Dead Men's s Boots

When the cops had finally arrived and taken statements, I was willing to bet that most of the descriptions had included some variation on ‘just this guy’.

There was paperwork to be filled in on the car, but surprisingly few recriminations. I invented a story about a collision with a concrete bollard: the clerk at the counter transcribed it faithfully and made me sign it. There was an excess of a hundred dollars, which I paid without a murmur. It seemed like the least I could do.

Then I was sitting in the departure lounge again, waiting for the next plane to Heathrow while the huge bruise on the right side of my face spread and deepened.

I found myself wondering how Juliet was going to get back: I was pretty damn sure that she wouldn’t leave the ground, anyway, but I had no idea what she’d do instead. Or whether it would be faster or slower than a transatlantic flight.

By the time I landed at Heathrow I was thinking straight again, so the first thing I did was to get to a phone and make the call I should have made from the States.

It didn’t do me a lot of good, though: at Pentonville the highest I could get up the chain of command was the night duty officer, and something in his tone told me that he wasn’t taking me seriously.

‘A woman?’ he kept on repeating, every time I let him get a word in edgeways.

‘No,’ I repeated, with the brittle, strained patience you keep in reserve until you need it to deal with morons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. ‘She looks like a woman.

But she’s actually a demon. A succubus.’

‘A demon. Right.’ I was getting the same strained patience bouncing right back at me, and I wasn’t enjoying it much. ‘And who’s she coming to visit, again?’

‘Doug Hunter. Only if she comes, it won’t be to visit him. It’ll be to break him out.’

‘Well, thanks for that little tip-off, sir. I’m sure we’ll keep a lookout for her.’

‘You’ll need to put up some wards,’ I said, persisting without much hope. ‘On the tops of the walls, as well as on the doors, because she doesn’t have to use a door.

And it’s probably a good idea to have a priest handy, if you’ve got one on-staff. He can draw a line in holy water around the cell block, or bless the—’

‘We’ll keep a lookout for her,’ the duty officer repeated, and hung up.

I swore bitterly at the innocent phone receiver in my hand.

‘Have a good trip, Castor?’

I turned in time to have a heavy briefcase shoved brusquely into my arms – and into my stomach.