Thicker Than Water

I got my own court order, immaculately forged, and went in first. Webb and J-J woke up the next morning to a fait accompli. Rafi was gone, having traded the dubious hospitality of the Stanger for the ministering hands of my good friend Imelda Probert - known to most of London’s dead and undead as the Ice-Maker.

It was a spoiler run, and it was desperate improvisation. At the Stanger, Rafi was penned in a silver cell and Webb and his team had a dozen or more ways, ranging from subtle to brutal, of keeping Asmodeus in check when he rose into the ascendant.

Now all we had was my whistle, and Imelda - who had never thought that this was a good idea in the first place.

As I trudged back to the Tube, I imagined the ructions I was going to have with her, and the sheer gruelling agony of whistling the hell-spawn up and then back down again in a single session. It was going to be bad. Bad for me, anyway: Pen would see it differently, because she’d be able to visit with Rafi while I - assuming things went to plan - consulted his bad-ass alter ego.

But when I went back to Pen’s to give her the equivocal tidings, she was waiting with the phone receiver still in her hand and some news of her own to pass on.

‘Someone called Daniels,’ she told me. ‘They said it was about Billy. Billy’s awake.’

‘That’s great,’ I said, but Pen was looking solemn and troubled.

‘Apparently not,’ she said.

It was practically on our way: a crow flying across London from Turnpike Lane to Peckham and sticking to the rules would pass within a spitball’s distance of the New Kent Road.

Pen wasn’t eager to break the journey, but I had two trump cards. One was that Tom and Jean Daniels were potential clients: Pen likes me to earn money, because I owe her a vast amount of the stuff and every little helps.

The other was what Coldwood had said about someone watching Pen’s house. I’d had my radar out since then, looking for tails, but there hadn’t really been anything at stake un kng wattil now.

If it was Jenna-Jane, hoping I’d lead her to Rafi, then the more twists and turns we added to our itinerary tonight, the better. We had to be damn sure that when we got to the Ice-Maker’s we’d be alone.

So we went to the Salisbury, and as we passed into the shadow of the first two concrete monoliths Pen gave an involuntary shudder."

"I stared at her curiously. ‘You feel it?’ I demanded.

‘I’m just cold,’ Pen muttered.