ASF flipbook excerpt

"For we are only of yesterday and know nothing, because our 

days on earth are as a shadow" 

Job 8:9

Copyright 2017 J.D. Adamsson 

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not 

be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the 

express written permission of the author except for the use of 

brief quotations in a book review. 

Produced in Great Britain 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, 

places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s 

imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any 

resemblance to actual persons, living or dead 

is purely coincidental. 

Cover Photograph attribution: Dmytro Vietrov

Prelude 

A Conversation with Pineapples 

Now. Rooftop, Central London 

It’s been raining. I come up here on occasion to gather my 

thoughts, breathe in the London smog. Not a problem for my 

lungs of course. 

This is the roof of the London Provincial Assurance 

Building, built in 1897 according to the plaque down on the 

first level. We have a lot in common, me and this old 

Victorian heap. Still looking good after all these years. Then, 

I’ve never needed the occasional sandblasting to keep my 

looks. 

I’m sitting here on the Welsh valley grey slate next to my old 

friend the stone pineapple, listening to the sounds of 21st 

century London below. He and his companions adorn the roof 

wall at regular intervals. The Victorians had a thing about 

pineapples. The exotic, the unusual, the inedible fascinated 

them. Back in the day, pineapple and evaporated milk was 

considered a real treat. Kids these days wouldn’t look twice. 

Not enough colour or additives.

Regent Street fumes like a torrent below whilst above, the 

exhaust-polluted clouds boil. The patrons of the various chic 

rooftop bars on a level to this one sip cocktails and are 

generally unaware of anything beyond their companions and 

social media connections so they never see me here. I’m off 

the radar. So far this roof has remained untouched by the 

developers, for the meantime. 

The skyline reveals all the famous landmarks: the wheel of 

the London Eye, Big Ben, the Shard, the Gherkin, the dome of 

St Paul’s. The Georgian facades of the buildings below fall 

into the distance like grimy sea cliffs and seem uniform, until 

you begin to notice the odd Egyptian feature, mysterious 

inscriptions, Venetian style cupolas and other incongruous 

adornments that betray the unknown history of the Capital. I 

thought I knew all its secrets by now. How wrong I was. 

I worked in this building once, a long time ago. Clerical 

assistant to the Assistant Chief Clerk of the domestic claims 

department. That was before World War II, Audrey Sullivan, 

and Sofia, of course. 

August 1935

When I think about those days, I recall them like those 1930s 

movies in black and white. The stars of the day like Marlene 

Dietrich and Jean Harlow and their tight-rollered, platinum 

hair became style icons for so many women of the times. 

Audrey was no exception. And I worshipped her. The 

problem was that Audrey had ambitions a little higher than an 

assistant pen pusher to the Assistant Chief pen pusher. Audrey 

had her eyes on the boss. Not mine, but his boss’s boss’s boss. 

I didn’t realise this, until one day Audrey decided to put me 

straight, with an audience present just to complete the 

humiliation. 

It had taken months of guilty obsession and fluffed 

introductions to work up the courage to ask her out. I’d 

bought tickets for us to see The China Seas at the Rex Cinema 

in Piccadilly, thinking she might see me like tough guy Clark 

Gable. 

As it happened, she viewed me more like creepy actor Peter 

Lorre. 

It’s these sorts of moments that define us, when we finally 

see ourselves not through our so-necessary fantasies, but the 

car-crash reality of how we appear to the rest of the world.

And when we decide that all has to change. Some just take it a 

little further than others. 

Gathering my resolve I remember clearly how I walked 

down the aisle along the parquet floor that led from the 

clerical section to the typing pool where Audrey worked, 

sitting with a straight back in neat, padded-shoulder dogtooth 

suit. I could hear my footsteps echo as I passed the battalions 

of iron filing cabinets. I stood to the side of her and held out 

the tickets with a tremor I couldn’t suppress. She didn’t say 

anything, just raised her eyebrows, scarlet lips pursed tight. 

I swallowed, ‘Audrey, I was wondering if....’ 

‘No.’ There was a sniggering from the rest of the typists at 

her curt response. 

‘I was hoping...I mean I think you’re lovely and...’ 

She swivelled to face me. The smile on her face wasn’t the 

kind I’d hoped for, a brief eye roll followed. Suddenly I was 

aware of the attention of most of the office. ‘Look. It isn’t that 

I’m not flattered Martin,’ which was my name at the time, 

‘You’re not bad-looking, but, you see, you’ve simply got no 

class, if you know what I mean. Now I’m sure you’ve got 

work to do. God knows I have...’

My silent walk back to my desk was accompanied by a 

chorus of low chuckles, my steps performed in that rapid, split 

frame way of characters in the silent movies. Charlie Chaplin 

in one of his most pitiable roles. 

I managed to get through the rest of the day without 

throwing myself out of the window or hiding in the stationery 

cupboard. I took the Number 17 home to my digs in 

Bayswater, as per routine, and ended up looking at those 

tickets over a cold plate of baked beans and rissole – my 

mother used to make these from Sunday dinner leftovers. 

Nothing ever went unused in those days. 

No Refunds, the ticket said. And something inside me 

replied, why waste your money? 

So I went on my own. Took one final look at my old self in 

the mirror – angular pale face, dark hair with its Brylcreamed 

curl, wearing a new suit with wide-legged trousers that the 

pretty young assistant in the Dickins & Jones Department 

Store assured me was the kind worn by all the Hollywood 

actors. 

No Class. Audrey’s words kept repeating in my head. 

When I arrived at the cinema I hesitated before the bright 

entrance with its light bulbs and red scripted posters, and

dropped the spare ticket on the pavement, thinking maybe 

some poor kid might find it, give them a treat. 

‘Just the one love?’ I didn’t look at the ticket girl at the desk 

with her painted-on smile, no doubt wondering about the 

lonely, pathetic man going in on his own. Didn’t look back to 

see the pale hand that reached down to pick up that discarded 

ticket. 

The movie was better than I expected. I forgot about my 

pointless life for a while, imagining myself as the tough guy 

who gets the girl for once, and I tried not to look at the dark 

haired woman who sat in the chair beside me where Audrey 

would have been, and who smelt faintly of roses.

Chapter 1 

Little Red Dress 

Present day: Coroners Service & Mortuary Building, 

Hammersmith 

A cup and box of teabags was deposited in front of me, which 

was Morrissey’s way of saying it was my turn to make the tea. 

‘Forgot to get the biscuits,’ he informed me, ‘think we’ve 

still got some of Gordon’s fig rolls in the tin though, I’m sure 

he won’t notice.’ 

This is what we do to make our world seem cosier – tea and 

biscuit talk. In a world that reverberates with echoes of death, 

much of it violent, comforting minutiae are a necessity. 

Even in the small kitchen, you can’t escape the clinical 

simplicity and smell of the mortuary. And there’s the 

underlying chill that can’t be blamed on the small fridge. 

‘Food and Edible Liquids Only’ is on the laminated sign 

Morrissey has taped to the door. Got to laugh. He loves that 

laminator. 

Morrissey isn’t my assistant’s real name. His actual name’s 

Christopher Terence Edwards, but he’s reluctant to leave the 

eighties. He does, after all, have every Smiths’ tee shirt they

ever flogged at a concert. He has the hair, the look, the acne. 

Ironic, as he hadn’t been born at the time the original 

Morrissey was entertaining us with jumper twisting angst for 

the brief time the band were together. ‘Some iconic sounds 

transcend era,’ is his stock reply. 

There are three shifts at Hammersmith – Day, which covers 

8am to 4pm, Late, which covers 4pm to 12, and the Night or 

Graveyard shift, midnight until relieved by the day shift in the 

morning. Today, Morrissey and myself were on Late. I’m the 

night manager. Gordon, the opposite to me in everything, 

down to his red hair and generally robust complexion, does 

the day. The shortfall’s covered by the Duty Officer from 

Fulham. We’re employed by the local council, and work 

closely with the police and Coroner’s office. At night though, 

the contact with work colleagues is minimal. Just me, 

Morrissey, the occasional yawning trainee, and of course, the 

dead. 

‘Better get brewing quick. They just called, there’s an 

incoming on the way,’ Morrissey yelled, as he leaned round 

the kitchen door, then schlepped back down the green

linoleum towards the admissions bay. My assistant also has 

little regard for my authority, which I gave up trying to assert 

years ago. 

I was squeezing the last breath of life out of the teabags 

when I heard the doors bang as the delivery arrived. 

Knowing he’d deal with the forms, I finished off, 

remembering that he now had two sugars instead of three. 

Health reasons had been the only forthcoming explanation. He 

has trained me well. 

With mugs skilfully balanced alongside a plate of stolen fig 

rolls, I began to head back, when the swinging doors that led 

to the bay were thrust open and Morrissey reappeared. ‘Think 

you’d better see this. There’s another one.’ 

I put the steaming drinks down on a nearby wall shelf and 

followed him. 

The Coroner’s Service and Mortuary Building in 

Hammersmith is a slice of Victorian memorabilia situated in 

an area just off Shepherd’s Bush Road. As a result of its era 

it’s full of quirky features like tiles, ornate ceilings and 

doorways, wall shelves which appear to serve no apparent 

purpose, serving hatches, interior windows and the requisite 

spooky corridors which the fluorescent ceiling lights seem

unable to fully illuminate and which occasionally flicker – 

either the result of faulty wiring or for those with more 

imagination, something more otherworldly. They keep 

threatening to sell off the facility in order to centralise all 

pathology and mortuary functions within Fulham, but we have 

one distinct advantage that’s saved us so far. This is where the 

sad and faceless ones who end up in the river are brought. It’s 

our speciality, and the place is one of the main long-term 

storage areas for such cases. 

We entered the high-ceilinged reception bay where the 

attendants were getting ready to leave. One of them, a balding 

bloke with a paunch that stuck out of his overalls, who I knew 

was called Ron, no idea of his surname, shook his head and 

huffed as he walked over. ‘Need a sign-off by the manager on 

this one mate.’ I caught the smell of mints mingled with 

cheese and onion as he held out the clip board and I scrawled 

my signature. There was a squiggle for the police sign-off and 

the printed version was little better. There’d been a flash of 

blue light through the porthole windows as I’d entered the 

bay, so maybe the squad had received an urgent radio call-out. 

A typical night for the Met. Ron handed me a copy and 

walked off without further words.

Morrissey had already opened the body bag. 

It was then I saw her. 4.0’, high domed forehead, her beaded 

hair braids still intact. Her wide lips were slightly apart 

showing good white teeth. The large almond shaped eyes with 

thick black lashes were closed to the world. A godsend – the 

sightless stare of a dead child is a haunting experience. Even 

so, I had a sudden vision of her still-living face screwed up in 

agony. The ghost of the past hours of her life screamed out at 

my senses in a way humans are thankfully sheltered from for 

the most part. 

I’d like to say over my long years I’ve grown used to it, but I 

can’t say that in truth. 

This is mostly a quiet place once the ambulance crews, 

police and Coroner’s Officers have left. Neither of us broke 

the silence as Morrissey wheeled the trolley to the prep room 

and I formed a funeral procession of one behind, the closest a 

number of our visitors ever get to one. 

With gentle deliberation, we both transferred her to an empty 

examination table.

Brushing past the green cotton of Morrissey’s scrubs, I stood 

beside her, taking a pair of gloves out of my overalls in 

preparation. 

‘No Name,’ I said to no-one in particular, reading the label 

hastily scrawled by the police pathologist. The report 

summary was surprisingly short, but signed as complete. 

Morrissey meanwhile was rummaging through the 

instruments drawers, which lined the wall behind the tables. 

‘Doesn’t look like they’ve left much to do, other than 

prepping her for storage,’ he called over. It was true, but she 

drew me in all the same. 

‘By the configuration of features, I’d guess she‘s East 

African, about eight or nine years old.’ I gently pushed back 

the braids that still hung over her face. We’re not required to 

record findings in police cases unless specifically asked, but 

voicing observations out loud is a hard habit to shake. 

‘Same as the others,’ my assistant muttered, placing the 

instruments I needed for the tissue samples in regular lines on 

the tray. We like regularity. There’s a safety and sanity in 

order. 

My eye was drawn to the little red dress she wore. It clung to 

her skinny frame, the fabric wet as blood, the familiar river

water stench filling the post mortem area. Whoever had 

murdered her had replaced the garment, presumably to cover 

the deep incisions made in order to remove the organs listed 

as missing on the report. 

Morrissey stepped over to stand beside me. He picked up the 

report. ‘Liver and heart missing, removed ante-mortem. Just 

as well she was wearing red.’ 

I looked at the rest of the info – Loc. So’thrk Embkmt, 

sandbank /Blkfriars. B. @ 17.50. Susp. Death. Anonymous, 

non-descript and destined for the cold-case file. You get to 

know the meaning behind the words when you’ve been at this 

job as long as I have. 

‘Nice looking little girl. Someone, somewhere must be 

missing her,’ I said. 

As Morrissey had mentioned, we’d seen a few of these 

recently. Just about the right age for kids being transported by 

parents who’d saved up the equivalent of their life savings to 

send them here for a Western education, make a proper life 

for themselves free of Ebola, warfare and the corruptions of 

African dictators. Instead, they were being set up for Red 

Trade organ donations or something worse, dependent on

demand. Win - win situation for the racketeers, of course. 

Money up front, money to follow on delivery. 

Prior to this, we’d had four other victims, three little boys 

and another girl, ranging in age from five to eleven, all from 

the African continent, all having suffered the same manner of 

death. 

‘Looking at the way the organs have been removed and the 

amount of bleed, I can say without doubt it’s another Muti 

killing. No mention of this on the report,’ I told Morrissey. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, ‘Muti’ means simply 

‘medicine’. It’s usually harmless, but sometimes those who 

practice it are not. It’s darkest form involves sacrifice that 

requires the subject to die in pain, their organs or body parts 

are then removed and used as ingredients in a magical ritual 

for a paying recipient. The colour of garments can be 

significant – specific colours for a specific god. For some 

reason children are the most prized target. It involves big 

money for the practitioner, who is otherwise known as a 

sangoma or inyanga within the African witchcraft and 

Vodoun faiths. It’s most commonly practised in the southern

countries of the Dark Continent. And lately, it seemed, 

London. 

Life in the Capital is complicated. There are many unseen, 

nasty things lurking beneath the surface. And I’m not just 

talking about my kind.

Chapter 2. 

The Fifth Angel 

‘What the hell is going on Gideon? Who’s doing this?’ 

Morrissey is normally detached, matter-of-fact. It’s how you 

survive in this business, but even his acne-enflamed 

complexion had drained of colour. 

Meanwhile, it was business as usual. In such cases of 

anonymous death we are restricted in what samples we can 

take, particularly where the religion of the victim is unknown. 

Counter to that, the body begins to decay at onset of death so 

the taking of hair, nail, blood and other non-invasive samples 

within Human Tissue Authority regulations is standard. I had 

a job to do. 

Morrissey watched, took a long breath and turned to me. 

‘Five children gutted and dumped in the river. There should 

be headlines in all the papers but I’ve seen nothing. Maybe 

it’s just that people are only bothered if it’s their kids. But 

what if it’s more than that?’ 

Morrissey often asks me questions I can’t answer. He and his 

friends get together in their local pub and discuss conspiracy 

theories, but more about them later.

‘You know how it is these days.’ I said, not looking away 

from my work, ‘Racists and National Front would grab on to 

it and it’d give them an excuse to beat up anyone with darker 

skin. It’s damage limitation, I’d guess.’ 

‘Yeah, but the murder of five kids – that’s the kind of thing 

the tabloids go mad for. You know what journalists are like. 

They always turn up, someone always tells.’ He wasn’t 

wrong. There’d been nothing about these deaths. It made no 

sense. 

All these recent victims had several things in common. They 

were all below the age of puberty and had suffered removal of 

body parts in the same way as our current victim. They also 

appeared to have similar ethnic origins and had all been 

disposed of via the river, recovered within an area of three 

miles. There was a pattern, and that generally means one 

killer. 

I picked up the victim’s hand – it wasn’t particularly stiff. 

It’s not a well-known fact that children’s bodies don’t often 

display the rigidity that older corpses do. Curious. I looked 

closer at her nails. ‘Well now...’ 

‘Guess forensics scraped them?’ Morrissey looked up at me. 

‘Standard procedure isn’t it?’

‘They’ve also been meticulously manicured, quite close to 

death...’ We exchanged glances. 

The work had withstood the child’s death struggles, the 

immersion and buffeting amidst the tidal currents of the 

Thames. 

‘I’ll give the killer this, I said to Morrissey, ‘he’s one for 

great presentation in his work.’ 

Taking a deep breath I opened my senses, filtered out the 

river water, the decay, the scent of the others who had handled 

and probed her, leaving no shred of dignity in her terrible 

death. 

‘Ah,’ I thought, as a visual sense of her progress since she’d 

been killed suddenly materialised, ‘there you are.’ I could 

almost make out the patter of her bare, dead feet on the floor. 

I’d tried to track the recent source of these killings without 

luck, the trail kept going cold, but now that was about to 

change. Killers always get careless at some stage, and now he 

had, I could taste it in the air. 

It takes one to know one. 

I finished up, walked over to the Belfast sink to scrub whilst 

Morrissey sorted the tissue samples for filing. ‘You OK for a

while, get her sorted?’ I asked, ‘I have an appointment. 

Probably take an hour.’ 

He nodded in that off-hand way of his. He’s used to my 

strange ways by now, asks no questions. 

Morrissey’s cool for a nerd. I get the impression he 

understands more about me than he lets on. He’s had more 

opportunity to see me at close quarters than any human I’ve 

known. But he’s discreet. That, or he just accepts that a world 

that people like him and me inhabit is a weird place anyway, 

end of story. 

I left and took the quick route to the crime scene via 

Hammersmith Underground and the District line. In times 

before the current levels of traffic, getting there would have 

meant a taxi. These days it involved a burst of speed and the 

Tube, which is usually quicker. I have an Oyster card. 

Standing on the platform, the draught from the train lifted 

my hair like a widow’s veil, caught the vents on my coat. Noone 

looks at you on the Tube, which is convenient for me. 

Many spend most of the time on their phones and never look 

up. I boarded, huddled myself into a corner with my thoughts 

as we hurtled towards the city.

It’s very cosmopolitan here in London; a hub of concentrated 

activity, organised chaos. People can disappear into complete 

anonymity amidst the busy lives and general pace of the city. 

Those such as the Muti and Red Traders have a clear ground. 

Money is king, and the edges of ethical behaviour become 

blurred. 

There are men in expensive suits; rich, well-connected men, 

who drink in the most elite clubs and bars in the West End. 

They’re chauffeur-driven around in limos, have exotic and 

illegal tastes and their boredom threshold is low. 

Once last year, on examination of the stomach contents of 

one businessman who’d been pulled out of the wreckage of 

his Audi, we discovered the half-digested remains of no less 

than five endangered species of animal and birds, cooked to 

perfection in one of the illegal, thriving restaurants that exist 

in the City with this specialisation. 

As for Muti, it’s not new. And the secret face of London is 

steeped in old magic – from pagan Celtic roots, the neo 

Druids of William Blake’s era, Aleister Crowley’s blend of 

black magic and Egyptian ritual through to the city’s present 

day eclectic mixture of cultures and beliefs. Vodoun, which 

we call voodoo, has been here since slaves were brought from

Africa and who stayed after William Wilberforce’s efforts 

freed them in 1807. Nowadays it’s exotic, alluring and 

fashionable, no longer a matter of skin colour, ethnicity or 

superstition, but word of mouth. And the greed of possibility. 

After all, isn’t gambling the same – an irrational belief that we 

can tweak our fate and somehow win out against the odds? 

‘It’s a trend, innit,’ an acquaintance called Maurice informed 

me recently as we sat and drank gin in one of the newly 

popular bars of the East End. ‘It’s not just the African geezers 

any more, they’re all at it. The Dark Web, closed groups on 

Facebook and so on. I mean, look at some of the people in 

power – you’re not telling me they haven’t cooked the books 

to get there.’ 

‘Are you telling me you believe in magic Maurice?’ I asked, 

feigning cynicism, curious as to how someone as prosaic as 

my cabbie friend perceived such things. 

‘Well, I’ve seen some funny stuff about, driving round the 

streets of our blessed capital, if you know what I mean,’ 

Maurice replied with a knowing wink, or it may have been a 

squint due to the effects of the fifth drink I’d persuaded him 

into.

The taste of the gin had lingered on my tongue: hints of wild 

moor, heather and sweet grass. No wonder the poor of 

nineteenth century London, trapped amidst the poverty and 

pollution had craved it so. I switched my attention beyond the 

diamond reflections of my glass to see that look that Maurice 

often gave me, as if among all the strange things he claimed 

he’d seen, he included me in them. 

Maurice has driven his customers around the streets of the 

capital for the last thirty years. He is a deep well of 

information. It’s amazing what people confide from the back 

of a taxi cab. 

The train became more crowded as we neared the centre and 

entered the subterranean forever-night of the Underground. I 

remained deep in thought, filtering out the percussion of the 

train’s progress, the shuffle of feet, the automated calls to 

‘Mind the Gap’. 

Magic, ritual. The arcane. I had a friend who studied these 

things. His main interest was actually Egyptology, but other 

esoteric matters also piqued his interest. It may seem odd that

such issues would have attracted the attention of a Catholic 

priest. 

‘It pays to see what you’re up against,’ John Paul once 

confided. The doctrine of the dark side, he called it. I hadn’t 

seen him for a while and scheduled a reminder to go and visit 

him. 

There should be headlines in all the papers – Morrissey’s 

words bounced about in my brain. I took out my phone again 

and scrolled through all the local news sites. Nothing. Not a 

word about these deaths. Just an ominous vacuum that made 

my nerves creep. Maybe these children were not high profile 

enough to warrant a great deal of interest by the Metropolitan 

Police whose work seems to have tripled whilst their numbers 

have done the opposite. The fact that many such victims are 

illegal aliens with no ID often makes the job of tracing their 

origins impossible. There is, after all, nothing like 

insurmountable odds for rendering a task forgettable to an 

already overworked police force.

The train slowed from a roar to a growl. Time to join the 

shambling multitudes making their way up into the twilight of 

an evening in the city. 

‘Tickets please!’ bawled the Tube guard in a high-vis jacket, 

bringing me back to the present. ‘Turnstiles out of order!’ He 

glanced at my card and waved me on as a further tidal wave 

of humanity swept up behind me from the brimstone depths of 

Blackfriars Underground station. Nothing like Londoners to 

keep a person on their toes. 

I reached the scene at 7.45 pm, and now stood where the 

paperwork reported the body of the child had washed up on 

the banks of the mighty Thames. Much cleaner these days 

than in the past, so the Environment Agency assure us, give or 

take the odd body or two. 

The tide was already wiping away the signs of the police and 

forensic crew, the only obvious sign the crime scene tape I’d 

hopped over, draped from the wall to the jagged remains of a 

wooden pier. Four of its posts protruded from the rising 

waters as if the old Thames was grinning at me with ancient 

rotted teeth.

It was a deep blue evening, a sky swept of cloud, with the 

calls of the tugs and shipping in the distance. The distinctive 

buildings of twenty-first century London were silhouetted 

beyond the waterline. The Jazz Dinner Cruise passed by, the 

revellers laughing, drinking, uncaring of the tragedy that had 

been discovered only metres away. 

I knelt down and touched the fetid mud. There would have 

been no point in the police setting up a murder containment 

scene, the rising tide would have obliterated anything useful. 

And every square foot of London is of interest to some 

business concern or another. Bodies like our sad little victim 

are an embarrassment that can affect the selling price of the 

office building or waterside apartments in their portfolios. 

There’s an unwritten, unspoken understanding about such 

things that they are forgotten about, as if they never happened. 

Except murder leaves a stain on the fabric of the world, and 

people like me can see it. 

There was a clear, visceral trail back to somewhere, hidden 

just below the complex scents of the city. This time, unlike 

the others, the disposal had been careless. The body had not 

been gripped in the Thames’ powerful currents, but had

alighted to shore only yards from where it, she, had been 

dumped. There is a superstition within the Vodoun faith that 

such victims should be disposed of by water. The practitioners 

claim it is because of water’s cleansing power ensuring the 

angry spirit doesn’t come back to haunt them. I’m sure the 

ability of water to wash away DNA evidence has nothing to 

do with it at all. 

The trail took me through streets of pale Georgian buildings 

and their modern counterparts, up to a gold plaque which read 

‘K. J. Kamala, Paediatrician’. I ran my hands along the white 

railings, looked up at the well-maintained paint and 

brickwork. Convenient profession, I thought. The light was 

on, the door still open. As if he was expecting someone. 

My senses spiked, I caught my breath sharply. Somewhere in 

this building, the little girl had met her exceedingly painful 

end. I took a deep breath and recalled some modern jazz 

music I’d heard coming from an open window as I’d walked 

here. It’s a distraction technique that I’ve found to help over 

the years. 

I entered through the black lacquered door with its expensive 

gold doorknob, then down the narrow corridor that led to his 

office. The corridor stank of surgical cleaning fluid. Who

etter to know about cleaning up after blood loss than medical 

practitioners? A safe guess that evidence gathering would be 

difficult or impossible. And explaining away my ability to 

locate the guilty party even more so. 

Dr Kamala was writing something into a journal and looked 

up. I said nothing, just looked at him, looking at me. Good 

suit, dark liquid eyes with slightly yellowed whites. A big 

man, gold rings, gold pen, gold-rimmed designer glasses 

which looked tiny on his big frame. The scent of some woody, 

resinous cologne filled the room. 

‘Can I help you?’ He had an even, mellow voice, one you 

could trust. There was only a slight edge to it as he had to be 

wondering who I was, why I was there. 

I moved closer, trying to get a handle on him. There was a 

shadow about his large frame, but he wasn’t one of us. 

His eyes narrowed, then grew wider. ‘You are He, the one I 

was told about, who would come?’ 

‘Yes, that’s me,’ I replied, wondering exactly who I was 

supposed to be. 

He stood, put his hands together and bowed his head. ‘Great 

Lord, I will tell you my wishes…’

From the sound of it, this seemed to be the recipient of 

favours, not the sangoma responsible. Disappointing. 

‘Yes. Right, me first. I want some information before all 

that,’ I said, gesturing for him to sit down. 

He looked first one way, then the other, visibly perplexed. 

‘Ask what you will, my Lord.’ 

‘OK, I wish to … reward the one who summoned me on 

your behalf…’ I said playing my part, pointing to his script 

pad, ‘full name and address please.’ 

He frowned, but did as asked. His notepad was very 

expensive paper, cream laid and watermarked. Nice. I just do 

with the kind from our local pound store. 

I observed him as he scribbled and flourished. Doctors’ 

writing, unmistakable. And as he finished, I thought about all 

the trusting parents who had brought their beloved offspring 

to this man, the GPs who’d recommended him, and weighed 

that against what this man was willing to do in order to have 

more worldly wealth or favour than he did at present. 

He tore off the top sheet and handed it to me with a slightly 

trembling hand. 

‘Thanks.’ The address was just about legible. It wouldn’t 

take me long to get there, fifteen minutes at most.

A thought occurred. ‘What was it you needed?’ I asked. 

There was a sheen of sweat on his face. His skin was 

remarkably smooth, well-cared for. ‘I have a patient. The 

daughter of a prominent dignitary. She has cancer. It is for a 

benevolent reason you see, and he is one of my best clients.’ 

I closed my eyes. The reasoning was not dissimilar to my 

own. Yet the victim’s phantom cries of pain rose in the back 

of my mind as a reminder of why I was here. 

‘Now,’ I said, ‘Please write down all details about the 

transaction, the ritual and what it entailed. The amount it cost, 

and bank details. Any names and addresses you can supply 

would be good.’ His brow furrowed, he hesitated. 

‘For audit purposes, you understand,’ I added. He sighed, 

but again did as I’d asked. Greed usually overrides good 

sense, I’ve always found. 

He stared at me as I read and folded the note, his expression 

still puzzled. Perhaps he was questioning why on earth a dark 

god capable of granting any man’s desire would need to have 

all this written down. 

I smiled, put the information in my pocket and thanked him. 

‘And my reward, Great One?’ he enquired, the glint of fool’s 

gold in his eyes.

‘Ah yes,’ I replied, ‘that…’ 

His eyes closed and a wide grin creased his face. I lay my 

hand on his forehead like an evangelical preacher in the Deep 

South. His end was far more merciful than the child’s had 

been. I have, after all, been doing this a long time. 

I honestly thought that was where it would end. With the 

name of the sangoma, associates and whereabouts. He could 

be dealt with and with that the murder trail would come to a 

halt. Little did I know this was just the beginning. 

The address Kamala gave me was located in North London – 

a street called Tibbs Row, just a couple of tube stops away 

from Swiss Cottage. I’d expected a run-down flat, perhaps a 

community of practitioners within a high rise. Instead, I found 

it to be a large detached building in red brick with faded white 

edging, bay windows and strange, twisted railings in front that 

gave it the look of a graveyard. There was an open window on 

the first floor at the side of the property, so I scaled the wall 

and entered. It was empty and long-deserted. 

There had been death here, but long ago, nothing like the 

kind of sensations I would expect following the psychic wake

of a murder. I noted the pile of letters by the front door and 

realised this was being used as a mail drop only. I examined 

the various envelopes. It was all here. Trails of evil to various 

locations in the city, all fading to insignificance against the 

main contender - the person whose speciality was the 

vivisection of children. I folded them and placed them in an 

inner pocket of my coat, then made my way out and stood in 

the street, trying to get a sense of him. 

His trail was as elusive as smoke, which was curious and 

unexpected. Perhaps he paid someone to collect this post. I 

had no time to wait around and consider it now, I had to 

return. 

By the time I arrived back at Hammersmith, Morrissey had 

finished sewing up and drying off the body and was back at 

his station on his computer. 

‘Is she at rest?’ I asked. Who was I kidding? When could she 

ever be, after what she’d endured? Something like a burning 

coal had lodged in my stomach. There was only one cure for it 

I knew. 

A nod. ‘C434, with the others. It’s your turn to make the 

tea,’ he informed me.

‘Have I missed anything?’ 

He shook his head, and returned his attention on-screen. 'I 

might pop out for some fried chicken or whatever’s still open, 

do you fancy some?' Morrissey showed no interest at all in 

where I'd been, far too absorbed in achieving his highest score 

yet for ‘Obliterate’ his latest game of choice. He seemed to 

prefer the ones where Humanity had been mostly wiped out. 

'No thanks.’ I set about entering an overdue report, trying 

to suppress an enormous belch. 'I've already eaten.' 

