GOSS KICKED THE SHABTI POWDER. HE WINKED AT SUBBY.

“Thing is, Paul,” Goss said, and crouched by the passenger door. “Hallo, girlie! Long time. We been here a long time, waiting, to see who you’d get to turn up. Because. Thing is. Do you think we don’t hear the messages that get sent through London? Do you think you can try to talk to your friends and we won’t hear? Chat chat chat through the lights.” He shook his head.

“Now, young squire, what I’m keen to do, very keen, is have a little chinwag with my boss man. So. Get out of the car. Take off your jacket and your shirt. Unwind whatever the tish it is you got keeping his nibs shtum. And let me have a word. Alright? Because it’s all going a bit fiddly out here.”

With little fear noises Marge gritted her teeth and tried to shove out and through Subby, but he pushed back much stronger than he looked. Paul opened his own door and stepped out. Marge tried to tell him no. She grabbed for him and tried to pull the door closed.

“Back off a second, Goss,” Paul said. His voice was perfectly steady. Goss obeyed him. Paul took off his jacket. “Let me ask you something, Goss,” Paul said. “Watch her, Subby! Keep her in the car.” He was taking off his shirt. “Think about it,” Paul said. “Do you think I could live with your boss for however many years it is, and not know where you could listen in? Not know that if I send a Londonmancer a message via Southwark, it’ll get there, but that Hoxton’s always been a traitor? Why d’you think I sent them word from here? I knew you’d get it.”

Shirtless in the cold, his skin was all-over goose bumps. Wound around him like a shit-coloured girdle was parcel tape. A little sound came from behind him. Paul took Marge’s car keys from his pocket and threw them into the dark. He glanced at Goss and then at Subby. “I wanted you to get the message so I could deliver her to you.”

Marge’s insides went quite hollow. She folded away from him.

“I was kind of hoping I could deliver the others too. And they might still come, especially if Wati got word to them before you…” He made reeling motions. “And then they’re yours.”

Marge crawled across the gear stick, through the open passenger door. The two men and the boy watched her with what looked like mild interest. She crept and stumbled away.

“What’s all this about, Paul?” Goss said. He sounded genuinely intrigued. “When am I going to talk to the boss? Do let’s undo you.”

“Yeah. In a second. But I wanted you to hear this, and I wanted him to hear. From me. You listening?” he shouted to his own skin. “I want you, and him, to know that I’m offering you a deal. I’m not stupid-I knew you’d find me. So. No more locking me up like a, a zoo thing. We work together. That’s the deal now. And this is a goodwill offering.” He pointed at Marge. “I know you want Billy. Well, there’s Billy-bait.”

Air felt like it was clotting in Marge’s windpipe as she crawled.

“I’m sorry,” Paul said to her. “But you don’t know what it’s been like. There was no way I was going to get away.”

He took scissors from his pocket and tore the plastic-and-glue carapace from himself. His skin was red beneath it. “Did you get all that, you?” he said. “You’ve still got time to fix this situation. Grisamentum’s gone to war-he’s got some mad plan-but I can tell you where the squid is. Do we have a deal?”

Paul turned, so that his back faced Marge. In her already-horror she was not even surprised to see the malevolent tattoo on his back raise its eyebrows at her.

“Maybe,” it said.

Paul turned to her again. Goss and Subby stared at him. Goss was admiring. Marge was on her hands and knees on the carpark floor, in Wati’s dust, and moving as fast as she could when she could not breathe and her heart shook her.

“Oy, turn back, I want to see,” the voice of the Tattoo said.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” Paul said. “We’re partners now. Look.” He waited another second. “She’s getting away.” He pointed, and glanced at Goss, who clicked his tongue, and strode round the car after Marge.

“Where are you off to, you little bantam?” He chuckled. She managed to stand, and ran, but within a few metres he was with her. He grabbed her by the hair. She let out a sound like nothing she could have imagined. He hauled her.

On the other side of the car Paul and Subby watched him. “What’s going on? Turn around,” the voice from Paul’s back bleated.

“Hey, there’s one other thing I worked out in my time, Goss,” Paul called to him, and held up the scissors. “I worked out what this thing is.” He patted Subby. “I worked out where you keep your heart.”

A moment cracked. Marge saw Goss way in front of her before she even realised he had let go. She saw him running. She glimpsed a look on his face so aghast it almost made you wince to see it, almost you could sob for it if you weren’t held in still-split time. But no matter how fast he moved Goss was too far away, even with the moments Paul had wasted with that taunt, to get between the scissors and Subby.

Paul brought the blades double-dagger into Subby’s neck. Quick repeated punches. Blood, and the boy’s mindless face did not move except that his eyes widened. Paul stabbed hard. The blood that spattered him was very dark.

Subby dropped to his knees, looking quizzical. “What? What? What’s happening?” the Tattoo foolishly demanded, just like a child.

Goss screeched and screamed and howled. He collapsed midleap. The scissors quivered, embedded in Subby’s neck. Paul shuddered. Goss sprawled across the car bonnet, puking up his own much brighter blood.

“No no no no no no.” He whined and drummed his heels and stared in outrage at the dying boy-thing.

“Do you think,” Paul said-while “what? what’s happening? what?” the Tattoo kept saying-“that I would work with you?” Paul pulled the scissors from Subby’s neck, pushed them back again. Subby looked from side to side and closed his eyes. Goss screamed and bubbled and kicked and drooled sudden smoke and could not stand. Screamed.

“Do you think I would let you come anywhere near me?” Paul said to him. “Did you think I’d collaborate with you? Do you think I’d let you be the muscle for this purebred scum evil motherfucker on my back? Did you think I wouldn’t kill you?” Paul spat at the dying Goss. Spat at the ground in front of him. “You’ve got this flesh basket to hold what makes you tick, and you think that’ll stop me? Goss, stop up your noise. It is time for you to go to hell and take your poor fucking empty little life-carrier with you.”

Subby was immobile. The blood was coming out of him slower. Goss wheezed and gurgled and looked as if he was trying to level some good-bye curse, but as Subby died with closing eyes, he died too. His last breath went without smoke.

And whatever else was happening-

in times and places all over-

unmentionably many-

that going out-

that finishedness-

rippled-

was very felt-

and every one of London’s bullied and terrified were for a metamoment, from 1065 to 2006, all in their own instants and entangled for a blink, in every awful situation, every little room where they were head-flushed, thumbscrewed, decried, name-debased, taunted, punched, sneered at, the foil of brutality, for a moment just then, for one instant, which might not save them but which would at the very least be a tiny comfort, for always, felt better-felt joy.

PAUL WATCHED GOSS GO.

“What’s happening? What’s happening? What? What?” the Tattoo said. Paul ignored it. Marge ignored it.

She watched without motion, holding her head where Goss had hurt her. When Subby died-as if he was a “he,” as if it were more than a box with a face-he mouldered away. He crumbled into a disgustingness, and then that crumbled too, into nothing, leaving only a heart, a man’s unbeating heart too big for Subby’s chest.