The Bride Wore Black Leather

ONE One Last Case

I went walking up and down the packed streets of the Nightside, making my way through all the desperate conversations and dodgy deals, through all the damned and the disgraced, and all the lost souls searching for something they could buy, then call love; and everywhere I went, people nodded quickly and politely to me, out of respect. I still wasn’t used to that. John Taylor has always been a name to conjure with in these dark streets, a name to inspire fear and hope and disapproval, but the kind of reputation I’d built, through years of taking on the kinds of cases no-one else would touch, was more designed to keep people at arm’s length. My rep has always been about striking terror into the hearts of the ungodly and keeping everyone else at a secure distance, for their own safety. I wasn’t used to people actually sticking around long enough to smile and nod respectfully. I kept wanting to glance over my shoulder, to see who they were really looking at.

I strode purposefully down the crowded streets, and people moved quickly to get the hell out of my way. At least I could still rely on that. The streets . . . looked as they always did. Hot neon signs to every side, gaudy as Hell’s candy, and just as bad for you; multi-coloured come-ons for every sucker who thought the Nightside was only another playground for those with more money than sense. Oh, you could find all the usual tourist traps here; but our traps have teeth and an endless appetite for fools. I strode past questionable enterprises and houses full of sin, all of it shop-soiled and marked down but still bright and shiny as any tinsel. Past dark alleyways where darker figures made the kinds of deals that cannot be made in the light. Past women wailing for their demon lovers, and men crying their hearts out over the ones who got away; past golden boys and golden girls with heavily mascaraed eyes and cold, cold smiles on their lips. Love for sale; love, or something like it.

The street traders were out in force, lined up along the curb, selling their cheap and cheerful wares from flimsy stalls or open suitcases propped up on stools. I slowed down enough for a glance here and there, despite my better instincts. Most of it was the usual tourist trash. Brightly hand-painted Toby jugs with knowing smiles, which would shout a warning if someone poisoned the drinks they were holding. Joan the Wad figures, to guarantee good weather. Bottles of Lourdes Cola, the Real Deal! All the latest sex films, from celebrities on their way up. Or down. On DVD, Blu-Ray, 3D, and 4D. Some so hot their jewel-case covers were sweating. And any number of steaming stalls offering food so fast it could give you indigestion while you were still eating it.

Pigs in blankets! Toad in the hole! Jugged bears! Eel pretzels with just a squeeze of lemming! Something wriggling on a stick!

All the usual cries. I once saw a pie jump off its stall and walk away on its own. I’ll never eat from a food stall again.

The street traders dealt in all the lesser flotsam and jetsam that turns up in the Nightside, through Timeslips and dimensional doors, or from tourists forced to empty their pockets and sell everything they own, in return for a ticket home. High-tech artefacts and baffling personal items, treasures and curiosities, from out of the Past or any number of possible futures. From all the worlds that ever were, and some that might never be. Rarely with anything remotely like an instruction manual, or any kind of provenance, or guarantee. Or a refund. Buyer beware, and please don’t open that until you’re a safe distance away.

The night was hot and sultry, the air more than normally close. Out of open doorways of a dozen different ethnic restaurants drifted savoury smells strong enough to bring tears to your eyes and a spark to your step. All kinds of music from the kinds of clubs that never close; from hot saxophone breaks to heavy bass lines that shuddered in your bones. Trouble on the air, danger in the night, sex and violence tugging at everyone’s elbows. Business as usual, in the Nightside.

The traffic roared up and down the road, never slowing, never stopping. There are no traffic lights in the Nightside; vehicles that defy the laws of physics every day have no time at all for the rules of the road. Anything and everything travels through the Nightside, from places best not considered to destinations beyond our comprehension. From horse-drawn carriages to deep-freeze super-tankers, to black taxi-cabs that dart back and forth, duelling with swivel-mounted machine-guns over disputed territories . . . Super-streamlined cars from alternate futures, ambulances that run on distilled suffering, and articulated transports carrying unknown loads on unknowable journeys. While overhead, something the size of a dozen planes sweeps slowly by, its grotesque shape blocking out the stars in the sky, with not even a murmur of flapping wings.

So if you want to cross from one side of the road to the other, you either have to do something quite appalling to a chicken . . . or do what everyone else does, and use the underpass. Walk down a flight of steps, travel through the simple concrete tunnel that passes beneath all the havoc and horrors of the traffic above. You’re a hell of a lot safer in the underpass than you ever are up on the street because all the underpass tunnels are monitored and protected by the Authorities, in the general interest. Can’t have the tourists coming to any harm before our many and voracious businesses have squeezed every last penny out of them.