I wrote out the label for the victim and entered the details on 

the NDNAD database myself. We prefer to try and give our 

anonymous guests a name, some dignity as well as a means of 

rescuing them from complete obscurity. The system requires a 

name for the record, it’s mandatory, hence the John and Jane 

Doe pseudonyms that originated in the States. In UK we use 

John or Jane Smith, but it still seems disrespectful to me. Also 

inappropriate in a multi-cultural setting. 

Morrissey shuffled over, watched as I made my entry. 

‘Moengele #Five? Like the others. What does it mean?’ 

‘It’s Setswana for angel. I don’t really speak the language, 

but I knew a bloke once.’

‘You always seem to know a bloke. For someone who sleeps 

in the day, you certainly get about boss.’ He flung on his 

duffle coat and headed out, the old style swinging doors 

making their characteristic ‘phlock, phlock’ sound. 

Perhaps at some time I could research more individual, 

appropriate names for these children. The Coroners’ Officers 

usually investigate for relatives to identify the anonymous 

ones, but they’re very busy people. And this particular case 

had gotten under my skin. 

The first victim had been labelled Moengele also, and after 

the second victim arrived I carried on with the system. Three 

brothers and two sisters, related through the means by which 

they died. I finished the entries and got up. Something called 

me. 

My footsteps echoed as I approached the interior window to 

the ‘Waiting Room’ as we call it, looking past the hovering 

ghost face of the man known as Gideon Hartford. The 

Waiting Room is where our new bodies reside until taken 

either by undertakers or transferred to deeper storage where 

the cold cases and unidentified persons are held. The units are 

giant, refrigerated filing cabinets where you can feel each 

dead soul waiting. Expecting. These ghosts of the Thames

emain here in frozen suspension, unburied in the hope 

someone from their past will claim them. I had a feeling of 

certainty that for our five angels no-one would ever be 

coming. 

‘I will find him,’ I promised, ‘and I’ll stop him.’ 

And maybe, just maybe, that would drown out the screams.

Chapter 3 

Sofia 

Rex Cinema, Piccadilly, August 1935 

As the silvered images of Gable and Harlow danced in my 

imagination in the velvet darkness, I heard Sofia’s voice for 

the first time. ‘Do you dream of being less ordinary Gideon?’ 

It occurred to me this was must be a case of mistaken 

identity. Who was Gideon? I didn’t pull away as she took my 

hand though. 

The memory’s a little hazy, but I can remember ending up in 

an alley at the back, somewhere between some crates and 

loose rubbish from the Rex. I can smell again the perfume 

Sofia used back then – old roses, like the ones my 

grandmother used to cut and put in a vase. She whispered her 

name, and it lodged in my brain as if inscribed with indelible 

ink. 

I don’t think I’d ever been with a woman in a back alley 

previously. I’d never imagined being with a woman like Sofia 

before. 

Whereas Audrey was your Faye Wray/Audrey Grable type 

of girl, Sofia was Hedy Lamarr/Lillian Bond rolled into one.

And here she was, leading me by the hand to this unlit and 

somewhat bad-smelling place. I can’t even remember if I saw 

the end of the movie, though I have seen it since. 

Everything took on a dreamlike quality. Before, I’d have 

stammered while a million kinds of questions and doubts 

flooded my brain, and would have fumbled around till the girl 

got bored and made her excuses. We’d never have gotten to 

the hot, sweaty part with Sofia’s back pressed hard against the 

wall, and my face buried in her shadowy hair, breathing in her 

scent, filling my senses. 

I actually felt in control of the situation, which was an 

illusion of course. 

‘Kiss me,’ her voice whispered in my ear, as my life changed 

forever. 

Her hands were on my temples, and her touch was first cool, 

then hot, like an electric current, but rather than power rushing 

into me, it flowed out. Then I fell, a long, long way down to 

dizzy depths with a great dark nothing at the bottom. 

And when I finally looked up from the soul-sucking 

blackness, Sofia was there and she gave me a choice – ‘You 

can die or you can live – it’s up to you darling.’

I recall that moment again and again, my decision suspended 

forever in time like a fly in amber. Knowing what I know 

now, would I make a different decision? I don’t think there’s a 

living being, given the choice between dark oblivion and a 

few more seconds of light who wouldn’t have chosen as I did. 

The feeling of power rushing in and filling me was like 

nothing I’d known before. One small detail I recall - a strange 

undertow, like treacle flowing into my heart. Thick and utterly 

dark. And for a while, that was all I could see, an endless oily 

blackness, and Sofia’s sultry voice calling me by a name I 

didn’t recognise. 

As the world came into focus, I realised I was slumped 

against the wall. My hand looked odd, shadowy, almost 

transparent as I held it up at face level. 

A hand slapped my face. ‘Get up now. You’re creasing your 

new suit horribly.’ Sofia’s grey eyes swung into focus. 

‘What’s wrong with my hand?’ I asked. It seemed to be reforming 

at will. I felt sick and disoriented. 

‘Welcome to the world of Shadowkind,’ she said. With a few 

effortless gestures, she straightened her suit, caressing the 

expensive split skirt. ‘Hence the name, you can step forward 

into form or step back into Shadow or transition, which are

the terms we use. Don’t worry, it’s all perfectly natural. 

You’ll find your new skills very useful.’ 

‘What?’ 

Afterwards, we leaned against the wall, two anonymous 

figures watching the nightlife of the West End pass by the 

strip of light that marked the end of the alley. 

‘Would you like a Players cigarette?’ she offered with an 

elegant gesture, opening an ornate case. ‘It’ll stop the 

shaking.’ 

We smoked, sending ghostly ribbons to the heavens from 

this most insalubrious of birth places. 

‘Long ago, I lived in Venice,’ she explained, a dreamlike 

quality to her voice. ‘I don’t suppose you know much about 

it.’ I shook my head. Her lips bowed slightly and she blew out 

a plume of smoke which curled and melted into the 

omnipresent mists that usually threatened the London skies in 

those days. ‘We became known as the Mascherati. The 

Masked Ones. Venice was, is beautiful. Graceful buildings 

that thread amongst a labyrinth of mysterious waterways. 

Masks were a common accessory amongst the many fashions 

that were popular. Ideal for a secret folk like us.’

The Mascherati. I was high, thought I’d entered some 

Hollywood film noir with one of the most beautiful femme 

fatales in the business. I was a spy, a comic book hero, 

Nietzsche’s Superman. No longer would I be the social reject 

and target of office jokes. Sofia threw the remains of her 

cigarette in a mass of blood-red sparks to the floor of the 

alleyway and ground it into lifelessness with an elegant 

stiletto. 

‘You can stay with me for a while if you like,’ she said, 

picking up her clutch bag and walking toward the streetlights 

and the shadows of the passers-by. I followed her like a 

homeless dog. 

And that was it. How I entered the alien world the 

Mascherati occupy alongside the human race. It feels a little 

brief and anticlimactic now I say it. It was far from that. 

If you think about it, you’ll recall many times where there’s 

been a shadow in the street, or in a corridor, perhaps showing 

up in a tourist shot. Some rational souls put it down to the 

camera. Others want to believe it’s more, but most think 

they’re fantasists, and some are. The more you think, the more

you realise the streets of London are filled with such shadows. 

Some of them, like me, were once human. 

After my adjustment, as she called it. Sofia felt required to 

provide me with a little background. 

‘It would only be polite,’ she said. She made it sound like 

she’d gifted me with a tailored suit, or the fitting of a toupee. 

It was the summer of 1935. No-one really took the events 

happening in Germany with Hitler and his Brownshirts 

seriously. He was just a socialist leader in a country we’d only 

recently beaten in war. ‘We gave ‘em what for once, we’ll do 

it again,’ my Uncle Alf had boasted. He made it all sound so 

easy. Britain was still crippled financially due to the Great 

War, and the stain left behind by its losses and horrors painted 

itself into faces, attitudes, the smog and the dark corners of 

the city of London. It was less than twenty years after the 

Germans had capitulated. Surely it couldn’t happen again? 

But the longer you live, the more you realise the human race 

is fatally bound to keep repeating the same mistakes. Just like 

the bee that can never evolve to figure out how to bypass the 

window pane. Perhaps each species has its equivalent of the

window pane. That inbuilt, fatal inclination that bypasses all 

survival and common sense. 

In her way, Sofia was mine. 

We walked around the streets as the morning broke. 

Leicester Square, Drury Lane, The Strand and their 

interlocking byways took a deep breath and awoke to 

refreshed activity as a bruised sky glowered overhead. Sofia 

talked to me and I listened in fascination. 

‘Imagine a world,’ she said, ‘that exists beneath everything 

you thought you knew. Then one day, you’re walking along, 

and your feet crash through the pavement, and you find 

you’ve fallen into an entirely new world, and that you are an 

entirely new person...’ Her voice had the quality of rolling its 

way into the ear and imprinting on the brain, like an echo 

reverberating around a cavern. 

We came to a stop by the Embankment within sight of 

Waterloo Bridge and sat on the steps of Cleopatra’s Needle, 

flanked either side by its attendant Sphinxes. ‘That one looks 

a little like you,’ I said, observing the elegant profile. 

The dark of a thundercloud passed over Sofia’s features. ‘I 

wasn’t the model,’ she replied, her tone clipped and angry.

Something warned me not to pursue it though the curiosity 

burned within. 

We walked around the riverbank towards London Bridge, 

watching the people hurrying back and forth, to work, to play. 

They looked like the shadows, not us, their shoulders 

hunched, clothes drab, all seemingly wary of the heavy sky 

that heralded storm in more ways than one. 

Her eyes followed them all like a curious cat observing the 

movements of an ant colony. ‘A number of us were connected 

with the Doges of Venice. And one or two of the Popes,’ she 

explained. ‘We’ve been called many names down the ages. 

The Greeks knew us as Skiá. I believe the Hebrews called us 

Tsalmaveth or some such.’ I didn’t interrupt, content to watch 

her blow cigarette smoke from her sensuous lips like Tallulah 

Bankhead in the movie Thunder Below. Across the water, the 

bells of Southwark Cathedral rang the hour. 

‘We settled here in London, arriving from Italy in the fifteen 

hundreds, and formed what was called the Consiglio 

Maggiore, the ones we answer to, who make the laws that 

bind us. Nowadays we know them as the Council of 

Aldermen. For some time we were forced underground, 

during the religious killings of the various Tudors and the

witch persecutions later, but our power and influence wasn’t 

overly affected, because we kept our secrets. We took that 

very seriously. A Venetian scholar called Francesco Adolphus 

wrote about us after a chance discovery and for his trouble 

died a rather nasty death at the hands of the Catholic Church 

after he was deemed a heretic, madman, possibly both. We 

may have had something to do with that, as with many that 

were silenced during the early days of the Spanish Inquisition. 

It was from those days in the 14oos that the Mortifero were 

officially formed.’ 

A tug boat passed by spewing out black smoke across the 

tea-brown waters of the river. ‘The Mortifero?’ I asked, 

thinking it sounded like one of those swanky resorts on the 

Italian Riviera. 

‘Sssh,’ she laid a rose-scented finger to my lips, ‘be very 

careful you’re not heard mentioning them too loud or too 

often. They’re the guards of our secrets and are swift and 

severe in keeping them.’ 

It sounded dangerous and romantic, as if I was now one of 

the players in a Charlie Chan movie filled with hooded 

assassins. I was so innocent. But then, we all were, as we

waited on the brink of the terrible conflict to come. Being 

immortal would bring its own trials. War is a great leveller.

Chapter 4 

Isaac 

Present day 

It was now my mission to find this present day killer of 

children, to stop more innocents ending up at the mortuary or 

one in another part of the Capital. 

Yet I allowed myself to get distracted. The name of that 

distraction was Isaac. 

I was still living at the time with Sofia in apartments in an 

old detached house - Beech Villas - on Dunnets Lane in 

Ealing within a short distance to Walpole Park. The house 

was owned by an elderly lady by the name of Mrs Purcell. 

The late Mr Purcell had owned a famous department store – 

Hamers on the High Street. 

Beech Villas was a beautiful house the kind of which is 

becoming rare in London. It suited us to rent instead of buy at 

the time. Let’s just say anything that involves a young and 

thorough-minded solicitor these days can have its issues. 

Whilst I had my job at Hammersmith, Sofia’s business card 

described her as ‘a style and beauty consultant’. We were

well-suited to our professions. Death fascinates me. Not in a 

ghoulish way. But being what I am, I have often wondered 

where the soul goes to afterwards, and I figured that if I 

watched for long enough, I might just pick up some clues. It’s 

a work in progress. 

Sofia, for her part knows just about everything there is to 

know about artifice and holding back the years. She’s very 

good at her job and always in demand. She has some very 

exclusive clients. 

We rented the top floor of the house and Mrs Purcell left us 

in peace, never asked many questions. The rent was always 

left in an envelope on a shelf in the hall by the coat stand once 

a month. Old-fashioned, but I liked it that way. 

Mrs Purcell was typical of many elderly ladies I’ve known, 

with that air of innocence and vulnerability that seems so 

unlikely after a lifetime in this world. She wore her hair neat 

and pinned, always went out in either her pink woollen coat or 

sometimes a long black one in similar style for when she was 

attending funerals. She always carried a black shopping bag 

with little coloured flowers embroidered on it. 

Memory recalls that sweet little smile that fluttered on her 

age-puckered lips like a butterfly.

A few days after the child’s murder and my meeting with 

Kamala, I arrived back at Beech Villas later one late afternoon 

and encountered Mrs Purcell in the hall, removing her scarf in 

front of the mirror. Sometimes I let her see me, sometimes I 

didn’t. She could talk forever sometimes, and often I found it 

preferable to bypass that. 

This day, I came in concealed. It was another six hours 

before my shift and I had plans to spend an evening with 

Sofia, maybe take a nostalgic stroll by the river, grab the kind 

of coffee she preferred – the kind it’s better to pay with by 

credit card to soften the blow. I’d been preoccupied with my 

investigations of the sangoma’s list of late. 

‘You’re neglecting me,’ Sofia had announced the previous 

evening. I should have recognised the danger signs I suppose. 

As I came in, there was Mrs Purcell in front of the mirror, 

with her little smile reflected back at her, unbuttoning her 

pink coat with shaky arthritic deliberation. 

I watched her for a moment, and then noticed a shadow 

beyond.

Someone else was standing behind her. In shadow, like me. 

And it wasn’t Sofia. 

I felt a sharp stab of fear, acted on reflex. 

She never saw what caused a few strands of her white hair to 

blow in the breeze as I moved to intercept her would-be 

attacker. 

‘That door always gives me a start when the wind bangs it 

like that,’ I heard her complain in irritable tones. 

The intruder almost avoided me, but I anticipated his dodge, 

grabbed his shoulders and we tumbled out of the hall, past the 

scullery and through the back door, which I kicked shut after 

us. 

Grabbing a handful of sweatshirt, I hauled him up, pinned 

him against the brick wall in the yard where Mrs Purcell had 

her shiny ceramic pots of herbs and geraniums, as I kept the 

other hand around his throat. 

‘OK’ I said, using pitch and inflection that only one of our 

kind could hear, ‘you’ve got one minute to explain, and if I 

don’t like it, you won’t like what comes after.’ 

He was younger than I had been when I met Sofia, and 

whereas I’m all darkness and whiplash wires, he was golden 

and filled out, toned muscles and still slightly tanned. My skin

had never seen the sun even before I became Shadow-kind. I 

couldn’t resist a twinge of jealousy and pressed harder. 

He looked down at me, still grinning. 

‘You’d be Gideon, I take it?’ he managed, no break in the 

smile. I couldn’t understand why he kept on grinning, but just 

to register my annoyance, I tightened my grip some more. 

As his face turned purple, I relented a bit and loosened my 

hold, which was a mistake. 

Twisting in a fluid motion, and still grinning, which further 

infuriated me, he broke free and scaled the wall at speed. 

This was someone new to our kind, it was obvious, but he 

was still fast. I gave chase. 

He headed up to Sofia’s and my bedroom, and disappeared 

in through the open window, and I followed. 

I would have been on him within the next second, but what 

greeted me as I hauled myself through stopped me in my 

tracks. 

Sofia lay on her side upon the bed, wearing a rather feline 

thin velvet collar. Nothing else, just the collar. The house 

invader had thrown himself on the bed beside her, his hand on 

her stomach, the other possessively draped over her shoulder. 

The lazy, sensuous, and familiar look on her face left no doubt

about what was going on. His smug grin now made perfect 

sense. 

‘What is this?’ I managed, which was stupid because it was 

pretty obvious. 

‘Now Gideon,’ Sofia replied in a weary voice, ‘we did 

discuss this. This is Isaac.’ 

My brain seized up. I played out a number of responses to 

Sofia’s revelation, none of which seemed adequate to the 

situation, so I just stayed silent, trying not to look too pathetic, 

and failing miserably. 

Isaac turned his head and kissed the side of her face, 

watching me all the while, just so as to leave me in no doubt. 

She stared at me, looking slightly annoyed, and sighed. ‘You 

boys are going to have to learn how to play nicely together 

from now on, or we’ll have to find a solution to the problem, 

won’t we?’ 

I hated her more than I’d ever done before that moment. 

My eyes turned to the interloper. ‘What were you doing 

downstairs with Mrs Purcell?’ I asked in an icy voice, getting 

back to the original issue. 

He shook his head.

‘Do you really think I’m that desperate?’ he drawled, 

stroking the side of Sofia’s neck. She gave him a dig with her 

elbow, but said nothing. 

‘Were you going to feed on her?’ I felt myself tense, quite 

ready to kill him. 

He huffed and the grin came back. ‘Promise not to – she’s all 

yours mate. Anyway,’ he leaned back on his elbows, ‘nice 

little gaffe you’ve got here, don’t want to upset the apple cart 

and all. She’d be hardly a snack anyway. On Death’s door that 

one.’ 

Sofia gave him a playful punch, stifled a laugh, and I hated 

her a little bit more. I looked around. The room looked 

somehow different. 

‘Where are my things?’ 

She tipped her head. ‘Next door…’ 

We had a spare room, more of a cupboard really, next to the 

main bedroom, because, believe it not, our kind do have a 

social life, and sometimes visitors stayed over. The other 

bedroom had long been converted into a study and occasional 

consulting room for Sofia. I walked over and opened the spare 

room door, only to see my belongings had been thrown on top 

of the small bed in there.

That just about completed the humiliation for me. My body 

and mind felt weary. I decided to put off killing Isaac for just 

the right moment, maybe save it for later. I walked into my 

new room, closed the door behind me.

Chapter 5 

Visit to the Palace 

After my surprise meeting with Sofia’s new lover, and my 

plan for a romantic evening stroll disappointed, I turned my 

attention again to the sangoma’s list. Rather than dwell on my 

current domestic situation, I took the document out and 

studied it, noting an entry regarding a transaction due in a 

couple of weeks’ time. I decided to use the time instead to 

pre-empt it with a targeted strike. 

The Palace on Coventry Street has a grand title but is 

anything but. So much of the original Soho was destroyed in 

World War II due to the sheer amount of ordinance dropped 

during the Blitz. 

The building I presently stood before had once been a gin 

palace, hence the name. I vaguely remember that before being 

reduced to a bombed-out shell, it had that gaudy charm so 

many Victorian buildings display. In my early days it had 

become a cinema, though it closed during the war. 

The modern structure is soulless, concrete and mostly 

invisible, but it’s still a cinema, renamed for the old building 

out of nostalgia rather than resemblance. Of course, the films

it now shows are not exactly family entertainment, though its 

headline displays are muted. The foyer is decorated with dirty, 

dusty old shots of women with surgically exaggerated 

anatomy beneath suggestive movie titles. They have a Private 

Members studio at the back, no pun intended, catering for 

every taste, which in London means illegal and often nasty. 

So far my efforts to find the murderer of children had been 

consistently unsuccessful, and this, combined with the 

humiliation of being romantically replaced by someone barely 

out of high school was beginning to give me raging stomach 

acid. 

I’d been a little surprised by the fact many of the sangoma’s 

customers had white South African names. This one, Johann 

Bakker, worked for the London office of a Johannesburg 

importers and seemed to enjoy illegal porn, so I discovered 

partly on his Twitter page, partly by my discoveries after 

following him. Considering his clientele, it seemed a logical 

deduction that South Africa was where the sangoma had 

recently come from. It was another avenue of investigation to 

be saved for later. 

I’d phoned Bakker’s place of work pretending to be a 

working associate and found out he was staying at a hotel in

Bloomsbury. I waited for him to depart and tracked him to the 

Palace where I watched him present a members’ card to the 

box-office attendant. 

He was a distinctive looking individual who seemed keen to 

give the impression of a much younger man, with short 

blonde ponytail, Ray-Bans and a sun bed tan. He swaggered 

in his tan loafers, sucking in his well-fed stomach and sported 

a suit that was a couple of generations too young for him. He 

gave the attendant, a young fine-boned girl with an Eastern 

European accent, a white-toothed grin that I supposed was 

meant to be charming. I walked in past the box office in 

shadow, only marginally less visible than the rest of this 

cinema’s attendees. 

The title of the art movie he was attending was ‘Teenaged 

and Horny’. It didn’t take much intelligence to guess what it 

was Johann Bakker might be wishing for from the sangoma. 

He chose to locate himself in a rear cubicle, for obvious 

reasons. As the audience settled themselves in anticipation, I 

walked in and joined him in visible form, sitting in the 

mulberry velour seat beside him. The stench of an 

overpowering aftershave assaulted my senses; sweet and 

heavy, it had probably been expensive. For a second I

wondered whether his intention was to overcome his romantic 

interests with charm or simply render them unconscious. I 

worked hard not to gag. 

He looked at me from under carefully sculpted dark brows. 

‘Look moffie, I think you got the wrong booth. Maybe the 

next movie after this might suit you more.’ 

I don’t know much South African slang, but I was pretty sure 

he’d taken my approach as a gay pick-up. 

‘Calm down Johann. You’re not my type. I have some 

questions about a little upcoming transaction of yours.’ 

He didn’t relax and his expression hardened. ‘I have a lot of 

transactions in the pipeline. I’m a businessman. You’ll have to 

be specific,’ he hissed. 

I didn’t like the way his hand casually strayed to his pocket, 

and suspected he had a knife, maybe a gun. 

‘Keep your hands where I can see them Johann.’ 

He moved his hand away, but not enough for my liking. 

‘Something tells me you’re not a member,’ he growled, 

‘They have some interesting ways of discouraging crashers 

here.’ His mouth had taken on a pinched, peevish set.

‘I know, but they’re not big on brains, plus they take bribes.’ 

This last revelation seemed to make him consider. I hadn’t 

paid any bribes, but he didn’t know that. 

‘What do you want to know?’ 

The screen had filled with pale, pulsating underage limbs 

entwined in various sexual contortions. The script seemed 

mainly comprised of exclamation and surprised profanity. Art 

movie it wasn’t. 

‘You’ve involved yourself with a sangoma with the purpose 

of purchasing some favour or other. Tell me about him. 

Specifically, where I can find him in London. Not the place 

on Tibbs Row, that’s just a post pick-up.’ 

Even in the dim, flickering light I could see the colour had 

drained out of his orange face. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ 

he shook his head, ‘what’s a sangoma?’ 

‘You’re not a good liar.’ 

We sat in silence for a few seconds, until he realised I wasn’t 

going away. His chest heaved as he sighed, straining the 

buttons of his over-tight suit. 

‘You don’t get it bru, he’s bad news, even for his kind. He 

really does have powers. A crazy cuiter, with power. Mean 

too. You mess with him he’ll come for me and you, maybe

take out a few of your family as well, and not quick. He does 

this because he likes it.’ 

‘So why involve yourself with him?’ 

He smiled. ‘He’s good at what he does, if you know what I 

mean.’ It was confusing that someone as obviously worldly as 

Johann Bakker actually seemed to believe in magic. Yet in a 

world where someone like me existed, why should it seem 

strange? 

I stared back. ‘At this moment, you need to worry more 

about me. Details. Now...’ 

Bakker lunged. Normally, our senses help us move faster, 

but I will admit to being distracted by the gross but 

fascinating proceedings on-screen. I may not be fully human, 

but I am male. 

His manoeuvre was pretty well-planned, as he aimed his 

expensively veneered teeth at my right arm. I’m left-handed, 

but it was a sound gamble. There was a moment of pain, then 

nothing as I transitioned and dodged around the booth. Bakker 

got a mouthful of smoke for his efforts. In conjunction with 

his move, he’d reached again for what turned out to be a small 

flick-knife in his right hand pocket.

In slow motion, I noted his face, partially turned back to see 

where my half-transitioned form now crouched behind him. In 

his eyes was the wide, rolling gaze of the slaughterhouse 

animal. I had to do a quick calculation at this point. Bakker’s 

living signature spoke to me of the bully – the reactive rather 

than the reflective, and overall, a kind of stubbornness that 

wasn’t about to divulge any useful information, particularly 

given the fear he held for the sangoma. That much had been 

clear. 

On the other hand, there was an audience of some fifty or 

more below that could at any moment glance up and see what 

was happening. I couldn’t transition past the heavies I’d seen 

outside with Bakker in tow without being seen. My options 

suddenly became very limited. 

I held his head and fed quickly. Just as his atoms faded into 

that space just before death, his eyes lost their feral terror and 

seemed peaceful. His brain would not have had time to 

process nor understand. It was a particularly noisy part of the 

film’s proceedings and the rest of the theatre’s audience were 

sufficiently distracted not to notice a thing. The ghost-light 

and the fevered reflections of the movie duplicated in each set 

of eyes, an army of slaves trapped by their desires in worn

velour seats. No-one was interested in the passing of a soul 

above them. 

The muscle-bound security men did not notice my progress 

back through the foyer, then underneath the only camera by 

the entrance which in this light would be unable to detect me 

in shadow. Once back in the street, I dodged the crowds and 

took a detour down a quiet alley where I slammed my back 

against the exhaust-stained brick wall, stifling the urge to 

scream. A weedy sapling grew out of the brick mortar three 

flights above and trembled in the wind like a finger shaking at 

my despair. I had no further useful information, the only 

consolation being that I’d hopefully managed to save the life 

of another innocent, though it would be a short reprieve. I felt 

an urgent need to find the sangoma and his suppliers of 

faceless and untraceable children before another victim turned 

up. 

I returned in a dark mood to Beech Villas, opting for access 

via the open window of my new bijou bed-cupboard. 

Collapsing into bed, I stared at the night-patterned ceiling, 

unable to sleep due to the rhythmic pounding and occasional 

moan in the adjoining, and my former, bedroom.

Chapter 6 

The River Beneath 

Thames Embankment, August 1935 

The electric globes on top of their dolphin-decorated columns 

illuminated our path into the distance as the Thames lapped 

and splashed the embankment’s walls. Barges and cargo boats 

bellied about within the waves, carrying their loads to and 

from the eternally busy docks. 

‘It’s not easy to make another of us, not everyone can do it,’ 

Sofia told me as we steered clear of one of the splashes of 

river water as it slapped against the pale grey stone. ‘It uses 

up too much energy if you don’t know what you’re doing. 

And it can go badly wrong. The truth is Gideon, the only 

offspring we will ever have are the ones we make, as I made 

you, so there aren’t that many of us. It’s all part of the natural 

balance of things I suppose.’ 

‘No children or family?’ My mind quailed at the enormity of 

this. As one world of wonder had opened up for me, it seemed 

another had been firmly shut behind me leaving a dark void. 

‘For everything precious, there’s always a price,’ she told 

me. ‘Life in the Shadow is not for the innocent or the tender-

hearted. But just because you live in a different way to other 

humans, it doesn’t mean you lose all sense of honour, right 

and wrong.’ Her head turned towards where a passing barge 

had sounded its horn with a call as forlorn as a lost calf. ‘It 

helps though, of course.’ 

‘We can walk in the day, but it’s probably best to avoid 

direct sunlight.’ she told me as we took the scenic route back 

to her apartment, arm in arm along the side of the river. 

I nodded, ‘It sounds a little like Nosferatu.’ She frowned. 

‘You know, where the sunlight kills him.’ I was a fan at the 

time of spooky films like the controversial German classic 

movie, and those ‘Not at Night’ stories with the lurid cover 

art. Now I felt as if I was a character in one of them. 

Sofia shook her head dismissively. We walked past one of 

the noisy, bubbling culverts through which one of the many 

subterranean streams of the city entered the river. ‘You see, 

whereas humans take their energy from food and the sun, we 

draw our power from the Shadow. How do I explain this? 

Have you ever noticed that the energy, the feel of things is 

different at night? Everything seems more frightening then, 

doesn’t it? The dark taps into forces that most humans just 

can’t access or understand. For example, how do you suppose

a creature can look good after as many years as I’ve lived?’ I 

couldn’t disagree, though began to wonder just how old this 

fascinating woman actually was. It was quickly forgotten, as I 

wasn’t really thinking with my brain at that point. 

We sat down on one of the wrought iron benches. Our walk 

so far had carried us through numerous streets and a good way 

down the embankments, yet I felt no sense of fatigue yet. 

I draped my arm along her shoulders. All around and across 

the water, the buildings, lamp-posts and loading cranes were 

cloaked in a seductive pre-dawn mist. 

‘It’s a sort of magic,’ she continued, ‘a glamour that the 

Shadow lends us if you can understand. Best to avoid being 

seen in mirrors or photos though.’ She turned and regarded 

me with those clear grey eyes. ‘Have you ever walked along 

the street and seen something in the corner of your eye? Or 

seen someone who didn’t look quite … right? It’s not a trick 

of the eye. It’s just that there are many mysterious, unseen 

things that the general populace either can’t or don’t choose to 

see. And we’re one of them.’ 

Magic, mysterious, the unseen. It all sounded so romantic.

‘If you try to carry on with your old life,’ Sofia told me, 

‘you’ll soon notice the way people look at you, the way 

they’ll see you isn’t the same. How you are, in fact, 

completely different.’ 

Did you ever wonder about all those missing people in the 

posters and magazines, the ones the police forget about? 

I was about to find out. 

I abandoned my rooms in Bayswater and moved in with 

Sofia. In those pre-war years she had an apartment on the 

Embankment, which wasn’t quite as prestigious as it would be 

now, but it was still far better than my digs. 

The defining moment came when I first took a good look at 

myself in the mirror. Sofia had so many of them, favouring 

the Romanesque style frame that were popular in many of the 

prestigious London hotels at the time. I wondered if 

disappearing into Shadow left her with a need to constantly 

check she was still there. Beautiful. Recognisable. Solid. 

Normally, I hardly ever bothered to use a mirror, apart from 

checking my hair after applying Brylcream for the styles all

men wore at the time. I recall I stepped forward, unused to 

such a full, large view of myself. My features were the same, 

and yet completely different. They seemed to shift as my fear 

grew and I turned away feeling queasy, unable to look at my 

reflection too long. 

