Fucking – madwoman!’
Todd was right about the veneer of civilisation. Something earthy, East End and broad was creeping into his accent as his emotions got the better of him. I decided to encourage it: if he was angry then he was off balance and not thinking straight, and you never knew what kind of options might open themselves up.
‘But it was Silver’s choice,’ I said, ‘because it was his game. Mister Rourke said if I could take Silver out then everything else would fall apart of its own accord.’
Todd laughed incredulously, shaking his head.
‘Take Silver out? Fuck, if I’d known that was on your agenda, I’d have waited and let you take a shot. We’d do it ourselves, except he’s too cagey to give us an opening. Him and his American whore have fucking ruined us. Made us visible again, after we worked for years to cover our tracks. Live for ever. Live like kings for ever. Build up an empire, stronger and safer than anything we had when we were alive. That was what was in the prospectus – and it was his own fucking prospectus! “We can own this city.
” And we do! We do own it! We take our cut and we take our pleasure and nobody even knows – or if they find out they die, and their wives and kids die, and their gardens are sown with fucking salt. We’ve got it all. But you know what they say about love being blind. He wouldn’t listen to reason. From the moment he met her, he was a changed man. Take Silver out?’ He laughed again, but there was a bitter, choking sound in it. ‘You should have fucking said.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, switching tack.
‘Kale was your weak spot all along. Every time you ÓEveuckgave her a new body, she’d kill again . . .’ Todd was nodding, so I went on. All I was doing was what mediums do: using the stooge’s feedback to refine the guesswork, zeroing in on the truth so it looks like you’ve known it all along. ‘The old psychosis showing itself again, every time. But you couldn’t just stop. Couldn’t just leave her in the ground. Silver wouldn’t let you. So I guess Mister Rourke was right about the pecking order.
’
‘We’re a collective,’ Todd growled. ‘Democratic and egalitarian. Everything is fair, and everything is set out nice and clear in the rules. You spend a year up on top, riding one of the bodies with the influence and the power and the celebrity lifestyle – then you spend a year as one of the grunts, earning your keep, minding the shop. We don’t trust anyone else to maintain the crematorium, or to guard it. We keep it all in the family.