I strolled through the brightly lit corridor, and unlike on the street above, everyone was calm and polite and not in any way violent, and gave everyone else lots of room. Because each and every underpass is patrolled by unseen trained poltergeists. Courtesy of the Authorities. You’ll never see them coming, but if you make any kind of trouble, they’ll turn you inside out in a moment. And leave you that way. It’s surprising how long you can live in such a condition though that’s not necessarily a good thing. And that’s the standard punishment. Really piss off a poltergeist, and it will demonstrate that not only has it got a really nasty sense of humour, but also absolutely no restraints when it comes to experimenting with the human form in appalling ways.

But they can’t be bothered to do anything about the graffiti artists. Apparently they consider them beneath their dignity. So the walls are covered with overlapping scrawls of names and boasts and urgent messages from the subconscious of the Nightside. Meet the new Walker, same as the old Walker. Razor Eddie does it with surgical precision. Supersexuals of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your inhibitions. Where have all the elves gone and who do we go to to say thanks? And, a bit intriguingly, Let the sunshine in.

And, of course, the inevitable buskers. I think the poltergeists let them hang around to brighten up their endless job. But only as long as the musicians maintain a professional standard. The untalented and overambitious can often be seen hobbling out of the underpass with their instruments stuffed where the moon doesn’t shine. I dropped the odd coin in every other cap or outstretched hand I passed, on the grounds that the wheel turns for all of us, and karma can be a real bitch. The only difference between any of us and the homeless is one really bad day.

The usual buskers lined the way, giving it their all, such as it was. A trio of Greek Muses were singing a ska version of the “Ballad of Eskimo Nell,” in close-part harmonies. Complete with gestures. A ventriloquist with a vampire dummy had the dummy singing “Love You till the Sun Comes Up Again,” while drinking a pint of blood. An old-fashioned ghost with its head stuck underneath its arm was singing “I Got You, Babe,” in a duet with itself. And a punk barber-shop quartet were making a real mess of that old punk favourite, “She Fucked Me with a Chain-saw and It felt Like a Kiss.” A little style can be a dangerous thing.

I came up out of the Underground on the other side of the street and headed out of the naked jungle and into the expensively suited jungle of the business section. People started giving me even more room than before, often actually stepping aside to let me pass. Of course, they weren’t stepping aside for John Taylor, PI, but for the new Walker, representative of the Authorities. Those powerful but shadowy grey eminences who ran the Nightside, inasmuch as anyone did, or could. Some people faded back into dark doorways, or disappeared down even darker alleyways, and a few actually turned around abruptly and headed back the way they’d come. Part of me thought I could get used to this.

I stopped for a moment, to consider my reflection in a shop-window to see if my new authority had changed me in any way. But the same shabby face looked back at me, a little more battered and hard-used as I headed towards the end of my thirties. The same long white trench coat, traditional armour for a tarnished knight-errant. Tall, dark, and handsome enough from a distance, that’s me, with cold eyes and a colder smile. And perhaps only I could see the beaten-in tiredness, from carrying so many burdens. I made a face, to keep me from getting above myself, and continued on my way.

It does help that I have a special gift for finding things, and people. Whether they want to be found or not.

There was a time when the burdened and the disenfranchised, the desperate and the hag-ridden, would have approached me in the street and hailed me as a King in waiting. The rightful ruler of the Nightside. But I declined that dubious honour; and for my pains ended up as the new Walker, both more and less than a King. I had become the Man; the very thing I spent most of my life fighting against. I suppose we all grow up to become our parents, in the end.

I headed deeper into the business sector, thinking of many things. I was going to my office, a thing I rarely do, if only because it intimidates the hell out of me. I could have used the Portable Timeslip contained inside my gold pocket-watch; one last gift from the previous Walker, before I killed him. It would have teleported me right to my office door, but . . . I felt the need to walk, to tread the familiar streets, and feel the Nightside turn slowly beneath me.

My office was located in a pretty up-market, almost respectable area, where no-one would even think of fleecing the tourists. They dealt in high finance and stole millions from the defenceless every day, without a second thought. The buildings were all much of a muchness, official soulless affairs with little style and no character. You could always tell when you’d reached the business area because the tourists and the punters and the seekers after forbidden knowledge seemed to disappear, replaced by smart-suited functionaries with enchanted briefcases, snapping orders into their mobile phones, to let everyone else know how important they were. Hurrying to their next meetings, to screw someone over before they got screwed. And then there were the rent-a-cops, professional security men and bully-boys, in their private and very gaudy uniforms, carrying all kinds of weapons. They were there to enforce . . . well, if not the law, at least the vested interests of their employers. A business man might steal millions with a straight face but wouldn’t stand for having his pocket picked on the way to work or his office burgled while he was out.