Sofia just laughed. ‘Wait till you get to my age,’ she said. 

She passed her hand over her face, her lovely face. And I 

screamed, and screamed, and then screamed some more. 

She held me then. Cradled my head like a child. I could feel 

her warmth, my senses so acute, so heightened. The blood 

pumping round her body, the heart rhythms, the air going in 

and out of her lungs, other creaks and gurgles that I’d never 

even noticed before. And something else, like the faintest 

sound of a subterranean river, like the ones that criss-cross 

unseen beneath the skin of the city. Secret, like us. Later I 

learnt it wasn’t a sound but what we call a signature. To be 

able to sense the undertow that others can’t detect is 

sometimes useful, often a curse. How much about our fellow 

humans do we ever really want to understand?

Chapter 7 

Camden Lock 

Present day 

It was Wednesday, and my weekend thanks to my shift 

pattern, so I had some time to research and carry on with 

investigating the list of the sangoma’s customers. 

I emerged blinking into the grey light of a typical London 

summer as I walked out past the tiles and red-brick of 

Camden Town tube station. Turning north on Eversholt Street, 

I navigated my way through the market, the hem of my coat 

brushing past stands of tie-dye hippy dresses, Indian-style 

throws, retro-style jeans. There was a jingling and clacking of 

wind chimes, which would have been relaxing, except that I 

was on a hunt. 

After the mess-up with Kamala and Bakker, I was 

determined to plan better with the next name I’d chosen on 

the list, give myself the best chance of getting a direct trail. 

It was a dark day, which was fortunate. Walking ahead of me 

was one of the sangoma’s favoured customers. Stephen 

Asikinosi, a minor worker in the Zimbabwean Embassy, so 

my research had revealed. Had he received the worldly wealth

he’d sought? The promotion, the health benefits? Who knew? 

He was however not alone. 

He walked side by side with a pretty thing; oval face and 

light, almost golden eyes. Her deep-bronze skin seemed to 

glow, or was it love? Her clothes were expensive – maybe she 

was a daughter of rich parents, or maybe she’d saved up for 

an outfit to impress. 

Doubt had crept, cat-like, into my mind. I could see Stephen 

smiling, mirroring her happiness. 

‘Nyeri, what about this one?’ He held out one of the tie-dye 

tops for her to look at. She laughed, ‘Too African,’ she said. 

This was a girl who wanted to embrace the West, I thought, 

leave unwanted roots behind. They walked on laughing. 

Could he have wished for her, could love have been his 

request of the sangoma? It seemed a strange contradiction, for 

something so sublime to be achieved at such a terrible price. 

I almost gave up. It was fascinating though, that my 

preconception of this latest client of the sangoma should be at 

such odds with the evidence before my eyes. 

Could I have made a mistake, could there be another Stephen 

Asikinosi working for the embassy in London? I was rapidly 

calling in favours, but my contact who worked on the edges of

the Alderman’s Council had assured me the information was 

flawless. 

I noted Stephen used her beautiful name often, and watched 

as he led her by the arm off the road and to the walk along the 

embankment. 

‘People live on the boats,’ he told her, ‘beautiful, colourful 

boats painted with English roses and castles. Wouldn’t it be 

wonderful to live in peace, sail along quiet, green waterways, 

no cares, no war, no taxes?’ 

Her laughter echoed, a sound like the wind chimes on the 

market stalls. 

The banks of the Regents Canal he was leading her to, 

however, were not particularly green, save for the poisonous 

algae and scum swirling on surface of the water. The banks 

are prime real estate to developers building industrial chic 

apartments but aren’t noted for their verdant aspect. 

I felt like a voyeur following them now, it seemed clear he 

wanted to be alone with Nyeri. I’m not sure why I carried on 

my surveillance. 

They swayed, arm in arm, and I felt jealousy sneak its way 

into my gut. Also conflict. Had I seen any of the others with 

their partners, would it have put a different perspective on

things? I am often in conflict. Predators with a conscience 

usually are. 

Passing old brick walls with obscene graffiti, Stephen and 

Nyeri emerged on to the towpath and made their way towards 

the arch of one of the old bridges that cross the canal. The 

water ruffled as a narrowboat laden with flowery window 

boxes sauntered along. Nyeri pointed at its name, ‘Eliza Jane! 

I love that name.’ 

This area of the canal seemed deserted after Eliza Jane’s 

passing. Perhaps it was time to leave them to it – I didn’t want 

to intrude on their intimacy. 

Then things changed. 

Stephen’s grip on her arm seemed tighter. His body language 

changed as well, and he was walking faster, as if dragging her 

along rather than gently guiding as before. 

At first Nyeri matched his walking pace, perhaps thinking 

there was a valid reason for his speed. She looked over her 

shoulder, but couldn’t have seen me - I was in full transition 

at the time and walking against a backdrop of brown, 

Autumn-withered shrubbery. It suddenly occurred to me she 

was looking to see if there was trouble coming up behind. It’s 

what I’d have thought in her position.

I stood, curious, as Stephen pulled her to him roughly, and 

then, glancing up and down the embankment, he shoved her 

into a dense thicket of branches and curled, dead leaves. 

‘Richard, what are you doing?’ she yelled. 

Ah, there you were, all the time, I thought to myself. Using a 

false name is never a good sign of a man’s intentions. 

He fell down on top of her, slapped her hard. ‘Shut up you 

stupid bitch.’ He held up an index finger as if about to instruct 

her like a school teacher. 

I walked up closer. He had his face close to hers, ‘You, and 

many others have been promised me. You must be silent now 

and give in to that which must be!’ Even the tone of his voice 

had changed from the moonstruck innocence he’d feigned 

before. 

As chat up lines went, it was not the best I’d heard. 

Nyeri started to cry, her arms up in defence, eyes tight closed 

as if in denial that the man she’d trusted could have altered so 

much. I took my cue. 

Within a fraction of a second Stephen’s weight was no 

longer holding her down. 

Slowly, Nyeri raised herself. Wiping the tears away, I saw 

her looking round for her attacker. It took her a few more

seconds to realise that a miracle had happened and she’d been 

given a reprieve. She pulled at her skirt, brushed the dirt and 

undergrowth from her pale suit, and ran back the way they 

had come. 

Meanwhile, as I watched some way further along my 

attention returned to Stephen Asikinosi whom I’d pinned up 

by a wall between two litter-strewn elderberry trees, my hands 

on his throat. I had not bothered to fully transition into 

visibility, I wasn’t sure if I was going to kill him and didn’t 

want him to see my face. 

‘The sangoma you recently paid. I want everything you 

know about him, and if you tell me the truth, I might spare 

your life.’ I knew he could hear my voice like a loud whisper 

in his head. Looking at the terror on his face, I hoped he 

wouldn’t have a cardiac arrest before he gave me what I 

needed. 

‘Mbingeleli, Mbingeleli!’ he jabbered. 

‘Is that his name?’ He nodded again and again. 

‘Where did you meet him for the ritual?’ 

Tears were streaming down Stephen’s face, his lips 

shuddering. He was drooling somewhat, which didn’t endear 

him to me any further.

‘Always different places, different places. Empty houses. 

The last o-one I went to was in Peckham, Dyllis Street. But, 

but I think it was due for demolition, there was a notice. He’s 

very clever, very secret. Please, please, that’s all I know. He’s 

a very bad person, if he knows I said anything...’ 

‘So am I,’ I whispered close to his ear, noting that his 

trembling increased. Apparently, the proximity of one of us in 

Shadow feels cold, as if someone’s suddenly opened a fridge 

door on you. 

I increased the pressure until he was almost choking. ‘No 

more women. Do you understand?’ 

‘I was promised, the blood sacrifice...’ he wheezed with 

difficulty. 

‘I’m the one you need to fear, not some psychopath who kills 

children. No more women. And if you’ve not told me 

everything,’ I pushed him down to his knees, ‘I’ll be back for 

you.’ 

Stephen sprawled the towpath, gurgling for breath as I 

moved off, heading back the way I came. 

I re-emerged in my corporeal state as I headed back to the 

melee of Camden Lock Market, which continued as frenetic 

as ever. My heart hammered against my ribs, a mix of

adrenaline and anger. In the distance, I could see Nyeri 

making her way to safety, her suit pale as an antelope amidst 

the colour and the noise. 

I wasn’t sure if sparing Stephen for now had been a good 

idea, but even very bad men need the occasional day off. 

Perhaps he could provide further information in the future. 

It was a long journey across the city to Dyllis Street. When I 

got there it was too late, the wrecking crew had already 

completed their work. A hoarding announcing some futuristic 

social housing scheme was the only thing standing within a 

radius of seventy yards. 

No trail, no clues. It was as if this man who traded in 

superstition and innocent lives existed only in the fear of his 

customers, in the space between life and torturous death.

Chapter 8 

After the Fall 

The diaries and treatise of Francesco Adolphus, minor prelate 

in the most holy Catholic Church, Venice 

Letter to His Holiness, Cardinal Cagliari 

17th of November 1471 

I feel I must inform His Holiness that there are those, both 

heretical and magical within the sainted and protected walls 

of our Venetian capital who may prove both dangerous not 

only to its citizens but to the foundations of the Sancta Sedes 

itself. 

This came to my attention last Saint’s day when I was 

proceeding through the streets towards the San Marco 

Basilica. I chose to take a shorter route so that I would not be 

late for my audience with my father confessor, Alphonsi 

Piccolomini, whom I was visiting in preparation for my 

placement in the province of Cordoba in Iberia. I guessed 

there might be some risk in taking this route with the Festival

of Masks being upon the city, a chance for many a pickpocket 

from along the coast to roam in disguise, but I feared more 

the displeasure of Padre Piccolomini. 

I might add it was a fine day with only a small amount of 

cloud and what I saw could not have been a phantasm of the 

dark. 

There were a number of revellers abroad in the strange 

masks that abound at this time late in the year as I hurried 

towards the padre’s apartments. Ahead, in the entrance of the 

alley, I noticed two revellers in particular; one, in a bauta, in 

black and gold, the other in Medico Della Peste wearing a 

flamboyant crimson cloak. They seemed to be in dispute, and I 

would have avoided bypassing them, but as I considered, I 

heard the hour chime at the campanile, so I carried on fearing 

further lateness. 

At this point the two gentlemen’s dispute had escalated and 

the one in the bauta pulled at the Medico mask, exposing the 

other’s face, and I fell into great shock and fear, for his 

features were an abomination – a creature of truly unearthly 

countenance. He took hold of the face of the bauta reveller, 

who then appeared to dwindle visibly and quickly to nothing

within the embrace of the killer. I became transfixed by that 

strange face, likening to that surely of the Devil himself. 

I wanted very much to flee, though as that cowardly thought 

occurred, I touched the crucifix at my chest, and recalled the 

example of our Lord, as well as the teachings of the good 

father in regards to demons amongst us. So I followed the 

demon into the alley, praying all the while for God’s strength 

in dealing with this unholy creature. 

Yet even as I pursued his figure, which seemed bound for the 

Basilica, I stopped and hid behind one of the turnings. For, 

arriving out of the air itself, blocking the path of the demon, 

there stood an angel of the Lord of Hosts, in his hand, a 

flaming sword... 

September 1935 

‘…It was a little after this time that the Aldermen officially 

founded the Mortifero,’ Sofia added after she told her tale. 

‘We call them the Cleaners nowadays. They were called the 

Protettori in Venice but their function wasn’t widely known, 

only hints and whispers in darkened corridors. The Consiglio 

decided it would be better if they became widely known, the

knowledge of them acting as a deterrent to those who thought 

to disregard the rules.’ 

It was three weeks after my fated trip to the cinema where 

we’d first met. We sat at the time in a luxurious suite in the 

Savoy which Sofia had just strolled into following a ‘nod’ 

from a managerial sort she called Richard. I had followed, 

imagining the curious glances, the envy of the male patrons 

sitting in the foyer as I accompanied this mysterious siren. 

Instinctively I tipped my fedora hat to cast shadow over my 

face, to hide the real me. 

‘The apartment’s being cleaned today,’ Sofia gave as 

explanation for our new temporary abode. She gave no further 

information. 

I sat awkwardly on the floral brocade sofa, terrified of 

dropping the china cup I’d been handed by her from the 

beautiful tea service. She poured and continued her tale. 

‘The story is that the man in the Medico mask had recently 

left a trail of destruction and evidence in Rome that caused us 

great inconvenience. He then fled and thought to hide in 

Venice. The Protettori even in those days were relentless. It’s 

our cautionary tale to those new among us to keep them in 

line.’

I sipped the hot, sweet tea. ‘What happened to him?’ 

She shook her lustrous hair under the light of the crystal 

chandelier. ‘Don’t ask.’ 

A flaming sword. It was the stuff of legends and tales. 

At this point, I should perhaps mention that not too long after 

Sofia turned me, I tried to kill myself, several months after 

what I’d become had sunk in. 

Grief raises walls between people, and from the moment of 

my disappearance onward, it destroyed my family, far more 

than the threat of war and the eventual decimation of the 

London Blitz ever could have. 

Another grey Christmas in a 1930s London was fast 

approaching. Unable to bear her grief any longer I made the 

decision to talk to my mother, just to let her know I was 

alright, but Sofia followed and stopped me. Ma lived in a tiny 

terraced house on a street called Gibbs Road. It survived the 

Blitz, but not the rebuilding fervour of the fifties. The road 

still had cobbles, and I stepped out on them, only to be 

dragged into yet another alley.

‘Remember Gideon,’ Sofia explained, not unkindly ‘we can 

fool people who don’t know us, create a false image for them 

that shows them just enough, but you can’t fo0l the eyes of 

love – she’ll see that you aren’t the same. She won’t see her 

son, only what the Shadow creates. It will terrify her and 

make things far worse.’ 

In the weeks that followed, it still preyed on my mind. I 

realised I’d made a rash decision, and I hated what I was, 

what I had to do to survive. 

One night, unable to cope with the turmoil within, I climbed 

to the roof of the London Provincial Assurance building, and 

after an age, said goodbye to my friends the pineapples and 

just let myself topple off. I can remember the rush of air past 

my ears now, like the roar of some angry beast. 

I blamed the old building for what I’d become, as well as 

Audrey Sullivan, and Sofia. For everything. It was much 

easier than blaming myself. 

It was the middle of the night and the pavement below was 

deserted as I smashed into it with a wet splintering sound. 

It hurt like no Hell you can ever imagine. I couldn’t even 

scream because I’d knocked all of the air out of my lungs.

But I didn’t die, and I can remember thinking through the red 

agony, ‘Cocked it up again, haven’t you?’ 

The world turned dark, and I thought, so this is what 

happens. But even then it wasn’t death. 

My skin began to crawl with Shadow, like a thousand 

creeping, burrowing insects. And if the splintering of limbs 

and rupturing of organs had been agonising, then the bending, 

snapping, squishing feeling of the Shadow setting about its 

repair work was doubly so. 

‘You were lucky,’ Sofia told me afterwards. ‘It can take one 

of us a long, long time to die. Usually, it doesn’t get to that. 

The Cleaners make sure of it.’ The accompanying tone of her 

voice left me in no doubt. 

On that night, I never knew how close I was to meeting one 

of them. I survived, and although it took me a few days to 

repair completely, I did recover. On the outside at least. 

Struggling up after my fall, legs all bent and bloody, my eyes 

focused in time to see this old tramp dressed in layers of 

reeking, age-worn clothes staggering towards me, the stink of 

some spirit on his breath. Strangely enough, he wore a tie, 

probably the last thing he possessed that connected him with a 

world he no longer belonged to.

‘Oi, are you all right?’ he slurred, though what exactly he 

could have done to help, I couldn’t guess. 

Looking at him, I realised things could be a lot worse. 

‘Bit of a fall,’ I croaked, managing a weak laugh at the same 

time. 

He walked off, weaving his crazy way into the distance. 

‘Well, long as you’re all right. You look after yourself. Can’t 

be too careful,’ he called over his shoulder. 

Just before he disappeared from sight, I saw an arc of 

brilliant silver above on one of the roofs opposite. It faded as 

quickly as it had appeared. 

Looking back, I realise the only thing that saved both of us 

was the fact I got up, and that no-one ever believes the words 

of the terminally drunk. 

‘The Mortifero generally only ever kill for three reasons,’ 

Sofia told me, ‘to preserve our secrecy, to feed or in mercy to 

our kind. They have a strict code of honour.’ 

I’ve often thought about that bloke. A complete wreck of 

humanity, yet he still had enough of it left to care about 

someone else. No home, no job, no willpower to refuse the 

next drink. He taught me a valuable lesson. I knew I had to

learn how to survive and how to live with myself. Yet it 

would take an incident during the dark days of the Blitz to 

finally show me the way.

Chapter 9 

Roof Walking 

Present day 

Did I mention that, somehow, Sofia always seems to get her 

own way? 

‘Gideon,’ she said after I’d come back from my night shift, ‘I 

need you to do a little job for me. I need you to watch Isaac.’ 

So, not content with unceremoniously dumping me after 

more than a diamond anniversary’s worth of years for some 

college drop-out, she then decided to enrol me as his 

unofficial tutor in our ways of getting around. I watched as 

she stood before the mirror, twirling and styling her hair with 

ease, preening, examining a pair of ancient and beautiful 

earrings. My mind strayed to the sangoma’s list. 

‘Why can’t you day-care your new boyfriend Sofia? I have 

things to do myself that can’t wait.’ 

She turned, her eyes wide then narrowing. ‘What, you want 

me to keep track of him in these designer heels? I don’t care 

what little caped crusade you’re on at the moment, and don’t 

think the Cleaners aren’t keeping an eye on you over that. But 

you’re a hunter Gideon. I don’t know why you never used

your skill to make money with it, rather than wallowing in the 

decay and misery of death.’ 

There were further words, but suffice it to say that Sofia’s 

belief in always being obeyed is greater than my ability to 

override it. 

In the end, after several hours of black looks, and Sofia’s are 

blacker than most, I succumbed, though partially because I 

saw the opportunity of perhaps getting some sweet revenge on 

the smug young studlet. 

What can I say? Looking back, after my poor efforts at 

tracking the elusive sangoma, I needed a little fun and 

distraction. It was probably a mistake to delay my hunt, but 

I’m only human, more or less. 

It was during this time that Isaac taught me one or two 

things I’d never contemplated before, and one of them was the 

concept of roof-walking. 

Much as I hate to admit it, he showed me that amongst the 

eccentric and varied architecture of our wonderful capital, 

there is scope and opportunity for creatures as agile as us to 

circumnavigate without actually setting foot on the street. We 

often use the subterranean routes beneath London, of which 

there are very many, as walking abroad in full sunlight carries

isks. It’s much more difficult to hide our true selves, firstly, 

because the glamour doesn’t work well with the sun’s rays. 

Secondly because, weird as it may sound, we have no natural 

shadow, apart from one we can project consciously ourselves, 

and that gets tiring after a while. There’s obviously some 

clever, scientific explanation for this phenomenon, I just don’t 

know it. 

Isaac’s track was hard to follow, but I eventually picked it up 

north of Notting Hill, leading up to one of the roofs on a row 

of four storey terraces, on a ledge by some redundant 

chimneys. 

I had to laugh when I caught up with him, spying on some 

female student undressing rather unwisely in plain sight in a 

fourth floor attic room in one of the large house rented 

conversions across the road. Well, when I say in plain sight, 

I’m sure she really didn’t expect someone to be able to peer in 

at this height, not many peeping toms would be quite so 

intrepid. 

I didn’t let on immediately, as I weighed up the possibilities 

of this situation. It did occur to me that perhaps Sofia might 

get jealous or feel insulted by Isaac’s little nocturnal forays.

But she has always mystified me, her reaction could be 

unpredictable. When you look like Sofia, some second year 

student from the local college doesn’t present much of a rival. 

But the depths of a woman’s jealousy can know no bounds, 

defying rational explanation. That much my extended years 

have taught me. 

There was the temptation to simply push Isaac off the roof 

whilst he was distracted, watch in amusement as he 

experienced his first close encounter with the Shadow, but I 

resisted, mainly because I didn’t think four floors was quite 

high enough. 

I coughed. 

He almost lost his hold when he suddenly noticed me behind 

him. I could see what was holding his interest. She was a 

pretty little thing, would have made a good underwear model, 

not that she had any on at the time to judge, but one could see 

she had potential. 

He leapt back. 

‘Jesus!’ he hissed, ‘Do you get off sneaking up on people 

like that!’ 

I smiled. ‘You’re one to speak.’ 

He began to grin crookedly.

‘Oh come on now,’ he wheedled, ‘don’t tell me you’ve never 

done this before. You know, I mean, the potential for … God, 

I mean who needs those extra cable channels when you can 

leap about like Spiderman, seeing what’s going on in the 

bedrooms of the city. It’s just too much fun…’ 

‘I wonder if Sofia knows what an unmitigated little creep 

she’s unleashed on the world?’ 

Even I could hear how superior I sounded at that point. But 

I’d started, so I was going to finish. 

‘Gideon,’ he drawled, returning his attention to his quarry, 

‘you work in a morgue.’ 

Damn. 

‘Anyhow,’ he continued, ‘I see this as a good way of 

tracking something to eat, you know. I mean, look at her. 

She’ll be wasted teaching a load of smelly obnoxious kids 

with behavioural disorders. It’ll be a mercy…’ 

I sighed. 

The thing that really annoyed me at the time was – I could 

sense he was thinking or planning something, and, old as I 

was compared to him, I couldn’t see what it was. Looking 

back, I realise I should have asked how he knew the girl he 

was spying on was at teacher training college.

‘Another time, eh?’ He grinned and tilted his head, ‘Places to 

go, more things to see…’ 

He leapt, and I watched his form dissolve into shadow as he 

dropped vertically down the wall of the building to a roof 

below, me following in pursuit. And while we were running 

around up there, leaping, grasping, swinging, I experienced a 

kind of freedom I hadn’t known for years. I almost laughed 

out loud for the thrill of it. 

When I found him, peering in at some other private, 

downright weird, sleazy or on one occasion, anatomically 

impossible moment, I must admit it drew me in, and I stood, 

hung or crouched with him, fascinated to be spying on lives 

that were more ordinary than ours. 

Just as he probably knew I would. 

It’s not one of my proudest moments, amongst the many. But 

if I hadn’t let myself be tempted by Isaac’s voyeurism, I’d 

never have encountered Cinnamon.

Chapter 10 

Origin 

‘Self-Tanning Spray’s half price with over ten pounds’ 

goods.’ 

The shop girl’s strong Essex accent pulled me back to grim 

reality. 

‘What?’ 

She repeated her useful bit of information with extra 

emphasis. I considered the offer for a couple of seconds. 

‘No thanks, I find they streak.’ I tried not to sound too 

irritated. 

‘Alright, have a nice day.’ She didn’t sound sincere about it. 

So, I considered, pale and interesting hasn’t quite made a 

comeback yet, I recalled the girl’s expression, viewing me 

with down-turned mouth, ochre spray-tan and wide eyes. 

Isaac would be far more her type. 

I skulked off, plastic bag gripped in one hand, newspaper in 

the other which I intended to scour for accommodation when I 

got back to Dunnets Lane. The sun had lodged itself behind a 

bank of hazy cloud but I pulled up my hood in case.

I’d taken a backwards step in my hunt for the sangoma, and 

had to prioritise my changing circumstances. There had been 

no further victims. Perhaps I’d gotten the killer’s attention. It 

was hope, rather than belief. 

The only thing keeping me moderately sane was the fact I 

was on the late, rather than the graveyard shift at the moment 

and didn’t have to spend too much time with my two 

housemates. 

I thought about Sofia’s visit to my room an hour earlier. 

‘You’re awake then?’ 

She stood at the door in a black silk kimono, arms folded, 

mainly because the bed took up most of the space in the room. 

I washed my face in the tiny hand-basin, and dried myself 

with a hand-towel before I replied. 

‘What do you want now Sofia?’ 

She sighed ‘This isn’t working, is it Gideon?’ 

I nodded toward the bed where the local newspaper, The 

Ealing Echo lay on the fetching mulberry coloured 

candlewick bedspread. 

‘As you can see, I am in the process of searching for a 

slightly larger cupboard than this one…’

She shook her head. 

‘It doesn’t need to be like this. We can be friends, can’t we? 

After so long…’ 

‘I’ve got to get to work.’ 

I busied myself pulling on my jeans, deliberately not 

watching as Sofia stroked the door and lingered a couple of 

seconds before she left. I tried to ignore the gnawing pain in 

my chest. Love really does hurt, mortal and immortal alike. 

In truth, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the arrival of 

Isaac. Sofia had made herself a new companion before – 

Solomon, who really didn’t live up to the original’s reputation 

for wisdom. 

Given how that turned out, I can understand her fears in 

regards to her new beau. 

March, 1967 

The aftermath of being turned affects people in all manner of 

different ways. I got suicidal, Sofia’s new lover Solomon 

suddenly imagined he was so much smarter than everyone 

else, or perhaps he always had. In the resulting sense of power 

after his conversion he had what I can only describe as an

‘ego attack’. He was far too clever for our rules to apply to 

him it seemed, and he took London by storm. I’m not sure 

why the afore-mentioned nun appealed to his sense of humour 

or irony, but then, I’m not a Cambridge Don. The poor 

woman was sightseeing with a couple of charges who were 

throwing bread off Lambeth Bridge, watching the seagulls 

swoop and catch. Whether Solomon had meant to scare them, 

consume them or merely prove that God had some pretty 

strange surprises in store for those of religious persuasion, I’ll 

never know. 

Sofia had charged me to watch him much as she had with 

Isaac. It had become apparent over the years that her loves 

were fleeting, but I’d clung to the belief I was the only one 

who endured. I was determined to prove that to her or myself 

and so far my opinion had prevailed. 

Solomon seemed hell-bent on proving me right so I hung 

about watching rather half-heartedly while he generally 

pratted about, flitting in and out of transition, scaring tourists, 

delighting ghost hunters and feeding on just about anyone 

who caught his fancy. I’d drawn the line at some of his 

choices, and I’d yanked him into the shadows of a bank of 

rhododendron when he tried to zone in on a young mum and

aby in Hyde Park, the day before the Lambeth Bridge 

incident. 

‘For god’s sake man,’ I yelled at him, ‘you’re drawing far 

too much attention. You start on kids you’ll have the press 

and Parliament on our backs. They’ll put an end to you.’ 

‘They? They?’ Solomon peered at me with brown eyes 

which sparkled with a crazy light as he laid his hands on my 

shoulders. He had shoulder-length dark hair, John Lennonstyle 

round spectacles and an Elizabethan-style beard, every 

inch the hippy intellectual. ‘We’re the new evolution. Homo 

Sapiens is the past, Homo Superior is the future. You can’t 

protect them all, you can’t hold back the tide.’ 

I had no idea what he was talking about, but the swivelling 

eyes and verbal diarrhoea told me everything I needed to 

know. He got some odd looks from the passers-by, but hippies 

ranting in Hyde Park was common at the time so it passed 

without incident. ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘but leave the babies and 

children out of it. I mean it.’ 

The end for Solomon came swiftly. I continued to follow 

him along Millbank and through the gardens leading up to 

Lambeth Bridge. He kept shouting out quotes from Timothy 

Leary – ‘Move to another groove,’ ‘The Universe is an

intelligence test,’ and so on. Sofia had forbidden me to harm 

him but I was being sorely tempted. Beyond him, a nun 

hurried some children away from him across the bridge. Most 

had departed beforehand because crazy people usually have 

that effect. At this point a weird fly droning sound could be 

heard getting closer. There was a shimmer like a blade 

catching the light and Solomon wasn’t there anymore. I didn’t 

see what had come for him, but I could guess, recalling the 

silver crescent on top of the building back in ‘36. I breathed a 

sigh of relief. Tracking and trying to control him had been 

exhausting, plus the fact I’d had to take holiday time off from 

my job at the time to do it. 

I’d fancied a holiday in Brighton that year too. Sad, but true. 

The nun, a lady by the name of Sister Genevieve fell to her 

knees in a position of supplication. She claimed she’d seen an 

angel. A picture of her later appeared in the Sun opposite the 

usual Page 3 fayre, which didn’t go down well with the 

Church, I gather. The account soon went the way of all such 

news, along with accounts of the image of Jesus materialising 

on cheese toasties. Fortunately for Sister Genevieve divine 

revelations are treated differently to grand delusions and

psychotic episodes and no extended residential treatment was 

prescribed as far as I know. 

Sofia fumed for weeks, I secretly gloated. ‘You could have 

done more to prevent this,’ she accused and I sulked at the 

injustice of her opinions. I was curious though. Perhaps now 

was the time to know more about the Cleaners? I knew she 

wouldn’t tell me, so I made my own enquiries which got me 

into trouble, but it was also how I met Elfwyn. A story for 

another time. 

Present day 

Over the following days, Sofia’s temper became increasingly 

sullen as she observed me phoning up about rooms and flats. 

'Why not ask about the rooms downstairs? What’s going to 

happen to your precious Mrs Purcell if you're not around to 

protect her?' she asked, a petty edge to her voice. 

I was on my way out to work and running late. It was clear 

what this was about so I cut to the point. 

'You brought Isaac here Sofia, you'll have to keep your own 

eye on him – I'm sure I don't need to tell you that if anything 

happens to Mrs P that seems even slightly suspicious then I’ll

hunt him down myself. I just don't have the time to babysit 

your lover at present.' 

‘I have to get over to Epping Forest for a client tomorrow, I 

can’t be up half the night chasing Isaac. I need my beauty 

sleep,’ she said. 

I slammed the door on the way out. 

But Sofia in a bad mood is something to avoid if possible. I 

agreed later when I returned to watch over Isaac during his 

nocturnal excursion that evening for as long as I could. 

I didn't relish this as an ongoing chore for other reasons than 

detesting Isaac with every fibre of my being. 

It seemed only a matter of time until, like Solomon, he drew 

far too much attention his and Sofia's way. The look in his 

eyes as he’d been watching that girl. There was a different 

Isaac in that look. My instincts shrilled like a police siren 

when I thought about it. 

So when I heard him creaking along the corridor to the fire 

exit, I followed silently. 

From my experience in tracking, beyond using our sense for 

signatures, much of it’s about finding out patterns and 

preferences. After our first excursion, I had a good idea by

now what Isaac’s were and I could guess where he’d head 

first. 

I approached the roof where I’d found him the previous 

week. The lure of the un-self-conscious student had proven 

irresistible as predicted. 

It was a night of violet clouds, a hazy, gibbous moon, the air 

underwritten with hints of wood smoke. Reminders of the 

past, when the pollution was so bad the doctor’s surgeries 

overflowed with coughing cancer and consumption victims. 

The good old days. 

