“He’ll be fine,” added Oda quickly. “They’re good at blood and dust.”
I ignored her, turned into the street. “I want . . .” I hissed, and then didn’t know what to say. So I started walking instead, fumbling in my bag for a fistful of painkillers, my bloody fingers slipping off the cap. “There’s a . . .”
“Where are you going, sorcerer?” demanded Oda, scampering to keep level with me.
“You” - I jabbed a finger at Anissina. “Tell the Aldermen, there’s a guy in there who does things. Wrong things. Tell them to sort it out.”
“Sorcerer!”
“Stop calling me that!” I had shouted. I hadn’t meant to shout. “Sorry,” I muttered. “Sorry. I’ll . . . I just need . . .”
I kept walking, nearly running now. A few hundred yards ahead was a pub, still open, lights still on, a place for men with puffy noses and not much conversation. I pushed through the door, past the flashing bingo machine and tables an inch thick with old dried spillage, looked around, saw the sign, followed it, marched into the toilets. They were dirty, everything chipped, toilet paper across the floor. Who these people were who came into public toilets and threw paper around, I did not know. A guy with a faintly ginger beard and a ruffled blue shirt was already in there. We said, “Out.”
He left without a word. Oda marched through the door behind me, while Anissina, more discreet, loitered in the opening. It took three taps before I found the one hot tap that was working. I stuck my hands under it and scrubbed, felt thick dust and clogged blood break free from my skin, saw it swish down the sink in red dribbles and little black lumps where the two had combined. My hands were shaking, we were shaking, as strange a physical reaction as we had ever experienced. I stuck my head down as far into the low sink as I could get it, threw water over my face, buried my face in it, closed my eyes and let the warmth seep into them, leach dust from my eyelashes, let it run over my lips and into the mortar-filled cracks of my skin. My sleeves were stained with blood, not mine, and I scrubbed uselessly at them with toilet paper and cold water until Oda said, “You know, that’s not the way to do it. You need to get it in a soak.”
“No time.”
“OK. Why not?”
“I know where the kid is.”
She gave a little laugh. “So all that walking was for something. Did this guy at the club do it?”
“No. He’s just logistical support. A guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who has a van and a few friends who don’t mind lifting a kid quietly off the street and carting him away with a gag in his mouth. He’s just a bit of executive muscle, nothing more. Mo’s in Raleigh Court.”
Anissina looked up sharply. Oda shrugged. “And . . . is this is an ancient Indian burial site?”
“It’s where Nair died,” said Anissina quickly. “It’s where the Midnight Mayor died.”
“Does that make it mystically significant?”
“Not of itself,” I said. “But I got a hint as to who killed him.”
“You’re full of it today, sorc . . . you’re full of it today,” she said. “Go on, then. Who did it and will they die quiet?”
I wiped my soaking hands on my coat, felt water drip off the end of my nose and trickle under my chin. “His name is Mr Pinner. That’s who killed the Midnight Mayor.”
“A name is a start. Anything else?”
“Yeah. He said he was the death of cities.”
“How typically pretentious of the man,” muttered Oda.
Anissina said nothing, but her eyes were locked onto mine. She knew, she said nothing, but she knew; she was that smart. “Oda,” we sighed, “has it ever occurred to you that, if there’s mystic protectors out there protecting us, there might be mystic nasties out there we need protecting from?”
“Sure it has,” she said evenly. “That’s the problem with all things mystic.”
“That’s the problem with life,” I snapped. “By your logic, the communists would have nuked the capitalists and the capitalists the communists and never a bomb would have been irrational.”
“Is this the time to talk philosophy?”
“No. Please shut up and go away.”
She shut up. She seemed surprised. She didn’t go away.
Finally, Anissina, seeing that Oda wasn’t going to, said, “Raleigh Court?”