Read an Excerpt
Bit by bit, Joseph Spector’s world was shrinking. He was an old man now; his friends were dying off one by one; his legs and back ached. A new decade—the 1940s—was scarcely a year away, but to Spector this felt less like a new beginning than an eked-out ending.
However, time had left two of Spector’s attributes mercifully unharmed. The first was his mind, which was as quick and devilishly brilliant as ever. The second was his hands, which had lost none of their spindly dexterity. In the distant past he had been a music hall conjuror, and he still dressed like one in a suit of black velvet, with a cloak lined in red silk. He brought a touch of old-world flamboyance into the murky 20th century; he walked with a silver-tipped cane and dabbled in the occult. He was out of step with his era, and yet he was an indelible product of it; an embodiment of the baroque, the Grand Guignol.
Spector was on his way back from a meeting of the London Occult Practice Collective when he first realised someone was following him. The meeting had been out in Greenwich. It was a pleasant trip with good food, good conversation, and one or two amusing tricks into the bargain. Spector waited for the train back into the City feeling fat and happy. But as he perched on one of the metal benches which lined the platform, he felt eyes on him.
It was mid-afternoon, and already dusk was closing in. The platform's overhead lamps flickered to life and clutches of travellers chatted, smoked and stamped their feet to stave off the chill. Spector sat motionless with his bare fingers twined around the handle of his cane.
Once he realised he was under scrutiny, he waited a moment or two to make sure it was not simply his imagination, or a trick of the gathering dark. But it wasn't. Somewhere among the little clusters of waiting travellers, somebody was watching him. Very slowly, Spector turned, and with a sweeping glance took in the entire vista of the platform. There were a few lone commuters, but only one viable suspect: a tall man whose head was now hidden behind a three-day-old Herald. Spector studied the man’s lower half, which was all that could be seen of him. Smart, tailored trousers and impeccable patent leather shoes; a poor choice for this weather. Whoever the man was, he was certainly no professional.
Soon enough, the train arrived in a shriek of steam, and Spector smiled to himself as he boarded.
He disembarked at Paddington and took a gentle amble through the crowds. He was in no rush to get back to Putney. And once again, the eyes were on him. The man followed him along the central concourse, past the various concession stands, as he threaded his way through the bustle and toward the stone steps down into the Underground. Before he began his descent, Spector cast a quick glance in the man's direction, just to check that he had not lost him.
He hadn’t. There the fellow was, loitering in the shadow of a nearby pillar beneath the clock. Spector headed down the steps, and the man followed.
His pursuer maintained a careful distance on the Tube, but even though he frequently employed his out-of-date newspaper, Spector got a good look at the man's face. He was younger than Spector had first thought, which went a considerable way toward explaining these idiotic "Boy's Own" antics. He had a merciless Gwynplainian grin, but there was a vacancy in his eyes that told of both ignorance and arrogance. He was convinced that he had the upper hand.
Stepping off the train at Putney, Spector ascended the steps to street level and wondered briefly how best to go about dealing with this fellow. There were two places in which he was truly comfortable: the first was his home in Jubilee Court, a weird ramshackle dwelling crammed with decades’ worth of macabre bric-a-brac. The second was the nearby public house, The Black Pig; an ill-lit, low-ceilinged Elizabethan tavern. To step through its door was to step back in time. Spector was as much of a fixture there as the brass beer taps; it would not be the same without the grey fug of his cigarillo smoke choking the atmosphere, or his skeletal, cheerily funereal figure seated by the fire in the snug. From time to time he gave impromptu displays of legerdemain: cardistry or coin manipulation to bamboozle the regulars.
The Black Pig glowed warmly at the other end of the street, its painted sign swinging in the icy breeze. The young man halted. The magician had pulled off some kind of vanishing act—the street was empty. The young man continued at a slower pace, his brow creasing. He tilted his trilby back, as though he might find Joseph Spector hiding behind the brim.
"What in the hell—" he said, before his words were cut off by a sudden, sweeping motion at his feet. The silver-tipped cane clipped his ankles and sent him sprawling, his hat scudding off into the darkness.
The young man rolled onto his back with a groan, and Joseph Spector towered over him. The old conjuror smiled. "I don't believe we've met."