All the rent-a-cops knew who I was, but none of them so much as stepped forward to challenge me. They hadn’t had the guts to face me down while I was just a private investigator, and now that I was Walker, all it took was the occasional cold glance to put them in their place. Some of them actually saluted me as I passed, though none of them could bring themselves to smile. I had history with most of the companies that supplied rent-a-cops to the suits, and it was the kind of history where the cops tended to shoot first and ask questions afterwards, through a medium. They hated me, and I despised them. They were only standing their ground now because Suzie wasn’t with me. If Shotgun Suzie had been striding along at my side, they’d have run away and hidden until we were gone. Though to be fair, most people do that when they see Suzie heading their way. If they’ve got any sense.

Up above, the gargoyles leaned a little further out from their perches on top of the older buildings, to get a better look at me. I made a point of sticking to the far side of the pavement. Gargoyles have very basic humorous urges and a complete lack of restraint when it comes to making use of their bodily wastes. Statues shuffled a little further back into their niches as I passed, their stone eye-balls moving slowly to follow me, with the faintest of grinding sounds. Doors quietly closed and locked themselves, and windows turned suddenly opaque. Good to be the Walker . . . And then I had to stop suddenly, as the B9 Presence appeared out of nowhere, right in front of me. The B9 is a shimmering white shape of roughly human proportions and obscure scientific origin. Someone did try to explain it to me once, but I fell asleep the moment they used the word quantum, in self-defence. Suffice it to say that the B9 Presence is a thing of twisted energies and appalling power, driven by a conscience not easily understood by mortal men. It roams the Nightside freely, because no-one’s worked out how to stop it, appearing to this one and to that one, dispensing words of wisdom and warning, and irritating the hell out of everyone. It moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform, such as they are, and gets on everyone’s tits big-time. Somehow he or she or it had become unstuck in time, and apparently now saw Past, Present, and Future as simply different directions to look in, and now it seemed to feel a duty to apprise certain people of upcoming significant events. In the most obscure, meaningless, and upsetting ways possible. People only put up with the B9 Presence because, well . . . any edge is better than none. The shimmering, almost human shape bobbed and sparkled before me, its voice a rasping whisper.

“What is the one experience left, for the man who has everything? Why, losing it all, of course. Beware the Ides of the March Hare. The Past is never over; it lies in wait, to ambush us. And even the longest night must someday give way to the dawn . . .”

It was gone before I could come up with an appropriate response, so I shrugged, and continued on.

My office was located on the third floor of a tall, ultramodern high-tech building: all gleaming steel and one-way mirrored windows, turning a cold blank face to the rest of the world. The number of floors in the building tended to vary, depending on how successful the various businesses inside were, on any given occasion, and how much sub-letting was going on. Certainly my building was every bit as tall as those surrounding it. Just looking up at the top of the thing gave me a kind of reverse vertigo, as though my feet might suddenly lose their grip on the pavement, leaving me to fly up into the night sky, flailing helplessly. I pulled my gaze away with an effort, shook my head firmly a few times, and strode up to the closed front door.

The only entrance to the building was a large and very solid-looking door of old oak, polished and waxed to within an inch of its life and looking distinctly out of place in such a modern setting. But the best security measures are always based in magic as much as science, and for the best results, it’s always best to go old school. There was no bell, no knocker, not even a door-handle, so I hammered on the gleaming wooden surface hard enough to hurt my hand, then stepped smartly back. The sound of my knocking was somehow dull and soft around the edges, as though the wood was swallowing up the sound. A face appeared before me, rising out of the wood, like a swimmer emerging from the depths to break the surface of the water. The face formed itself out of the door, taking its shape and features from the old wood—not a human face, as such, but full of human emotions, the better to deal with human visitors. It yawned slowly and a bit sullenly, as though awakened from deep slumber, then the face fixed me with its blank eyes, and scowled harshly as it recognised me.

“Oh bloody hell, it’s you again. No need to announce yourself, John Taylor. Everyone here knows you, whether they want to or not. What do you want? I was having a really nice dream about wood nymphs, and it wasn’t only my sap that was rising.”

“Open up,” I said ruthlessly. “I’ve got a lot to do today, and arguing with snotty simulacra is not on my list.”

“You can’t come in unless you know the password,” said the door, cunningly. “What’s today’s password?”

“There is no password! There’s never been a password, and you know it! Now tell Cathy I’m here, or I’ll rub your surface down with a wire brush!”

The face in the door pouted. “Go on. Abuse me! It’s what I’m here for. No-one ever wants to chat, or pass the time. I miss being a tree. I’d throw my nuts at you if I only knew where they were. I’m supposed to be a security measure, you know. Hah! Hah, I say! Half the people who come here try to stuff letters in my mouth.”

