Dead Men's s Boots

I think under the circumstances Mrs Gittings won’t appreciate a call from me, so if you don’t mind continuing to act as a go-between . . .’

‘Happy to,’ I said stolidly. ‘Thanks for listening.’

I went downstairs again and left my address and phone numbers with the bored brunette. The photocopier was in a state of even more advanced disassembly and Leonard was nowhere to be seen.

I stepped back out onto the street. It was about five o’clock, and although there was still some light from the low, loitering sun, a roiling rope of heavy grey cloud was in the process of swallowing it whole like a python gulping down a guinea pig.

A scarecrow-thin old man crusted with the filth of years spent on the streets, dressed in a long trailing outer coat so dirty and tattered you couldn’t guess what colour or even what kind of garment it might once have been, came shambling along the pavement towards me. I stepped aside automatically, but he zigged at the same time and walked right into me. His mad, mud-brown eyes stared into mine.

‘At the waterhole,’ he said, his voice a dry, throat-tearing rasp. ‘With the others there behind you. Pushing. Pushing. Nowhere to go.’ He laughed out loud, delighted by some sudden revelation, and the stench of his breath hit me across the face like a solid slap.

I winced and leaned back, away from the searing smell, but he was already walking on – singing now, in the same harsh, agonised tone, ‘Oh, the Devil stole the beat from the Lord, and it’s time we put things straight .

An involuntary shudder went through me, and with it came a nagging prickle somewhere at the edge of consciousness – the slight sensation of pressure that comes when I’m being looked at by one of the risen dead. I looked around: nobody in sight except the decayed tramp, who was heading away from me and had his back turned, and a woman on the other side of the street wheeling a baby in a stroller.

"I headed north-west, aiming to grab a train at Finsbury Park crFinsbur. That gave me two choices – the immense dog-leg of Stamford Hill and Seven Sisters Road, or the back cracks.