Dead Men's s Boots

’

‘Which devil, Fix?’

‘Next time I pass by, I’ll bring you a catalogue and some colour swatches.’

I walked away quickly, before Pen could get over the irritation and tackle me from a different direction. I didn’t want to explain any more than I already had, and even more than that I didn’t want to go into this whole exercise with the feeling that there was another way that I was too stupid to see. That just gets you second-guessing yourself, and that just gets you dead. I wanted to live.

But that’s always been my problem.

I set my sights way too high.

22

Stoke Newington after dark: the Lubovich Hasidim and the scallies from Manor House wander the streets in feral packs, but I was in a bad enough mood by this time to take on anything I was likely to meet. God was in a bad mood, too: a strong wind was getting up, harrying plastic carrier bags and scraps of paper along the pavements, and the sky was filling up with pregnant clouds.

The offices of Maynard, Todd and Clay were in reassuringly total darkness.

I circled the outside of the building looking for the likeliest way in, deciding at last to go in from the back and on the first floor. I had my lockpicks with me and I could have taken the street door inside of a New York minute, but there was too much chance of being seen by people waÎ fllking past: I couldn’t afford the time I’d lose in any brush with the forces of the law.

On the side street behind the office there was a blind alley full of wheelie bins and old fridges, its high walls topped with broken glass set in very old cement.

The only door was bolted from the inside rather than locked, but the brickwork to either side of it was old and frost-pitted and offered pretty good purchase. I shinnied up the doorway itself, using footholds in the brickwork where I found them and just bracing myself against either side where I didn’t.

The top of the door was a couple of inches below the top of the frame. I stood on the door, wadded up my coat and laid it down on the glass.

I only had to stand on it for a moment, using it to step across to a shed roof. Then I leaned out and hooked the coat across after me, only a little the worse for wear.

The coat came into play again almost immediately. I wrapped it around my fist to break a single pane of the window at the other end of the shed and then – with gingerly care – to knock the broken glass out of the frame.