Live and Let Drood

more active than he’s used to.”
    “Why would he want to?” Molly said bluntly.
    “Because he’s still a Drood, even if he is a rogue,” I said. “He’s still family, which means he understands duty and responsibility. If they’re dropped onto him from a great enough height.”
    “But you’ve never even met the man!” said Molly. “Your family wouldn’t even talk about him!”
    “That is a point in his favour,” I said.
    We reached Brighton late in the day, with the afternoon already heading into evening, though the sun still shone brightly as it sank down the perfect blue sky. Not a cloud to be seen or a breath of breeze anywhere. The Phantom’s speed dropped abruptly as we hit the city traffic, and I bullied my way as best I could through the narrowing streets of the city centre. There was quite a lot of traffic, this being the height of the tourist season, with whole families packed into cars and pointed at the seaside. There wasn’t the room for my usual driving tactics, so I just hunched down in my seat and cruised along, resisting the impulse to open up with the front-mounted machine guns.
    The slow progress made me uneasy. Made me feel more and more as though there were targets painted all over the bodywork. I trusted the Armourer’s shields to do their job, but, on the other hand, Crow Lee didn’t get to be number one in the Bastard Business without being able to locate his enemies.…I checked the surrounding cars and their drivers carefully, but I didn’t see anything or anyone I could honestly identify as showing inappropriate interest.
    Molly was just pleased to be back in Brighton. She bounced up and down excitedly in her seat, peering happily out of all the windows, pointing out the sights and interrupting herself to beat a fast paradiddle on the dashboard with both hands.
    “I love Brighton!” she said loudly. “Good food, good bars and bad company! If you’re a girl who likes to drink, dance and debauch, and wallow in everything that’s bad for you, Brighton is the place to be! Used to be Blackpool, but that’s gone very down-market of late.”
    “I never knew you to be such a happy camper, Molly,” I said solemnly.
    “My glass may be half-empty, but I am half-full! Can’t we get a move on?”
    “Not without actually driving right over the cars in front of us, no.”
    Molly looked like she was seriously considering it. “We need the Pier. That’s where we’ll find my old acquaintance. Brighton Pier. You know, one time I…”
    “Never mind your disreputable past,” I said. “How do we get there?”
    Molly shifted uneasily in her seat, looking around for signposts and landmarks. “I don’t know! Give me a chance—it’s been a few years.…Honestly, Eddie, all the extras your uncle Jack built into this car, and he didn’t think to include a sat nav? And don’t ask me to check the maps. I do not do the map thing. Look. Just head for the seafront. Listen for the sound of the waves, and if that doesn’t work, stick your head out the side window and sniff out the tang of the sea!”
    “World’s worst navigator,” I said, and she punched me in the shoulder.
    “I have other talents,” she said, grinning.
    “So you do.”
    After some back-and-forthing and a certain amount of going round and round in circles, we finally found our way to the seafront and Brighton Pier. A large and impressive structure stretching away from the beach and out into the sea, so people could go walking across the ocean and get a sense of the sea without actually having to go in it. The Pier looked to just go on and on, but then I supposed it had to be that long to fit in all the overpriced souvenirs, games and tourist traps that paid for its continued existence. Hell of a lot of seagulls flying around, making a lot of noise. Molly lowered her window and stuck her head right out, the better to savour the sea air.
    I looked around for a parking place, which was naive of me. Of course there wasn’t one. All the parking places in Brighton are probably full by dawn’s earliest light, or inherited and passed on within the family. So I just brought the Phantom V to a halt directly in front of the Pier’s main entrance, right next to a NO PARKING sign. One of life’s little pleasures. I turned off the engine and powered up the car’s defences,while Molly conjured up an official DISABLED sticker and slapped it on the inside of the windscreen. I looked at her reproachfully.
    “You are