at Kemsley. All praise the poor fire regulations of North Kilburn. “We can use CCTV,” I said. “There’s . . . what? At least a dozen cameras around this estate alone, probably more in all the high streets. You lot seem like escapees from an American spy thriller, right? If they moved him, we can track it.”
“Assumptions . . .” began Kemsley.
“Not really,” retorted Anissina. “Not at all. We know Nair came here, and Nair was killed. We know that the shoes of this boy were regarded by Nair as important; we know they led us to Voltage, we know that Voltage led us here. We know that this room was sometime full and is now recently empty. We know that these things are connected. You’re wrong, Kemsley. If the boy was here, we must find him, and we can.”
We fought down the desire to say something triumphant, to stick our tongue out at Kemsley and hug Anissina round the middle, to hop on the spot and gloat that despite everything, despite our fear of oh God of too many things, we were right. This was right.
Then a voice from the door said, “There’s a guy in the courtyard.” Kemsley ignored it, turning to Anissina, face red, clearly trying to find something to say that wasn’t the grown-up equivalent of a farting sound, trying to be rational in the face of his own crippling irrationalities. We turned to the man who’d spoken. A trooper, an escapee from another world, all gun and big boot and only the slightest whiff, the merest tracery suggestion that on the inside of his bulletproof vest, someone had stamped a set of defensive wards. We walked slowly towards him, his face turned down across the balcony edge into the courtyard below. I could feel Oda watching me; the Aldermen busy in their bickering. The man on the door had a face like a swollen mushroom, from which peered a pair of sharp, smart eyes. I said, “What guy?”
He nodded down at the courtyard. “That guy.”
I shuffled to the balcony and looked down.
He stood in the middle of the courtyard, black shoes planted firmly on the cracked paving stones. His hair was dark brown, not quite black but doing its best, sliced back thin over his almost perfectly spherical skull. His suit was black, his hands were buried in his trouser pockets, buttoned jacket swept back behind his wrists, as casual as a primrose in spring. His skin was that special kind of pale that has been tanned by neon strip lighting. His smile was polite, expectant. His eyes were fixed on us.
We jerked back instinctively. Our heart, without asking permission, started doing the conga down our intestines, our intestines tried to throttle our stomach, our stomach tried to crawl up our throat. I looked at the guy with the gun; he looked at me and said, “Sir?”
“We have to get out,” we whispered. “We have to get out now.”
“Sir,” he muttered, and he was too well trained to pronounce fear, but it was there, we could smell it, “there’s more.”
We crawled like a child to the edge of the balcony, peeked over the edge. There was more. A kid in a hoodie had joined the man in the pinstripe suit, standing behind, bobbing to an unheard beat. I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t think there was going to be a face to see.
“We have to get out,” we whimpered. “We have to go!”
“Him!” She was reaching for her gun. “Don’t shoot!”
“Why not? He’s just a guy, and even sorcerers can’t stop . . .”
“Bullets don’t stop spectres.”
“The kids in the hoods?”
“Spectres, yes! You’ll just make holes in them.”
“All right. So how do I kill them?”
“Beer and cigarettes.”
“If this is one . . .”
“Beer and cigarettes! Get down!”
We dragged her down from where she was leaning over the balcony behind the protection of the yellow brick wall. She looked at us in surprise. “Are you really that scared?”
“Really, honestly and entirely. From the bottom of our being, yes.”
“But he’s just . . .”
“No just.”
By now, everyone was paying attention. Kemsley strode forwards, looked at us in contempt, peered over the balcony, turned to the man with the mushroom face and said, “What is this now?”
“Possible hostile down below, sir,” replied the soldier briskly.
“It’s just a man in a suit, and a couple of kids.”