Snow Hill

“Après lui, le deluge.”

“Fortunately not. The end of the world still awaits us. Came pretty close though in the Great War. The church was hit during a Zeppelin raid in 1916, but the bomb only damaged the west gateway. The Lord looks after his own.”

“And the people blown to bits? Who was looking after them?”

They had learned all about the Zeppelin raids at school. It was impossible to imagine how the victims must have felt. Death from the air: another great technological advance.

The verger cleared his throat. “You’re a non-believer then? Never mind. You may not love Jesus, but He still loves you.”

Well, at least that made one person. Johnny did not think it appropriate to share the thought. He said goodbye to the silky cleric and headed back to the real world.

The market had gone to bed. It was so cold he could feel the shape of his lungs. The smog had all but vanished. The sun, a wan disc, was having as much difficulty rising as Johnny had experienced several hours earlier. Justice, the golden lady who presided over the Central Criminal Courts, her arms akimbo like a traffic cop, was already on duty. Now all he had to do was put in a full day’s work. Even so, his spirits lifted. At last he had a definite lead.

EIGHT (#ulink_cf969142-9ea3-5c8c-9780-fc992960e07c)

Friday, 11th December, 3.05 a.m.

An impromptu chain of Christmas lights gave Upper Street the faltering jauntiness of a seaside resort after the tide has gone out. He was the only visitor. Islington had become a ghost town: its bus, tram and Tube drivers still lay farting in their beds. A faint, freezing mist cast a grey pall over the slumbering terraces, tenements, shops and factories. Each lamp-post was graced with a halo: gold in the centre, surrounded by rings of cream, orange, violet and purple, then brown at the edges. Nothing, not even a yowling dog, broke the uncanny silence.

Johnny strode out, trying to strike sparks on the Tri-pedal road surface with his segs. The iron was supposed to give tyres and rubber-soled shoes a better grip but in such icy conditions it just made it easier to skid. He returned to the pavement.

The crossroads where Pentonville Road turned into City Road was clear of traffic in every direction. A lone policeman stood in the doorway of the Angel cinema. He nodded but did not bother to extinguish his cigarette. Johnny’s head ached. Lack of sleep or excess alcohol? Both, probably.

He knew it was a bad idea to go for a drink with Bill, but he hadn’t had the heart to put him off two evenings in one week. Even so, as they had sat in the Tipperary, which Bill still insisted on calling the Boar’s Head—printers returning from the Great War had given the pub its new name—it was all Johnny could do to stay awake. He could not tell him that he had been up since five, and that he would have to be up again in a few hours time, because that would only invite questions.

He did, however, have one question of his own.

“How come you didn’t tell me that a wolly had transferred from Snow Hill to the Met?”