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into the stale, stuffy dimness, and the noise of the street died away behind me.
    Inside, pop music burbled from a blown speaker system, so distorted it was hard to tell what the tune was or even what era it was from. The ceiling and walls were nicotine-yellow, the luridly patterned carpet was sticky underfoot, and a one-armed bandit bleeped and flashed in the corner, ignored by the handful of customers I could see. There was one middle-aged bloke lost in a newspaper at a side table, fumbling in a bag of pork rinds, and in the far corner to the left of the bar two men in their late twenties—one big and bearded, the other short and wiry—sat with their heads close together, conferring solemnly in a way that suggested they weren’t here to relax and get drunk.
    The blond, blousy woman behind the bar was displaying a lot of pale wobbly cleavage as she wiped down the beer taps. She worked at it listlessly, as if to give herself something to do while she half listened to an old man perched on a tall stool at the bar telling her some story that probably didn’t end. He was in his midseventies, I guessed, and lean, with thin black hair slicked down and gray hairs sprouting from his big fleshy ears. Like most old people he wore too many clothes for the hot weather: a cozy cardigan, a collared shirt and even a tie. He lookedas if he lived here; in front of him a half-pint glass of lager was slowly going flat, and he squinted as he took a drag from his cigarette. Smoking had been banned in pubs years ago, but nobody here seemed bothered about details like that. I wondered how such a dump stayed in business, until I remembered it belonged to the Guvnor. Most likely its main function was to launder money, not serve customers. McGovern usually preferred more upmarket investments—I’d worked in his fancy Pimlico restaurant, till it had been redecorated with blood and brains—but maybe he felt sentimental about the Horsemonger. Or maybe he’d forgotten it existed.
    The old man’s mumbled monologue dried up as I stood at the counter. The barmaid glanced at me and stifled a sigh, as if I was someone who’d wandered in by mistake and would soon wander out again.
    “Yes, love?” Her voice was flat, bored and devoid of welcome.
    “Could I get a…half of lager, please?” I glanced at the old bloke in the cardigan, who ignored my existence and tapped his cigarette into his personal ashtray. I expected the barmaid to ask me to choose a specific lager, but she merely picked up a glass, tilted it under the nearest tap, flipped the servinglever and watched the glass slowly fill. I opened my mouth and closed it again; I had thought of making small talk to break the ice before I dived in, but the ice in here felt about a meter thick. I head-butted it instead.
    “I was hoping to talk to the boss,” I said. No reaction at first. Maybe she thought I was looking for a job.
    “You’re talking to her,” she said as she scraped the foam off the top of the lager with a wooden scraper that looked like it was also used for cleaning the floor.
    “No, I mean the boss. The governor,” I said.
    No sudden silence; no one dropped a glass, and the Muzak didn’t suddenly stop. Old Cardigan sucked on his cigarette, his wrinkled cheeks pulling tight against his cheekbones, but still he didn’t look at me or betray the slightest interest. That was what told me how closely he was listening. The barmaid plonked the lager in front of me, with some irritation; the beer slopped over the rim to make a gross puddle on the counter.
    “Like I said, you’re talking to her. That’ll be two pounds fifty.”
    I dug in my pocket for coins, expecting her to ask what it was I wanted, but she said nothing more. Islapped the coins on the counter. I didn’t ask for the Guvnor again, because there was no point—she’d heard me, and the old man had heard me, and Little and Large in the corner had stopped chatting and were studying their drinks, so I was pretty