There she was. Elizabeth Moorcroft. Isaac had used Sofia’s 

laptop to look her up on Facebook and forgotten to wipe the 

viewing history – stealth wasn’t his strong point. My 

successor in Sofia’s affections seemed to have the mentality 

of a stalker. Yet he hadn’t taken her yet. Maybe he wasn’t 

considering her in so much an edible, as a sexual way. It 

occurred to me that Isaac must have known this girl from 

before the time Sofia turned him. Unrequited lust possibly? 

Would I tell Sofia? Maybe, maybe not. There’s power in 

secrets. 

I sat in shadow on a wide ledge a few rooftops away, near 

enough for me to see if he decided to act on his fantasies and

land us all in it. If there was a previous connection, I 

reasoned, then there could be an evidence trail that might lead 

back to Sofia. 

It’s a notable fact that many of the older rooftops of London 

were designed with the cleaning of its chimneys in mind, 

hence the wide, navigable areas on them. Where I was sitting 

was pretty comfortable, providing the rain held off. 

There was a window illuminated nearby in a renovated 

Victorian block at an angle to the one I’d chosen as a perch. It 

was well-maintained, the apartments high-ceilinged and airy. I 

rather liked the look of them. The one I was observing was 

painted in blue and gold, not to everyone’s taste or mine, but 

it had been done well. The walls were embellished with 

decorative cornices, dados, corbels, and a magnificent 

decorative rose above the ceiling light, sun and stars design. I 

noted a To Let sign on the outside of the building with the 

agents listed as Butters and Partners. I memorised the number 

in order to give them a call. 

But it was the girl and the computer screen illuminated 

before her that held my attention longest. The eyesight of all 

our kind is phenomenally good, especially at night. It’s a 

predator thing I suspect.

She was nice-looking, wearing a buff-coloured blouse in 

some floating fabric, her hair held back in a mother-of-pearl 

slide. Actually, she looked ready for work, or as if she’d just 

come from there. Through the slightly open window, I caught 

a hint of Dior. But at that point it was what was on the screen 

and the statuette beside her that really piqued my interest. 

The statue, just over twelve inches high was completely 

black, like the absence of light. Something told me it wasn’t 

one of those keepsakes you get in souvenir shops. The girl in 

the window had her back to me and I could see what was on 

the computer screen before her. She’d accessed a database on 

Egyptian artefacts. I watched her nod as she found what she 

was looking for. 

I moved a little closer, fascinated by what I could see on the 

screen. 

‘The ancient Egyptians believed the soul was constructed of 

five parts,’ it read, ‘the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Ib and the 

Sheut.’ She clicked on the link that led to the Sheut. 

The screen filled with images of shadows. ‘The šwt or Sheut 

was considered a necessary adjunct to the body and contained 

some essential, if mysterious part of it. Some believed that, as 

the body we can see belongs to the realm of light, so the šwt

elonged to the realm of darkness, or Anubis, and while we 

lived we were suspended on a bridge between the two. The 

nature of the šwt and its significance was not fully 

understood. It would be an eternal curse on a person’s soul to 

separate the šwt from the body, though it was postulated that 

such an act was possible.’ 

I felt the cold from the stone parapet seeping into my bones, 

up to my rapidly beating heart. Sofia and others I’d asked 

about our origins had always been vague, noncommittal. 

Many didn’t care, some were as mystified as myself. Sofia – 

well, I wondered if she knew more than she admitted. Could 

this be the key? As curiosity gripped me my mind tumbling 

with the implications, I remembered Isaac. He was nowhere in 

sight. Bloody Isaac! 

I flew across. Well, I didn’t actually fly. We’re good, but not 

that good. 

Elizabeth Moorcroft moved across her studio to answer the 

bell. I was too late, I realised. Even with my speed I’d never 

get over there in time. 

She opened the door, and I fully expected Isaac to enter. 

Instead I saw her talking, then accepting a large bouquet of 

lilies. She thanked the caller and took the flowers into the

kitchenette, a little smile playing on her lips. She looked as 

surprised as I was. 

I scaled down the side of the building, swinging off a cast 

iron fire escape. After crossing the road, I noted there was a 

side entrance to Elizabeth’s flat and I headed towards the alley 

it opened on to. Isaac was waiting for me. 

‘She sent you to spy on me again.’ He stood in what looked 

like a former sex shop doorway, grey hoodie pulled up hiding 

his blonde hair. Posed like a male model in a dark glamour 

magazine. 

‘What did you expect? You’re stalking a human.’ 

‘I thought that was what you were supposed to do, you 

know, in order to eat.’ There was a hint of chagrin in his 

voice. 

And he was gone. I decided to track him later. I could only 

do this up to midnight anyhow, after that I was due at the 

mortuary. I had a suspicion about all this and walked up to 

Elizabeth’s studio, rang the bell. ‘Hello,’ I called, ‘I’m from 

the florists. There’s been a bit of a mix-up.’ 

I heard her approach the door with a gasp, which sounded 

like disappointment. She opened it using the door chain, 

speaking over it. ‘I’ve put them in water now. I thought it was

odd, not knowing who’d sent them.’ Her red hair formed a 

scarlet nimbus around her head, backlit by an IKEA standard 

lamp. 

Elizabeth seemed to think the flimsy little brass chain 

provided some kind of security. I knew from experience such 

things present little or no resistance to someone determined to 

gain access. But I had a job to do. 

‘Can I just see the card? Sorry about all this. We’ve got 

someone new delivering and he’s been mixing up orders.’ She 

went away, scrabbled around in a drawer, closed it, came 

back. ‘It has my name on it,’ she told me. 

Trustingly, she handed the card to me. ‘He seemed really 

nice. To be honest I wondered if he was the one who’d given 

them to me.’ 

I looked at the card. Isaac had definitely given this to her, his 

signature was all over it. Not the written kind. 

‘Do you want me to give you the flowers back?’ she asked. 

I smiled, ‘No, don’t worry, it’s our error, we’ll get some 

more sent out to the customer. She has the same name as you. 

Apologies to have bothered you.’ She thanked me, but 

sounded a little disappointed all the same. ‘By the way Miss,’ 

I added, ‘you need to get a better security system installed,

that chain won’t keep any intruders out. I used to work in 

Security. An intercom system, good, heavy door and a 

deadlock is a must around here.’ It was just a small white lie, 

made with the best intentions. 

‘Oh, right. Thanks.’ She closed it and I could hear her 

locking the mortice. 

Isaac, of course would be another matter entirely. 

I headed off, tracked him to the back of Paddington Station, 

an area of skips and discarded beer cans. I thought maybe 

he’d be stalking the Underground system. Sofia had told me 

he’d talked about it. But as I walked past a flotilla of recycle 

bins overflowing with cardboard, I felt it. The absence of life 

lately here. And Isaac’s presence, very strong. He’d killed 

only seconds before. Traces of the victim’s essence still 

floated in the air. I visualised a sad creature, female, a drug 

addict. Someone’s daughter. A waste of a life, even before 

she’d fallen across Isaac’s path. How easily he seemed to 

have accepted his new life as a stone cold killer. The young 

are so very adaptable. 

I hoped he’d done it quickly and without witnesses. I 

surveyed the area for CCTV cameras. Fortunately the only

one nearby had been broken and dangled, limp and lifeless 

from its bracket. 

I caught up with Isaac in Soho. The little creep was spying 

on a ladies changing room in a tenement with a famous lapdancing 

venue on the top floor. He’d found a great vantage 

point on a disused rooftop terrace. It would have made a great 

bar, particularly because of the view. For a moment, I 

considered the business potential. 

‘Haven’t you got a real job to go to?’ he said leaning on the 

wall, peering over the shit-covered edging, ‘She’s really got 

you by the balls, hasn’t she?’ 

‘Fight it as you might Isaac,’ I said, leaning on the wall 

beside him, ‘it’s a time-honoured tradition that the newly-born 

in Shadow have to be nurse-maided in case of major messes 

that might cost the powers that be much money and time to 

clean up.’ 

I watched him cock his head as a particularly slim girl 

whisked off her dancing outfit to reveal globular breasts that 

were obviously the result of cheap but effective surgery. 

‘Tell me more about these Aldermen. Who made them the 

bosses? Where do they live?’ he asked.

Ah, the curiosity of the young. ‘They have an underground 

Parliament. Some of their assistants are members of the House 

of Lords. It’s rumoured we have tunnels that lead up into 

Whitehall itself...’ 

‘Get lost. Really?’ 

‘It’s just hearsay but probably true.’ I looked at my watch, I 

couldn’t take too long because I wanted to stop off 

somewhere before I got into work and didn’t have long 

enough to lecture him on breaking our links with the past. 

I hoped it would be a quiet night at the mortuary, give me 

time to do some Egyptian research and find out what I could 

about what was left of the sangoma’s list. ‘Has Sofia told you 

about the Mortifero?’ 

‘The what?’ 

‘The Cleaners. We do anything that might expose our 

existence or break the rules we live by, the Aldermen send 

them in to sort it out, so to speak.’ 

Isaac threw his head back with an explosive laugh. ‘You 

can’t be serious? That just sounds like fairy tales meant to 

keep naughty boys in check, for God’s sake.’ 

The exotic dancer was busy cramming herself into a new 

outfit made mainly of shiny rubber.

I didn’t have time to deal with Isaac’s cynicism, I’d done my 

best. 

‘Watch out for cameras and CCTV. I have to go. You were 

lucky the last time.’ 

I left the way I’d come, ignoring his muttering. Sofia would 

have to do her own dirty work next time I decided.

Chapter 11 

Portobello Road 

The following day I paid a visit to Butters and Partners’ 

offices, which I discovered after a phone call were over in 

Chiswick. I told myself it was because the property was so 

well-situated, and the room I’d seen had made me think the 

others might be just as homely, yet elegant. But it was the girl. 

The girl I’d been watching at her computer and the fascinating 

yet terrifying knowledge she seemed to beckon towards. 

The portly man in a beige suit who greeted me overenthusiastically 

after I entered had the look of the business 

owner, and I was right. Fortunately it wasn’t too light in the 

office due to the amount of property advertisements in the 

front window, and the fact that an electrical contractor, 

balancing on a set of ladders was working on the lights. 

‘Ah, the Portland flats off Portobello Road, flat number ten. 

Lovely. Beautifully appointed, recently refurbished to a high 

standard. Affordable rent at only £1800 a month...’ I 

wondered if he automatically used these descriptions in the 

course of his daily life. Over cocktails to his mates in the bar, 

‘Phwoar, she’s beautifully appointed, isn’t she?’ Talking to

his wife before a night out, ‘Have you undertaken a tasteful 

refurbishment today dear?’ 

‘Yes,’ I replied, as he ushered me to a seat in front of his 

desk, ‘they looked very nice.’ 

‘Jonathan Butters!’ he held out a well-fed hand which I 

shook. The leather of our chairs creaked, which was kind of 

comforting, though mine sounded a little flatulent. He handed 

me a form and pen. 

‘I couldn’t see it in the front window.’ 

‘No,’ Jonathan Butters took a green file out of his file drawer 

and started flicking the pages, ‘it’s new on the market so I’m 

only expecting the photos back today. Would you like to 

arrange a viewing?’ 

‘What about now?’ I needed some good news quickly, and 

didn’t feel like wasting time. 

He checked his watch. ‘I’ll have to give the landlord a quick 

ring, but we’re quiet at the moment. If you could fill in your 

details while I call.’ He went into the back office and I heard 

him talking first to an assistant, then on the phone, again to 

the invisible assistant, who came out, clad in designer tartan 

and cashmere sweater.

‘Would you like a cup of tea while you’re waiting?’ she 

offered in a Made in Chelsea accent, indicating with her tone 

that she’d much rather not perform demeaning tasks. I smiled 

and declined. 

The lettings agent came out after a couple of minutes talking. 

‘That’s fine. I can drive us over if you like.’ 

‘I’m in my own car,’ I lied, ‘I’ll meet you over there in, say 

twenty minutes?’ 

I was waiting for him in the shade of the gothic entrance of 

what Butters had referred to as the Portland Building. It was a 

more interesting structure in the daylight; elegant baroque 

decoration, clean lines, arched windows, architecture 

reminiscent of the halls of Oxford. Within the arch of the 

doorway was an inscription - ‘Nos Qui Manet In Aeternum’. I 

don’t speak Latin. Always thought its use in the English 

language was pretentious. I vaguely wondered about 

Freemasons, and that quasi-magical pomposity that permeates 

so many of the old building designs in London. 

I saw him appearing through the crowds in his pale suit. 

Jonathan Butters looked flustered and pink despite the cool 

temperatures. ‘Parking’s awful here, isn’t it?’ The fluster

upped a notch. ‘Oh, but there are designated parking spaces 

for tenants, no problem there.’ 

‘I’m sure it won’t be an issue,’ I said, taking pity on the 

stressed-out salesman. He smiled with small pearly teeth and 

proceeded to unlock the front door, ushering me up the veined 

marble stairs. 

The rooms weren’t as beautiful as the girl in the window’s 

apartment, but that must have been down to her own decor 

choices. 

‘There are another couple of interested parties, but we do 

have a fast-track system for key workers such as yourself Mr 

Hartford,’ Jonathan Butters informed me with a feral glint in 

his eye that looked a little out of place in the otherwise 

cherubic features. 

‘I’ll take it.’ I said after I’d looked around and discounted 

mice, dry rot and rising damp. 

‘You can’t leave.’ 

Sofia doesn’t do agitated. What she does do is far worse. 

Again, she stood at the door of my cupboard, arms folded like 

some disappointed Mother Superior.

‘And listening to yours and Isaac’s bass drumming on our 

bedpost while I’m trying to sleep before doing the night shift 

shouldn’t be a problem I suppose. The only reason Mrs 

Purcell can’t hear it is because she’s mostly deaf.’ 

I was still packing. The contract was signed, and I’d already 

moved some items in. It was pathetic how little I actually had, 

to be honest. Like some adolescent kid moving out of Mum 

and Dad’s, except without the care packages from relatives. 

Still, this is London; shopping’s not an issue. 

‘What about Isaac? What if he messes up and exposes me?’ 

How many times, I tried to recall, had I talked to her about 

the trouble with Isaac. ‘Get over it,’ was all she’d say. I really 

wanted to say that back to her now. Clean up your own mess. 

I’m not that brave. ‘Like I said,’ I carried on folding and 

placing my clothes and belongings into the battered old 

leather valise I’d bought at Hanbury’s back in the late forties, 

‘I’ll check on him when I can. He seems to be adapting well.’ 

I didn’t really believe it but had decided to resort to 

dishonesty rather than give in any more to her. ‘Doesn’t he 

have any family?’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘Surely 

they’ll have missed him by now.’

She dismissed it with a wave of manicured nails. ‘They live 

in Antigua apparently. He’s never bothered to keep in touch 

unless the money doesn’t turn up in his account for whatever 

reason.’ 

‘That explains a lot,’ I said, carefully folding a shirt I was 

particularly fond of. 

She came and sat on my bed, arms still folded, a small frown 

marring the smoothness of her cream coloured skin. 

Sofia is very old but covers it well. She’d never actually told 

me when she became one of us, or if the one who turned her 

was still around. She’s still incredibly beautiful, but avoids 

bright light completely now. 

It suddenly struck me how little I knew about her, even after 

all these years. She would change the subject expertly if I 

probed. The most she’d ever divulged was that she had a sister 

who was also Shadowkind. Her reaction when speaking of 

this sibling was so angry, I’d never pursued it. And perhaps 

part of me preferred Sofia to remain the beautiful stranger I’d 

met long ago. 

‘I’ll only be a phone call away,’ I said, beginning to feel 

uncomfortable, just wanting to be gone.

‘I had a bad dream last night,’ she said. I started to wonder 

if this was one of her manipulations, but decided to hear more. 

I remembered my strong box beneath the bed and reached 

down for it, dusted it down a little. In it were sentimental 

items, one of which was the fateful cinema ticket. Another 

was my birth certificate, written on fading, yellowed paper 

with a beautiful flourished handwriting. We’ve lost the art of 

such skills these days. I have other, fake ones but keep the 

original as a memento. 

‘Tell me about it,’ I asked. 

‘In it, I walked to the window and saw someone below I 

haven’t seen for a very long time. As if she called me. But 

then when I looked, she wasn’t there at all, there was just you 

walking down the drive with that tatty old case you’ve 

insisted on keeping. I don’t know why you won’t go to the 

expense of some modern, matching luggage.’ 

‘It’s good leather,’ I protested. I sat down next to her. 

‘Things change. You told me that. You’ve moved on with 

someone else. You have to let me go. I’m just moving 

address, it’s not that far away. You can come to visit, let me 

practice using my Jamie Oliver cookbook perhaps.’

‘You know I don’t eat that much standard food any more...’ 

The bow of her lips, although pursed in disapproval were still 

sensuous, still unmistakably Sofia. The touch and the taste of 

them were indelibly marked on my soul. 

I looked away. ‘Well the offer’s there. Think about it.’ 

I got up and finished the task of sorting my scant array of 

accumulated goods. I’d have hired a taxi but the tiny valise 

was hardly too much to transport on the Underground. 

Everything else I’d leave with Sofia. A new start. Leaning 

over on impulse I kissed her smooth, perfumed cheek. She no 

longer favoured roses, but preferred subtle designer perfumes 

now, Chanel, Guerlain. 

‘I mean, 1800 a month,’ she continued, ‘this flat you’re 

moving to must be tiny.’ 

‘Marginally larger than my current abode though.’ I moved 

quickly to the door, suddenly feeling empty inside. Sofia had 

been a part of my life for eighty years and every step away 

from her at this point felt like a hook pulling the bottom out of 

my stomach. It felt like I was leaving the past behind for good 

this time. 

I knocked on Mrs Purcell’s door.

‘Mr Hartford, oh, come in, come in.’ She was visibly upset. 

‘Oh, you’re finally going? I wish you wouldn’t, the place 

won’t seem the same. I mean, it’s always made me feel so 

secure knowing you were up there.’ I resisted the urge to 

remind her I mostly worked nights when the majority of 

intruders were abroad so would have been of little use in that 

regard. 

I hugged her frail little form, her bird-like bones, felt her 

fluttering breath. I could sense the few remaining years she 

had left. She sniffed, and I recalled that she’d cried once, 

watching one of those black and white movies, as we sipped 

tea out of her treasured china cups. I can’t remember which 

movie it had been now, one with Ronald Coleman in it I think. 

‘Sofia will still be here,’ I said, ‘and I’ll pop back when I 

can. Keep the Earl Grey brewing and the custard creams at the 

ready.’ 

‘Will her nephew be staying?’ I could tell by her tone she 

had decided she didn’t like Isaac. I silently applauded her 

judgment. 

‘Isaac? Oh, probably for the short term. Don’t worry, he’s 

been warned to be on his best behaviour.’

I waved back to her as she stood looking tiny at the Union 

Flag blue door. The gravel crunched underfoot as I walked off 

down the path, hood up, my small case at my side. Something 

caught my attention above and I took a last look up, only to 

see Sofia watching me from the window of our former home. 

Her dream become real.

Chapter 12 

All We Ever Are 

May 1940, Islington 

There was once a pub called the Ring of Bells in Islington. 

Neither it nor the church whose bells it was named for 

survived the Blitz. I had been there once or twice with a 

childhood friend called Billy Box, who got married to a sweet 

girl called Evelyn, had two children, and who was wiped out 

with his beloved family in the same firestorm of explosions 

following one of the Luftwaffe’s first strikes. The sheer 

amount of ordinance that was dropped was staggering. We 

were not prepared, no-one could have been. 

I hoped my mother would stay safe. I knew Uncle Alf, as a 

Tube driver had advised her to take shelter in the 

Underground during the air raids. The Government had 

forbidden it, but my uncle wasn’t about to let his family die 

‘just because of a few stuffed shirts in Westminster.’ In order 

to find out what the family was doing I’d taken to watching 

him occasionally during his visits to his local pub, the 

Volunteer. Ironically he was the one who got caught by a

parachute bomb when he’d gone to collect rations on Dacre 

Street. 

A man with a florid complexion, smoking the compulsory 

Woodbine, picked his way toward me with dust-streaked 

boots. He was wearing an ARP helmet like mine. ‘You alright 

mate? The name’s Albert by the way. Seen you about en’t I?’ 

We had only been meant to be the ones enforcing the lightsout 

policy, but all that had changed once the bombs started to 

rain down. 

‘Yes, it’s just I knew someone who lived here once.’ I’d 

volunteered to help in ways I was not about to divulge to 

Albert. I had seen him up at the local ARP headquarters on 

Albright Road and knew him to be one of those friendly, 

inquisitive sorts that I normally would have avoided, had done 

so far. The trick was to be polite but not answer directly. This 

time I was too preoccupied to think about it too much. 

Albert took the remains of his cigarette out, blew the smoke 

into the mix of dust and fumes we’d breathe for days after an 

air raid. ‘Well, sorry but your friends don’t live here now. Noone 

does. Not now.’ And with this, Albert nodded with a 

bleak expression and walked off down the nightmare road, its 

buildings now reduced to a row of ragged teeth, the kerbs of

the road obscured with bricks, chunks of masonry and debris. 

We’d coordinated the utilities companies to cut off the area, 

so the swirls of filthy water were slowly receding down the 

gutters. I watched as his figure was swallowed by the fog of 

steam and smoke, then returned my gaze to where I could 

sense the faintest spark of life amidst the wreckage. Could it 

be Billy? Just to help him or one of his family would have 

given me some small sense of solace. I made my way into the 

wreckage. 

There could have been any number of unexploded devices in 

there, which was quite common after an air raid. The army 

were meant to sweep for them, but the sheer scale of this had 

left us unprepared and there were oversights. I took lots of 

risks searching for victims amongst the bomb sites. It seemed 

a good use of my new gifts. 

I’d skirted the first shell of a building on Cantor Street where 

Billy lived. It was heartbreaking to see the scattered 

belongings of people – homemade dolls with heads or limbs 

missing, the skeletons of prams and cots, burnt out armchairs, 

sometimes with the occupants’ remains still sitting there, like 

they were waiting for children to arrive back from school or 

for a radio broadcast to come on. I had seen such things

efore, had become accustomed to death and horror. I knelt 

and picked up a knitted teddy bear with buttons for eyes. 

Swiping the dust from its eyes, I considered the terrible irony 

that this tiny fragile toy had survived the blast intact, whilst 

the child who had loved it probably had not. 

It was difficult to distinguish one building from another, and 

there were such huge amounts of large debris even I couldn’t 

have rescued Billy and his family if they were below one of 

the larger slabs. They might not even be here. Bodies could be 

tossed metres or more by the concussive blasts, as if all laws 

of physics were being turned upside down by the Nazis’ 

unaccountable fury. Construction and haulage companies 

gladly volunteered cranes, heavy trucks and other equipment 

to lift rubble in order to uncover those still alive beneath. My 

Shadow abilities that were drawn to life energy were very 

useful in that regard, though the explanation that I could ‘hear 

something’ was perhaps wearing a little thin. 

I could sense the calling before I heard it. It was hardly a 

voice, a croaked ‘Ma? Ma.’ Following my senses, tuning out 

the smoke, the stench and the creaks and pops of structures in 

a state of collapse, I tracked to where it led me.

I try not to think about it too deeply, but suffice it to say, 

sometimes death is a mercy, especially after the kind of 

damage a bomb can do if it doesn’t kill you. 

You can look at all the film footage of the time, with its stoic 

Londoners, ragged-clothed orphans and onlookers, and you 

would still never understand the depth of how terrible such 

destruction and carnage was, how it affected people. The stoic 

Londoners? They were in shock, the screams and the horror 

locked in a back room of their brains in order to keep showing 

that stiff upper lip that the Pathé government-produced 

broadcasts encouraged so effectively. 

I won’t go into detail, but there were some, especially the 

children, who seemed glad to see a dark angel like me arrive 

on the scene to take away the pain, their bodies too damaged 

to give them any further quality of life. The hospitals were 

unable to cope with them, often assigning closed-off wards 

where they were hidden until they passed from their injuries, 

so that the morale of the able-bodied could be maintained. 

Amidst the wreckage of what must have been a bedroom 

stood one of those old-fashioned iron wrought bedsteads. And 

tied to it with thick green twine was a young boy, of no more

than ten or eleven. Slight, curly-haired and freckle-faced, 

caked in dust like everything else. 

It didn’t make any sense, who had tied him here, rather than 

help him, leading him to the nearest bomb shelter? Several 

yards away something caught the corner of my eye. A shoe, 

part of a woman’s leg, all the same colour as the cement dust 

that coated everything. The child’s mother I guessed. 

I noted the boy’s injuries, some of which seemed 

inconsistent with blast damage, and a terrible realisation crept 

like an unwelcome guest into my thoughts. His movements 

were slight, his grip on life a thin and fragile remnant. 

‘It’s alright,’ I managed, ‘I’m, I’m here.’ It was a stupid 

thing to say, but I had to say something. 

I cradled him for a short while, spoke some words of 

comfort, watched as he closed his eyes, slipping forever from 

consciousness, hopefully unaware of the extent of his injuries. 

He was not aware of me holding him to my chest, covering 

him with Shadow, and speck by speck what little that 

remained of his flame became mine, the rest of him floating 

off into the night, free of pain and memory. The Shadow-kind 

consume energy, but if you’re mindful, you can feel the 

separation of something ethereal. In most cases.

It was some time until I stirred, transfixed until the distant 

voices of the air raid crew in an adjoining bombsite shocked 

me out of it. 

It grew silent again as I heard them move over in the 

direction of what I estimated to be the area Billy had jokingly 

referred to as Tin Pan Alley, due to the amount of 

ironmongers and hardware shops there. My senses suddenly 

snapped into place as I could have sworn I heard footsteps, or 

the ghost of them walking across floorboards no longer there. 

A door opening and closing. Something else. A kind of smug 

glee. 

My heart began to race. I’d noticed this kind of time echo 

before and told Sofia. ‘In some cases the Shadow lends a kind 

of psychic acuity,’ she said, ‘those of us with such ability are 

the best trackers. Or they go insane. It’s a very valuable gift 

Gideon. Make the best of it.’ 

So far they hadn’t carted me off to the nearest version of a 

Shadow insane asylum, so I got up and followed the trail. 

It was hard going. The devastation had deconstructed the 

once familiar streets into an alien landscape and every yard 

there were landslides of bricks, fizzing wires, pops, even

explosions of the many small incendiary devices that the 

enemy dropped in order to extend our suffering. But amidst it 

all, I would occasionally hear the tap of phantom shoes which 

were tipped with some kind of metal. He’s either a manual 

worker or a tap dancer, I thought. 

I passed fire crews with hoses, clattery old vehicles with 

sirens blasting the shocked silence, shouts, sobbing, screams. 

On I walked until I reached a quieter, untouched area in Chalk 

Farm, all the way to a street corner chip shop. Amazingly it 

was still open, though I don’t think fish was on the menu. It 

had no lights on, which was normal, complying with the air 

raid instructions no-one sane ignored. 

I estimated the distance he’d covered to be about two miles. 

Must be a good chip shop, I thought. 

There was a small queue. A grim, square-jawed woman in a 

tweed suit and hat, accompanied by two subdued children, a 

couple of workers in donkey jackets, a painfully thin boy in 

trousers that were too short, a middle-aged ARP warden and a 

young man, about nineteen or twenty in a shapeless 

gabardine, a home-knitted scarf and boots with steel edging, 

like I’d seen in the docks and some factories at the time, to 

protect the feet whilst shifting heavy loads.

His hair was blonde, cheeks healthy and pink. He wasn’t 

what I’d expected at all. Seeing how young he was pulled me 

up short for a moment. There’d been something older about 

his signature, difficult to pinpoint. 

He laughed and chatted with the owner and others. ‘Nazis 

just seen to more than five streets’ worth over in Islington,’ he 

told them, ‘Winnie’d better get ours over there before we’ve 

no city left.’ 

‘You wait,’ the owner shook his head, shovelling chips into 

wrappers with the customary efficiency, ‘he’s got something 

up his sleeve, no doubt. They won’t know what hit ‘em, 

bloody cowards.’ 

‘He’s the bulldog breed all right...’ 

He continued as the others agreed, indulging in the 

desperate camaraderie of survivors. His happy demeanour 

seemed to cheer them, and he left the shop with a wave and a 

chorus of farewells, leaving a wake of goodwill behind. 

He made his way to a bus stop, though no buses were 

running at this time, as he clicked along the pavement picking 

at chips that gave off a sharp vinegar aroma. Cool as a 

cucumber, as if this was just a normal night, no worries. I

could sense the excitement he still felt after getting away with 

his crime, bubbling under the surface. 

I stood by a bare brick wall considering him, still in shadow, 

so he couldn’t see me, even when he looked right over in my 

direction. But then he smiled. One of those smug smiles when 

someone knows they’ve gotten away with something and 

there’s not a chance they’re going to get caught. It was the 

Blitz after all and the city was in turmoil. Amidst so much 

death and destruction who would even have questioned the 

small body of a little boy in the rubble, or wonder how he 

died? Had the mother been murdered by him as well? 

How many times had this young monster, with his 

predilection for cruelty followed the bombings, looking for 

the lone and the lost? There’d be more to come, I guessed, as I 

watched his eyes surveying the skies for the fighter 

searchlights. A real opportunist this one. One day, there’d be 

no stopping him. 

He sauntered down the deserted road with the watchful 

wariness of the killer. I knew that look well by now, having 

often passed many of my own kind in the dark streets who 

doubtless saw the chaos, destruction and misery as a welcome 

chance to feed without risk, their eyes gleaming with the feral

look of the opportunist hunter. Londoners were in far more 

danger than they could ever have guessed. All the while he 

whistled a jaunty version of ‘Down by the Old Bull and 

Bush,’ a popular song which could be often heard in pubs at 

the time. 

He took a turn down a quieter road and I saw my chance. 

One of the street lamps had been turned on again. I cast a 

small shadow against a brick wall in an alley on the opposite 

side to him. It proved irresistible. 

‘Hello?’ he called out in the same friendly tones I’d heard 

back in the chip shop, ‘Are you lost? Do you need any help?’ 

I wondered how many times that one had worked. Still with 

his chips in hand, he crossed over to take a closer look, 

ventured into the alley entrance. 

I trapped him in between a wire fence and some metal bins. 

He squinted at the figure in front of him, sized me up, taking 

in my ARP helmet and armband. ‘Bit far from the bomb sites 

in’t you?’ There was a belligerent tone to his voice now, 

disappointment perhaps, or confusion. 

‘So are you now,’ I said, interested to see what his reaction 

would be. 

He seemed to consider a while.

‘What do you want?’ He hid it well, but there was fear in his 

voice. 

