we ended up. Somewhere to the south, doubling back on our previous