The Neon Court Read Online Free PDF Page B

up as best I could, and folded her under the blankets. Then I cleaned myself up. My fingers stung, were sore and red. The twin crosses ached where they were scarred into the palm of my hand. I sat on the end of the bed, knees tucked up to my chin, and thought. I could think of nothing good in this situation.
    And, though I didn’t wish it, and the floor didn’t encourage it, eventually I slept.
    I woke to the buzzing of my phone.
    The only illumination in the room was reflected street light slipping round the curtains, and the occasional passing of white headlights outside. Oda lay where I’d left her, though at some point in the night she had rocked and rolled, and dragged the blanket almost over her head. I answered the phone blearily.
    “Yeah?”
    The voice on the other end was as sharp and precise as the shaved pencils that lined its owner’s desk. “Mr Mayor?”
    “Uh,” I replied.
    “Good morning, Mr Mayor, it’s Dees here, at the office.”
    “What time is it?”
    “Five forty-three a.m. – did I disturb you?”
    “I don’t need to be wound up, Ms Dees, I’m already pretty cranked.”
    “Mr Mayor, I’m afraid something rather important has come up.”
    “And here was I thinking you’d rung at silly o’clock for something trivial.”
    “May I ask where you are?”
    “Is this a philosophical question?”
    “I need to know how quickly you can get to Sidcup.”
    I sprung upright like a target at a shooting alley. “Sidcup? Why Sidcup?”
    “I believe it’s where a war which could destroy this city is about to break out. Really, Mr Mayor, I would be happier explaining the details in person; where can I meet you?”
    I looked at Oda, still sleeping in the bed. “I’m a little tied up here …”
    “Shall I reiterate the part about a war which could destroy the city, or are you genuinely handcuffed to a brick wall and unable to secure your own speedy release by the many tools available to you?”
    I pinched the bridge of my nose. The pain helped a little. “Ms Dees,” I said, “when I was lumbered with the job of being mystic protector of this city, I could have sworn I was told that the Aldermen were on my side.”
    “We are, Mr Mayor. I think if you look closely, you will see that we are. Can I interest you in a business breakfast?”
    The city slept. The rain had paused, leaving silvered-reflective sheen across the blackness of the pavement, and the
drip drip drip
of water off the trees. I walked to the nearest bus stop and waited.
    The bus was a double-decker, almost empty. The windows were scratched with names inscribed in the glass.
    B n L
    Sal
Pete

    I caught glimpses of night workers packing up. Barrels of smoking tar being loaded back onto trucks at the end of freshly relaid roads; buckets of steaming hissing paint being covered over and put away. Trucks pulling their doors shut on a few remaining racks of fresh milk. Lorries swooshing away towards the warehouses beyond the M25, the driver’s head bouncing to the unheard sound of a radio.
    The suburban streets east of Greenwich began to give way to the tall, proud terraces of Greenwich itself. I could see the darker shadow of the observatory on top of its hill. A green laser thinly clipped the sky from its top, shining out to mark the place where the east of the world met the west. The lights were out in the low white-brick enclosure of Greenwich Market, and the shutters drawn across shopfronts selling brass maritime antiques, knotted ropes, maps and compasses, for the home that needs everything. I got out of the bus by the Underground station and walked down the high street, past darkened restaurants and the half-lights of fashion store windows. I could smell the river, a clear coldness on the air that pushed away the usual dirt of the city, which announced its presence only by its absence, like the engine on a ship when it stops running.
    Canary Wharf was a cluster of white-silver towers in the night, cloud bristling off the very