The Naming of the Beasts

‘Something about the place,’ I mused. ‘About the history of the place. Maybe it’s got unusual properties. Has anyone researched that angle?’

‘I already told you we pulled the records,’ Gil pointed out with exaggerated patience. ‘All the way back to when the block was built. It was part of a big land-clearance project some time in the 1890s, when they built Aldwych. There used to be a road cutting through from the Strand to the market back then - Wych Street - right around here. But it was a shithole and they knocked it down. So yeah, before it was a building it was a street. A street with kind of a bad rep, but not in any way that would matter to us. It was just thieves’ rookeries, gin dives, that kind of thing.’

‘Do we know what it was like during the Roman occupation? ’ I pondered.

‘Probably harder to get a smoke,’ Gil said. ‘Listen, my brief was to bring you here and show you that thing. I’ve done it. The professor wants to hear your thoughts tomorrow morning at eight. Me, I couldn’t care less. I’m not expecting you to see anything I’ve missed. So unless you want to tell me you’ve cracked this thing, and pour forth your enlightenment on the grateful masses, I’m out of here.’

He gave me a sardonic look. I shrugged, and he nodded, satisfied. He held out his hand.

‘Keys,’ he demanded.

‘I’d like to hold on to them,’ I countered. ‘I think it might be useful to get some measurements. Maybe take another look into that swimming pool.’

Gil’s eyes boggled. I was bullshitting him about going back down to the pool: there was no way I was up for that just yet. But I was serious about wanting to take another look at Super-Self. Probably in daylight though, and probably not alone.

‘I keep the keys,’ Gil said.

‘I’ll give you them back first thing in the morning.’

‘I keep the keys.’

‘It would be really helpful to—’

‘Castor, give me the fucking keys!’

I shrugged and handed them over. ‘Thanks, Gil,’ I said. ‘Don’t let us keep you.’

Still bristling, giving us both a bare nod of acknowledgement, he walked away. I gave him a cheery wave. Trudie looked at me with scorn and exasperation then laughed incredulously as she saw what was sitting between my index and forefinger. It was the key to Super-Self’s front door, which I’d slipped off the ring and palmed, one-handed, as soon as it was clear Gil was going to be awkward.

‘Smooth,’ Trudie said.

‘My middle name.’

We looked at each other. ‘What was this thing you had to tell me?’ I asked.

She gave me an appraising stare. ‘Buy me a drink?’

‘At this hour? Where?’

‘I know a place.’

‘I’m skint.’

‘I’ll spot you a tenner.’

‘Then yeah,’ I allowed. ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

The place that Trudie had in mind was the Bridge that Fell, on Victoria Embankment directly behind the Savoy. It was a hot and cold bar: in other words, an establishment where the living and the dead were equally welcome. Like I said, zombies really shouldn’t eat or drink at all, because they don’t have functioning digestive systems any more and the stuff just sits in their stomachs and rots, hastening the final collapse of their bootstrapped bodies. But some go ahead and do it anyway, and others like Nicky Heath like the smell of booze even when they don’t actually drink it. Bars that take that kind of custom tend to stay open way past midnight, because their daytime trade is virtually non-existent.

We sat in the first-floor bar with a view over the river, in a room that smelled of cheap incense, embalming chemicals and organic decay. Most of the other patrons were zombies, and they were keeping themselves to themselves, nursing half-pints of beer through the watches of the night and dreaming of long-gone glories in the days when their hearts still pumped blood. I wondered as I got the drinks in how the place kept going. DMWs aren’t big spenders, after all. It’s hard for them to hold down a job, and since they can’t legally own property they mostly don’t succeed in taking any of their wealth with them when they die.

I realised the answer as a large party came in - three men and four women - talking in hushed, excited voices and taking photographs of anything that moved. Yeah, of course. The tourist dollar must subsidise a lot of places like this, the same way it did the London theatre.

That thought glanced off something else in my recent memory, something that seemed important but refused to come clear. I left it alone, knowing that chasing it wouldn’t work.

Trudie took her whisky and water out of my hand before I’d even sat down, and emptied a good half of it in a single, prolonged swig. She shuddered as the alcohol went down, shaking her head as if to clear it. ‘Cheers,’ she said belatedly, clinking glasses.

‘Cheers,’ I agreed. ‘Super-Self still in your system?’

‘Yeah. Yours too?’

‘More than somewhat.’

The tourists ambled past our table, saw that we were alive and kept on going. They didn’t bother to take any photos of us.

‘How did you first get into this business?’ Trudie asked.

‘By not being any good at anything else,’ I said. ‘How about you?’