Dead Men's s Boots

Meanwhile the war – if it was a war – was still in the ‘cold’ phase. Maybe that was only to be expected when the enemy were the dead.

I’d had more than enough of the legal profession to last me for one day, but a promise is a promise, even if your arm is halfway up your back while you’re giving it. I could have just called, but I needed to pick up some silver amalgam from a dentists’ supplier’s in Manor House, so Stoke Newington was almost on my way.

The offices of Ruthven, Todd and Clay turned out to be in a converted Victorian court built in chocolate-coloured brick, on the corner of a slightly drab row of terraces from a later era.

There were window boxes on either side of the door, painted bright blue, but they contained nothing except bare soil. No flowers at this time of year.

The front door was pretty bare too: no wards, no sigils, no come-nots or stay-nots. Maybe the evil dead avoided lawyers out of professional courtesy, like sharks are supposed to do. I walked in off the street and found myself in a small reception area which, judging from its modest dimensions, must originally have been the front hall of a house.

A wide, elbowed staircase took up a good half of the available space: what was left was dominated by a large venerable-looking photocopier. The inspection covers had been removed from the machine and were stacked up against the wall: an enormously fat, enormously pale bald man was on his knees in front of it, one hand thrust into its innards up to the elbow, looking like a vet trying to assist with a difficult birth. He glanced up at me as I entered, and then kept on staring as if he was trying to place the face. He had a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his half-open mouth hung down at the corners like a melting clock in a painting by Salvador Dali. A young brunette sitting at the reception desk in under the stairs watched him work with more attention than a busted photocopier seemed to merit. Maybe it was a slow day.

‘I’m here to speak to Mister Todd,’ I said to her as she pulled her attention away from the exhibition of mechanical midwifery.

‘I called earlier. Felix Castor.’

She ran her finger down the very full columns of a double-width appointment book. ‘Felix Castor,’ she confirmed. ‘Yes. Please take a seat.’

There were several, so I took the one furthest away from Mister Fix-It, picked up yesterday’s Times and started to flick through it as the receptionist called upstairs.