I was tired, it had been a long night. It had been over a 

month since I’d fed properly, not counting his young victim 

whose life had been nearly extinguished anyway and the 

others whose suffering I’d been able to end. I didn’t have the 

patience to waste time. 

‘I found the body of that little boy in Islington. You’ve done 

that before, and you’ll do it again. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to 

stop you.’ 

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re mad, you are. 

You got shell shock or something?’ 

His voice quivered now. I wondered if his guilty conscience 

told him he’d been discovered, though he may also have been 

sensing I wasn’t just an ordinary ARP warden. I wasn’t 

bothering to hide the shadow in me, reaching it out towards 

him, to pin him where he was, weaken him and stop him from 

running as I moved closer. 

‘Like I said, I’m sorry…’ 

I did it quickly, as ever. If you do it fast enough, the brain 

can’t process it, goes into shock, and, I like to think, they 

don’t know what’s happened.

I leaned for some time against the wall, watching the dust 

that’s all we ever are drifting away on the wind like ashes at a 

funeral. 

The feeling of connection we feel with our victims during a 

kill is indescribable. I knew why he had been the way he was, 

the abuse as a child, the ones he’d told who punished rather 

than listening. The same sad and terrible story we hear time 

and again. Maybe that’s the way we cope with horror. We’re 

subsumed and become the horror in turn, or something worse. 

I could still smell the vinegar from the chips he’d eaten on the 

air, as the remains clutched in their newspaper wrapper had 

fallen to the ground. To this day that smell knocks me sick. 

But then I rationalised. I’d stopped him from doing to 

someone else’s children what he’d done to that little boy on 

the bomb site. 

I just didn’t know who was going to stop me.

Chapter 13 

Bearing Gifts 

There was plenty of work to be had in the mortuaries in the 

dark days during the Blitz. In 1940 alone over 800 bodies 

went in through Hammersmith’s swinging doors. There were 

many more victims who were never found. No post mortems 

and no inquests took place, it seemed an unnecessary expense 

to the government department in charge, which did of course 

open up the field for opportunists and those of murderous 

inclination as I’d discovered. 

After the incident in Islington, I offered myself as a stretcher 

bearer, and eventually ended up helping the morticians fulltime. 

Someone had to. And that was how I got into the 

profession. In the middle of war, no-one noticed me as I 

began to develop my skills. I realised that I could sense when 

the victims had been murdered, rather than the often incorrect 

cause of death attributed on the labels. If they came in soon 

enough, I could track the murderer, and deal out my own 

brand of dark justice in this vulnerable and lawless time. 

Many murder cases go undetected. Others, the police cannot 

find enough proof or time to take them to court.

So many missing people, dead files in the police computer 

systems. Dead and gone. But not forgotten. 

Never forgotten. 

Present day 

At the start of this new chapter in my life I found myself 

mulling over my past, the incident that had set me on the path 

I followed today. My attention returned to the present as the 

417 bus wheezed its way towards the nearby bus stop just as 

Maurice’s text came through. Caught in roadworks taking fare 

to Spitalfields. 20 mins? 

No worries, I texted back, will make own way there. C U 

soon. Maurice’s estimated times can usually be doubled in 

reality, such is the way of cabbies. 

The vehicle pulling up was an old-fashioned double decker 

the like of which is seldom seen outside of London. I took a 

deep breath. For some, these relics of London’s past evoke 

fuzzy feelings of nostalgia, but I mainly remember how the 

ones that lay unused in their depots due to fuel shortage and 

the destruction of their routes by bomb craters were used for a 

short time for clearage and bomb victims.

Soon I was sitting on one of the lesser graffiti-adorned seats 

with my scuffed suitcase on my knee, staring at the mucky 

streets, scruffy shops and traffic. 

I have a car, an old MG in British racing green which I keep 

in a lockup near Dunnets Lane, but London being London I 

use the Tube and Maurice’s taxi mainly. Plus it’s problematic 

to get it roadworthy these days. Modern documentation and 

computer information are too damned efficient. 

In my pocket I could feel the shape of the keys I’d picked up 

from Butters Estate Agents a couple of days ago as I observed 

the passing scenery and tried to empty my mind of all 

nostalgic inclination. 

Later, sitting in the bland living room of my bijou apartment, 

my mood remained sombre. I’d been passing the time 

researching the internet, split between trying to find out more 

about the African witchcraft tradition and delving into the 

beliefs regarding the shadow in Egyptian death mythology. It 

wouldn’t leave my mind. 

The silence was split apart by my mobile trumpeting out the 

March of the Queen of Sheba. It was Sofia. 

‘Are you settled in, all unpacked?’

I looked over into the bedroom and saw my little case sitting 

on the bed, half unpacked. ‘Pretty much.’ 

‘I have an urgent appointment tonight and need you to watch 

Isaac later. He’s been acting oddly.’ 

‘Really?’ I tried to keep as much sarcasm out of my voice as 

I could. 

Had Sofia detected Isaac was bearing a torch for a girl from 

his past? It would be typical of her not to confide it. Maybe it 

was old-fashioned jealousy she felt, but I guessed, knowing 

her, that her motives were darker and deeper. I feared for 

Elizabeth, knew I’d have to have a serious talk with him. 

Isaac was cocky, probably thought he could keep a lid on it. 

He just didn’t know Sofia well enough. Personally, I’d have 

preferred to take my chances with the Cleaners. 

‘What makes you think I haven’t got things of my own to 

do?’ I asked. 

I heard the snort in response. ‘You’ve another week of 

Graveyard shift, as you call it. Your late shifts don’t start 

again till next week. You’ve got time Gideon. I’m working on 

something more permanent, but in the meantime, you’re the 

only one at short notice whose tracking skills I trust tonight.’ 

‘How can I refuse?’ She took this response as rhetorical.

A few hours’ sleep were eventually eroded by the traffic and 

the other sounds in and around the building. It would probably 

take a while to adjust. I lay watching the reflections on the 

ceiling and wondered if there were tunnels beneath the 

building, trying to recall something Roke had told me. 

March 1975 

Roke owned Nightshade, a club frequented by the 

Shadowkind, located deep underneath Knightsbridge. It’s now 

been renamed SW1, which is more upmarket I suppose. We 

were taken there a few times by Castor, someone Sofia knew 

from her past, a person who’d definitely missed out when they 

were handing out pigment. His colourless eyes had been 

somewhat unnerving. 

‘Mi amore, Regina della Notte! You must join me in my 

bunker.’ Roke gushed compliment after compliment on Sofia 

after we entered his domain. I got a dismissive glance. It was 

the glam seventies and he favoured the black Jason King look, 

replete with Stay-Pressed flares and lamb-chop sideburns. He 

still does, though it’s now termed ‘retro fashion’. 

We joined him for private drinks. It was an actual bunker, 

predating the Cold War. According to Roke it had been

constructed during the Blitz and was quite luxurious. As we 

sat there drinking out of cocktail glasses, I recalled again the 

many fleeing the bombings of the Blitz above who had slept 

on the cold ground in the Underground tunnels. I often 

wondered which dignitary had it made for themselves whilst 

families, their children and the elderly had shivered and 

huddled in fear. Whatever the story, it was Roke’s now. 

In there, beyond the lava lamps and psychedelic wallpaper, 

he showed us a highly detailed map of the tunnels and 

following about a bottle of absinthe, he told us their stories. 

‘This one leads up into Portobello Road Antiques market,’ he 

said with the flourish of a generous baroque sleeve, ‘due to 

the fact that one of the Mascherati named Lionel Purse had 

had a passion for timepieces of rare and complex origins. 

There are others to a couple of the older buildings nearby.’ I 

paid little attention at the time, but then absinthe can be highly 

distracting, as can be the inhabitants of Roke’s club, a melting 

pot of cultures, genders and tastes well beyond what the 

average human being could imagine. 

Present day

I lay back, arms folded behind my head, delving into my 

memories of Roke’s map to recall any references which 

included my new home, but they eluded me. 

Later on, I dressed and walked out of my new address to 

explore the area. I didn’t need Shadow senses to locate the 

artisan bakery a couple of streets down where I purchased 

some items. On my return, unable to take the solitude any 

longer, I tapped on a few of the doors down the corridor. 

There appeared to be no-one home, though I heard a muffled 

sound in Number 12. ‘Hello?’ I called. There was no response 

so I decided it was unimportant and walked back. It was 

getting dark earlier now, and I wondered when Isaac would 

begin his nightly wanderings. 

I made myself a small dinner of pesto chicken and salad. 

Shadowkind tend to eat less because one’s physiology alters, 

but I enjoy sharing food, eating regular meals and it’s 

comforting. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to give up my 

physical rituals, my humanity. 

Afterward, I heard the sound of the girl across the hall’s door 

being unlocked and decided now might be a good time to 

introduce myself. On the entrance below, the name above her

ell was indicated as Winterhorn. It was an interesting kind of 

name. 

I opened my door. She had a lot of heavy duty cardboard 

boxes that were inscribed with the emblem of the British 

Museum. Her jacket was falling off-shoulder and her hair had 

partially tumbled out of the hair comb I recalled from my 

original spying. There was a twinge of guilt that begged for 

recompense. 

‘Can I help?’ I offered, stepping over the hall, ‘I’m Gideon, 

I’ve just moved in.’ 

‘No, no. It’s perfectly OK. If you’d been around when I 

started the journey with these though...’ She sounded 

breathless. I moved over to her anyway and used one of the 

cases to jam open her door which was self-closing and 

causing difficulties. I then took over and hauled her boxes 

inside, wondering how long it had taken her to get these back, 

they were really heavy. 

She stood a while thinking, appeared to come to a decision. 

‘Would you like a coffee? 

She had luminous hazel eyes and a very direct stare. 

‘Oh, yes, that’d be great...wait on, I went to that artisan 

place, Nino’s, Guido’s or something. I’ll go and get

something to go with it,’ I said. She looked a little impatient, 

but I went anyway. I’d brought Baci, some pâté, savoury 

pastries and rolls. 

‘I was going to offer some to my neighbours,’ I explained on 

my return, ‘a kind of ‘welcome to me’ gesture, but there 

doesn’t seem to be anyone else in yet.’ We sat down on her 

brown leather sofa. In the background the coffee maker 

rumbled and spat. 

I watched her tucking into the goods I’d brought, she looked 

ravenous. 

‘You’ll be lucky,’ she said, the words muffled, ‘they’re 

mostly nocturnal, but if you can catch them they’re very nice. 

It’s rumoured the flats on the ground floor are probably 

owned by foreign investors for resale for when the market 

picks up. We never see anyone go in or out.’ 

‘Sounds like Monopoly,’ I broke off some bread and spread 

some of the pâté which was rather good, and offered it to her, 

‘serves us right for inventing the game I suppose.’ 

She laughed. A fulsome, explosive sound like a warrior 

would make. It was unexpected, refreshing. ‘I sometimes let 

my imagination and socialist sense of righteousness get the 

better of me,’ she said, stuffing more pastry into her mouth.

‘We have that in common then.’ I enjoyed watching her eat, 

the expressions on her face as she explored the flavours on her 

tongue. 

She held out her other hand, I shook it. ‘I’m Cinnamon,’ 

she said, ‘I’m really sorry, I haven’t eaten since having some 

cereal this morning, and then there was this dreary meeting 

that was only supposed to last an hour but there’s this one 

chap who doesn’t stop talking once he’s started. I work at the 

British Museum by the way.’ 

‘You don’t say.’ I nodded towards the boxes and she 

laughed. 

‘It’s been a long day. Where do you work Gideon?’ 

‘Promise not to get creeped out? I’m a Pathology Technician 

at one of the local mortuaries. Manager, you know.’ I sat 

munching on a herby roll, hoping for the best. 

She finished up and reached for a slice of Baci. ‘You could 

say we’re in similar lines of work, just that mine are a lot 

older than yours.’ 

‘Egyptology?’ 

I saw her eyes narrow. ‘How did you guess that?’ 

‘Ancient bodies, British Museum. Smell of incense. It’s 

unmistakable. I knew someone once who was a private

collector of Egyptian items. Everything he had had this faint 

smell, not unpleasant, a bit like those hippy shops in Chelsea.’ 

I wasn’t sure if those shops were still there, it had been years 

since I’d been, probably the sixties, but she didn’t contradict 

me. 

‘I hate private collectors,’ she said, ‘all that information lost 

to us, just so they can show off in secret to their buddies.’ I 

watched as her expression registered how good the nutty 

sweetness of the Baci was. I tried some myself. 

‘Well, he was only a friend of a friend...’ I wondered if she 

was going to usher me out as soon as she’d finished wolfing 

down my food offerings. In the interests of gallantry, possibly 

bribery, I offered her the rest. She was a good eater, I had to 

give her that. No size zero for Cinnamon. Not that she was 

overweight. 

‘So much of the past lost.’ Her voice was heavy with regret. 

‘I suppose it would be churlish to mention the Elgin Marbles 

then.’ 

Her smile was attractively dimpled. I liked the fact she used 

it regularly, because I had wondered beforehand if she’d be an 

academic and typically self-important and humourless.

‘OK. OK, you got us, though in fairness if Elgin hadn’t 

acquired them they’d probably not be in existence and here to 

be viewed for free by the public today,’ she held up her hands, 

‘We once had deep pockets, but no more. We’re failing in the 

race to out-bid the collectors. They’re still a bunch of 

bastards.’ 

‘Are you working on anything interesting at the moment?’ I 

asked casually, memories of the shadowy statue returning. 

The eyes narrowed again, she leaned back. ‘Nosy neighbour 

or interested friend of collector?’ 

‘Definitely neighbour. The guy wasn’t really my friend, just 

someone I met once, and you’re right, he was a bastard. It’s 

OK Cinnamon, really. I was just making conversation. 

London can seem so empty sometimes, it’s difficult to make 

friends, and you have an interesting job. I’ll have to get going 

soon anyway...’ 

My mobile began to play the March of the Queen of Sheba 

again. I looked outside, it had grown dark, the blue turning to 

black, rusted by the orange streetlights. 

‘Hi.’ 

‘He’s on his way. We had an argument.’ Sofia made it sound 

like that was my fault.

I sighed. ‘I’ll find him.’ I hung up. 

‘Girlfriend? ‘Cinnamon asked, her expression unreadable. I 

shook my head. 

‘Ex. She thinks her new boyfriend is getting himself into 

trouble and wants me to keep an eye on him. Sorry about the 

coffee.’ 

‘Trouble letting go?’ 

I gave a short, almost explosive laugh. ‘Sofia? Good God no. 

Moving On was a term made just for her I think. She has the 

patent on it. I’ll have to go, unfortunately I promised to help 

and I’ve got this annoying habit of keeping my word.’ 

She got up too and showed me to her door. ‘I wasn’t talking 

about her,’ she said, offering me one of those smiles again 

before the door closed. 

Isaac’s whereabouts were thankfully predictable, although 

this didn’t improve my temper, as I considered the fact that I 

could have been doing any number of things I’d have 

preferred – chasing down Muti traders, children smugglers 

and their lowlife recipients, or, simply sitting with my new 

neighbour and enjoying good company and pastries.

There he was, sitting, hands in pocket, his customary grey 

hoodie pulled up over his head. He was leaning against a red 

brick chimney capped with the usual thick layer of pigeon 

droppings. He didn’t look at me as I neared. 

I took a seat beside him. ‘Don’t do it,’ I said. 

‘I wasn’t going to jump,’ he sneered. 

‘Make her one of us, I meant. You’d get it wrong, and 

forever’s a long time to live with regret like that.’ Or Sofia’s 

anger, I could have added. 

‘Don’t know how it’s done.’ 

‘I wondered if you’d try anyhow.’ I adjusted my long-coat, 

suddenly considering the pigeons and the cost of dry cleaning. 

Across the divide, I could see Elizabeth in her bedsit 

chattering with one of her girlfriends and I wondered briefly if 

she’d taken my advice about her security. She looked so 

young all of a sudden. Her bedsit was small and scruffy but 

still must have huge rents on a student income. Perhaps her 

parents were well-off and helped towards it. 

‘She didn’t recognise me,’ Isaac said in a dull voice. 

I shifted position, the roof tiles were cold. ‘She wouldn’t,’ I 

replied.

Chapter 14 

Deeply Loved 

November 1949 

The hardest thing after my conversion, as Sofia called it, was 

watching my mother in her grief. As Isaac now watched 

someone from his human past, I had watched my mother from 

afar, mindful of Sofia’s warnings. In those fourteen years, I 

saw her health slide steadily downhill until the sight of her 

made my heart break every time I saw her. I knew the loss of 

her only son had done this to her and Uncle Alf’s death 

seemed to tip the balance further. She had always been a 

churchgoer, but increased her attendance after I disappeared. 

Often, I looked in the Evening News to see the 

advertisements she put in, pleading with me to return or for 

anyone who’d seen me to come forward. 

I worked hard, and without Sofia’s knowledge, arranged for 

payments into my mother’s bank. A ‘mysterious benefactor’ 

was all the bank were told to advise. 

But in the winter of 1949, her chest was so bad, she was 

admitted to St Thomas’s. She’d always had chest problems, 

but then, that was common in London at the time. Everyone

was excited by the emergence of the NHS which effectively 

broke down the barriers and discriminations that the poor 

suffered in regard to healthcare, but it was all too late for Ma, 

who’d soldiered on with her two jobs, charring for a 

politician’s family near Sadler’s Wells and serving in the local 

greengrocer’s. The politician had been called Simon 

Whitelow, I recall. Despite the fact my mother had worked for 

his family for twenty years, he didn’t send any flowers, or pay 

any visits. It was the class-consciousness of people I 

supposed. I made a mental note to keep an eye on that one for 

the future. The grocer, Mr Wildgoose, on the other hand did 

visit with his wife. He stood there in an oversize tweed coat 

holding his hat in front, his wife beside him - rotund, cosy as a 

buttered teacake. ‘Don’t you go worrying now Mrs Edwards,’ 

he told her, ‘your job’ll be there for when you’re on the 

mend.’ Ma smiled in a way that said she doubted she’d be 

leaving the hospital. I knew it too. The Shadow within me 

could see the amount of life force she possessed, and I could 

sense it like a guttering candle that the briefest draught would 

have extinguished.

Looking back on it, I don’t think even now I would have 

done anything different. Some circumstances, given the kind 

of people we are, have only one course of action. 

I watched over her in the shadows until I could bear it no 

longer. My father Michael had died of emphysema at Ypres 

when I was ten, and she’d had to work hard since then. Uncle 

Alf, bless him, had died during the blitz. Our other relatives 

had become distant, finding little in common with an isolated 

widow. She’d never gotten cross nor raised her voice in anger 

to me, even in my teens when I’d been ‘hanging about with 

the wrong crowd’ as her cousin Ida had put it. 

Waiting until the nurse had finished up and was back at her 

station, I decided to take the chance that it would be OK to let 

her see me. She was in a ward by herself, presumably in case 

she was infectious. 

I walked quietly up to her bed. Close up, I could see the way 

pain and illness had sucked all the animation and tone out of 

her face, her wrists were thin, her hands clawed, criss-crossed 

with worm-like veins. 

‘Ma?’ I whispered so the nurse wouldn’t hear, ‘Ma, it’s me. 

Martin.’ I’d been christened Martin Brian Edwards. The 

surname Hartford was the one Sofia favoured. I was never

sure if it was her real name, but as we were living together, 

back in the days before the permissive society, it was for the 

best to make people assume we were married. 

Ma looked confused. Her features tensed, then slowly 

relaxed. ‘Martin?’ her voice quivered, faint and weak. 

I took her hand in mine. ‘Oh Ma, I’m so sorry I had to go 

away. Something ... happened to me. It meant I couldn’t come 

back, but I didn’t forget, I sent you money.’ 

Her eyebrows knotted. ‘Are you Mr Baxter?’ Baxter and Co. 

was the name I’d chosen for the mysterious benefactors who 

credited her savings account. 

‘No Ma, it’s me, Martin, your son.’ I squeezed her hand so 

she’d know I was really there and not some fever dream. She 

looked down at her hand, then back to me. She pulled her 

hand away, screwing her eyes up, regarding me with 

suspicion. 

‘You’re not my Martin.’ I saw a tear work its way down one 

of the wrinkles at the side of her face. She drew her hands 

back slowly and painfully under the sheet. 

I felt at a loss. ‘No. I mean, yes, I know it’s been a long 

time...’ I watched the muscles in her face working hard, 

couldn’t understand what it meant. I could see she was getting

increasingly agitated. ‘You’re not my Martin....You’re not my 

Martin! What kind of thing are you? What have you done 

with him!’ 

I tried to calm her, put my finger up to my mouth. ‘I am 

Martin, I am. Please Ma, you’ll bring the nurse.’ 

She started to rock her head side to side. ‘Who are you, what 

do you want? What are you? What did you do to my Martin?’ 

Despite her frailty her voice was rising. 

‘Ma, please, ssh.’ It was no good. She kept asking what I’d 

done to Martin, until I heard the nurse’s clipped footsteps. I 

transitioned and withdrew into the corner as the woman 

entered, sneaking out as the nurse made calming noises amidst 

my mother’s sobs. 

I wondered if anyone could hear mine as I walked out of the 

ward in shadow. 

I returned the next day to resume my vigil, but discovered 

my mother had died in the night. 

Sofia had little to say when I told her. I was short on details, 

but wondered how much she’d guessed. 

‘You aren’t the only one who’s lost humans you were 

attached to,’ were the only words she uttered on the subject,

and I wondered if she even remembered having a father and 

mother. 

I paid for a plot for Ma, had a smoke-grey headstone 

inscribed with the gold inscription ‘Deeply Loved.’ It cost 

most of my savings, but then, I knew I had a long time to 

make them up again. 

Present day 

I gave Isaac a brief outline of the story. ‘Why are you trying 

to compare your mother fixations with my...thing for 

Elizabeth?’ he said. 

I nodded, in that moment realising how well he and Sofia 

were suited. I felt the word ‘love’ hang unspoken in the air, 

the word he’d thought but avoided using. It was clearly 

evident to me in that moment that Sofia was his, and he hers 

until one of them, probably Sofia, decided to move on. But 

Elizabeth was the one he loved. 

‘I have to go,’ I got up, dusted my coat, checked the back for 

bird droppings. ‘Don’t do anything stupid. If you love her 

you’ll leave her alone, make sure she’s happy.’ 

‘Get lost.’ 

I didn’t look back. I’d done my best.

Chapter 15 

John Paul 

On the way to Hammersmith, I stopped off at St Xavier’s 

Church to visit an old friend. 

Mine and John Paul Blantyre’s paths had crossed when I’d 

saved him back in the seventies from a nasty gang of loan 

sharks. ‘That’s the thing with Catholic priests,’ so Maurice 

once advised with the sagacity of one who had seen his own 

fair share of confessions from the back of his cab, ‘being 

denied the company of close lady friends they usually develop 

some or other vice.’ 

John Paul’s was gambling. 

May, 1975 

I’d been tracking a gang of racketeers linked to a crime boss 

called Terry Adams after locating one of their less fortunate 

victims who had ended up on a mortuary slab in north London 

where I was based at the time. They were easily tracked and 

dispatched to where they couldn’t destroy anyone’s lives any 

more. John Paul was their last victim. He’d been beaten and

tied up and his church robbed by them as retribution for an 

unpaid debt. 

He was just a newly installed junior priest in those days of 

Pink Floyd and Noddy Holder. A young man with a black 

Mum and absent white father, who was grateful to the Church 

for the way they’d helped him and her in their times of need. 

He had progressive attitudes for someone of his profession, 

and interests that stretched into the esoteric. Unfortunately, he 

had an inability to pass a bookies without his feet carrying 

him inside. 

He never saw what I did to his captors, having passed out at 

the time, his face a mass of bruised swelling. But he guessed I 

wasn’t your average person and was clever enough in the 

following months to work it out. And of course Catholic 

priests can be counted on never to break the bonds of 

confidentiality, plus I like to think he saw enough good in me 

to avoid reporting my infernal presence to the Inquisition. 

‘Did I tell you they still exist?’ he asked me one evening 

some years later as we sat in front of his fire drinking rum. I 

recall how he pressed down some of his favourite oldfashioned 

vanilla tobacco into a rather battered pipe and lit it

with a Swan match. I’m not sure if he ever put anything else 

in that pipe, though I had my suspicions. ‘It’s called the 

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They don’t burn 

people at the stake any more. Not literally, anyhow.’ 

‘Good to know,’ I said, as a swirl of sweet-smelling smoke 

disappeared into the shadows of the room. 

Present day 

After a bank of heavy violet cloud passed, the moon cleaned 

up its act and was painfully bright now. There was a ghost of 

frost in the atmosphere. 

The grounds of St Xavier’s are one of those hidden surprises 

of inner London. The gardens are very old, with English 

roses, twisted hazel trees, and Virginia creeper. I recalled 

helping Uncle Alf on his allotment before the war and I’d 

occasionally helped John Paul with the gardens here as well, 

particularly after his back trouble started. This evening, I 

could see Autumn had taken its toll, the gardens fading into 

red and gold, blackened twigs and vines. 

There was still a gold light on in the tiny house affixed to the 

church which I expected. John Paul was an insomniac, had 

been as long as I’d known him. I rapped the elaborate door

knocker and presently slippered feet could be heard sloughing 

across the linoleum of the hallway. 

‘Humph,’ he said as he drew the heavy oak door back, 

peering round. He looked grumpy and bog-eyed as usual 

recently, ‘I see our Lord’s failed to deter you yet again 

Gideon.’ He tapped a finger on the knocker which sported an 

elaborate cross and what he’d told me was the opening line of 

St Patrick’s Breastplate, the Catholic version of a protection 

spell. 

‘Well, I’ve often felt uneasy using that knocker at this hour, 

mainly because of the neighbours. Wouldn’t an internal 

doorbell be kinder?’ I stood in the cold, hands in pockets, 

looking up and down the deserted cobbles. 

He grimaced. ‘That would increase our carbon footprint. The 

Bishop is constantly reminding us about such things these 

days. And I don’t really think the opinion of a wight of 

darkness such as you would be sufficient to change his 

opinion. Come in, I suppose.’ He swung the door back with ill 

grace. 

John Paul’s mother Edith had been Jamaican, but his skin 

colour gave nothing of this away, only perhaps in the set of 

his cheeks and lips. It was as if his genetic code had been

adapted for his environment. Otherwise, there was nothing of 

his father Charlie in his features. Charlie had been a 

fishmonger at Billingsgate, and had resembled a small 

Cockney whippet according to Edith. He’d won the pools, she 

said, and disappeared off to Spain in ’65. 

I entered and wiped my feet. ‘Your hospitality and temper 

are as questionable as always. Is that any way to greet an old 

friend?’ He shambled off muttering down the faded black and 

white check linoleum and I followed, knowing he was headed 

to put on the kettle. I checked my watch again but had enough 

time to get the information I needed and then to work. 

Once he’d brewed the tea and served it, we sat down and 

faced each other across his lumpy wooden table and chipped, 

steaming mugs of PG Tips. 

‘Come on then, what is it you want Gideon? Are you finally 

fixing to kill me and make a martyr out of me?’ He wasn’t 

well, his signature faded, like a worn photograph. He looked 

pale and the pouches under his eyes had developed a purplish 

tinge. 

I closed my eyes, recalling the images I’d seen after spying 

Cinnamon’s computer screen, deciding to be direct as I 

glanced at the time on his wall clock. ‘What do you know

about the šwt or Sheut in Egyptian mythology. Sorry, not sure 

how it’s pronounced?’ I spelt the words out. John Paul had 

long had an interest in Egyptology and over the years had 

developed a lot of knowledge. 

He took a gulp of his tea and leaned back, his face losing 

some of its fatigue. ‘Ah now. Are you developing an interest 

in ancient history my old friend?’ 

He very rarely named what we had as a friendship. I 

immediately became concerned. ‘Is everything alright John 

Paul? You wouldn’t happen to be thinking of shuffling off this 

mortal coil and paying a visit to that Boss of yours, would 

you? You’re far too young and good-looking.’ 

He laughed as he got up, started rooting in a drawer of his 

old sideboard, though his mirth soon turned into a cough like 

the revving of a sickly car engine. ‘How should I know? Only 

the Lord himself does. Mrs Britnell keeps nagging at me to 

keep on at the doctors. And all they keep saying I need is 

paracetamol.’ He found what he wanted, brought it over. 

‘Want me to sort them out, your doctors?’ 

I thought he was going to make the sign of the cross, 

‘Certainly not! The NHS has its faults, but they’re the best 

we’ve got. Though there is this one GP...’

‘I meant as someone in the medical profession,’ I said. John 

Paul turned back to examine the pages of a yellowed 

notebook. 

‘Gideon, all your patients are already dead.’ He pointed to 

the handwritten notes on one page. ‘Here it is,’ he said, in 

what seemed to be a Eureka moment for him. ‘I took these 

during a public lecture at University College by a prominent 

professor of Egyptology who used to work at the British 

Museum, Professor Timothy Holden. He found sections of a 

tablet that dated from Cheops’ reign by some renegade priest 

by the name of Nefer Nebawy, who postulated that the šwt 

could be separated from the Ib, the heart, and that this would 

render the unfortunate a servant of Anubis, the god of the 

Afterlife.’ His voice trailed off and he stepped back, taking off 

his spectacles as if to see me better. John Paul, with his 

stained cardigan, worn shoes and heart, actually looked at me 

with pity. 

‘Is there any more?’ My voice had grown faint as a shadow 

of dread had settled on my heart. 

He replaced his glasses with a shaking hand. ‘Well, I don’t 

think the professor wanted to get bogged down with obscure 

metaphysical postulations by students during the lecture, far

too much fantasy for such an occasion, but he did say that the 

priest mentioned specific rites, and something called 

quicksilver, but he lost me after that. The Egyptian priesthood 

did have rather a lot of loony theories about death and 

revivification, let’s not forget.’ 

‘Quicksilver, that’s mercury isn’t it?’ 

‘Not necessarily. Theories of alchemy began a lot sooner 

than the Middle Ages. That’s not to say people confusing 

mercury and quicksilver didn’t cause a lot of trouble. Even 

deaths on occasion.’ 

John Paul cleaned his glasses with a cloth, and began 

hacking up some more phlegm. It sounded painful. 

‘Can I help? Really? That cough sounds bad. I can get you in 

at the Royal Marsden, bypass those GPs of yours.’ 

He shook his head. ‘I’ve lived long enough Gideon. Sounds 

like you think you may have as well. Here, take this,’ he 

offered me his notebook. ‘You are a devil, that’s for sure, but 

we do believe in the forgiveness of all sins. If it’s the Lord’s 

will, you’ll find the redemption you seek. If he’s opened up a 

path for you, take it.’ 

I hesitated, then accepted his notebook. John Paul certainly 

had a knack for making faint praise sound worthwhile.

