Vicious Circle

First things first. Rooting amidst the wreckage of the desk, I found a few sheets of paper and a black pen. I rested the paper against Sallis’s back and scribbled a brief note. It probably wouldn’t help, but it couldn’t hurt so what the hell. I folded the note and tucked it into the waistband of his underpants, like a fiver into a Chippendale’s jockstrap.

Then I retraced my steps to the storeroom and collected up about half a dozen of those old film canisters, shaking them first to make sure that they were full. They might be blank stock, useless now because the cameras that would take them had gone to rust and scrap decades ago; or alternatively they could be lost masterpieces from the silent era. I purposely didn’t read the labels in any case, because whatever they’d been before, the only attraction they had for me now was because the blast-proof doors over at Nicky’s gaff were still fresh in my mind: film burns like petrol burns.

Time to hit the road, and more than. This time around I wasn’t deterred by the padlock at the bottom of the stairs, because this time around I had Sallis’s gun. I missed with the first shot, blew the chain very effectively with the second, and kicked the doors open.

I was back in the car park, and it was empty. In case the indecently loud noise of the gunshots brought werewolves or security guards running to see what was what, I quickened my steps as I climbed the shallow ramp that led toward what I hoped was the exit. Halfway up there was a motorbike, leaning drunkenly against the wall in a way that suggested a broken kickstand. At the top there was a closed security grille. On the far side of the grille were light and sound and life: theatregoers and late-night revelers walked past, happily oblivious of the dark worlds that glided past theirs on sly, crazy tangents. The same night, or the next? How long had I been out after Gwillam slipped me the truth drug? The answer came pat: if I’d been unconscious for twenty-four hours I’d be a hell of a lot more seriously dehydrated than I was. It was still Thursday, and I was still in with a chance.

For a moment, I almost resented the people filtering past in the unrelenting slipstream of normality—not just for their happy or indifferent faces and their carefree conversations but because their presence right there, right then, meant I couldn’t use the gun again. I tried the grille. It wasn’t locked; it slid up with a stuck-pig squeal as I hauled on it.

Then I did a double take that in other circumstances might have been comic. I went back down to where the bike was parked, and took a closer look at it. The logo above the front headlight was the three-diamonds-making-a-triangle of the Mitsubishi company. The bike also had a pair of panniers at the back like a courier’s bike.

I experienced a momentary qualm of near panic as I fished Sallis’s keys out of the pocket of Sallis’s jacket. If this worked I had to be using up someone else’s luck, because this sure as hell didn’t feel like mine.

Trying to look casual for the benefit of anyone who might glance in from the street, I slid the film canisters into the panniers, three to each side, and climbed on board. There were running footsteps coming up the ramp now, and I heard a shout from behind me. I didn’t turn around; turning around at the sound of a shout just makes you look guilty.

The key fitted, and the engine roared into noisy, overemphatic life on the first turn. Now I did look back, and was on the whole relieved to find that the pursuit was wearing uniform—and flesh that was entirely human.

They were still fifty feet behind, giving me just about enough time to slip the helmet that was dangling from the handlebars—dark red, like the bike, and emblazoned with a winged skull motif—over my head. Safety first. Then I burned rubber, leaving the three yelling security guards to share my exhaust between them.

* * *

I wasn’t sure how to go in at the Stanger Care Home. Was I a wanted felon, now? The ram raid on a North London hospital had to have made the news. The question was whether they’d sorted through the debris yet and ascertained that I wasn’t in it—and if so, whether they’d put out any kind of a public warning alongside the inevitable APB.

If they had, walking into the Stanger like it was all business as usual might mean walking straight back into police custody. On the other hand, there was something inside that I needed, and I couldn’t see any other way of getting it.

But while I was still sitting astride the bike in the darkened car park, irresolute, providence reached out to me in the shape of Paul. He came lumbering out through the main doors, leaned against the side of the ambulance where we’d had our talk a few days before, and lit up. He blew a plume of smoke out through his nostrils, and it hung in faint lines in the still air like a runic inscription carved into the flesh of the night.