Dead Men's s Boots

’

I hung up and headed for the exit. Belatedly I realised that I should have called Juliet too, and told her I was going to be late. But I could do that on the return arc – and at least then I could tell her, with my hand on my heart, that I was on my way. And maybe the trophy I’d be bringing back with me would take the edge off her demonic strop.

I left the station and crossed the road, looking behind me by force of habit. No tails – and no sense of a tail: no premonitory prickling at the back of my neck or the back of my mind.

I turned into the small cul-de-sac where Nexus Veterinary Pathologists had set up their shingle: I could see from the other end of the street that their door was standing open, presumably because Vince had already come downstairs and left it ajar for me.

But hadn’t he said that there was a security guard on at night? The bare foyer beyond the door was brightly lit and it seemed to be deserted.

I was a little wary as I approached the door and stepped inside. I’m prolific with threats but I didn’t want to get Vince disciplined or sacked if there was nothing to be gained by it.

The security post was empty, but the monitor behind the counter was switched on, showing a stretch of empty stairwell. Perhaps the guard was on his rounds.

Or perhaps not. As I came forward past the security post, heading for the stairs, I caught a glimpse of something dark behind the counter, close to the ground. It was a slicked mass of hair, the top of a man’s head. I stopped and leaned over the counter, looking down.

The guard was lying on the floor, his back propped against the rear wall of his narrow domain. It was hard to see his face because his head was bowed forward onto his chest: but the sheer amount of blood dribbling down onto his torso and spreading across the floor around him suggested that there might not be that much face left to ‹h f thsee in any case.

Still dribbling. Still spreading.

This had only just happened.

The urge to run away from danger is one of the hallmarks of sanity, and I like to think I’m as sane as the next man – although in London that’s probably not saying very much.