‘Thanks. I think. It’s just a loan mind. I’ll get this back to 

you.’ 

He answered with a growl that was something between a 

cough and a laugh. ‘Don’t mention loans to me,’ he said in the 

midst of it.

Chapter 16 

Elfwyn 

It would take fifteen minutes to get to work, walking along the 

cobbled byway of St Xavier’s precincts, the streetlamps 

unchanged since even before my day. I turned on to 

Goldhawk Road and could see the underground station signs 

up ahead. For some time back, I was aware I was being 

watched by a shadow, and decided enough was enough. I saw 

it traverse the dingy confines of an alley by a derelict offlicence 

and transitioned in order to intercept. It dodged 

skilfully. The alley, with angled shades of light and dark smelt 

of sickly sweetness and decay. A small rat escaped to some 

hidden cover, its scratching progress echoing between the 

dark red of the brick walls. 

‘Hello Elfwyn. Is it my time then?’ I said. We gazed at each 

other’s amorphous selves, slowly solidifying to face one 

another. 

It’s an interesting experience, beefing yourself up after 

transition. It’s as if your insides have suddenly been dipped in 

some gluey substance. You get used to it.

Elfwyn glared at me with her sharp, waif-like features. 

‘You’re pushing the envelope Gideon. The old priest knows 

too much.’ 

‘For God’s sake! He’s old, he’s dying, and he’s never told 

anyone, being a priest, the sanctity of confidence and all that. 

You need to leave him alone to die as he wishes, in peace. 

Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be part of a secret body of 

assassins? I know about you Elfwyn and I’ve never divulged 

your secrets...’ 

She pulled at my collar, drew me in and kissed me hard, 

which would have been pleasant, and very welcome if she 

hadn’t sucker-punched me to the ground immediately 

afterwards. I lay for a while by her velvet-clad legs. It was the 

most I’d relaxed all day, till the pain set in. 

‘Ow, what was that for?’ I said, rubbing my jaw, feeling the 

beginnings of a swelling and trying to retain my dignity whilst 

lying in a heap on the somewhat sticky alley floor. There was 

a discarded vanilla milkshake on its side nearby which may 

have explained that. 

Elfwyn drew away, slowly fading. ‘For making my job 

harder. I have my eye on that new one of Sofia’s by the way. 

His little stunt of giving flowers to that human girl will lead to

no good I’m expecting. As for you, if the old man gives away 

any of our secrets whilst in his death throes, it’ll be on your 

head.’ 

‘He doesn’t know anything!’ I yelled, but she’d already left. 

I met Elfwyn back in the swinging sixties. She had already 

been part of the Mortifero for at least forty years. Back in 

those days, I still occasionally contemplated suicide, though 

admit it may have been LSD related. When other party goers 

saw psychedelic flower fields and pretty pink clouds I often 

saw death, destruction and unending, viscous darkness. She 

should perhaps have taken pity on me and ended me 

mercifully, but mercy isn’t really Elfwyn’s way. Besides, she 

has a soft spot for me, though this is often expressed violently 

and not so much of the smoochy, sweet nothings variety. It’s 

not her style. 

She trusts me with her secret; the loss of her anonymity. 

‘You wouldn’t tell, would you Gideon?’ I recall her voice, 

soft and dangerous as we lay together in a dingy hotel room 

near Euston station with the vibrations of the trains rattling the 

old windows. She had her hand on my throat at the time.

I was five minutes late for work. 

‘Isn’t this the wrong way round?’ said Morrissey not looking 

up from his latest round of ‘Rock the Underworld, a game 

involving famous rock idols fighting the forces of Hell. ‘Isn’t 

it minions like me who are supposed to be tardy, rather than 

the managers? And why have you got white stuff all up the 

side of your coat?’ 

I was in a foul mood. ‘It’s Vanilla MacShake, and I got 

mugged, which held me up a little.’ This was so nearly true as 

to not matter. I took my coat to one of the sinks and started 

scrubbing away at the white goo. 

‘You? You got mugged? At MacDonald’s?’ Morrissey 

seemed impressed and actually turned away from his 

computer game for a few seconds. 

‘Shouldn’t you be working?’ I said, still scrubbing, still 

grumpy at his lack of concern for my well-being. 

‘Nothing in tonight. The Grim Reaper’s taking some kind of 

break, which is weird. Still, it’s helped me get up a level, so 

I’m not complaining. Too good to be true isn’t it...’ The game 

was extremely noisy with occasional riffs from Motorhead 

and Anthrax blaring with migraine-inducing intensity.

‘All the reports sent, labelling, forms filed and recorded?’ I 

asked. To anyone who thinks our line of work is as eventful as 

in the TV forensic dramas, then I should advise that about 

eighty percent is admin, filing, health & safety forms and 

cleaning. 

‘Yep.’ I watched as Morrissey’s rocking hero leapt to a new 

platform, his weapon of choice a Flying-V. 

‘Scrub-downs and sanitising?’ 

Morrissey closed down his game, and turned towards me on 

his swivel chair. ‘Sorry you were mugged boss. But it’s going 

to be another slow night I expect. I did all the scrub-downs as 

I always do.’ I felt guilty. He was an OK kid, if a little 

strange. 

A lack of business was not a good sign. It often heralded a 

big increase in Shadow activity, though Shadow-related 

deaths weren’t a constant. All those people heading for the 

city, all those missing persons’ pictures on the message boards 

in supermarkets, those being the ones anyone knew about, of 

course - a steady but unrecorded influx. There were other 

deaths; traffic accidents, old age, illness, gang crime. The 

muti killings had dried up though. In the spare hours I’d had 

over the last couple of weeks I’d tracked down most of the

sangoma’s client list, which I hoped had discouraged him 

from further transactions. The remaining recipient was a 

South African businessman due back tomorrow from 

Johannesburg. Apart from the globetrotting business types, a 

few of the guilty parties had been diplomats from lesser 

known African states. There would have been no trials or 

legal proceedings possible. Half of them were here 

unofficially, and the other half, their governments and ours 

would probably assume they’d disappeared after some kind of 

illegal transaction. It happens all the time, so I was once 

informed by a minor Whitehall Cabinet employee in a bar in 

Mayfair. 

The sangoma had remained elusive. I hoped he’d been here 

by invitation and had departed given the sudden 

disappearance of a number of his clientele. Even as I formed 

the thought, something told me it could never be that easy. 

I told Morrissey about the audit I had to do and he nodded, 

went about his nightly duties. I joined him to help with those 

after I was satisfied I’d removed as much of the sticky mess 

off my coat as I could.

I have to admit I used some of the time I was supposed to be 

recording my audit conducting a search on anything to do 

with Professor Timothy Holden and his findings regarding 

Nefer Nebawy. Holden had a web archive which I discovered 

after seeing it scrawled at the foot of John Paul’s notes. There 

was very little else, and nothing after 2011, which was 

strange. John Paul’s writing was dreadful and I gave up 

eventually. 

Morrissey and I met up later over coffees. It would have 

been more relaxing to sit in the tea room, but we couldn’t both 

break at once in case a body came in. The night shift’s not 

popular, although we have a rota of daylighters as we know 

them who are on call to come in at busy times and emergency 

situations if needed. We mainly prep the body and cold-store 

it so it can be worked on in daylight because of the low staff 

levels, but we take tissue samples and do some post mortem 

work in certain cases, particularly where information is 

required quickly when a crime is involved and the passage of 

time will affect the evidence. 

Breaks, however are written into the contract so you have to 

get used to drinking your tea and eating your biscuits and

snacks with the smell of formaldehyde and a cadaver on the 

trolley. It’s part of the job. 

‘Weird about the lack of activity,’ said Morrissey, searching 

for conversation as we twiddled our thumbs. There was 

something wrong. The mortuary is usually active, or at least 

ticking over during the graveyard shift. Our unit works with 

the police on crime-related deaths particularly when a police 

pathology examiner is unavailable. And yes, most death 

related to crime does happen at night. No sleep for the 

wicked. 

‘Weird,’ I agreed. I wondered if he was asking me why with 

some point in mind, or just trying to lighten the atmosphere 

after my tantrum. ‘Are you going to the match on Saturday?’ I 

asked. ‘Who are they playing?’ 

‘West Ham,’ he said, thoughtfully munching on a second 

ginger cream biscuit. I should add at this point Morrissey is a 

lifelong Arsenal supporter. He writes letters of advice to 

Arsene Wenger, to which he attributes the team’s success, 

though Arsene has not seen fit to reply as yet. 

He was in the throes of treating me to an analysis on why the 

current formation Arsene had changed to wasn’t going to win 

extra points when I stopped him.

‘Spoke too soon,’ I said, as we put our cups on the wall shelf 

behind the chairs. 

There’s an atmosphere that precedes a body arrival. It may 

be the sombre mindset of the ambulance crew, trailing it in 

with themselves the way I track the guilty. That subtle and 

indescribable aura most humans are unaware of. Morrissey is 

used to seeing me pick up on it. 

‘You’re psychic man,’ he said, getting up, heading for the 

door. 

But at that moment, it wasn’t anything psychic. No vague 

feeling or atmosphere. There was a familiar signature headed 

down the corridor. I was reeling before the team wheeled the 

body in. Something within me cracked. There was a strange 

whining sound, as Morrissey rushed over and I sat down hard 

on one of our plastic easi-clean chairs. It was only some 

seconds later I realised the sound had come from me. 

The scent was old, comfortable. Vanilla-scented tobacco, 

along with a faint hint of alcohol all underscoring the metallic 

reek of blood. The alcohol did not surprise me. John Paul 

often took a small measure of brandy to offset the insomnia.

Chapter 17 

Some Kind of Super Hero 

Having no better idea of what else to do, Morrissey called 

Clifford Burke, the Chief Forensic Pathologist, who arrived 

about thirty minutes later. Despite looking half-asleep, he still 

managed to convey an air of unbearable pomposity. 

‘Now Gideon,’ he said, leaning back into the green leather 

chair I normally occupied, his head nodding like one of those 

ornaments we used to see on the back ledges of cars, ‘I 

understand you knew the ... latest admission personally.’ I 

nodded dumbly, unable to deal with Burke’s professional 

detachment. ‘You know we have procedures in these 

circumstances,’ he continued, ‘and I’d like you to take a 

couple of days off. I’ll do the examination, let Christopher do 

the rest.’ 

I almost protested, but knew Burke well by now. Flexibility 

wasn’t his way. Instead I agreed with and thanked him. He 

wasn’t being kind. Back in 2007 an APT in Brighton had been 

present when his mother had been brought in. Walked in as 

the pathologist was conducting the post-mortem and had his 

mother’s liver in both gloves, laughing at some joke with a

colleague. The APT had gone crazy and attacked him. In the 

end they’d both been disciplined, the APT given extended 

leave and the pathologist criticised for being callous. It was a 

well-publicised incident and following it a protocol was set up 

to prevent any such incident occurring again. 

Of course, this was an exceptional circumstance and I could 

only afford to pay lip service to Burke. I had to examine John 

Paul’s body to try and pick up clues, I couldn’t let this lie. 

Feigning the act of gathering my things I left, some minutes 

later returning in Shadow phase. I stood in the darkness, 

listening to Burke, sounding weary and ill-tempered, snapping 

orders to Morrissey. ‘Christopher! Where’s the sharps box? 

Christopher, have you got...’ 

Poor Morrissey. He hated anyone using his given name. 

They were busy scrubbing and Burke was searching for 

overalls, berating me for having ‘let the place go’. In fact we 

were having problems with the new cheaper suppliers he’d 

selected. I heard Morrissey subtly advising him about the 

shipment of disposables, many of which we’d had to bin due 

to faults. Budget cuts rarely actually save money. 

I hesitated at the door, then entered in to where John Paul’s 

body lay on the stainless steel slab of the Waiting Room. I

choked at the sight of the sheer agony in his expression, took 

a step back. A livid slash lay across his carotid like an 

obscene smile. Memories of our late night conversations, his 

grudging friendliness, his occasional lectures and underlying 

humanity washed over me like the polluted Thames high tide 

at the sight of his painful death. Flickering slightly, I stood 

alongside him, my breathing rapid, my eyes watery. I knew I 

had to get my act together for his sake and to avoid discovery. 

I’ve had eighty years of attuning my senses to death; to 

filtering out the scents of mortal decay, fear, bodily functions 

and other chemical processes in order to uncover the ones that 

don’t belong, usually the last person to be in close proximity 

to the victim in the moments before the soul departs. There 

were two. One recently familiar, another very much so. The 

former was the same one I’d detected during my hunt for the 

sangoma. I felt a rush of anger and guilt. Could this be 

nothing more than vengeance for me robbing him of his 

paying clients? 

Had he been following me and if so, how couldn’t I have 

known? 

As for the latter, I felt conflicted. It also muddied the waters 

somewhat, because the scent belonged to Elfwyn.

I had no way of connecting with her. Mortifero operatives 

don’t exactly hand out business cards with their Twitter 

address on. All I’d ever had from her was an enigmatic ‘I’ll 

find you.’ 

I had a plan though. 

‘Paying your last respects?’ 

I whirled round, phasing back involuntarily. Morrissey stood 

there in green scrubs, smiling, his lips shaking. 

‘You saw..?’ My mind started racing, trying to think of a 

way out of this. He held up a pair of scrawny pale hands that 

had never seen a sunny day at Margate. 

‘It’s OK man, I’ve known for a while.’ I manhandled him 

out the swinging doors and into the refuse loading bay where 

a couple of green plastic bags awaited collection from the 

incinerator crew. I came to a stop in a camera blind spot and 

faced him. ‘What is it you think you know?’ 

He looked hurt. ‘Hey. I’ve protected your secret. Haven’t 

mentioned it even to PIN, and I’m close with those guys.’ 

PIN is the Paranormal Investigation Network of which 

Morrissey is an active member and fellow geek. They usually 

communicate via the web, but occasionally meet up in the Fox 

and Swan, a famously haunted pub on the Embankment.

‘Whatever you think you know, forget it Morrissey. Please, 

for your own sake. There are some out there that will kill you 

to keep that secret. No-one, not even your own mother can 

know about this.’ I was keeping my voice very low, eyes and 

senses reaching out to detect anyone watching us. So far, I 

couldn’t sense anything, but with the Cleaners, you never 

knew. I didn’t think I could bear two losses in one night. 

Despite the acne, the terrible taste in clothes and music, the 

concave chest and permanently scratched glasses, I was fond 

of Morrissey. OK, he irritated the hell out of me most nights I 

was trapped here with him in our inner city necropolis, but we 

had an understanding. More than I’d realised, it seemed. 

I sighed, felt tired. He crossed his arms. ‘How do I do that? 

Forget it, I mean,’ he said. ‘Look, I know you go out and find 

the killers...’ 

‘What! No, what makes you think...’ I stepped away, began 

to pace, unable to think what to do. I’d always been so 

careful. 

His gaze was steady. ‘Jesus Gideon. You’re...like some kind 

of super hero. I mean it freaked me out when I first saw you 

on that picture on the PIN website...’

‘What!’ This was getting worse. I held both hands to my 

face, it would have been comical if this hadn’t been such a 

mess. ‘There’s a picture of me on your website?’ 

‘Not any more. I got it taken off. Said I knew who it was and 

that it had to be a reflection off a window. Bonno accepted my 

explanation and took it off. That GoPro of Narco’s is shit hot 

you know...’ 

The ignominy of it – all the power we have and I get 

photographed by some gormless nerd with a GoPro. I had to 

be circumspect. I couldn’t have been the first of us snapped in 

part-transition by some chancer looking for a shot that proves 

to them that London is one of the most haunted cities on the 

globe. So Morrissey knew more about me than others I’d 

known, I’d worked with him for eight years. He’d stayed with 

me the longest, I found work mates didn’t hang around me too 

long. And I must confess, the ‘Super Hero’ label was pretty 

flattering. Well, more than ‘creepy ghost guy caught on 

camera.’ 

‘I can’t stay,’ I told him, ‘but we’ll talk after I sort some 

things. In the meantime, don’t say anything, and just carry on 

the way you have been. I don’t have time at the moment to 

retrain an assistant.’

He thrust his hands in his pockets, tutted, walked off. 

‘Bloody Hell. You’re so dramatic Gideon. I mean, who’d 

believe me anyway?’ 

I waited till he’d gone, phased out and left, my mind 

buzzing. This was bad, but also kind of liberating. At least 

now I knew he knew. If only he really knew about what I was, 

the things I’d done, would he still think I was the super hero 

he believed me to be? But I had no time to consider this, I had 

to move fast. Someone had wilfully and needlessly killed an 

old man who’d been a good friend of mine, and I was going to 

find them. I hoped it hadn’t been Elfwyn.

Chapter 18 

The Killing Kind 

I didn’t know if Elfwyn was still in the area, but had only one 

plan. Not a great one, but I was in a hurry. 

You know that saying about ‘shouting from the rooftops’, 

well, maybe I took it a little too literally. 

The view from the rooftops of London is an eye opener. It’s 

changed so much over the years, gotten higher, less brick, 

more chrome and steel. The stately buildings like the British 

Museum, the V & A, St Paul’s, that all look so impressive at 

street level look small in the gun sights of the new giants. The 

sky is busy in a way unseen from below; the air thick with the 

sound of helicopters droning, alighting like dragonflies on 

millionaires’ penthouse buildings, winging off towards places 

like Westminster and the MI6 building in Vauxhall, civil and 

unknown aircraft, signals of many kinds criss-crossing the 

diesel-heavy atmosphere undetected by human senses. Some 

things I’ve seen over time defy description and may or may 

not have some covert purpose. Then again, if it was up to PIN, 

they’d just insist that aliens have been watching us for years.

I chose a nearby roof I was familiar with. The outer brick of 

the building was easier to grip and I made my way up with 

clawed hands and powerful thrusts that only Shadow-strength 

can provide. My recollection of the vanilla/tobacco essence 

and the pained death mask of my friend gave me the impetus 

to get up there in double-quick time. 

‘CONSTANCE!’ I yelled, ‘Constance! A word please...’ 

It started as a joke between us. 

September, 1967 

‘I can’t call you or use your name?’ I’d asked, confused, as 

we lay prone and naked on a faded bedspread in one of the 

many cheap and exceedingly nasty hotels that infest our 

imperial capital. I can’t say the trashiness of it wasn’t a turnon. 

Sofia was still annoyed with me regarding the loss of her 

new lover, Solomon at the time so I was keeping out of her 

way. 

‘Technically, I’d have to kill you.’ Elfwyn raised herself up, 

curved her back towards me, poured more wine, which 

thankfully wasn’t too bad. I counted her vertebrae, thought 

about how elegant, and kind of reptilian they were. I didn’t

laugh, particularly as I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. 

About the killing part. Probably not. 

‘So, if I need to contact you, I’ll have to use another name?’ 

She turned around, her eyebrows furrowed, which accentuated 

her upturned nose. 

‘Well,’ she shrugged, ‘technically, I guess you could.’ 

‘Constance. That’s what I’ll call you. Seems apt for one of 

our kind, being immortal,’ I said. ‘Actually, you look like a 

Constance. Not in the Lady Chatterley way.’ We laughed 

then, as she turned back and submitted me to another savage 

attack of lust. 

Present day 

‘Constance! Where the bloody hell are you?’ I could sense I 

was being watched, then became increasingly aware 

something was approaching, but couldn’t tell from which 

angle. I was on a flat roof terrace with dirty air-conditioning 

fans lined up on a brick outbuilding, whirring and spewing 

filthy, humid air at me. I planted my feet, managed to dodge 

just in time as something black formed in the air and leapt 

from an adjoining roof like a giant bluebottle. I didn’t hang

around to see what it was, I could guess. And it wasn’t 

Elfwyn. 

This was bad. Very bad. Though my mortal fear of the 

Mortifero had lessened somewhat following my on-off 

clandestine relationship with one of them, now being targeted 

by one I didn’t know brought back all the primal fears. My 

adrenaline levels spiked, as indicated by rapid heartbeats and 

short breath, and my movements were awkward, panicked. 

To my advantage, I knew the surroundings probably better 

than whoever was following. I transitioned, hurled myself 

over the parapet on the east side of the building to drop into a 

crouch on an old iron fire escape below. The structure 

groaned and I felt the wall brackets strain and crunch against 

the mortar they were fastened in. Not taking the time to think 

too hard, I leapt down to the street and hurtled out on to 

Shepherd’s Bush Road hoping to lose him or her amongst the 

pedestrians and traffic, banking on the fact my pursuer 

wouldn’t risk exposure. Other than Elfwyn the one other close 

experience of the Mortifero on a hunt had been the Solomon 

episode. The sheer speed and efficiency of it sliced like a cold 

blade through my thoughts as I wound past the cars and night

evellers who fortunately had chosen this time to pour out of 

the bistros and clubs. 

My way along the street was blocked by a group of drunken 

revellers shouting, laughing and weaving their way towards 

the next bar on their list. As subtly as possible I walked into 

the middle of them and carried along with them. A prickling 

along the back of my neck revealed a predatory signature that 

surfaced, sometimes close, sometimes masked by other 

passers-by, but I guessed as long as I was with my street 

companions whoever it was wouldn’t attack. A sense of 

urgency was reaching panic attack levels, forcing bile into my 

throat. Why was I being hunted? It made no sense. 

OK, so I’d been shouting whilst standing on top of a building 

but so what? I could just have been some drunk who’d got lost 

on one of the many accessible rooftops of London. 

Did Elfwyn have a jealous lover amongst the Mortifero who 

knew of my secret name for her? I doubted that very much. 

She would never have told anyone about us. 

A buxom little blonde amongst my travelling fellows 

suddenly lunged at me, somehow able to balance on her 

plastic high heels. ‘Bloody hell, you’re gorgeous! Where did

you come from? Didn’t I see you back in the Uno Bar? Do 

you know Flasher?’ 

‘Ah, oh Flasher, yeah. He’s a great guy...’ I attempted to 

subtly to deflect her hands which appeared to be trying to 

undo my fly-zip. 

She thrust her Ombre’d hair back and glared up at me with 

unfocused vision. ‘Flasher! He’s a bastard! You know what he 

did? Do you?’ 

‘Er, no. Obviously something he shouldn’t...’ 

‘Ditched me, on my birthday for that smelly 

prostitit..post...bloody whore, Carla Baker, thinks she’s posh 

or sommink. Wears knocked off Prada an’ he said I was the 

tart! Can you believe it? If I ever see him again, I’m going to 

take one of these heels and stick it right up...’ 

I coughed, ‘I’m sure he’d deserve it, nice girl like you...’ I 

had one eye over my shoulder, getting ready to dip or swerve 

if my pursuer got impatient, the other watching out for my 

new love interest’s wandering hands. 

She planted her feet and glared. ‘Are you being funny? First 

you’re all over me in the Uno, next you’re being sarky.’ 

‘No. I’m not, er, look I don’t even know your name...’

Meanwhile, one of her friends was making her way back to 

us, arriving just as the tears started. 

‘Leave her alone! Look Flasher, it’s over, right? She’s not 

interested, OK? Come here Bernie, let him go, he’s not worth 

it.’ She flopped her arms around Bernie, who was bawling by 

now. One or two of the drunken men in their gathering were 

looking at me in none-too-friendly fashion now. The herd 

instinct that detects the ones who don’t belong was kicking in 

despite the levels of alcohol present. 

I decided it safer at this juncture to take my chances with the 

killer on my tail, saw an alley between some factories that had 

been renovated into flats and made a break for it. 

Perhaps I could outrun my pursuer. My footfalls echoed off 

the narrow walls. Sickly scents of death, probably a dead cat 

or bird, and urine all assaulted my senses as the wind through 

the alleyway pushed past my face. Up ahead I could see the 

alley opened out with very scalable walls and I aimed myself 

towards one. Above there was a low roof with slate tiles. It 

seemed the best option. 

There were windows but they were boarded, so I guessed I 

could make it up and away without being seen. I took a quick 

look back the way I’d come. My new friends had disappeared,

and so far I could get no sense of the hunter. I turned back and 

made to spring when I felt the air pressure change ahead and 

knew I’d hesitated too long. Something like a sledgehammer 

whumped me in the chest throwing me against the wall I’d 

intended to climb, and I went down, winded and momentarily 

confused. A black form coalesced within the angled shadows 

of the alley. A woman, with bronze coloured skin, generous 

lips and a West African profile materialised and stalked 

toward me. 

‘What am I supposed to have done?’ I pleaded, trying to 

make time, checking out my escape options meanwhile. She 

blended into the shadows, dressed in a black velvet one-piece, 

gloves and a hood, the standard Mortifero hunting gear. The 

assassin looked down at me with gold-flecked brown eyes and 

the regard of a jaguar. 

‘You’re not walking away from this I’m afraid, orders from 

above. You did well though. Gave me more of a run than the 

usual targets.’ I watched her slowly withdraw something from 

a sheath made of velvet. At first, I thought the weapon 

reflected the moon, but then I remembered we were in an 

enclosed space, and there was no moon.

‘At least let me know who wants me dead, I deserve that 

much. And who the hell are you?’ All the while my mind was 

churning over schemes to escape the fate this creature 

intended for me. I didn’t like the look of that curved, shining 

blade in her hand. My head had started to throb, which was 

unusual. I never get headaches as a rule. 

She cocked her head and smiled in a way that made me feel 

nauseous. ‘Maybe you don’t deserve anything. Who are you 

to question the judgments of the Council? Obviously you’ve 

done something.’ She took a step towards me, her footfall 

silent, assured. 

I wanted to shift position but remained still, like prey before 

a hunting snake. My mind raced to find reasons to keep her 

talking. ‘Looks like neither of us have a clue. Are you just 

going to kill someone when it might be a mistake? Who do 

you suppose will get the blame for that? Probably not the one 

who...’ 

‘Shut up! There is no mistake! They don’t make mistakes.’ 

Even I could see some doubt had crept up on her, but her 

cockiness soon returned. ‘Oh, I get it,’ she said, her savage 

grin widening to reveal brilliant white teeth, ‘you’re some sort

of grifter, a con artist. You must have really pissed someone 

off.’ 

I saw the blade rise in a blur of painful white light, closed 

my eyes, thinking of John Paul. I’d never realised I’d be 

joining him so soon. I could almost hear his voice, smell the 

vanilla tobacco. 

I’d failed to find his murderer and the child killer. The anger 

built up inside like a small fizzing ember getting ready to 

burst into flame. 

We don’t feel the seasons like mortals. Don’t get the aches 

that presage the cold, the pains that arthritic joints feel nor the 

other accumulated infirmities that age brings. We can’t even 

indulge in that time-honoured British habit of moaning about 

the heat in high summer. But there are other reminders. I’d 

forgotten it was late September. Living in the city you don’t 

get that mellow scent of the falling leaves unless you’re rich 

enough to live near beside of the parks. 

John Paul’s rheumy eyes glistened gold in a memory of one 

of our fireside chats. I’d told him about my suicide attempt 

and thoughts. ‘I can understand why your faith in the purpose 

of your life could have worn thin Gideon. I’ve taken too many 

confessionals not to gain a deeper understanding of such

things. But know this – that there must be some greater 

purpose to why you exist. You may not have found it yet, but 

you will. You’re here only because He permits it...’ 

I could see my executioner’s hand approaching in an arc of 

deepest black and sharp white, and in between us, with the 

same leisurely motion, a golden plane tree leaf pirouetted 

diagonally downwards, as if slicing her face in half. It was a 

strange, tender moment. A small memento of the dying of the 

year, a symbol of mortality for those who defied it. John 

Paul’s voice, ‘Occasionally, He looks down and reminds us 

He’s still there.’ 

The ember crackled, the flame caught. I brought up my foot 

in an Aikido sweep, a skill I learnt a couple of decades ago 

and had mostly forgotten about. My boot forced her arm 

sideways and with no resistance at all, the white crescent 

sliced through her other arm instead. I’d only meant to knock 

it out of her grip. 

She looked at me with a kind of injured shock in those 

chocolate almond eyes. I raised myself and stood back, 

feeling regret, a sadness at the passing of life as her arm 

dissolved into white sparks and gradually, from where it had

severed, the same glittering dissolution travelled up 

throughout her body. A Christmas tree angel. 

Just before she was totally consumed, she closed her eyes as 

if falling asleep. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, the sound of the 

words carrying like a kiss along the narrow brick walls. 

One stray spark wafted toward my face and I casually 

wondered what it would feel like. I never got the chance to 

find out, as a velvet-gloved hand lunged out and clenched 

around it in a swift motion.

Chapter 19 

Brompton Cemetery 

This was one heart-lurching experience too many in one 

evening. My eyes travelled along the feline arm to meet with a 

familiar face. ‘Bloody Hell Elfwyn, not you as well?’ 

I felt so weary with everything that had happened that 

evening. I leaned back against the brick wall, waited for the 

end, no more fight left. 

She wasn’t smiling. Instead, she greeted me with her usual 

warmth and affection, cracking me along the side of the head 

before I had the chance to duck. 

‘What the hell!’ I rubbed where she’d struck me. ‘You know, 

a man could be forgiven for losing patience with you Elfwyn. 

Two assaults in one night. That hurt, by the way.’ 

She ignored me and walked back to where the other Cleaner 

had disappeared, kneeling down, brushing the ground with her 

gloved fingertips which stirred up one or two remaining 

sparks that danced along the old-fashioned flags, following 

the plane leaf as it shimmied away up the alley. She cast her 

eyes down, sighed. ‘Greta,’ I heard her murmur, her shoulders 

slumped, uncharacteristic of Elfwyn.

‘What just happened?’ I asked. ‘Who wants me dead? I 

didn’t do anything.’ 

She levered herself up. ‘We need to get out of here. Now. In 

Shadow, quickly as possible.’ 

I followed her out. We emerged opposite a fancy coffee shop 

and bistro and headed toward Chelsea. This is London, and 

even now, at an hour you’d expect most to be sloping back to 

their bijou lofts and industrial conversions, the streets still 

resounded with footfalls, conversation and the occasional 

clinking of bottles. 

We took the side streets, passed the black painted railings of 

Kensington and Chelsea College, eventually coming to the 

gates of Brompton Cemetery. They were closed, but the 

ornate wrought iron isn’t much of an impediment to humans, 

let alone us. 

I had to stifle a laugh, though it was possibly hysteria. This 

macabre promenade along the grave-lined avenues under the 

moonlight was the closest I’d ever been to a date with Elfwyn. 

It’s usually a quick trip to some cheap hotel and she’s off soon 

after the panting and athletics are done, places to go, people to 

kill. Underlying all my current concerns was also a sense of 

relief at still being alive.

It may seem surprising, but graveyards at night make me 

uneasy. What can I say? Places like Brompton Cemetery 

always give one a sense of being watched; those sad little 

statues and enigmatic statements on headstones and the 

uncertainty of where exactly we go after the soul departs. 

