The passage led straight to the back of the buildings. There were no lights. No doors or windows opened onto it, and it was too narrow for anything to be stored there. I made my way to the far end, then paused to check the lie of the land. I could see I’d reached a kind of grubby, cobbled courtyard. It was about twenty feet square. To my left was the back of the shop. It had a single window—lined with cardboard and heavily barred—and one exit. The outside of a fire door. Neither showed any name or number. The buildings on the far side were much deeper, reaching almost to the ones from the next street, leaving just enough room for another narrow passageway. That was handy. It would be a second way out of the place, if needed. And a third possible route stretched away to my right, beyond the back of the restaurant, where the space remained wide enough for a medium-sized vehicle to pass through.
It was the restaurant side of the courtyard that caught my attention. Orange plastic packing crates had been arranged in a horseshoe shape outside the double kitchen door, like seats. There were six. Cigarette butts lay scattered all around them. Maybe two hundred altogether. Around a quarter had lipstick marks on them, and I could see at least four different brands. The doors themselves were standing open a couple of inches, and I could hear the murmur of voices and the clash of metallic items banging together from inside. But it wasn’t the sights or the sounds that grabbed me. It was the smell. Frying meat. Onions. Garlic. Carried straight at me by the clouds of steam that were pouring relentlessly from four stainless-steel vents, lined up in the back wall at head height. It made me think that the couple on the plane had been right. Which again reminded me of Tanya. And made me fear that the next few minutes were going to pass very slowly.
There was nothing else of interest in the courtyard so I crossed behind the restaurant and started down the broader alley on the far side. I was planning to outwalk my memories and kill the rest of my waiting time by making a broad loop back around to the main entrance on the street. But I’d only gone about nine feet when I heard a noise behind me. A loud crash. Something heavy had connected with the brickwork. I stopped in the shadows and turned to look. It was the fire door at the back of the shop. Someone had thrown it open, all the way, so that it banged into the wall. A woman staggered through the opening. Her arms were flailing and she was teetering wildly on transparent plastic stilettos. They were at least four inches high. She finally caught her balance after another half-dozen steps, ending up with her knees pointing inward as the heels slid awkwardly into the cracks between the cobbles. She wobbled again, then quickly ran her hands over her lace-up leather bodice, around her tiny velvet miniskirt, and even down the seams at the back of her sheer black stockings.
A man followed her out. I’d put him in his midforties. His clothes—gray stonewashed jeans and a plain white sleeveless T-shirt—were an extremely tight fit. I guessed he wore them that way to emphasize his pumped-up thighs, torso, and arms. He was only about six feet tall, but that still gave him a good eight inches over the woman, even allowing for her ridiculous shoes. He stepped toward her. She held her ground, glaring up into his face. Then three more guys emerged from the store, moving forward and half surrounding her. The original one gestured for her to go back inside. She shook her head. He raised his hand, palm open. She flinched, as if anticipating the blow. But she didn’t back down.
The left-hand restaurant kitchen door swung open and a man stepped halfway out, then froze. He was dressed in chef’s whites, maybe in his late teens, scruffy and unshaven. The guys from the store turned as one and stared at him. He held their gaze, hypnotized, for twenty seconds. Then he hunched over, reversed his direction, and withdrew from sight. I was relieved. It seemed like the ideal solution. I’d seen a pair of chefs going after each other in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant in London, once. One had a cleaver. The other, a carving knife. The fight didn’t last long. But it did have a decisive ending. Something like that would be welcome right now. I didn’t know what the woman had done, but I couldn’t help feeling like the four men could use a more challenging opponent. I figured the young guy would be fetching some of his colleagues. That they’d come charging out, any second, brandishing all kinds of cooking implements. Sharp ones. Hopefully, lethal ones.
Nothing happened. Thirty seconds crawled past. Then a minute. The store guys relaxed. They returned their attention to the woman. She took a step back. All four followed, pressing in close. The first man raised his arm again. He leveled it with her face and pulled it back farther, twitching, like a snake all set to strike.
“Jaime?” I said, stepping out of the shadows.
The four guys snapped around simultaneously to face me, but none of them spoke.
“It is you, right?” I said, cutting into the distance between us. “Where have you been, all these years? We missed you.”
The main guy lowered his arm.
“Who the hell’s Jaime?” he said.
“She is,” I said. “Jaime Sommers. The Bionic Woman.”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“I mean, she must be bionic, right? Otherwise, why would it take all four of you to chase her around this yard?”
I was close enough by now to see a vein throbbing above his left temple. He glared at me, his mouth dropped open, but he didn’t manage any words.
“Seriously, I’m interested,” I said. “How many of you does it take to persuade one girl to walk through a doorway?”
The guy nearest me slipped his right hand into the back pocket of his jeans.
“But don’t let me interrupt,” I said. “Go ahead. Do what you need to do.”
He pulled something out, concealing it behind his leg and shifting his weight onto his front foot.
“Looked like you were going to hit her just now, when I arrived,” I said to the main guy. “So go on. Take your shot.”
He didn’t move.
“What are you waiting for?” I said. “Twenty dollars says you can’t take her down with one slap.”
The next guy in line broke ranks and moved to block my path.
“No?” I said. “OK. So here’s another idea. Why not try it with me?”
All four were facing me now, their backs to the woman. She started moving smoothly away, reversing, never taking her eyes off them for a second.
“What’s the problem?” I said. “There are four of you. And only one of—”
Without breaking stride I drove the heel of my right hand into the jaw of the guy who’d ended up in front of me. The impact knocked him off his feet, leaving him sprawling on the exact spot where the woman had been standing a moment earlier. His limbs followed a second behind his body, slapping limply onto the ground as I drew my forearm back and smashed my elbow into the side of the next guy’s head. He went down too, pivoting sharply around so that his face was the first part of him to crack against the cobblestones. A wooden-handled switchblade slipped from his fingers. I kicked it away and brought my fist across the opposite way, my first two knuckles connecting with either side of the third guy’s nose. I felt his bone and cartilage crack, and saw that blood was already spurting from his face as his legs buckled under him and he flopped down onto his back.
I checked the kitchen door. There was no activity. I looked for the woman. She was safe, ten feet away, backing up against the wall. I watched as she disappeared from sight. Then I scanned the surrounding buildings. Confirmed there were no other windows overlooking us. No security cameras. In fact, no one watching us at all. It was just like Fothergill had said. As far as anyone could tell, I didn’t exist.