Thicker Than Water

At least they didn’t stop me from going up to the eighth floor of Weston Block to look in on Bic and his family, which might have been interesting because he had serious muscle and I was in a black enough mood to have pushed it. But as it was I walked on across the forecourt and in through the double doors while Gwillam was still deep in murmured confab with his minions.

But the lifts were out, so I went around to the external staircase and started my trek into the sky, not looking round in case I locked eyes with Gwillam and he called me back.

But while I was trudging up the stairs I heard hurried footsteps clattering behind me. I turned and waited, so that at least I’d be meeting whoever it was head-on: in this place, it was best to take nothing for granted.

It was the tall woman with the cat’s cradles wound around her hands.

‘Father Gwillam changed his mind,’ she said, simply, stopping three steps below me. I noticed, impressed, that she wasn’t out of breath after her sprint up the stairs. A childhood infatuation with Ellen Ripley stirred in the depths of my hindbrain and reminded me of the space where once it had sat enthroned in my libido.

‘About what?’ I asked.

‘About the boy. He said if you let one of us come with you, to make sure nothing goes wrong, you can do it.’

‘I already told you—’ I began. But she lifted a school-marmish finger to shut me up.

‘Double blind. Whoever goes with you doesn’t get to know the address, and you do whatever you need to do to make sure they don’t get a clear look at the route.

’ She looked at me expectantly. ‘We’re meeting you halfway, Castor. It’s up to you to figure it out now. One of us has to come, but it can be on your terms. Okay?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said, but it was only for form’s sake. I wasn’t going to get a better offer, and we didn’t have any other choices left. Rather than let her see how emphatically and irrevocably up a³rre fogainst the wall I felt, I turned and started walking again.

She fell in behind me, keeping a respectful three paces’ distance until we got to the eighth floor.

‘I don’t need an escort,’ I said over my shoulder.

‘No? Still get it for free, do you?’"

"It wasn’t the kind of comeback I expected from a woman who was big in the Church - even if we were talking about the Church’s black-ops division. Then again, Sue Book had been a verger when I’d first met her and now she was in a more than civil partnership with a demon. You never can tell with these mission dolls.