Dead Men's s Boots

‘I told you we’d get into trouble!’

Those words put the whole thing beyond doubt. Stone-cold killers just don’t talk like that.

Anticlimax washed over me in a nauseating wave. Whoever had sabotaged the lift would be miles away by now, and I’d just torn into a couple of feckless students who were probably guilty of nothing worse than a preemptive paint job. My knees trembling slightly, I went across to check the damage on the other guy. He was just beginning to be aware of the outside world again, and I helped him to his feet.

By the time I’d done that, the driver – Stephen Bass, esquire, if his NUS card was to be believed – had turned his attention back to the van, and was trying to pull the fire extinguisher free without making the punctured windshield collapse in on itself. He gave up quickly, because every attempt to move it precipitated a small shower of broken glass.

‘He’s gonna kill me!’ he kept moaning. ‘He’s gonna kill me!’ Then he turned and pointed at me, tears in his eyes.

‘I’m calling the police, you bastard. You won’t get away with this.’

I shrugged. ‘Sorry, friend. Threatening to murder people can give them the wrong impression. I don’t think the police are going to be too sympathetic under the circumstances.’

He sat down on the van’s step-up board, overcome with misery. ‘My brother needs the van for work,’ he said, his voice choked. ‘He only lets me borrow it when my car’s off the road. He’s not even in the AA.’

Any slight temptation I felt towards sympathy was quelled by the extravagance of his self-pity.

Arseholes who play stalker when they should be writing term papers can’t really complain when their world turns upside down. All I wanted to do was to make absolutely sure these idiots weren’t the ones who’d just tried to kill me: then I’d be only too happy to leave them to mourn their various losses in privacy.

I tossed Bass’s wallet down on the road to get his attention. ‘Why were you staking me out in the first place?’ I demanded.

‘Oh yeah, like you don’t know,’ Bass sneered, raising his head to glare at me accusingly. ‘We know all about you, and what you’ve got planned.’

‘What I’ve got planned?’ I echoed, interested in spite of myself. ‘What’s that, exactly?’

‘Mass exorcisms across London,’ the other guy said from behind me in a strained, trembly voice. ‘Spiritual cleansing – getting rid of all the dead in one go. You’re the big wheel, aren’t you? Felix Castor.