Dead Men's s Boots

‘And if the “someone else” turns out to have been the ghost of an American serial killer, then we’re in business.’

Walking home I got a repeat of the prickling premonitions: the sense of being watched that had dogged me all the way back from Stoke Newington. But this time I was out in the open, on a busy street. I looked around. Plenty of people walking by, plenty of traffic passing on the road. The feeling was oddly directionless, and there was no way to narrow it down. Reluctantly, I gave it up. I’d have to pick a better time and a better place.

The Breathers’ van was still parked in the same place: two men sitting in it now, again not much more at this distance than blobby silhouettes. No prickle or itch or tingling spider-sense: whatever I was feeling, whatever was watching me, it had nothing to do with these tosspots. I shot them a wave as I walked past, which they stoically ignored. I was almost sorry they didn’t get out and try for a rumble: I would have welcomed the release of tension.

Back at the flat I dumped my coat over the back of a chair, poured myself a whisky and then left it to stand while I picked out some bluesy chords on my whistle.

The couple next door were no longer coupling, which was good news. But though I’d missed the climax I hadn’t missed the epilogue, which as usual was taking the form of a stand-up fight. Sex and violence, always in the same order: they seemed to have a stripped-down, back-to-basics sort of lifestyle.

I gave up on the music practice after ten minutes or so because the bellowed profanities and the crash of breakables breaking were throwing me off tempo. I put one of Ropey’s death-metal CDs on instead, not because I like Internal Bleeding – with or without the capital letters – but out of sheer self-defence.

But the noises of destruction put me in mind of John Gittings’s ghost, and my mood wobbled again. Then thinking about John brought the pocket watch to mind. I went across to my coat and fished it out to check that it was okay. It was a beautiful thing all right: you could see even through the black oxidation stains that the filigree work on the silver – a motif of fleur-de-lis – was very fine. By a natural extension, I decided to wind it and see if it still worked. That meant taking it out of the outer case, since with a Savonnette watch you can’t always get enough of a purchase on the winding stem with the watch nestled inside its two separate shells.

As I took the watch out of the case, a small piece of paper fell to the floor. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. It was the kind of very light, thin blue paper that people used to use for airmail letters before there were such things as emails. It had handwriting on it in a flowing, cursive script, and it had been folded over on itself several times.

I opened it out: three folds, four, five. When I had it fully open, I found that it was a complete page from a letter – from the middle of a letter, because there was no superscription and it started in mid-sentence. I read it with growing and slightly uneasy fascination.

could get along a bit faster, but its not a good idea to take risks. If they know C. I

Youll just get the one pass, and its got to be on INSCRIPTION night, so you can get them all together. Take backup: take lots of back-up, and warn them that as soon as there names in the frame there a target. It ends with you dead or them dead, thats the only way.

Dont make the mistake of reconasance: the wall isnt a wall, if you take my point. Not really. They can get out further than that, so they could attack you even when youre a long way out and you think theres nobody anywere near you.

If you go in through the building, you better expect therell be heavy security. That may seem like the least of your problems but dont underestimate it. Remember you can still threaten them. Physically, I mean. If you pull your foot back to kick, a man is going to cover his balls. I know that sounds crude, but if you look at it in those terms you’ll

And that was it – or almost. In the margin, opposite the phrase ‘Take back-up’, someone had scribbled two more words in red biro.

Felix Castor.

I was still staring blankly at those two words when the phone rang. Actually, it was more like I became aware that it was ringing: a sound that had been going on for some time underneath Internal Bleeding’s relentless bass beat and the equally unremitting noises of my neighbours dismantling their flat. Not my mobile: Ropey’s phone. I picked up by reflex, even though I couldn’t remember ever giving the number to anyone.

‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Mister Castor?’ A man’s voice, slightly breathless and thin: not a voice I recognised.

‘Yes.’

‘Inter-Urban Couriers. Can you come down and sign for a package?’

‘A package?’ I echoed, slightly false-footed. ‘Who from?’

A short pause. ‘Well, the address is E14, but there’s no name.