Thicker Than Water

‘So did I, at first,’ I agreed. ‘But a nurse at the Royal London put me straight on that one. He’s not a symptom, Gwillam. His death sticks out like a bishop in a brothel, saving your presence. No puncture wounds involved: no blades, no points or edges. He just jumped right off the walkway. So it’s a fair bet that this demon wasn’t what drove him to his death. He didn’t die from it: he brought it, and then died of something else.’

And I probably know what the something else was, I added inside my own head. He may square himself with God, but he’ll never square himself with me, Richie had said. No, I reckoned Matt was going to be in trouble on the God front, too: there was no getting away from sin on this scale.

‘So you think if we attempt an exorcism on William Daniels—’ Gwillam began.

‘No,’ I cut in impatiently. ‘I already tried that. That might have worked back when he was the only one affected, but it’s not going to work any more. Like you said, the thing has got its hooks into too many people now. It can just shift its ground and come back at you from a different angle.’

‘Then what?’ Gwillam asked impatiently.

So I told him what I had in mind.

I hadn’t expected the next part to be easy, but even so I’d underestimated Gwillam’s sheer, unremitting stubbornness in the face of something he didn’t trust and couldn’t control.

He was appalled at what I was planning to do, a³annt cnd he dug his heels in fast and hard. He wanted names and addresses, just for starters. He also wanted to take charge of the operation and leave me here as a hostage with his people to ensure the cooperation of the other parties I wanted to involve. And he wanted to keep his options wide open with regard to other sanctions - up to and including exorcising or otherwise destroying any non-humans who ended up playing a part in the operation.

I told him, in a certain amount of detail, exactly what positions he might use when he fucked himself.

We argued it backwards and forwards for half an hour before finally reaching an impasse. Gwillam had the entire place sewn up, with at least one of his people on every walkway, and he flat-out refused to let me take Bic off the estate even if his parents consented - unless he got to come along in force and run the show. I told him that couldn’t work, and that he was condemning the residents of the Salisbury to the death of a thousand cuts, and he said - in effect - that their suffering was part of God’s great plan.

I gave up in the end and left them to it. At least they didn’t stop me from going up to the eighth floor of Weston Block to look in on Bic and his family, which might have been interesting because he had serious muscle and I was in a black enough mood to have pushed it. But as it was I walked on across the forecourt and in through the double doors while Gwillam was still deep in murmured confab with his minions.

But the lifts were out, so I went around to the external staircase and started my trek into the sky, not looking round in case I locked eyes with Gwillam and he called me back. But while I was trudging up the stairs I heard hurried footsteps clattering behind me. I turned and waited, so that at least I’d be meeting whoever it was head-on: in this place, it was best to take nothing for granted.

It was the tall woman with the cat’s cradles wound around her hands.

‘Father Gwillam changed his mind,’ she said, simply, stopping three steps below me. I noticed, impressed, that she wasn’t out of breath after her sprint up the stairs. A childhood infatuation with Ellen Ripley stirred in the depths of my hindbrain and reminded me of the space where once it had sat enthroned in my libido.

‘About what?’ I asked.

‘About the boy. He said if you let one of us come with you, to make sure nothing goes wrong, you can do it.’

‘I already told you—’ I began. But she lifted a school-marmish finger to shut me up.

‘Double blind. Whoever goes with you doesn’t get to know the address, and you do whatever you need to do to make sure they don’t get a clear look at the route.’ She looked at me expectantly. ‘We’re meeting you halfway, Castor. It’s up to you to figure it out now. One of us has to come, but it can be on your terms. Okay?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, but it was only for form’s sake. I wasn’t going to get a better offer, and we didn’t have any other choices left. Rather than let her see how emphatically and irrevocably up a³rre fogainst the wall I felt, I turned and started walking again.

She fell in behind me, keeping a respectful three paces’ distance until we got to the eighth floor.

‘I don’t need an escort,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘No? Still get it for free, do you?’