I tried to pull the conversation back onto less controversial topics. ‘They’ve still got their own fingerprints,’ I said, answering Juliet’s question. ‘So somehow it’s got to be their own flesh. If Les Lathwell was Aaron Silver, that means he was born well before the end of the nineteenth century. Died—’
‘1908,’ Nicky supplied, sullenly.
‘1908. So if he was still leaving fingerprints in the 1960s and 1970s, his body would have to have been spectacularly well embalmed.’
Juliet shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work in any case,’ she pointed out. ‘This other man – Les Lathwell – he had friends? Family?’
‘Two brothers, both dead,’ said Nicky. ‘A sister, who’s still alive.’
‘And there’s documentary evidence of his growing up?’
Nicky nodded slowly, seeing where she was going. ‘Sure. Lots of it. School photos. Home movies. All that kind of shit.’
‘Then how – and when – did Aaron Silver insinuate himself into Lathwell’s place?’
It was a more than reasonable question. Something was niggling at me – something that felt as though it might be part of the answer – but I couldn’t tease it out into the light.
‘Not plastic surgery,’ Nicky said. ‘They could do it now – fingerprints and all – but in the 1960s the technology wasn’t that advanced. Except on Mission Impossible. You know, that guy with all the masks.’
‘Flesh is plastic enough in any case,’ Juliet said, and I almost had it.
But then Nicky spoke again and I lost whatever connection my subconscious was trying to make. ‘I haven’t managed to find any Myriam Kale memorabilia,’ he said. ‘Turns out East End gangsters are easy compared to sexy American assassins-for-hire. A few things came up, but they all smelled like scams. I’m still looking. But since you’re going to where she lived, maybe you’ll pick something up along the way. In which case, throw it to me when you’re through with it and I’ll find it a new home.’
So Chesney’s Kale piece had come from some other source. I decided not to mention that: Nicky was touchy enough already without being told that someone else had outscored him. ‘I’ll do that, Nicky,’ I said blandly. ‘In the meantime, could you check something else out for me?’
‘Well, I’m always at your disposal since, obviously, I don’t have a fucking life,’ Nicky observed dryly, flicking a cold glance at Juliet.
‘Can you find out where all these guys are buried?’
‘Yeah, sure. That’s easy. Why, you want to put some flowers on their graves?’
‘I want to find out if there’s any connection here to John Gittings’s list of London cemeteries. If there’s a pattern – if they all ended up in the same place—’
‘Yeah, I get it, Castor. The thing about the flowers? Joke. Is your mobile tri-band?’
‘I don’t have the faintest idea. But the battery’s flat in any case.’
‘Fine.’ Nicky gave it up, getting to his feet and shoving the untouched wine away with a disgruntled air. ‘So you get yourself a stack of dimes and call me. I know you don’t travel much so I probably ought to make it clear that dimes are what Americans use for currency. Have a nice flight, the both of you. I’ll see you when I see you.’ He was about to walk away, but then turned and held out his hand, palm up. I almost shook it, misinterpreting the gesture, but he clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘The bullet casing. You go through the metal detector with that in your pocket, there could be all kinds of humorous misunderstandings.’
I gave it back to him. ‘Thanks for everything, Nicky.’
‘You’re more than welcome.’ There was something in his tone, in his face, that I couldn’t read. ‘You want to pay me back, then keep me in the loop. I want to see how this comes out. By the way, someone else knows you’re coming.’
He threw it out with carefully measured casualness, playing for the double take.
‘What? What do you mean, Nicky?’
‘When I got your names off the airport data system, there was a nice little tripwire set up there. I saw it because was coming in on a machine code level.’
‘A tripwire?’
‘Yeah. Like, a relay. So if your name came up on any flight, someone gets told.’
‘My name? Or Juliet’s?’
‘Just yours, Castor. Anyone wants to know a demon’s whereabouts, they just have to stick their nose into the wind.’
Nicky walked away without waiting for an answer. ‘I hurt his feelings?’ Juliet asked. She wasn’t contrite, she was just asking for the sake of information: something to add to her database of human foibles.
‘You shoved his face in his own mortality,’ I said. ‘Nobody likes that much.’
‘He’s already dead.’
‘Doesn’t make it any easier to live with.’
A few moments later, the tannoy told us that our flight was ready to board at Gate 17. I just about had time to finish my whisky. Nicky’s wine remained on the table behind us, untouched.
In the departure lounge, Juliet stood at the window and watched the planes taking off. She seemed fascinated, and it made her oblivious to the covetous stares she was collecting from the male passengers sitting around her. I hadn’t thought about it much, but this was her first flight.
Joining her at the window, I told her about some of the side effects she could expect to encounter. She wasn’t troubled about the changes in pressure and what they might do to her ears. ‘I’ll adjust,’ was all she said. She seemed to be looking forward to the experience.
We boarded at the tail end of the line because Juliet preferred not to join the crush until the last moment. Our seats were just forward of the toilets at the very back of the cabin, in what would once have been the smoking seats – and explaining the concept of smoking seats to Juliet took us all the way through the safety lecture. She was amused at the fences and barricades that humans had built around their pleasures: but then she was amused at the whole concept of deferred gratification. Demons, she said, tended to work more in terms of reaching out and grabbing.
‘Well, any time you feel the urge,’ I gallantly didn’t say.
She took an almost child-like interest in the take-off, swapping seats with me so that she could look out of the window and remaining thoroughly engrossed right up until we were in the air.
But after that her mood changed. She seemed to withdraw into herself, somehow, her expression becoming cold and remote. I checked out the in-flight movies, none of which looked particularly exciting, and then looked around again: Juliet had her head bowed and her eyes closed, and her hands were clasped – very tightly, it looked to me – in her lap.
‘You okay?’ I murmured.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Juliet answered tersely.
I left her to it while the cabin staff came around with complimentary beverages. I opted for coffee, bearing in mind the risks of deep-vein thrombosis, but hedged my bets to the extent of asking for a brandy to spike it with. Juliet just shook her head when the stewardess asked her if she wanted a drink: she didn’t even look up. Was she nauseous? Could demons get travel sickness?
I waited a while to see if she’d come out of it by herself: I didn’t want to irritate her by seeming too solicitous. But when we’d been in the air for half an hour, her expression had become a rigid mask of suppressed suffering. Juliet isn’t capable of going pale, because she’s already pale enough to make most albinos look ruddily healthy, but something had happened to her complexion, too: it was as though the radiant white of her skin was losing some of its intensity, some of its definition.
As tactfully and neutrally as I could, I showed her the sick-bag and explained its function.
‘I’m not sick,’ she said, her voice low and harsh.
‘Okay,’ I allowed. ‘But you’re not your usual cheeky, chirpy self. What’s the matter?’
She shook her head, but only half an inch in either direction so the movement was barely visible. ‘I don’t know.’
I wasn’t going to press it any further, bearing in mind how fiercely Juliet defends her privacy, but she spoke again after a pause of almost a minute. ‘I feel – stretched,’ she muttered. ‘Strained. As though – part of me is still down there. On the ground.’