Street Magic

Inpatient. Involuntary. Jail.
    His life had not been kind, and it twisted Pete up like only Connor dying had before. But Jack had died, too, once, and Pete wasn't yet sure if it was relief or fear she felt at seeing him breathing. Jack certainly hadn't been thrilled to meet her again, for whatever secreted reasons Jack held.
    Pete pushed back from her desk and looked at the glowing numerals of the wall clock. It was after midnight, and she felt it in the weight of her body. She shut off her light and walked out in the dark. In the morning, she would find Jack and make him tell her how he'd done the magic of finding Bridget, and why. Why now.
    And why her.
    Weevil Bill tried to run when he saw Pete coming, but she grabbed him by the sleeve of his silk windcheater and he tripped, crashing into the phone box bolted to the corner where Weevil Bill spent the vast portion of his life.
    "I didn't do nuffink!" Weevil Bill squeaked. He was Pete's height, run to fat, and his breath smelled like a night of cheap pints and disappointment.
    "I never said you did," said Pete. "But blurting it out like that makes you seem awfully guilty."
    Weevil Bill slumped. "Wot you want?" he muttered. "I got places to be, y'know. I'm a legitimate businessman."
    "Dealing hash to university students is a step up for you, certainly," Pete agreed. Weevil Bill started to slide down and sideways to make his escape and Pete helped him along, sending him to the pavement on his stomach.
    "My friend in the Organised Crime Command out of EK tells me that you still deal the odd bit of smack, Bill."
    "No… no, I'm out of that ever since the bloody Chinese moved in… they carve your organs out if you cross them."
    "Bad luck that you got picked up with three grams last week then, isn't it?" Pete said. "You tell me what I want to know, I'll take you in and let you cool off in a cell until the Chinese are more amenable. You fuck me about, and I'll leave your arse sprawled on the corner."
    Weevil Bill dropped his forehead to the pavement and moaned. In this bleak corner of the city, none of the passing cars slowed down to see what the fuss was, and the scant pedestrian traffic gave Pete a wide berth. She lifted Weevil Bill's chin with the toe of her shoe. "I'm looking for a bloke named Jack Winter—about three and a half meters tall, platinum hair, fucking junkie. Anyone of that description score with you lately?"
    "Mebbe they did," Weevil Bill muttered. "But you put the bracelets on before I tell you."
    "Some other morning I'd be cooperative," said Pete, feeling the crawl of exhaustion along her spine. "I'm not an unreasonable woman, after all."
    She hadn't slept when she'd been in bed, and when her eyes finally drifted closed the images of smoke on dark stone and Jack's eyes, his old smile and his new needle marks, made her prefer a pot of strong tea and late-night telly. "But that morning—it's not this morning," Pete told Bill. "Let's have it."
    "Winter don't score from me much, but he runs with the blokes who use the galleries in Southwark, 'round where it ain't been torn down and built up so's only God himself could afford it," Weevil Bill said. "And that's all I know, as my witness."
    Pete hauled Weevil Bill to his feet, handcuffing him with suitable ceremony and attaching the free end to a lamppost. "Oi!" Weevil Bill shouted. "What about my arrest?"
    "Don't fret," said Pete, flipping open her mobile. "Mark. Yeah. Pete Caldecott here. Listen, I got a bust for you… he's handcuffed to a post up near the Camden Lock. You can't miss him."
    The DS sputtered a laugh. "I'll hurry then."
    "Oh, don't bother," Pete said, smiling at Weevil Bill.
    "He's got nothing but time." She rung off with Mark and asked Weevil Bill, "Satisfied?"
    Weevil Bill let out a miserable little sound, which Pete took as acquiescence. She got back into the Mini and gunned the engine.
    The corner, the post, and Weevil Bill rapidly became a speck in her rearview mirror as she drove through the City and pointed the Mini across Blackfriars Bridge, toward the docks of Southwark.

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Chapter Six

    The smell of the Thames, rotted and salty, permeated everything in the street when Pete exited the Mini, and something darker than the damp chill in the air slithered against the underside of her mind.
    She pushed it away. Nothing here except a disintegrating row of flats that exuded silent hopelessness.
    A boy in a cheap leather jacket dozed on the stoop at the far end of the block, spotting