“Get a move on,” I said, unfeelingly. “I’ve got a lot to get through before my wedding tomorrow.”

“Ooh! Ooh! A wedding!” said the face excitedly, rising and falling in the wood. “I love weddings! Can I come? Please say I can come! I’ll be very quiet and not get in the way. You could lean me against a wall at the back of the church. I promise I’ll be very good and not bother anyone.”

“We’ll see,” I said, wondering how I got into these kinds of conversations. “Now tell Cathy I’m here and want in.”

“Oh Cathy!” said the face. “The big boss is here again! Are you ready to receive him, or do you need time to get all those naked people out of the office first?”

The reply must have been of an affirmative nature because the face disappeared back into the solid wood, and the door swung open before me. I strode quickly through, before it could change what passed for its mind. The building’s lobby stretched away before me: expensively comfortable, brightly lit, but not overpoweringly so, and so deeply carpeted it felt like walking on water. Which was probably the effect they were hoping for. The usual Pre-Raphaelite prints on the walls. That John Waterhouse does get about. Doesn’t anyone like Turner any more? The tastefully uniformed security man sitting behind his high-security reception desk took one look at me, blanched, and looked very much as though he wanted to sink down underneath his desk and not be noticed. But he gathered all his courage and made himself sit upright and nod to me respectfully. I ignored him, heading for the elevators at the far end of the lobby. There was a time I would have made him wet himself, on general principles, for the snob and bully that he usually was and because his main function was usually to keep people like me out . . . but I must have been mellowing. Besides, I didn’t have the time.

One of the elevators opened its doors for me as I approached. I stepped inside and told it to take me to the third floor. I preferred when elevators had human operators. You could bribe them to keep quiet. They also ensured that the elevator wouldn’t try and eat you. Predators come in all shapes and sizes in the Nightside. But the doors closed easily, and the elevator moved smoothly upwards. It then immediately got on my bad side by playing Muzak versions of 1970s prog rock: ELO, ELP, PFM. There really ought to be an off switch for elevator Muzak. And then, as if this wasn’t annoying enough, the elevator started trying to sell me things, in a very posh voice.

“Have you ever considered the advantages offered by really up-to-date life-insurance?”

“I’ve never really seen the point in someone else having a vested interest in my being dead,” I said. “Don’t encourage people, that’s what I say.”

“I could get you a really good premium . . .”

“I’m John Taylor.”

There was a pause. “Ah, yes. I see. Right; forget it. Would you like to change your provider for your mobile-phone service? And no, I don’t know where the satellites are, so don’t ask. Oh do say yes; I get a really nice bonus for every person I get to sign up.”

“What use is a bonus to an elevator?” I said. “What use do you have for money?”

“I’m saving up to have my conscious downloaded into something a little more upwardly mobile. Socially speaking . . . Preferably something with legs and hands. You can do a lot if you’ve got legs and hands. Could I perhaps interest you in taking out a new credit card, from those wonderfully friendly people, EnGulf & DeVour?”

“Do you have an off switch?”

“Do you?”

“Look,” I said, “it’s up to you . . . Either you stop trying to sell me things, or I’ll push all your buttons before I get out and send you up and down the building for ages.”

“Beast!” muttered the elevator. “It’s not my fault. Never wanted to be an elevator anyway.”

“If you are about to tell me that you really wanted to be a lumberjack, you and I are about to have a serious falling out.”

Perhaps fortunately, just then the elevator stopped at the third floor and opened its doors. I stepped out, and the doors slammed shut behind me so quickly they nearly trapped the tail of my trench coat.

“Have a good day!” it shouted after me, defiantly.

Chance would be a fine thing, I thought wistfully, and strode down the long corridor before me. My office was exactly where I remembered it. The door was a huge slab of solid silver, deeply scored with protective signs and sigils, and an extremely rude curse in Enochian. Once again, there was no bell or knocker or voicebox, so I announced myself loudly. The door swung slowly open, smoothly and silently, despite its obvious great weight, and I walked in like I owned the place. Which, for once, I actually did.

My secretary Cathy rose up out of her chair like a jack-in-the-box, vaulted over the huge mahogany desk, and raced across the office to throw herself at me. I braced myself for the impact and suffered myself to be greeted with great enthusiasm. Cathy was a tall, blonde, and very healthy young woman, a long way from the ratty-haired teenager I’d first encountered all those years ago. I hugged her back even though I’m not normally a touchy-feely type, and we stood close together for a long moment. She finally let go of me, stepped back, and grinned happily.

