Thicker Than Water

One of the towers was burning, flame pouring out of the windows on the top three storeys.

‘It’s not Weston,’ I said to Bic. ‘It’s too far over.’

‘And anyway, it’s not . . .’ The boy faltered, but he ran out of words. He showed me his hand instead, and I nodded. No wounds involved. The demon loved wounds: it had no interest in fire. So the fire was just a by-product of something else.

At the Salisbury there were police cars and fire engines parked three-deep on the road and a crowd of uniformed constables hid the front steps like a flock of crows that had all descended at once on some particularly tasty bit of roadkill. Cheadle swore when he saw them. Carefully and slowly, giving a copper in the road a smile and a respectful nod, he wove his way through the thicket of paddy wagons and kept on going.

‘Let us out here,’ I said.

Cheadle scowled and shook his head. ‘We’re parking around the corner,’ he muttered. ‘In Balfour Street. Use your loaf, eh? If they see what we’ve got in the back of the van, we’re none of us going anywhere besides a holding cell tonight.’

He was right, of course: the combination of Trudie in her bondage rig and Bic in his pyjamas would be enough to make even the most laissez-faire of plods reach for his handcuffs.

We took the next left and pulled in to the kerb. Then I followed Cheadle around to the back of the van and - as soon as he’d unlocked the doors - untied Trudie for the last time that night.

‘I’m sorry you had to go through this,’ I said.

‘I didn’t have to go through it,’ she said, rubbing her wrists. ‘Not if you’d taken my word in the first place.’ Our eyes met for a moment, and there was something in hers that looked like reproach. ‘What is it you’ve got against us, Castor? Our intel on you says you were raised Catholic yourself. ’

‘It’s not Catholics I’ve got a problem with,’ I said. ‘It’s paramilitaries.’

‘You can drop the para. This is a real war. And you know what’s at stake better than anyone.’

‘Nothing is at stake.’ My voice sounded harsh even to me, but then it had been a long night. ‘Not in the way you mean it. Loup-garous, ghosts, zombies . . . Most of what I deal with as an exorcist is just human souls in different flavours. The demons are different, but they’re not an army. So you’re not at war. Unless every farmer who picks up a shotgun and stomps off towards the henhouse because he’s heard squawks and flutters in the middle of the night is at war.’

Trudie looked past me, out through the open doors of the van towards the burning tower. The taste of smoke was in the air and it hurt a little to breathe. She didn’t need to speak to make her point. Somehow, I felt like I did."

"‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you the demons. Like I said, they’re different. But that’s the point, isn’t it? You people treat the dead - all the dead - as the enemy. I may be an exorcist but at least I’ve got a bit more discrimination than a hand grenade lobbed into a crowded room.’

Trudie seemed disposed to carry on the argument, and maybe ramp it up a few notches, but Cheadle was tapping his feet and the night was on fire.

‘Skip it,’ I suggested. ‘We can have the big political debate some time when London isn’t burning.’

‘Castor—’

But I was already stepping down out of the van. ‘Come on,’ I said to Bic, ‘let’s get you home. Mister Cheadle, it’s been a pleasure to watch you work.’

‘Thanks.’ Cheadle gave me a nod that conveyed the thinnest possible sliver of civility as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘You know where to find me if you need me. Prices as per scale. Unsociable hours a bloody speciality.’

Trudie barely had time to jump clear: Cheadle drove away with a squeal of tyres, braking sharply after ten yards so that momentum would slam the tailgate closed for him. Then he put the van into gear again and disappeared into the night at a speed you seldom see clocked in the centre of London.

I led Bic around to the main road and the steps up to the estate’s front entrance. Trudie fell in beside us, but she didn’t try to open up the conversation again.

Before we got to the steps, a constable stopped us with an upraised hand. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s Ãsai=""1a fire in progress and we’ve had to close the street at this point.’

‘He lives in there,’ I said, putting my hand on Bic’s shoulder.

The cop looked away, squinting. ‘There’s some community support people,’ he said, ‘with yellow tabards. They’ve got a van set up. You find them, they can look after him.’

‘I need to get inside,’ I said.

He gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘We’ve got the bloody Third World War going on in here,’ he said. ‘Just move along, okay?’

But even while he was saying it, I caught sight of a familiar figure as she tacked between the parked police cars behind him.