The Devil You Know

I looked up at the electronic display strip on the wall of the carriage: THE NEXT STATION IS MOORGATE, it read. The train had almost finished its circuit of the Circle Line. After Moorgate came the Barbican and then Farringdon, from where it was an easy step to Damjohn’s club. Two stops after that and I’d be back in Euston Square, at the archive. But Alice was gunning for me at the archive—according to Rich, anyway. And I didn’t really have anything I could usefully do there until Nicky finished interrogating the laptop and got back to me.

So Kissing the Pink was where I went first. The idea in my head was that I’d make my peace with Rosa and find out how she was connected to the archive ghost. I was pretty vague on details after that, but I hoped that something would present itself.

As I was walking there, I took out my mobile phone, which for once I’d remembered to recharge, and placed a call to a Hampstead number. I got through on the first try. James Dodson wasn’t happy to hear from me again, and when he heard that I wanted to come over and visit, it pretty near spoiled his day. I had to insist. Things might have got ugly if we’d been talking face to face. But that was a treat I still had to look forward to.

There was no sign of Rosa in the downstairs area of the club, and my courage failed me at the thought of questioning the whores upstairs. I did ask one of the waitresses, though. Yes, Rosa had been around earlier in the day, but her shift was finished now. She might possibly come in again tomorrow; she usually did on a Friday. I bought myself an overpriced gin and tonic and drank it slowly in the club area downstairs, staring glumly at a parade of beautiful, naked, emphatically alive women who somehow seemed a lot less real and tangible to me right then than a single dead one.

There was a small, decorous commotion over to my right as two men were settled at one of the tables by a very deferential waitress. I squinted into the half dark and without any surprise at all identified the pair of them by their build: the squat, hairy-browed Damjohn and the tall, patrician Gabe McClennan.

They were oblivious to the room, continuing some intense conversation that had already been under way when they sat down. Intense on Gabe’s part, anyway—he was talking with his hands as much as with his mouth, and his face was working with anger and frustration. Damjohn responded with imperturbable calm, or perhaps with the very mildest irritation.

I’d already made up my mind that I’d bail out if Damjohn showed up; there wasn’t anything to be gained by letting him know that I was looking for Rosa, and it might even get her into trouble. But somehow retreat seemed like a very unpalatable option right then—and sometimes whacking the nest with a stick is the best way of finding out what kind of insect you’re dealing with—the downside being that sometimes you get stung.

So without consciously thinking about it or making anything that would count as a decision, I found myself crossing the room, putting my half-finished drink down on their table, and pulling out a chair in between the two of them.

“Afternoon, gents,” I said. “Mind if I join you?”

Gabe stared at me as if he’d just bitten into an apple and found me squirming around inside it. Damjohn’s expression was impassive for the space of about two seconds and then broke into a smile that you couldn’t have told from the real thing with aqua regia.

“Mr. Castor,” he said. “Of course not. Please, sit.” He gestured expansively, and I dumped myself down with an exaggerated sigh of satisfaction. McClennan looked like he was going to choke.

“How’s business, Gabe?” I asked, flashing him a smile.

“You stole from me, you little fuck!” His voice was a low, venomous snarl. “You came into my office with your bullshit story and then you—” Damjohn stopped him dead with a raised hand—a neat trick that I almost felt like applauding.

“We were just talking about you,” he clarified blandly, turning to me.

I bowed my head coquettishly. “Only good things, I hope.”

“A mixture of good and bad. But then, I wouldn’t expect a man in your profession to be an angel. I have, I must tell you, been surprised by your—resilience. Your unimpressive frame and build belie you, Mr. Castor. They give a false impression of vulnerability.”

“I’m a weed,” I said amiably. “The more poison you put down, the more I spring up again.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll fucking poison—”

“McClennan,” Damjohn said, “if you speak again, I’ll become aggravated with you. Do you really want that to happen?”

Gabe left that question hanging, and Damjohn went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted by either of us. “In point of fact,” he mused, giving me a thoughtful stare, “I believe you may have the right skills and the right temperament to fit in well in one of my little enterprises.”

“You’re offering me a job?” I had to ask, because I didn’t believe what I was hearing. Bribery was the last thing I’d been expecting.