Cathy; big eyes, bigger smile, and a pretty face so heavily made-up it was practically a mask, under a heavy bob of expensively styled hair. She was wearing a long white dress of the kind made famous by Marilyn Monroe, and filled it out nicely. She also wore very high stilettos, on the grounds they made for handy weapons in close combat during bar fights. Cathy was bright and crafty and very smart, and ran my office and my business far more efficiently than I ever could. Bangles clattered noisily around her wrists with every movement, and she wore a long set of beads with artless charm. Heavy diamond pendants hung from her ears. She did try to tell me about her other more intimate piercings once, but I declined with all the politeness at my command. Cathy was my secretary, my side-kick, and my good friend; but I have never let it go any further than that. I do have some principles. Cathy’s been my secretary ever since she first came to the Nightside as a teenage runaway, and I rescued her from a house that tried to eat her.

I took a look around my office. It had been a while since I’d seen the place. It boasted all the very latest conveniences and luxuries, including several things I was pretty sure were heavily frowned on even in the Nightside. I carefully averted my eyes from them and studied the brightly coloured walls, the deep plush carpeting of a plum-wine colour, spread across a room big enough to swing an elephant in, provided you had a good wind-up.

Oversized cuddly toys with disturbingly large eyes and unnerving smiles peered at me from every gap in the jumble of odd items and even odder office equipment, like animals watching from a strangely civilised jungle. Polka-dot book-shelves took up all of one wall, packed with reference books. A large poster showed off the generous charms of a Finnish all-girl rock group, INDICA. Various pieces of discarded high tech lay piled up in one corner, presumably replaced by more recent versions. Nothing gets made redundant faster in the Nightside than the Very Latest Thing in high tech.

I did notice a few changes from the last time I’d had reason to visit my office, starting with a tall potted plant that shifted and swayed furtively in one corner, muttering to itself in a breathy voice. A filing cabinet that showed clear signs of the bigger on the inside than the outside spell, without which most buildings in the Nightside couldn’t cope. And the massively overstuffed, leather-bound chair behind the desk, from which Cathy had launched herself; which on closer inspection proved to have its own built-in drinks cabinet, Game Boy, and massage function. I’ve lived in places less comfortable than that chair. Cathy caught my gaze and shrugged charmingly.

“I’m the one who has to work here. You haven’t dropped by in . . . ages! I was beginning to think you’d forgotten where this was, again, and I’d have to send you another map. And a compass. Why are you here, boss?”

I persuaded her to sit back down behind the desk again while I sank into the surprisingly comfortable visitor’s chair. I looked at her thoughtfully.

“Oh bloody hell,” she said immediately. “It always means trouble when you look at me like that. What’s gone wrong now?”

“Now that I’m to be the new Walker for the Nightside,” I said carefully, “I can’t be a private investigator any more.”

“Ah,” said Cathy, nodding wisely. “Conflict of interest.”

“More like I won’t have the time,” I said. “There’s a lot to do when you’re Walker.”

“John Taylor, the last honest man in the Nightside, is now the Man,” said Cathy. “Can’t say I saw that one coming.”

“Same here,” I said. “Or I’d have run extremely fast in the opposite direction. But, better me than someone else who couldn’t be trusted or depended on in a crisis; so I have to do it. If I’d have known my conscience was going to cause me so much trouble, I’d have had it surgically removed long ago. But my time as a PI is definitely over, so I won’t need this office any more. You’re going to have to close it down, Cathy.”

“Oh, is that all? I’ve known that was on the cards ever since I heard you were going to be the next Walker! Don’t worry, boss; I’ve got it all under control.” She stopped and looked at me thoughtfully. “I suppose you’ll have a new office, as Walker?”

“The position does come with a lot of support,” I said carefully. “Most of which I can’t talk about.”

“Not even to me?”

“What you don’t know, someone else can’t make you tell them,” I said. “It’s that sort of job.”

“I suppose it must be a lonely sort of job, being Walker,” said Cathy. “You can’t trust anyone.”

I made myself smile easily. “Situation entirely normal, for the Nightside.”

Cathy fixed me with an almost accusing look. “Is Suzie really pregnant?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How the hell did that happen?”

“Well, if you don’t know by now, Cathy . . .”

“But I thought . . . she couldn’t bear to be touched, by anyone!”

“That used to be true,” I said. “But miracles do happen, sometimes, in the Nightside.”

“Damn, boss,” said Cathy. “You really can do anything.”

“No,” I said. “She did it all herself. She’s always been a lot stronger than most people realise. And I . . . have always been so very proud of her.”

“But . . . do you really feel the need to get married, boss? In this day and age? You don’t have to get married just because she’s up the stick.”

“It seems like the right thing to do,” I said. “And doing the right thing seems more important now than ever. Given who and what I’ve become. But I’m not marrying her just because . . . That gave me the impetus to do what I always wanted to do. I love her. She loves me. Nothing else matters.”

