Broken Homes

others had worked with the Home Office, offering assistance to the police and other civil authorities. Some had done what I considered scientific research, and others still had researched by studying the classics or collecting folklore. Many just used the Folly as their London club while in town from their parsonages, estates or university positions – ‘Hedge Wizards’ Nightingale called them.
    At least a couple of those had probably taken an interest in the goblin fairs and had perhaps written a useful tome on the subject. It was just possible that one day I might stumble upon it in the library or an Oxfam in Twickenham – you never know.
    Still, as Lesley said, why do it the hard way when we could just call Zach.
    According to Zach, the next fair was due the day after and was in north London. Athlone Street, off Grafton Road, Kentish Town – my manor, as it happens. One of my first girlfriends used to live up the other end, so I’d walked down it enough times.
    ‘Did you get any?’ asked Lesley as we parked the Asbo. We were suffering a standard grey London drizzle, the sort that makes it clear that it can keep it up all day if needs be.
    ‘I was twelve,’ I said.
    ‘I bet you were precocious, though,’ said Lesley. ‘She was older, wasn’t she?’
    ‘Why’d you say that?’ I asked. It was true. Her name had been Catherine and she’d been a year above me in school.
    ‘It was your big brown eyes wasn’t it?’
    I didn’t know what to say. When I was twelve, introspection was not my most prominent characteristic.
    ‘We were in the swimming club together,’ I said.
    The address was a strange Victorian wedge of a building that backed into a railway viaduct. The ground floor was given over to a print shop, and according to Lesley’s intelligence there should be a sign advertising this. This intelligence came from Zach Palmer, who was half human and half – we weren’t really sure what, including the possibility that the other half might be human as well. But anyway he was hooked into what Nightingale insisted on calling the demi-monde.
    Speaking of which . . .
    ‘You know the Fleet runs under here,’ I said.
    Lesley groaned. ‘Do you think she’s in there?’
    ‘Believe it,’ I said.
    ‘At least it will be out of the rain,’ she said.
    There was a sign – a sad bit of damp cardboard cut into the shape of an arrow with the word ‘VENUS’ handwritten and pointing to a side door. Lesley knocked.
    ‘What’s the password?’ shouted someone from inside.
    ‘It’s a slippery slope,’ I shouted back.
    ‘What?’ shouted the voice.
    ‘It’s a slippery slope,’ I shouted louder.
    ‘What kind of slope?’ shouted the voice.
    ‘A fucking slippery one,’ yelled Lesley. ‘Now open the bloody door before we kick it down.’
    The door opened to reveal a tiny hallway and a flight of stairs leading upwards. Peering cautiously around the door was a small white boy of about ten, wearing a black and white bobble hat, fingerless gloves and an adult-sized lime coloured lambswool cardigan that was draped over him like a rain cape.
    ‘You’re the Isaacs,’ he said. ‘What you doing here?’
    ‘Why aren’t you in school?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘I’m home tutored,’ he said.
    ‘Really,’ said Lesley. ‘What are you learning at the moment?’
    ‘Never talk to the filth,’ he said.
    I told him that we didn’t want him to talk to us.
    ‘On the contrary,’ said Lesley. ‘We just want to get out of the rain.’
    ‘Nothing’s stopping you,’ said the boy.
    We stepped inside, but before we could troop up the stairs the boy tapped Lesley on the arm.
    ‘Miss,’ he said. ‘You can’t—’
    ‘I know,’ she said and took off her mask.
    ‘Oh,’ said the boy staring up at her. ‘You’re that one.’
    ‘Yes I am,’ she said and then waited until we were safely up the stairs to whisper, ‘That one what?’
    I said that I hadn’t got the faintest idea.
    At the top of the drab staircase was a windowless hallway lit by a forty watt bulb in a red Chinese paper lamp shade that managed to make it seem even darker. We had a choice of going up another flight of stairs or out through a door, but before we could even express our indecision the door slammed open and we were confronted by a young white woman in a pink tracksuit with an Adidas logo on it. I recognised her as one of the waitresses from the Goblin Fair we’d visited back in December.
    ‘What can I do you for?’ she