Black London 05 - Soul Trade

questions she had were just going to have to keep waiting, asthey always had.
    She and Jack reached the end of the road, which ended abruptly in a pit of gravel, mud, and leftover rainwater, green scum floating on top. The residents had been using the place as a makeshift tip, and an icebox of some indeterminate vintage lay on its side, doors gaping open.
    A number of small children ran in circles amid the garbage, shrieking and giggling. They weren’t playingthe cruel games that Pete remembered from the council kids around her neighborhood growing up, nor were they smashing things for the Hell of it. The game seemed to involve one kid who was a dragon, who shot the others with some kind of foam dart launcher, slowly turning each to his side when they got hit. It was an innocent game, without any sharp edges. They seemed happy.
    “You think Lily willever be that?” she said.
    Jack snorted. “Raggedy little council rat? Not if I have anything to say about it.”
    “Come on,” Pete said sharply. “It’s not like they’re running about setting small dogs on fire. I meant do you think she’ll ever be like that, right this moment?” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “Happy, with nothing troubling her?”
    “’Course I do,” Jack said, surprising Pete by twininghis fingers with hers. “She’s got you, doesn’t she?”
    Pete looked at her feet. Better modesty than letting Jack know she was hiding a prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes. “Right” was all she said.
    “Pub’s down the way, used to be decent,” Jack said. “’Course, that was 1984. Care to chance it?”
    “Would I ever,” Pete said. She let Jack lead her back up the road and into the high street,the lights of Alexandra Park coming on around them one by one, like stars filling a darkened sky, remote and frozen as outer space.

 
    7.
    The residents of the Dodger’s Arms—and Pete used the term on purpose, since the men at the bar looked as if they’d been sitting there since at least before Thatcher came to office—glared at her when she and Jack came in out of the twilight, but Jack ordered for them at the bar, and at the sound of his ever-thickening Manchester burr, the punters turned back to their sudsy pints and letJack and Pete be.
    The weight of the packet Preston Mayflower had given her knocked against her chair when she hung her jacket, and she pulled it out, turning it in her hands. Jack examined the dirty paper object over the lip of his pint glass. “What’ve you got there?”
    “Mayflower slipped it to me,” Pete said. She picked at the edge of the paper, which was greasy—she wagered from the many timesPreston had performed this exact motion. “I’d really like to know what could possibly be enough to throw yourself into traffic over.”
    “Could be nothing,” Jack said. “Bloke did fling himself in front of a bus for no fucking reason.”
    Pete thought about telling him what she’d seen, the two figures chasing Mayflower, the real fear driving the madness-tinged exchange they’d had.
    But Jack had enoughto worry about being back home, and she didn’t know the figures came from the Prometheus Club. She had her suspicions, sure, but she wasn’t going to get Jack up in arms until she was certain. The Proemetheans hadn’t been after her, anyway. They wanted her with them.
    Unless they know you have this grimy little trinket, her logic whispered. Preston had been scared enough to try and warn her awayfrom the Gathering, and now he was dead for his trouble.
    Then again, Preston could be a complete frothing nutter. The only thing Pete could figure was that she couldn’t trust anyone in Manchester—not the Prometheans, not Wendy, and not Mayflower.
    So decided, she took a long swig of her pint. Sooner or later, she’d tell Jack the whole story, but not tonight. Not with the ghosts of his past loomingso large that he’d already downed a pint and a shot and ordered a repeat.
    Though the pub was dingy, it had been a long time since she’d just been able to go out and relax—at least since before she left the Met. She and Ollie Heath, her partner, used to go out a few times a week with some other DIs from the squad, drink and laugh at horrible jokes and unwind. Take their minds off life on the murdersquad, which was bleaker than most and less rewarding than nearly all.
    She fingered the packet for a moment longer. “Suppose you’re right,” she told Jack. “It’s probably nothing.”
    He