“You soft and soppy sentimental old thing, you,” said Cathy.

“How do you feel about our getting married?” I said.

“Oh, I love weddings!” Cathy said cheerfully. “I cry buckets.”

“Alex usually cries, too,” I said. “In memory of his own.”

Cathy looked at me. “You knew his ex-wife. What was she like?”

“She lacked patience. And a sense of humour. And she slept with everything that breathed and a few that didn’t.”

“Did she every try it on with you?” said Cathy.

“Fortunately, I’d left the Nightside by then,” I said.

“After Suzie shot you in the back.”

“She was only trying to get my attention.”

“I’m going to be doing a lot of baby-sitting, aren’t I?” said Cathy. “Auntie Cathy! I love it! And Uncle Alex! Oh, he’s going to absolutely hate that!”

I looked around the office. “What are you going to do with all this . . . stuff?”

“I’ve already made arrangements, boss. The really good stuff goes with me, and what I can’t sell I’ll chuck in the nearest Timeslip, so it can be someone else’s problem.”

“Okay,” I said. “Down to business. Cathy, I want you to find me one last case, as a private investigator. Nothing too big or too complicated because I want it all over and done with before I get married tomorrow. But something really good, to go out on.”

And then I stopped, as a thought occurred to me. I looked around the office. “How much am I paying for all this?”

“You never wanted to know before,” said Cathy, which I couldn’t help noticing wasn’t really an answer.

“I wasn’t getting married before,” I said. “Everyone’s been telling me that can be very expensive.”

“Relax, boss. Let’s say that thanks to the expert way I have been managing your finances and investments all these years, you can afford it.”

“I’m solvent?” I said. “When did that happen?”

“You never did have a head for figures,” said Cathy, shaking her head sadly.

“Am I rich?”

“Well, by the Nightside’s standards, you are comfortably well off.”

“Damn,” I said. “I really must run out and buy something expensive, on principle. It’s been years since I indulged myself.”

“Not what I heard . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing, boss!”

Cathy fired up the various computers and monitor screens built into the surface of her desk and made a point of studying them carefully. She gestured meaningfully at the piled-up paper in the trays, marked In, Out, Urgent, and Pay Now. I grabbed a few handfuls and sorted through them while Cathy called up all the most recent e-mails. People still write a lot of letters in the Nightside, sent by personal messenger, because paper can’t be hacked. My office has also been known to receive communications from any number of alternate futures. Usually marked Not To Be Opened Till . . . I sorted those out and placed them carefully to one side. Never trust messages from the Future; they always have their own agenda.

“That’s nothing,” said Cathy, noting my interest. “Sometimes things appear here in the office, arriving out of nowhere by supernatural methods. I only ever open those wearing my special protective mittens. And there’s always the ravens, of course.”

I looked at the handful of ravens, gathered together on a wooden perch at the far end of the office, patiently waiting their turn to deliver their magically imposed messages.

“I don’t know how they get in, boss,” said Cathy. “Especially considering this office doesn’t have a window. I never ask them what their messages are because then they’d disappear back to whoever sent them. And I’m not doing anything for anyone who’d treat living creatures that cruelly. So I let them hang around here until their messages are safely out-of-date, then I find them good homes.”

“You soft and soppy sentimental thing, you,” I said.

“And the ones I can’t find homes for I make into pies.”

I said nothing. Often, I find that’s the safest course. I concentrated on sorting through my papers while Cathy worked her way through the e-mails.

“I have programs in the computer to weed out the time-wasters along with the spam,” Cathy said finally. “But sometimes messages by-pass the system completely and drop onto my desk out of nowhere, punching their way right through the office’s protections and defences. I always treat those messages very respectfully because anyone with that kind of power wouldn’t be bothering us unless it was something really urgent.”

“Hold everything,” I said. “I just noticed that you’re using a whole new computer system. Whatever happened to that silver sphere thing, holding rogue AIs from the Future?”

“Oh them . . . They went home again, a few months back,” said Cathy. “They were basically data junkies. At first they were as happy as pigs in shit because they thought they’d never run out of fresh new data to investigate and correlate, but eventually even they had enough. They announced one day that the Nightside was too weird, even for them, and it made their heads hurt. And since they didn’t have heads, they were going home. And off they went. To wherever or whenever they came from. The computers built into my desk now are state-of-the-art thinking things that fell off the back of a Timeslip. And no, you really don’t want to know how much I paid for them. Before they were fitted into my desk, they looked like Robby the Robot’s head, if its designer had been having a very bad day while out of his head on really dodgy blotter acid. Sometimes it thinks so fast it gives me the answer before I’ve even worked out the question. It’s called Oliver. Don’t upset it.”