Bodies in my familiar working environment I can handle, but 

the atmosphere of the archetypal graveyard has Hollywood to 

blame for the feelings it evokes. 

There’s a touching kind of charm to this wild flower 

meadow of the dead though. Moss-greened angels hung their 

heads in disapproval of our invasion, cherubs peeked with 

curiosity or surprise. Ranks of crosses swaggered towards the 

paths and avenues, occasionally patricians’ faces peered at us 

from gravestones and mausoleums big enough to demand a 

sizeable rent in modern London. A rather tired looking lion 

regarded us with disinterest from a high plinth, whilst all 

manner of amputee statues limped towards Paradise all around 

us. But despite the distractions of this place, my mind kept 

swinging back to the fact that someone on high wanted me 

dead. 

Yet, despite my various attempts to disown my life over the 

years, I was desperate to prevent its ending now. There were

too many unanswered questions, a killer to catch, the cruel 

death of a friend and the promise I’d made to those 

anonymous children. 

Elfwyn guided us towards the dome of the chapel and 

onward to one of the sets of steps that led down to the 

catacombs. I saw her scan for CCTV, but there were none, 

unsurprisingly. We transitioned, the cold stone suddenly 

registering. 

‘This is very romantic,’ I said, gesturing towards the corner 

by the door to the underground chambers where an assortment 

of used condoms had collected. The cemetery, lovely and 

dilapidated as it was, was also a well-known cruising venue, 

but it seemed either the gay lovelorn had taken an early night 

or the police had stepped up their surveillance of the area. 

‘OK,’ Elfwyn said, hugging her knees, ‘can you think of 

anything you’ve done to cause one of the Council to want you 

dead?’ 

I shook my head, ‘Elfwyn, you know me. I’m just the guy 

who wants a quiet life. I never do anything to stand out or 

attract attention.’ 

She gave me a look of reproach, ‘Not even shouting from the 

rooftops? Come on Gideon, think.’

I had some questions of my own first. ‘Did you have 

anything to do with the death of John Paul Blantyre earlier 

this evening?’ 

Elfwyn gave me a hard stare from within the frame of her 

velvet hood. ‘Your friend, the priest? I can assure you that if it 

had been me there’d have been no evidence left. I arrived just 

before the police so didn’t have time to clean the area. 

Thought I got a scent of someone, but I didn’t recognise it. 

I’ve told you that having these human friendships isn’t a good 

thing. I know you were attached to him.’ 

A couple of black-winged shapes swooped down towards us, 

then were gone with a high-pitched chirrup. Bats seemed an 

apt accompaniment to the scene. 

‘Do you know who called the police Elfwyn? John Paul had 

no close neighbours. The verger lives off-site.’ 

She narrowed her eyes. ‘It was an anonymous call, I believe. 

It all happened too fast even for me, I barely had time to get 

myself out. There were two cups on the side and other 

evidence you were there. I only realised afterwards, as I 

overheard the inspector talking. It’ll be harder now to clean 

that up, but I can do it. It’s not as if it’s the first time we’ve 

had to retrieve evidence from the hands of the police.

Fortunately, he had other cups there that matched the one you 

used, it’s just a question of replacing one with the other. The 

fact that you were the last to see him is a more difficult 

hurdle. If they find that out I can’t help you there.’ 

Elfwyn cocked her head to the side, gave me a penetrating 

stare. ‘Do you have any idea who killed your friend?’ 

I leaned back against the stone walls of the catacomb 

entrance, which was decorated by pale green whorls of lichen. 

I took a deep breath. ‘I think I know who it was, well, I know 

of them. I think I may have really annoyed him. But that still 

doesn’t explain who wants me dead on the Council.’ 

I saw her focus wander out across the gravestones, stone 

angels and crosses. ‘Your enemies seem to be stacking up 

Gideon,’ she said, her manner distracted. She rose. ‘Things 

are changing on the Council, becoming more uncertain. 

There’ll be a new order soon but I can’t tell you more. And I 

can’t guard you unofficially any more. I have tasks to fulfil. I 

can’t be seen to be looking after you. You’ve no idea what 

kind of punishment is meted out on Mortifero operatives if we 

step outside our remit. It’s nothing as merciful as our 

executions.’

I longed to ask questions, but didn’t want to pressurise her, 

just nodded. She turned to leave, then looked back with an 

uncharacteristic look of worry wrinkling her nose. ‘Forget 

what happened tonight. Forget you were ever in that alley. Lie 

low, and try to find a different way than your front door for 

getting in and out of your new place. If I discover anything 

more, and can get word to you safely, I’ll let you know. I wish 

there was more I could do. Take care Gideon.’ I watched her 

fade from physical sight and soon lost sight of her Shadow. 

I headed north, intending to walk to my digs, but felt weary 

and instead travelled to the Gloucester Road tube, got the 

Underground back. There was something comforting about 

the warm air and ozone of the tunnels, the reliability of the 

trains. I caught the perfume of a passing woman, a nurse 

coming off duty. Cinnamon and spices. 

I thought of her then. Cinnamon. I imagined her face 

glowing in the light of her laptop as she documented her 

casefuls of records, the dangers that now gathered around me 

rising like a spectre rising behind her, and without thinking I 

walked quicker.

Chapter 20 

Meet the Neighbours 

In the end, I climbed up the side of the adjoining building and 

went back via the rooftops Isaac and I had traversed. As I 

passed within sight, I saw Cinnamon’s rooms were dark, the 

curtains drawn. Good idea, I thought. I made a mental note to 

advise her of peeping Toms in the area. 

I took out the old watch on a fob given to me many years ago 

by Uncle Alf. I don’t bother with modern watches which 

never last, not like the old ones. Morrissey’s always been 

fascinated by it. 

It was 1.05am. There was a back door to the apartments, so I 

took it. I knew there was no CCTV in the back yard area, and 

that was the only way I guessed we could be observed 

throughout the city. Super senses we may have, but we have 

our limits. Someone, somewhere within the Shadow 

community had a lot of influence and access to plenty of 

surveillance I guessed. 

I turned the key in the lock quietly so as not to wake 

Cinnamon. In the night, I imagined I could feel this old 

building breathing. It reminded me of Mrs Purcell’s house

which had the heating on low and constant all the time, and 

yet still the floorboards creaked at night, never in the day. One 

of the many peculiarities of the night. 

Swilling my mouth with mouthwash I fell into bed naked, 

both mind and body exhausted. I didn’t switch any lights on, 

but don’t need to anyway. Thoughts of John Paul’s deathly 

features and his faceless killer, the vaguely remembered ghost 

of Cinnamon’s body scent, memory of Elfwyn’s grave 

expression as she’d left. Greta’s form dissolving into light… 

Unable to settle I flipped through the research I’d done 

earlier. Information gathering about Tim Holden had proven 

fruitless and I’d soon turned to the Egyptian concept of what 

made up a human being and their soul. Ren, the name you 

carried round with you, the Ib or heart that was weighed as 

you stood before Anubis, the Ka or life force, the energy that 

endures, the Ba, our immortal, god-like soul, the Akh that 

resulted when the Ka and Ba combined. And the Swt, that 

mysterious shadow form that could be lost, stolen, or 

destroyed by the Devourer. I couldn’t help but shiver as I 

mulled over that. 

I’d searched and searched regarding non-mercurial 

quicksilver but found nothing. Only a vague reference to

someone called Thomas Arnott, a contemporary of 

Paracelsus, who had theorised that there were alchemical 

methods to change a number of substances into what he 

termed leoht seolfor, amongst a whole list of other 

transmutations. The authority on such things again was 

Timothy Holden. It seemed Holden, apart from his major 

subject being Egyptology, also had a sideline interest in 

Medieval Philosophy and alchemical theories. I recalled that 

either John Paul had mentioned he’d worked at the British 

Museum or it had been in his notes. I wondered if he may 

have been one of Cinnamon’s colleagues at one time. I felt 

bad, but I was going to have to exploit her trust to find out 

more. 

In the quiet of the building, I could hear her heavy sleep 

breathing, the occasional light snore. It was comforting. I 

didn’t feel alone. Loneliness levels the playing field between 

mortal and immortal. We all fear it. 

At some point, oblivion overtook me. I had a vaguely 

disturbing dream about Cinnamon. I was looking down at her 

as she lay amidst her pillows and duvet, the moon shining on 

her face. I wanted to touch her skin, show her my true self but

typical of dreams felt paralysed and helpless. Then the light 

started to dissolve her face and I woke up with my heart 

racing. 

The notes I’d made were strewn on the carpet by the bed. I 

peered over at the plastic wall clock that had been in here 

when I moved in. It read six twenty, but that didn’t feel right, 

particularly when I noticed that the minute hand had 

developed some kind of palsy and kept trying to scale up to 

the hour only to flop back on itself. A battery would have 

fixed it but a new clock would look better. 

Reaching over I pressed a button on my mobile which burst 

into light and revealed the time was actually only 3.15. There 

was a sound outside and I stiffened, my senses fully alert. 

Someone was moving in the corridor, and suspecting another 

attack, I pulled on some track bottoms, moving in Shadow 

towards the door. 

I peered through the door’s spy hole, couldn’t see anything at 

first, then realised that I could just about make out a form. 

Shadow-kind in transition, standing outside looking in the 

direction of Cinnamon’s flat, not mine.

I didn’t want to yank my door open and possibly wake her, 

but I knew I had to discourage her visitor. I was still in 

Shadow and spoke clearly. ‘I can see you.’ 

Whilst in transition, a human would have heard a vague 

whispering. It’s often attributed to ghostly visitations. We can 

hear each other quite clearly. The form outside moved in a 

blur and I heard a door a couple of apartment lengths down 

the corridor opening and closing softly. I figured the person 

had to live in the flat I’d previously knocked on and in which 

I thought I’d heard a sound the day before. Time to introduce 

myself to the neighbours, I decided. 

I opened my door as noiselessly as possible and moved, 

silent as Shadow down the corridor until I stood outside the 

door of Flat 12. I tapped, and the door opened. 

‘Would you like some tea?’ a voice asked me in uncertain 

tones. I turned and transitioned back as he did. Before me was 

a face out of a bad dream. My host looked down and 

repositioned his hair to try and hide his ravaged features. One 

part of his face looked caved-in, the eye set in a skull-like 

socket. On the other side the skin looked aged. His basic 

features would have been pleasant if it hadn’t been for the

disfigurement. I realised I was staring and detested myself for 

it. 

‘It’s congenital, well, apart from some further damage 

incurred during an unwise relationship,’ said the resident of 

Flat 12, touching his face as if reliving a bad memory. 

‘Needless to say, school was horrific.’ He took a half-face 

Phantom 0f the Opera mask out of his pocket. ‘I wear this if 

I’m going out and use the Purse tunnels beneath this building 

to get about. There are a few Phantom aficionados about the 

City so the mask’s quite a common feature round and about. 

I’m a member of the society, actually. Wonderful musical. 

Have you seen it?’ 

‘I’m sorry...’ I wasn’t sure if I was apologising for the shitty 

life he must have had, my staring or not having seen Lloyd 

Webber’s masterpiece. I made a mental note to ask about the 

tunnels he’d mentioned later, recalling now the maps I’d seen 

in Roke’s nightclub that led to the market and the 

Underground. 

‘Tea would be great. Thanks,’ I said. He looked pleased and 

went off to put the kettle on. I followed and stood outside the 

tiny galley kitchen.

‘I like the old whistling kettles,’ he called from inside, his 

back to me, ‘there’s something quite comforting about them. 

Of course, bit of a nuisance at night so I turn off the heat 

before it whistles. It never quite tastes fully brewed. Hope you 

don’t mind.’ I heard the spoon tinkling, swishing, then being 

put down on the draining board. He followed me back to the 

living room with an Oxo cup in one hand, a Bisto one in the 

other, handed me the red and white Oxo one. ‘You look like 

an Oxo kind of person,’ he said. 

I noted some large framed prints on the walls – Michael 

Crawford, Andrea Bocelli on a brightly lit stage and, in largerthan-life 

detail, Andrew Lloyd Webber in soft focus black and 

white. A signed print. His taste was somewhat single-minded. 

‘Thanks. What were you doing outside Cinnamon’s door?’ I 

asked as we sat down. I took the sofa, my host lowered 

himself into the comfy but rather worn-looking armchair. 

He grinned, which looked alarming on his lop-sided face. ‘I 

watch out for her. Someone has to around here. Are you in 

love with her? Everyone’s in love with Cinnamon. It might be 

the name, it sounds so edible.’ He reached over and offered 

me the sugar bowl which I declined. I did not like the use of 

‘edible’ as an adjective.

‘What do you mean, ‘everyone’s in love with her’?’ I 

suddenly realised I didn’t know what he was called. There 

were no other names on the board downstairs, just flat 

numbers. ‘I’m Gideon Hartford, by the way.’ 

My host put his cup down and reached out his hand, ‘Gus 

Greenwood. It’s short for Augustus. Not sure why my mother 

chose that one. Haven’t you met any of the others yet?’ 

‘You mean the other residents?’ I looked at his long coat and 

watched as he unwound his scarf, placing it over the back of 

his armchair. I suddenly felt underdressed, not having paid it 

too much consideration whilst anticipating a fight. The 

misshapen smile increased. ‘You don’t know, do you? The 

others are all like us. Cinnamon’s the only human in the 

building.’ 

I felt an acute sense of alarm digging a cold spike into my 

brain, and the sudden need for something stronger than the tea 

on offer. ‘What?’ 

‘Didn’t you read the inscription on the entrance, ‘We Who 

Endure’ or something like that. The Latin’s a bit rusty these 

days. It’s always a dead giveaway. They have buildings all 

over the city, must have had them for years. Birds of a feather,

and all that.’ For the first time I could recall, I cursed the lack 

of a classical education with a basis in classic dead languages. 

‘How come Cinnamon..?’ 

He must have heard the alarm in my voice. ‘It’s OK. Well, I 

presume so. I mean, she’s safe here. You know that saying 

about not shitting on your own doorstep, and, like I say, they 

all seem very taken with her. I watch out for her when I can. 

I’m extremely fond of her. Not in that way. Well, perhaps I 

should explain, I’m gay. It was actually some boyfriend I met 

who made the extra ‘adjustments’ to my face. Not that it 

wasn’t bad enough before with the skin condition. Back in 

1987, it was...’ Gus took a long, shuddering breath. ‘He was 

pretty sadistic. And he turned me afterwards. Said it’d be 

‘interesting’ to have to live with this forever. Threatened to 

‘pop in’ on me from time to time. I moved here and 

thankfully, I think he got a warning from the bigwigs upstairs, 

you know, and moved away. Oh, sorry, I forgot to ask if you 

wanted any biscuits.’ 

I couldn’t think what to say to this latest information. To 

condemn this poor soul to an immortal life waking up to his 

deformity/injury every day endlessly, seemed particularly

sadistic. Crueller in its way than murder. I almost repeated the 

‘I’m sorry’ line again, stopped myself in time. 

‘Does Cinnamon know about...us?’ 

‘God no, of course not. She hasn’t a clue about the nature of 

the other residents. She’s very kind, and weirdly innocent for 

a modern girl, probably because she’s an academic. She’s 

always been lovely to me. The others speak very well of her 

too. Felix was positively gushing the other day.’ 

I resisted the urge to ask who Felix was. Gus’s bizarre smile 

was now even broader than it had been earlier, and I 

wondered what it was – my ‘just got out of bed’ look, my 

general ignorance as to the nature of the establishment, or 

something else. ‘Is there something funny that I’m missing 

Gus?’ I asked, putting the cup down on what looked like a 

Queen Anne side table. 

‘I’m really sorry.’ He burst out laughing, went over to a 

magazine rack, drew out what looked like a graphic novel. 

‘Has anyone told you you’re a dead ringer for Emanuel 

Night?’ Gus placed a graphic novel on my knee with the title 

‘Eternal Night’. I looked down in horror as I leafed through 

the contents - black ink-outlined parodies of a character that 

looked like me, swishing about in a stylised vent coat, again,

like one I often wear. My cartoon self occasionally spouted 

dramatic, speech-bubbled statements, exuded melodrama and 

righteous ire. At one point I brought my hands up to my face. 

There was a name I recognised on the credits at the back, 

Bonno. Morrissey’s mate from the P.I.N. 

‘Jesus F...’ the expletives kept coming. I fought the urge to 

phone Morrissey to demand an explanation despite the hour. 

I became aware of Gus sitting back in his winged armchair, 

his terrifying grin still evident. ‘Someone you know?’ he 

asked. 

I composed myself, put the book down. ‘It’s a poor likeness.’ 

The grin became a look of sympathy, which was worse. 

‘Well, on the bright side it’s not quite a collectible yet. The 

London Goths and Vampires love you though. There are 

definitely some areas in London I’d avoid at certain times. 

You’d get mobbed.’ 

At this point, I should explain that London has an 

enthusiastic community of wannabe vampires. They meet in 

particular drinking establishments and seem to favour the 

Victoria Embankment on Halloween. Some are more 

enthusiastic than others, but it’s mainly a sex thing, so one of 

them who introduced himself as Rudy explained to me once

ack in the nineties. Or perhaps he was just remaining hopeful 

for the evening’s prospects. 

I was beyond exhausted and made my excuses to leave. Gus 

walked me to the door. ‘I was at an after drinks party in the 

West End earlier. A Phantom of the Opera revival affair,’ he 

told me. ‘They all wear these,’ he held up his mask, ‘it’s the 

one social outing where I fit in. Every night out’s Halloween 

for me Gideon.’ We nodded our farewells. He gave me his 

card, embellished with Phantom mask. I wrote my number on 

another, handed it to him. Just to be neighbourly. 

I fell back into bed once back in my flat, resting my head on 

my pillow, and tried to put the night’s issues behind me. 

Some time later, I heard music playing very low in the 

distance and felt the room fade about me as the strains of 

‘Music of the Night’ seduced me to sleep.

Chapter 21 

Cinnamon Toast 

Exhausted, I slept soundly, dreamlessly. 

I woke up with a jolt to the arrhythmia of traffic sounds and 

a helicopter buzzing above the building like an annoying 

mosquito. As the whirring of rotor blades faded into the 

distance I obsessed over the revelations of the previous 

evening. Odd, I thought. If I was trying to have someone 

executed, I’d have waited to check if they arrived back home. 

Then again, the image of Greta’s passing had seemed rather 

peaceful. Maybe I could just do with the rest. I gave a heavy 

sigh and got out of bed. 

I knew I’d have to prioritise. I guessed the imminence of my 

own death had to take precedence for the time being, 

otherwise any progress I made trying to track my new arch 

nemesis would be pretty futile, and probably short-lived. 

Arch nemesis! That brought me back to Morrissey’s friend 

Bonno. I was even talking about myself in comic-book terms. 

I’d have to speak to Morrissey later, he’d be off-shift by now 

and tucked up in bed.

As for Cinnamon living in the Apartment Block of the 

Damned, and whether I actually trusted Gus, our very own 

Phantom of the Opera, I decided a little information-gathering 

might be advisable. 

I took a leisurely shower and trotted round to the artisan 

bakers. They weren’t quite ready to open, but the smell told 

me it’d be worth a wait. They took pity on me hanging about 

outside like a hungry stray and gave me a free spiced Danish 

for my custom and dedication. 

When I got back, I could hear Cinnamon moving around, 

took a chance and knocked on her door softly. 

She opened it wearing a grey dressing gown and rather 

endearing slippers that reminded me of Pomeranians. I 

couldn’t stop staring at them - I’d just said hello to a blearyeyed 

elderly gentleman taking a couple out for an early 

morning walk as I’d been returning. 

‘Sorry it’s so early. My internal clock’s a bit messed up at 

the moment, but I come bearing gifts.’ I held out the brown 

paper parcels whose yeast, spice and sugar introduction 

needed no words.

She looked a little surprised, but that healthy appetite won 

over in the end. ‘Oh my God, freshly baked. I’ll get the butter 

and other stuff.’ 

‘Are you sure it’s OK?’ I called to her as she clattered about 

in her kitchenette, ‘I can just leave some if you’re getting 

ready for work.’ 

She came back in with a tray and a steel pot of coffee, curled 

her legs up on the big comfy brown leather armchair. I 

breathed in the savour of the coffee and the faint musky scent 

of either shower or some hair product. ‘I was doing a late tour 

talk last night on the Book of the Dead. I don’t have to be in 

until lunchtime.’ She placed the tray on the coffee table and 

took a long hard look at me. I was staring at the currantstudded 

whorls of the Danish the lady at Nino’s had given me. 

Visions of the great slice in Jean Paul’s throat kept swimming 

into view. I swallowed, took a deep breath. His face, the pain 

of his last moments... 

‘Gideon,’ I heard Cinnamon’s urgent tones at a distance, ‘are 

you alright?’ 

‘A friend of mine was killed last night. They brought him 

into the mortuary.’

She came round and sat by me on her sofa, held my arm. 

‘I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.’ 

I completed that long breath, shook my head. ‘Hey, no. I see 

it all the time. Death. I just thought I was more used to it by 

now.’ 

‘Not people you know. Part of your life. No-one could, or 

should have to get used to that. Had you known him long?’ 

I almost told her four decades, checked myself, just nodded. 

‘He was a priest at St Xavier’s. He was often ill-tempered, a 

bit of a curmudgeon, but he was also very kind, and a 

confidante. I can’t imagine him not being there. I sometimes 

popped in to see him before work. He was an insomniac you 

see. You’d have liked him. He had a lifelong interest in 

Ancient Egypt. I saw him only maybe an hour, maybe less 

before it happened. We talked about the Egyptian concept of 

the soul. It’s ... something that I find interesting.’ My voice 

trailed off, I realised it was the delayed shock talking, which, 

considering my history in itself was shocking. 

‘Oh my God. Did he know his killer, or was it a break-in?’ 

I shrugged. ‘I’ve had to take time off work when they 

realised I knew the victim, it’s a policy. I intend to use the 

time to find out the answer to that question Cinnamon.’

She poured some coffee, sat back with hers cupped between 

her hands as if praying to the god of caffeine. 

‘I think you should be careful Gideon, in case you become 

victim number two. You do realise that as the last person to 

see your friend alive, the police will have you on a list of 

suspects. Um, what’s this stuff, it’s gorgeous.’ 

‘Cinnamon Toast, the lady at Nino’s said.’ I have to say I’d 

not thought about the police. It worried me. I’ve always 

managed to stay out of the reach of the law myself, although 

I’ve seen a lot of them in my workplace to whom I’m all but 

invisible. I’ve gained enough experience to know they are best 

avoided by my kind. Yet here I was, suddenly in the midst of 

my friend’s murder enquiry. Could this be why the Cleaners 

were on my case? That my pending involvement with the 

police might present a risk of our discovery, and that my 

disappearance might ensure they looked no further? I felt a 

cold sensation move slowly from my centre out to my 

fingertips. 

‘You have to eat something Gideon, don’t condemn me to all 

these calories,’ Cinnamon said, thrusting a plateful in my 

direction. I picked up a slice of the sweet, spicy toasted bread 

and nibbled, which was suddenly difficult as I realised my

throat had gone dry. Should I go to the police? My past might 

attract attention and not stand up to close scrutiny. My mind 

mentally leafed through a Yellow Pages set of criminal 

solicitors of the Shadow persuasion. 

I got up, ‘I have to go Cinnamon. I’ll speak to you later. 

Take care.’ As I walked off toward the door I heard her get 

up, felt her hand connect softly with my arm. I turned to be 

met by those eyes of hers, the varied hues of a forest glade. 

‘I’ll help in any way I can,’ she told me, ‘here’s my number.’ 

She handed me a card, ‘I think your friend would want you to 

look after yourself.’ 

Halfway across the hall I pulled up. I was in the worst of all 

possible situations, yet here I was, comparing the eyes of a 

woman I’d only just met to some poetic metaphor. What the 

hell was wrong with me? 

I closed my door behind me. What a God-awful mess this all 

was. The sangoma, the one I was convinced had murdered 

John Paul was at the centre of everything. I had to pull myself 

together, find him and deal with him one way or another in 

order to prove my innocence. But why wasn’t I able to track 

him?

Chapter 22 

Bilsborrow Row 

As I stood by the window absorbed in my dilemma, the day 

by day activities continued at frenetic pace below. Couriers, 

Lycra-clad cyclists, taxis and for some reason a Segway 

continued their tasks and errands. It gave me an idea. If I 

couldn’t track the sangoma using my Shadow abilities, then 

I’d have to use old-fashioned methods of detection. 

‘Maurice,’ I said as he picked up on his hands-free, ‘fancy 

giving me some information in return for a long fare?’ 

‘Does it involve gin?’ he asked warily in broad East End. I 

recalled he’d complained about a substantial hangover on that 

occasion mentioned previously. 

‘No. It involves voodoo actually. I’m investigating some 

deaths and wonder if you could point me in the direction of 

anywhere, a supplier that might be a possibility of enquiry? 

I’m at my new place. Portobello Road, opposite the Old 

Exchange Building.’ 

There were a few seconds silence. ‘Alright mate. Ten 

minutes. You’ll have to share with Mrs Sugden though.’

Twenty minutes later, Maurice’s BMW and Winston- 

Churchill features swung into view. 

Mrs Sugden turned out to be an elderly West African lady 

who proceeded to grill me on my profession then continued to 

regale me on the number of funerals, good and bad, that she’d 

attended. 

We took the route to Brixton to the south of the city. ‘Where 

are we going Maurice?’ I asked out of interest as Mrs Sugden 

took a breath between sentences. 

‘Bilsborrow Row. Had someone in the back only last week. 

What he said made me think of you. And your current matter 

of interest.’ 

‘Ah, yes. I know it,’ I said, looking at him observing me in 

his rear view mirror. 

I looked over to see Mrs Sugden’s smooth chocolate features 

folded into a frown. ‘You shouldn’t go there,’ I heard her 

mutter. She was silent for the remainder of the journey until 

we dropped her off on Mostyn Road. I refused to let her pay 

any money. The mention of our destination had clearly 

troubled her. 

‘Bless her,’ said Maurice as he drove off, ‘visits her nephew 

down there every Thursday.’

He dropped me off by the arches after the depot had called 

him over to a pick-up in Camberwell, and with a tip of his 

tweed cap he indicated the place. I knew it already. 

‘Mind your back mate,’ was all he said before he swung the 

cab round in a U-turn in the manner of all London cabs, and 

was gone. 

Bilsborrow Row is a little known alley off the A203. The 

buildings in the outskirts of London are uniform in their 

ugliness, it’s little wonder that side effects in the form of 

violence, drug dealing and anti-social behaviour result. 

Environment has to play some part of it. It makes me sad to 

see how London changed after the Blitz destroyed so much of 

it – the bad planning, concrete and rushed development that 

occurred after. I knew this area once – there’d been rows of 

shops where individuals and their families made a living, even 

a Woolworths. Bilsborrow Row is a tattered remnant of the 

old days, one of those rows of little shops that mostly became 

derelict, some used as doss houses, others as black market 

businesses set up by people who had no other means of 

making money. Over the years it’s been swallowed up behind 

larger modern developments that resemble giant impenetrable 

warehouses.

Hidden down this particular little backwater was one of the 

suppliers of Vodoun/Santeria herbs and paraphernalia in the 

city. Last time I’d encountered this place was in the 70s and I 

was frankly surprised it was still here. If I was going to find 

my sangoma it made sense to start at the source with what 

little information I’d gleaned from Kamala and Asikinosi. 

There the shop was, painted a little more colourfully than it 

had been in the old days but the smells and the goods on the 

shelves were much the same as they had been the last time I’d 

passed by. Some businesses will always withstand economic 

downturns. Now, rather than operating underground, a 

number of such shops are on the tourist trail. But not this one. 

As you might gather, the profession I follow means I have a 

leaning towards the scientific explanation first and foremost. 

However I live in a world where much is not easily explained 

by that, including me. Working on the edge, the VSOD – 

Morrissey’s acronym for Valley of the Shadow of Death - I’ve 

seen many things which it’s more convenient to ignore or 

forget, and some of them relate to Vodoun, but I had little 

time to consider such things now. 

A group of African hipsters in satiny black jackets passed the 

aperture at the far end of the alley as I entered. I walked past

the giant graffiti and the litter, in through the door which 

didn’t chime, but rattled as I entered. Nice, I thought, as I 

noted the sound came from what at first looked like bamboo 

chimes, but turned out to be an arrangement of rather human 

looking bones. 

Somewhere in a back room, strange shuffling music was 

playing. I looked in what appeared to be jars full of herbs, but 

realised some of what I’d thought were shredded plants were 

actually animal in origin. The dried-up eyes were a novelty, 

staring back at me with shrivelled malevolence. The label 

announced them as snake eyes. There were larger ones, 

probably of bovine origin which looked dully surprised. I 

drew my eyes away as someone entered from the back 

through a bamboo curtain. 

‘Can I help you?’ The owner of the voice was a singularlooking 

black woman with the emphatic profile that one 

would expect from good African ethnicity. Her clothes were 

tight, provocative and gave her a kind of power that she was 

no doubt aware of and sought to capitalise on. Something 

about her told me this was the shop owner.

‘I hope so. I’m looking for someone who calls himself 

Mbingeleli. He’s a practising sangoma. Has he been in here 

for supplies?’ 

Her wide mouth broke into a grin. ‘Mbingeleli? We get 

plenty of those in here love.’ I was puzzled, and her 

amusement increased. ‘It’s Xhosa, means ‘priest’. Common, 

actually. They use professional names, makes it anonymous, 

which is the point, you know?’ 

She sounded as if she was talking to someone stupid, which 

rankled. ‘This one practises muti using small children’s body 

parts. I need to find him. Do you know of him?’ 

The shop owner seemed unfazed. ‘Sorry about the kids, but 

have you heard of client confidentiality?’ She took out a 

cigarette, started to look for a lighter under the counter, cast 

her eyes up at me. ‘I couldn’t run my business if I started 

giving customers’ details away to any chancer who comes in 

here.’ After she said it, there was the slightest tremor in her 

signature. She was either afraid or covering something up but 

it was a momentary flicker, no more. 

A large individual in a black tee shirt that strained across 

bulging muscle appeared through the bamboo curtain. ‘Matt,

this guy was just leaving. Weren’t you love?’ she said, the 

threat implicit. 

Now, I was really annoyed. I walked over to the small CCTV 

camera mounted by the back entrance, broke it off its stand, 

returned and smacked it down on the table in front of her. 

Poor Matt, doing what he was paid to do, attempted to stop 

me, but I pushed him as gently as possible back through the 

curtain, which snapped in a few places. I heard him 

scrambling away. He wasn’t paid that much, it seemed. 