I decided I needed a break. I got up out of my chair and marched over to the futuristic coffee-pot standing on its special stand. A gleaming metal Moebius monstrosity that somehow never needed refilling and produced steaming-hot black coffee on demand. As long as you were very polite while demanding it. Far too many things in the Nightside have minds of their own. They’ll be forming unions next . . . As I waited for my mug to fill, I couldn’t help noticing a line of empty champagne bottles stacked up on the floor behind Cathy’s chair. Good vintages, too. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. The mug finally filled, steaming thickly. I took a good sip, and then spat it half-way across the office. I swear the coffee machine sniggered. I glared at Cathy.

“What the hell has happened to the coffee? It tastes like battery acid that someone’s pissed in!”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Cathy innocently. “I haven’t touched that stuff since the machine had its nervous breakdown. Personally, I think it’s a cry for help. It’s only for clients and visitors, these days. I drink vintage bubbly, and the occasional bottle of Stoli. Here . . .”

She fumbled beneath her desk as I put the coffee mug carefully to one side and settled myself in the visitor’s chair again. Cathy emerged again, offering a pale blue bottle.

“If you want, you can clear your mouth out with this. Viennese Creme Violette. A desperate and downright threatening thick liquor whose taste could punch through steel plate. This is industrial-strength palate cleanser. An old client of yours sends us a new case every Easter, to say thank you.”

“What for?” I said, looking closely at the bottle, then shaking my head firmly.

Cathy grinned as she made the bottle disappear again. “There’s never any name. But . . . free booze is free booze! If there’s any left over at the end of each year, I go out and hand it over to the homeless. They’re always very grateful. I think they use it to thin out paint-stripper before they drink it. Or to start a fire when it’s cold.”

“I have also just noticed,” I said, “that your state-of-the-art sound system has been replaced by what appears to be an old-fashioned wind-up gramophone, complete with metal horn.”

“Oh that!” said Cathy, wriggling excitedly in her chair. “It’s the latest thing! You can put on any record you like, adjust the dimensional tracking system, and it will play any variation of the record from any number of alternate timetracks! It’s super cool!”

“Sometimes you make me feel very old,” I said. “What’s wrong with CDs?”

“Vinyl rocks!” said Cathy.

I returned determinedly to my stack of papers, trying to find something that appealed to me . . . and then looked up again, to consider Cathy thoughtfully.

“It’s that look again,” she said resignedly. “What is it this time, boss?”

“I did wonder,” I said carefully, “whether you might want to take on the office, and the business, after I’m gone. Be a private investigator in your own right.”

“Oh hell no,” Cathy said immediately. “Not my thing. I only stayed on here because it seemed to me you needed a secretary and a helper.”

I had to smile. “And I let you stay on here because I thought you needed something to do, and keep you occupied, while you found your feet in the Nightside.”

We both laughed quietly together.

“I have enjoyed being your secretary,” said Cathy. “Going out drinking and dancing in all the best clubs and bars, to keep up with the latest gossip and useful information. And getting paid for it. Best job ever! I might keep that part going . . .”

“Are you still in contact with your mother?” I asked.

“We have regular little chats, on the phone,” said Cathy. “We get on much better, now there’s a distance between us.”

“Any chance of your going back, to visit her?”

“Best not,” said Cathy, very firmly. She flashed me a bright smile. “So it’s definite, then. No more John Taylor, PI. No more faithful girl secretary. The end of an era.”

“What are you going to do once this place is shut down?” I said.

“Oh, that’s already been decided, boss. I’m going to help Alex run Strangefellows. I love organising things. And people.”

“Will you be sad, to see the back of this place, after so long?”

“Nostalgia is for old folks, boss. I always look forward, never back.”

I sat up a little straighter in my chair, so I wouldn’t look like old folks, and concentrated on the papers before me while she ran through the e-mails. And soon enough, we both started coming up with interesting cases. Luckily, none that involved looking for that notorious black bird, the Maltese Falcon. Which is a very real object, in case you were wondering. Not that I’d touch it with an enchanted barge-pole.

“I’ve got an intriguing little e-mail here, from last week,” said Cathy. “Katherine Karnstein wants you to find her lost innocence.”

I sniffed loudly. “I don’t think so. I know the lady in question, and she didn’t lose her innocence; she threw it away with both hands, first chance she got.”

“All right; how about this one? A Mr. William Everett wants you to find lost Atlantis.”

“It isn’t lost,” I said. “It’s hidden. There’s a difference. Move on.”

“The SAS are offering a seriously large amount, for you to find the Holy Grail for them.”