‘Let me explain.’ I half-transitioned, whispered in Shadow to 

her, ‘I need that man’s information to stop him before he kills 

again.’ 

To her credit, she kept her cool. ‘I’ve seen your sort before. 

Few of you about London.’ She sat back on a stool, lit her 

cigarette, breathed in and blew the smoke upwards. ‘My 

name’s Sissy. Sisipho. It’s Xhosa too. My Mum called me 

that. Dad, he was Yoruba, started this place back in the 

seventies. Taught me a few things...’ I wondered where she 

was going with this, when she changed tack. ‘Why are you 

bothered anyway? From what I hear, you lot aren’t too fussy 

about that kind of thing. Killing.’

‘You shouldn’t always believe what people tell you,’ I said. 

A sound like thunder shook through the claustrophobic 

atmosphere of the shop as a bullet cracked through what was 

left of the bamboo curtain, right through my shoulder and 

smacked into the glass jar containing the cow eyeballs. The 

alcohol splashed across the floor boards, seeped beneath them, 

as the eyes bounced and splatted around, looking even more 

surprised than previously. 

Temporarily shocked, I waited for my ears to stop ringing. I 

looked down at my boots and waited for the Shadow to 

crackle into life and repair any damage the bullet had done. 

The pain was nasty, but I’d known worse. In the background I 

could hear Sissy yelling, ‘What the eff are you doing? Put that 

bloody thing away, you’re wrecking the shop you idiot!’ I 

watched her stride forward and take the gun away from a 

shaking Matt whose size looked ridiculous in the light of his 

terrified eyes. ‘Obeah,’ he muttered. 

Sissy flung the weapon into a drum full of what looked like 

sawdust, the function of which mystified me. Matt 

disappeared quickly. ‘Go and make a cup of tea, make 

yourself useful,’ she yelled after him as his lumbering 

footfalls could be heard creaking up the steps.

‘What should be brains is turned to muscle with that bloke,’ 

she informed me, wiping some ash off her top, bristling with 

ire rather than fear. She strode over and put the closed sign in 

the door, pulled down the blinds. She cleared up the eyeballs 

using a washing up bowl and returned to her counter where 

she took a tub of hand wipes out. ‘You never know who’s 

watching, do you?’ she said. ‘Nifty that innit?’ she pointed to 

my former bullet wound, now fully healed. 

I pursed my lips, couldn’t help it, ‘That hurt,’ I said, ‘and my 

coat’s got a bloody hole in now. D’you know how much this 

cost me at Moss Bros?’ 

She raised her eyebrows, lifted up the camera, put it back 

down. I took her point. ‘You’re just like a normal bloke, 

aren’t you? Worried about your clothes and all.’ 

The music had come to its conclusion, and was followed by 

silence. Maybe Matt was no longer in a musical frame of 

mind. 

This wasn’t going the way I’d hoped, I had to get back to 

business. ‘I need a description of anyone you can think of that 

this Mbingeleli might be. All the details you can give me.’ 

She took a long drag on her cigarette, blew a smoke ring 

which drifted and distorted in the air. ‘So I give you some

information. What’s to stop this geezer coming for me?’ The 

flicker in her signature was back, peaking on her last sentence. 

‘Me,’ I said, ‘if you give me enough details I can get to him 

first.’ 

Sissy unfolded her elegant arms, stubbed out her cigarette, 

took a deep breath, looked out at the blinds, as if searching for 

shadows against them. The alley outside remained silent. I 

imagined her usual clientele were not early risers. 

‘I don’t know if you can. Stop him, that is. There’s one guy 

who’s come here from time to time over the last couple of 

months. I know he’s into heavy stuff because of what he asks 

for. Well, actually, we get a few of them. Vodoun’s not your 

fairies and angels type of religion. There are some who are 

OK, some who’ll do anything for money. They seem worse 

now than they used to be in Dad’s day. Not all of them black 

even. Back then, they were all just poor people trying their 

best with what little they had. Now, they want more and more. 

It’s always been about power, but these days...’ Sissy shook 

her head, her sculpted, beaded plaits clacking against her long 

neck. She picked up her box of cigarettes as if contemplating 

them in detail. Silence settled on the shop once more as the 

masks of dark gods and demons studied us. Voodoo poppets

hung on the wall behind her, eyelessly malignant. It seemed 

incongruous that a purveyor of such goods should have a 

conscience. I wasn’t sure I trusted her, but had to take 

anything I could at the moment. 

‘He wears a suit, a good one. Pretty face. Hair tied in a top 

knot normally, pretentious twat. Lives in the city I think. 

Canary Wharf.’ 

‘Any address, or any other locations he’s lived at?’ 

She rummaged through a file of till receipts, which I looked 

at and smiled. It seemed as if even voodoo practitioners had 

to keep HMRC happy. She selected a note from the file. ‘I had 

to get something delivered once,’ she explained. 

Bulstrode House, Apartment 63. I held out my hand and she 

gave the docket to me. I could get no sense of anything other 

than her from it. There was a scrawled signature which was 

indecipherable. ‘No name?’ 

She shook her head. ‘Nah. Most of ‘em just give numbers, 

you know.’ 

‘Can I keep this?’ I asked. 

Sissy shrugged. ‘What the hell. I doubt he’s keeping books.’ 

Upstairs Matt’s heavy feet were trudging across the floor. I 

walked away to the door, unfastened the lock.

‘Do me a favour,’ I heard her voice behind me, low and 

urgent, a slight shudder in it, ‘if you do find him, make sure 

you kill him quick. If you can. There are worse things people 

can do to you than kill you.’ 

I surfaced into the grimy daylight of a morning in Brixton, 

took a deep, smoke free breath of air. Fear isn’t something a 

creature like me should feel, but Sissy’s had been infectious.

Chapter 23 

Curiosity 

I made my way to the tube. Fortunately that morning I’d put 

on the scarf Mrs Purcell had knitted for me last Christmas. 

Sofia had laughed when I unwrapped it, but I thought the 

burgundy and navy stripes were rather stylish, and its ability 

to cover up bullet holes was currently proving extremely 

useful. You see a lot of the weird and the wonderful on the 

London Underground, but the evidence that my designer 

jacket had been used for target practice would probably have 

drawn a few looks. 

The sky had all the luminosity of an unwashed sock. On the 

bright side, apart from Matt’s rather inept effort, the attempts 

on my life had apparently ceased for the time being. 

However, at one point as I approached the Brixton Tube 

ticket gates with my Oyster card, I got the distinct feeling of 

being followed, which set the hairs on the back of my neck 

quivering. I looked but all I could see were the usual 

commuters and tourists. I carried on, wondering if it was the 

sangoma following me or another standing in the long line of

people who currently wanted me dead. I hoped it was him, it 

would make my job a hell of a lot easier. 

I took the tube to the London docks. Strange how much the 

place has changed. How the bustling, grimy physical face of 

the waterways have been transformed into a battalion of silent 

glass and chrome giants. Money oozes from its very deep 

foundations. The skyline bristles with construction, cranes, 

and those American style flyovers that seem such a great idea 

until your building’s hidden beneath one of them. 

As I stood looking up at Bulstrode House, a purpose built 

block created presumably for businessmen to sleep over in 

rather than face a daily commute, I thought about this man 

who’d kept eluding me. Who’d chosen to increase his earthly 

fortune by such dark means. I am not a perfect example of 

humanity, but this person was on a whole other level. Looking 

back on this now, I realise that, just maybe, Morrissey’s hero 

label for me may have gone a little to my head. Flattery is 

such a powerful driving force, but doesn’t make for great 

decision-making. 

As is common in these places, it seemed deserted. I recalled 

Cinnamon’s comments about how various assorted 

nationalities’ of oligarchs, money launderers and other black

market entrepreneurs were buying up pockets of property in 

London like Monopoly, this being the reason why so many 

offices, homes etc. lay dormant and unoccupied, awaiting for 

an upturn in the property market. 

Bulstrode House looked to be well-serviced by CCTV, 

operated by a company off-site. Cue, can of spray paint, one 

of which I’d cash-purchased from a shop called the Grab-Em 

Mart just off the viaducts by Brixton Market. I gained access 

via the fire stairwell, spraying a tastefully muted film of grey 

over the small lens of a camera in the corner at the bottom of 

the stairs. I completed the journey in Shadow, just to be safe. 

Apartment 63 was, as the name suggests, on the sixth floor. 

The cameras on this level were, obligingly, angled towards 

the direction of the lifts, presumably because the security 

company couldn’t imagine the well-heeled denizens of this 

place neither lowering nor exerting themselves to use the 

stairs to get this high. I wondered if they ever watched 

thrillers on TV or film, where the stairwells are usually the 

location for escapes and gun fights. Outside, I could hear a 

helicopter passing by and grew anxious that one of the 

oligarchs or money launderers had decided to pay his giant

piggy bank an impromptu visit, but relaxed when I heard it 

whirr off towards the Thames. 

Although I could traverse the corridor in shadow, my means 

of breaking and entering couldn’t be concealed, so I used 

more of the spray paint. 

Despite the general silence of this eerie building, I thought I 

could sense someone was in the apartment, so I cracked the 

lock from its fixing whilst in transition. 

However, once inside, there seemed to be no-one in. I 

entered carefully, extending my senses outwards. Something 

didn’t feel right. I looked across the sparsely furnished room, 

feeling a draught. The window was open, which, this far up 

seemed unwise, and curious. Aren’t these kind of buildings 

meant to have windows with restricted opening to prevent 

suicide? I thought, considering the health and safety issues. 

My imagination running overtime, I pictured my quarry 

standing out on one of those ledge-walkways we see in films, 

making for a bolt-hole elsewhere in the building. Another 

more rational part of my brain thought, they don’t make 

buildings like this with walkways any more. Curiosity. 

Humans can’t resist it. I walked over to the window to check 

the theory.

Too late, I felt the air pressure change behind me, heard a 

rushing sound I was familiar with as a sudden iron-hard force 

pushed me out into nothing.

Chapter 24 

Just Like the Movies 

I was right, they don’t make walkways around buildings like 

they did in the old days, but fortunately, windows do still have 

ledges, one of which I managed to catch on to as I fell. I 

grasped it just in time, nearly shattering all of the bones in that 

hand, which, despite the healing power of the Shadow was 

excruciating. 

Fortunately, I was in transition, so my screech of agony 

would not have reached the ears of those below. Transferring 

my weight to the other hand, I needed a few seconds for the 

healing regime to set in. It was hard to concentrate whilst 

keeping tight hold – repairing puts us in a weakened state for 

a while. The pain pulsed right through me, but I’ve known 

worse. Gradually it lessened. The effort of holding on with 

one hand was another matter so I held myself in a meditative 

state, something I’d picked up in the sixties. It wasn’t easy, as 

the wind whipped my scarf against my face and shrilled in my 

ears.

To take my mind off it I turned to contemplate the view – the 

sweep of the river, the cranes, seagulls, the well-known 

landmarks, young and old. 

I looked for the familiar pentagonal shape of the North Pole 

– the pub, that is. I did a double take. The relentless march of 

property development had taken its toll, All I could see now 

were the hoardings where the pub had been demolished. I 

could remember a friend of the family, Uncle Mick, holding 

his wedding reception there, amidst the docks where he 

worked until a Blockbuster bomb took out both the ships and 

the crew working on it in ‘41. He put on a good spread - warm 

beer and cold cheese and tongue sandwiches, a real feast in 

those days. The loss of another piece of my past stung. That, 

and the fact I’d been tossed out of a window, probably by the 

same person who’d murdered one of my few friends and 

countless children brought me out of my contemplations with 

a burning rush of adrenaline. 

Fuming, I hauled myself up via some very convenient 

external girders that the architect possibly hoped would earn 

him an award for architecture. I kept myself in Shadow, hoped 

there was no flicker – emotions can interfere with our control 

of transition. What I really didn’t need right now was more

exposure thanks to some bored executive or tourist snapping 

away with their camera phone. 

Struggling back inside with as much dignity as possible, my 

hand fully repaired by now, I stood again in the apartment, 

looked around, tried to recall the minutiae of that last fraction 

of a second before my fall. I could remember the hardness of 

the shove. It had been a par with the kind of strength we’re 

capable of. The rush of air, reminiscent of the strange vacuum 

that occurs when we transition quickly. My peripheral vision 

had caught a glimpse of a slender, suited arm. And oddly, 

perfume. Something incense-like with an undertone of rose 

absolut, definitely not an aftershave. It still hung in the air and 

I followed its trail which even more oddly, ran out as it 

progressed towards the same stairs I’d climbed to get here. I 

carried on that way, stopping at the doors briefly to sense if 

there’d been any entry, pushed at them in case any were still 

open. 

I was swiftly coming to a sketch impression of this elusive 

character, and what it was revealing, piece by piece, was that 

he was possibly a she, and more disturbing, that she was 

probably Shadow-kind.

Thought after thought slammed into my senses. I’d been 

hunting one of our own, a thing generally frowned upon. 

There were rules, most of which I’d only paid passing 

attention to. There were too many questions that needed 

answers now. Perhaps I should ask Sofia, but the thought of 

that provoked a stubborn anger. Someone else then. With a 

sense of urgency I moved swiftly down the stairwell. 

I emerged on to the pavement and joined the group of people 

discussing the reasons for the broken glass. ‘Flippin’ vandals.’ 

I commented in my broadest East End accent. 

My attention was drawn to the back of someone that I could 

see hastily retreating in the direction of Canary Wharf tube 

station. Wisps of hazel hair in a familiar hair comb, blue 

blouson jacket, jeans and tracker-style boots. After the shock 

of recognition had passed, I pursued. 

My longer legs soon caught up. ‘Cinnamon?’ 

She looked guarded. ‘Oh. Hi Gideon. What are you doing 

here?’ I was momentarily confused. That had been the 

question I’d wanted to ask. 

‘I thought you had to get into the Museum for lunchtime?’ I 

asked instead.

There it was again. The conflict, the lack of eye contact. I 

wondered what was going on inside her head. I stood there 

silent, waiting for an answer. She sighed, went over to sit on a 

low wall in front of one of the skyscrapers. I joined her. 

‘I’m sorry Gideon, I was worried about you.’ She turned to 

look at me with those hazel, green-flecked eyes. ‘I know it 

sounds stupid, but I thought you might do something foolish, 

you seemed so down after your friend’s death I decided to 

take more time off on flexi and ... I followed you. I’m sorry.’ 

It was my turn to look away now. I put my hands in my 

pockets. ‘How long?’ 

‘Well. I saw you go into that voodoo shop. But I’m not 

judging Gideon. I heard a bang and wondered if I should call 

the police, but thought better of it. I lost you after you left the 

tube here, but when I heard the glass shatter, that’s when I got 

really worried. I’d actually just made up my mind to call 999 

when you appeared. So I asked myself, is he searching for 

clues, trying to find his friend’s killer? Is that what you’re 

doing Gideon?’ 

Well, yes, I could have said, it seemed like a good idea to 

find him, or her, before the police try to conveniently pin it on 

me. But I wasn’t letting her off that easily.

‘You’ve only just met me Cinnamon. Do you always go to 

such extreme measures to keep tabs on new friends, or am I 

missing something?’ 

I watched her back straighten and she glared, then gave 

another weary sigh. She handed me something out of her 

pocket. It was a card with a request for me to contact the 

police and a number. My heart felt as if it had been dropped 

down a lift shaft. 

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘they came after you left. But I’m sure if 

you explain they’ll eliminate you from their enquiries. You’re 

a respected professional Gideon.’ Cinnamon had watched 

entirely too many police dramas. Still, something didn’t quite 

add up. 

‘So, you followed me halfway across the city to give me a 

card that I would have been able to respond to when I returned 

to my apartment? Is there any other reason for this 

Cinnamon?’ 

Her shoulders dropped. Whatever Cinnamon’s many 

undoubted talents were, maintaining a poker face was not 

amongst them. She sighed. ‘Have you any idea how boring 

cataloguing the thousands of new artefacts that the Museum 

has actually is? But, for the record, I was also worried. It’s

just that after a while, you know, tailing you got kind of 

exciting. Just like in the movies.’ 

‘So you decided to become Jessica Fletcher for the day and 

follow me?’ 

She looked a little hurt. ‘I joined up at the Museum thinking 

it might be a bit more Indiana Jones than it is. Of course it 

really isn’t. I wanted to do some good, especially after my 

uncle got murdered in Cairo...’ 

I looked at her then. ‘Your uncle was murdered?’ Suddenly 

we were very much in Indiana Jones territory. 

‘It’s a long story. I was close to him after my dad died. Mum 

got remarried. She lives with her new partner now in 

Somerset. I wanted to work in London, so I stayed for a while 

with Uncle Timothy. He told me I had his nose. Well, not 

actually his nose, he meant instincts for finding things. I got 

that instinct about you. I think there’s more to you than meets 

the eye.’ Cinnamon gave me a long regard, and I shifted 

uncomfortably. My own instincts were pretty heightened at 

the moment, mostly telling me we needed to get out of here. I 

was worried for her, concerned that the sangoma might still be 

about, might be watching us at this moment. I pushed out my

senses as far as I could, got nothing, but after my dealings 

with this character, that didn’t reassure me. 

‘You seem to lead a very interesting life for a mortuary 

technician.’ She broke me out of my vigil. 

‘Pathology Technician. Well, apart from the occasional 

murder victim, it’s usually not so exciting, or sad. John Paul 

and me weren’t close lately, but we’d known each other a 

long time. I guess my way of dealing with the pain is to try 

and get closure. He was on his own in the world, there’s noone 

else to care.’ 

She stood up. ‘But it’s dangerous Gideon,’ she flicked back 

the scarf before I could stop her, opened her mouth in surprise 

and shoved the scarf back over quickly. ‘Is that a bullet hole?’ 

‘Just the jacket. I think it must have been in the wrong place 

at the wrong time.’ I thought a white lie with a touch of 

humour expedient under the circumstances. 

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Bloody Hell Gideon - 

bullets flying in Brixton, whatever that deal was with the 

broken window – I’d guess that had something to do with you 

too. You need to speak to the police sooner rather than later, 

you know. Just so it doesn’t look like you’ve something to 

hide.’

My world crashed back down to earth like a redundant 

Russian satellite. I had everything to hide. ‘I was hoping to 

find the low-life who killed John Paul before they decided it 

might be easier to blame it on the creepy mortuary guy, if you 

understand.’ This much at least was true. Misleading 

Cinnamon had left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I realised I 

had to find ways around my strange existence that were 

avoidance rather than outright lies. 

I got up. We resumed our progress toward the tube station. 

‘You’re not creepy Gideon. I think you’re cool.’ Weird how 

my heart skipped a little when she said that. In that moment, 

the fact that a number of people wanted me dead or locked up 

faded to unimportance. 

We entered through the futuristic arch of Canary Wharf tube 

station, so unlike the old tube stations in the heart of the city. I 

suddenly felt like I was featuring in an Isaac Asimov novel in 

this glass and chrome environment, with its space-ship 

window to the world, being carried down the levels on 

walkways like those old books many of which I’d read down 

the long years. It’s amazing how many books you can get 

through when you’ve lived as long as I have. 

I felt strangely light, almost, dare I say it, young again.

Cinnamon wore a spicy perfume which I could detect above 

all the other scents even in this crowded environment. It filled 

my head, made me giddy. 

‘I’m really thirsty,’ she said. 

I followed the prompt. ‘West End?’ It felt almost like a date. 

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ she said. 

We joined the tourist crowds on the tube, changed at Bank 

for the Central, ended up at Holborn, one of the oldest stations 

on the line. We walked to the Museum. I posted a tenner into 

the glass donations cabinet, only realising afterwards it was a 

twenty. ‘Oh...’ 

Cinnamon grinned. ‘We need more generosity like that.’ 

I needed to find a cashpoint. We located the cafe and 

Cinnamon went to find a table, not so easy as the clock in the 

giant concourse had read 12.55 as we’d arrived. In the end, we 

stood by a shelf. 

‘Are you still interested in researching the Egyptian concept 

of the soul?’ Cinnamon asked me as I tried carefully to avoid 

gaining a cappuccino moustache. 

‘Yes. But I’m also interested in knowing more about 

Egyptian Alchemists, like Nefer Nebawy. Ever heard of him?’

She seemed to consider. ‘Vaguely. I’ve an idea who’ll know 

more though. She’s in today. Niss. It’s short for Evanissa, 

Evanissa Clyne.’ Cinnamon tapped out a number on her 

mobile with her thumb. ‘Oh, hi, Niss? Are you OK for me to 

come up for say, fifteen minutes? I’m with my friend, 

Gideon? OK, see you in five.’ 

I thought about the happenings over the last day or so. The 

trail of the sangoma kept going cold. I knew where my next 

port of call should be. His next customer was due to land at 

Heathrow in a few hours. But then there was the matter of the 

Egyptian connection to the Mascherati. This also felt as if it 

was important. It seemed more than coincidence that as soon 

as I started researching this topic Greta had been given her 

contract to end me. Who had given the order? 

I continued to drink my coffee, thinking all the while that for 

the sake of Cinnamon’s job I hoped this visit would be less 

eventful than my day had been so far.

Chapter 25 

The First Alchemist 

We made our way past the spot-lit statues of ancient pharaohs, 

the giant winged gateway guardians of Babylon. The lighting 

was low and intimate-feeling. It had always been impressive, 

but now the atmosphere had been artfully enhanced. It had 

been many years since I’d been to the British Museum and I 

was impressed at the new layout. 

At my side, Cinnamon cast a glance up at me. ‘Have you 

been here before?’ 

‘Yes, but it’s been a while. It’s looking good.’ I’d loved to 

have reminisced about the old white globes that once provided 

the shadowy light that gave a rather spooky atmosphere to the 

giant sculptures we had all been in awe of, but it would 

remain one more secret I would have to keep from her. I 

wondered what had happened to them. They’d always 

reminded me of those Cecil B. DeMille film sets, so maybe 

they wouldn’t have stood up to modern scrutiny. 

Cinnamon led us on, up a narrow set of stairs and through a 

security-card operated door. She knocked on one of the doors 

at the end of the corridor.

Her work colleague had the maddest short hair I’d ever seen, 

bohemian taste in clothes. I noted her biro had leaked into her 

breast pocket, to which she appeared completely oblivious. 

She held out a patchworked sleeve with which to shake my 

hand, peering at me over wing-shaped glasses. 

‘Lovely to meet you Gilbert. And to meet someone with an 

in-depth interest in Egyptology. Not many understand the 

connection between their death rituals and alchemy.’ 

I overlooked the name mistake. ‘Evanissa’s a lovely name. 

Unusual.’ Her face was very mobile, and she smiled broadly. 

‘It’s Italian. My mother’s side.’ She got up and offered us 

coffee or tea. I just settled for water from the cooler, brought 

one over for Cinnamon too. We took the seats in front of the 

desk. 

‘There were three recognisable cultures in Egyptian history 

that scholars call kingdoms,’ Niss said in a voice I imagined 

she used during lectures, ‘The earliest of these was the Old 

Kingdom, which was subdivided further by dynasties. 

Arguably, the fourth dynasty was the most productive time for 

all aspects of creative and religious thought, and the time the 

mysteries that so fascinate us now were evolved. Even to this 

day we have no idea what caused them to perform the very

complex rituals for the dead and their reincarnation, nor any 

idea how they came up with the scientific and architectural 

advancements of their era.’ 

‘Can you tell me anything about a priest called Nefer 

Nebawy?’ I asked. 

Niss smiled again, obviously pleased to talk about a subject 

she clearly loved. ‘It’s believed Nefer Nebawy started as a 

junior member of the priesthood during the reign of Khufu, 

otherwise known as Cheops. In his day, Nefer was, most 

scholars agree, the equivalent of someone like Einstein, 

Leonardo or Newton.’ I kept nodding in encouragement, 

although she didn’t need it. ‘His mathematical calculations 

are, they say, the ones that were used for the Great Pyramids, 

even though the credit was later given to the overseer, Prince 

Hemiunu. Nefer’s chemical concoctions were able to preserve 

the dead in ways not previously possible, nor after, it’s been 

argued. So many of their new tools and machines were his 

inventions. He was fortunate in finding the favour of the king, 

not so fortunate in gaining the displeasure of the king’s heir, 

Khafre. His fortunes declined after that. It’s thought that he 

was put to death, there are no surviving records, just 

tantalising hints in fragments of tablets. It seems probable that

due to some perceived crime or heresy, records of him were 

expunged, in much the same way as happened to Akhenaton a 

thousand years later.’ 

‘I believe he was known for various unusual inventions, and 

was called the first Alchemist,’ I said. 

She shook her head repeatedly. ‘Yes, yes. Of course, his 

innovations would have been seen as magical in the day, but 

he was really a scientist. An unusual man with great 

intellectual gifts. He had various acolytes, whom, they said he 

experimented on, which sounds rather dire. It was probably 

similar to the way early surgeons and doctors practised. Hit 

and miss, sadly, so they made mistakes and learnt from them. 

Unfortunate for their early patients, fortunate for later 

recipients.’ She got up and went to a bookshelf which lined 

the wall in books and files of text. I could tell Cinnamon was 

watching me, as if curious about why I was asking these 

things. I didn’t meet her gaze. 

‘Here it is, one of your uncle’s works actually Cinnamon.’ 

Niss came back and turned the pages of a red leather file 

which contained photographs and an assortment of written 

and typewritten notes.’ I was aware how Cinnamon’s

composure changed, remembered how she’d told me about 

her uncle’s murder. 

‘According to a mysterious clay tablet that Tim Holden 

uncovered, there are hints that Nefer subjected one young 

acolyte, Ptolemy, to a rather Frankenstein-type experiment 

called the Unveiling of the Shadow.’ 

Tim Holden. I remembered my conversation with John Paul 

which brought back a little piece of heartache. Tim Holden 

had been the academic whose lecture John Paul had attended, 

the notes of which I had back at my flat. 

Niss continued. ‘There are further hints of this in the later 

Book of the Dead. Nefer’s experiments were the foundation 

for the resurrection theories that culminated in the very 

complex rituals for the preservation of the dead. It’s all very 

elusive because we find it so difficult to grasp with our 

modern frame of reference. Your uncle never stopped trying 

though Cinnamon.’ Niss cast a sympathetic look at Cinnamon, 

who was still subdued. 

‘Tim Holden was your uncle?’ I said, turning to her, ‘I’m 

really sorry Cinnamon, I didn’t mean to dredge up the painful 

past.’

She shook her head, ‘No, it’s good to hear about him again. 

His knowledge was always meant to be shared.’ 

I felt the need to press on. ‘Niss, this ‘Shadow’ the tablet 

refers to. Was that the ‘swt’ or ‘sheut’. One of the constituent 

parts of the soul?’ 

Niss scrunched up her expressive features. ‘Probably. I 

imagine so due to the nature of the reference. The character 

used was the same. That’s another concept we find difficult 

and archaic,’ she held out two cupped hands, lifted one then 

the other. ‘Here’s the physical body, here’s the swt or shadow 

body, like a negative of the body linked to the Underworld. 

It’s fascinating really. We have no idea what happened to the 

unfortunate Ptolemy. It’s a very common name of the era.’ 

I saw Cinnamon look at her watch, guessed our time was 

nearly up, but I had one more question. ‘Are there any other 

references to something called ‘Light Silver’, as an alchemical 

preparation?’ 

Niss was nodding even before I’d finished. ‘Ah, the 

controversial Alchemist’s reference. Again, Tim never got 

the chance to fully research that as far as we know, but even if 

he had, it’s just an alluring notion, very much in fantasy

territory. There were a few academics that were sceptical of 

his efforts because of it. I was secretly rather fascinated.’ 

‘Is there any information about it other than the name?’ 

‘My,’ said Niss, ‘we’re in the realm of video games and 

movies possibly. But in answer, yes. There’s a small reference 

to Nefer creating a crescent sword that could break the hold of 

the swt’s power over resurrection by ‘the stars of Isis’. It’s 

just thought to be a ritualistic reference, fanciful, no more. We 

can’t even begin to understand their world through their eyes. 

Magic and power. He was a member of the priesthood after 

all.’ 

I got up, Cinnamon following. ‘You’ve been very kind,’ I 

held out my hand, Niss shook it, ‘and you’ve been very 

patient with my odd questions. I wanted to study the early 

Egyptian dynasties, maybe write a book about their impact on 

later magical theories of the Middle Ages or early 20th 

century. It’s just something I’ve always been interested in.’ It 

sounded plausible. She looked happy. Cinnamon thanked her 

and we left. 

She was quiet as we made our way across the bright white 

marble of the Great Hall. 

‘There is no book is there Gideon?’

I felt uncomfortable. ‘There could be. I believe they 

encourage inmates to take up academic study in modern 

prisons.’ 

Cinnamon laughed humourlessly. ‘You won’t end up in 

prison. The police will find who killed your friend. Weren’t 

you at work at the time? You must have an alibi?’ 

‘You haven’t met my assistant Morrissey yet.’ My attempt at 

humour fell flat. Knowing about pathology as I did, I knew it 

wasn’t possible to determine time of death that accurately, 

only in fiction like CSI and televised police procedurals. I 

changed the topic. ‘I met Gus last night. Caught him hanging 

about outside your door. He made me a cup of tea.’ 

We walked across the crowded paving, past a group of 

Japanese tourists smiling and taking selfies, then out through 

the gate back towards the tube station. 

‘Poor Gus. He’s very shy because of his disfigurement. We 

sometimes watch movies together. He has a Phantom of the 

Opera fetish, but he’s harmless. Bridget and Thea are great 

too. A real couple of night owls. Always out at some club or 

other. I’ve not seen Harvey too much lately, but he’s always 

very charming. Felix, from downstairs is someone in the City, 

I think. He dropped a bottle of champagne off the other day,

said it was ‘leftovers’. It’s OK in the building, great to meet 

fellow residents who actually talk to you. It wasn’t like that in 

the last place I rented.’ But safer, I thought as she talked about 

her neighbours with obvious fondness. 

I wanted to take her to the nearest hotel, pay for her to stay 

there while I sorted all this business out or met my fate. 

Somewhere that she’d be safe in the meantime, far from 

creatures of shadow with murderous appetites. But I had no 

way of explaining my complicated life to her. I just hoped that 

Gus had been right about the protective nature of the others, 

and that it would be enough to keep her safe from the mess 

that was building up in my wake. 

We parted company at the station. Cinnamon leaned forward 

and gave me a peck on the cheek. The thrill that passed 

through me tightened my scalp, made my toes and other parts 

tingle. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it’ll sort itself out. Pop in for 

a coffee if you’re around later.’ 

The train came, and I watched the doors slide shut, saw her 

make her way to the one and only empty seat in the carriage 

with a final smile as the yawning dark of the tunnel 

swallowed her.

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