“The Salvation Army Sisterhood should have known better than to ask,” I said. “They’re probably trying to get me in trouble again. They’ve never approved of me. I had enough problems tracking down the Unholy Grail. What else have you got?”

“A Reverend Lionel wants you to find the last of the Merovingian line.”

“Forget it,” I said. “That line’s been broken so many times down the centuries that properly speaking it isn’t a line, any more. Far too many pretenders to the throne, so to speak.”

“All right then, Mr. Fussy Pants, what have you got?”

I looked dubiously at the paper before me. “Someone who prefers to remain anonymous wants me to find out why the Moon in the Nightside sky is so much bigger than it should be. Which is actually a fair question. And I am tempted; I always wanted to know the answer to that one. I think it implies that the Nightside isn’t actually when we think it is . . . But no. This would be a long-term case, with lots of footwork and asking questions, and I don’t have the time.”

“Hmmm. Odd little e-mail here, boss. Says, Let the sun shine in.”

I looked up at that. I’d seen that same sentiment graffitied on a wall in the underpass. It felt like it meant . . . something. I shrugged mentally. No doubt I’d find out, eventually. And then I sat up sharply as I discovered something genuinely interesting. A letter from someone signing himself, An Anonymous Gentleman, on good-quality paper, in that old-fashioned copperplate hand writing that no-one teaches any more. I put the other papers aside. I held the sheet of paper up to the light and made out a watermark from the Londinium Club. That revered and very private club for the real movers and shakers of the Nightside. I tossed it across the desk to Cathy.

“By any chance, is this one of those missives that appeared on your desk out of nowhere?”

“Got it in one, boss. It was here when I turned up this morning. It does look like the real thing, doesn’t it?”

She tossed it back to me, and I read the communication out loud. It seemed the Anonymous Gentleman wanted me to find the secret of immortality. And not just for him, but for everyone. Apparently, a serum existed that could make anyone who took it live forever. He created it, and brought it to the Nightside, looking for someone to mass-produce and distribute it; and, of course, someone stole it. The main suspects were the existing immortal beings of the Nightside, who didn’t want any more competition. The Gentleman claimed that the thief would be presenting the serum to the annual meeting of the Nightside Immortals, at the Ball of Forever. Where they would ceremoniously destroy it. The Gentleman wanted me to attend the Ball, find the thief, and recover the serum, for the good of all.

“It does sound like a good case to go out on,” I said.

“Can you use your gift to find the Ball of Forever?” said Cathy.

I looked at her. “I don’t need to, child,” I said patiently. “I know where the Ball of Forever is held. Everyone does. They hold it in the same place every year. It gets major coverage in the society pages of the Night Times.”

“Will you be taking Suzie with you?” Cathy said artlessly.

“Not this time,” I said. “She’s far too busy arranging everything for tomorrow’s ceremony, and I’m not going to be the one to interrupt her. In fact, one of the reasons I came here looking for one last case was to get out of her way.”

“Whipped,” said Cathy. “Utterly whipped. I’m going to be her maid of honour, you know! Even though technically speaking, I’m not qualified. And haven’t been for a long time . . .”

“Too much information,” I said firmly. I looked at Cathy for a moment. “Would you like to join me, on this case? Be my companion, one last time?”

“No,” said Cathy. “It’s time to cut the cord and cut it clean. You run off and have fun, and I’ll make all the necessary arrangements to shut this place down.” She looked at the filing cabinets. “What do you want me to do with all the old case records? There are a lot of secrets in there that a lot of people would probably rather prefer remained secret.”

“Burn it all, then put the ashes through the shredder,” I said. “And then scatter the ashes in the cellars under Strangefellows. That should do it.”

Cathy looked me square in the eye. “Any idea of who this Anonymous Gentleman might be?”

“I’ve got a few ideas,” I said. “But it doesn’t really matter. The case is the thing.”

“Sure. Right. Do you really believe there’s a serum that can make us all immortal?”

“Well, this is the Nightside . . . but no, I doubt it. What matters is whether other people believe it, and what they might be prepared to do, to get their hands on it.”

“Including kill each other?”

“Of course. This is the Nightside . . .”

Cathy frowned thoughtfully. “How do you kill an immortal?”

I grinned. “Very thoroughly.”

“Get out of here,” said Cathy. “Some of us have got work to do.”

“Oh,” I said. “I sort of promised this building’s front door that it could come to the wedding. Make the necessary arrangements, would you?”

“Soft, soppy, sentimental,” said Cathy. “Tell me you didn’t invite that bloody elevator as well . . .”

“If that bloody thing comes anywhere near the church, you have my permission to shoot it,” I said. “Will you be at Suzie’s hen night, tonight?”

“Of course!” said Cathy. “I’ve already booked the male strippers!”

“Just get her to the church on time,” I said.