When Cheryl straightened, she could see the sudden change in my mood at once. It must have been written all over my face.
“You didn’t bring me up here to open cupboard doors at all, did you?” she demanded, reprovingly but with no real heat. “You dirty bugger.”
It was the succubus, Juliet. She’d reached inside me, which was her mystery and her power, and turned the dial on the outer casing of my libido from “normal” to “seismic.” Evidently, that wasn’t something that just went away—and being in such close proximity to Cheryl had triggered an aftershock. I braced myself for a smack in the face, but Cheryl was looking at me with a quizzical and contemplative expression on her face. I opened my mouth to explain, but she shook her head briskly to stop me from saying anything.
“I’ve never had sex at work before,” she murmured at last. “And you are pretty attractive—in a sleazy, government-health-warning-on-the-packet sort of way. You know what I always say, yeah?”
I’d forgotten, but I remembered now. “If you’ve never tried something, you’ve got no right saying you don’t like it.”
“Exactly. But are you sure you’re not letting your eyes make promises your trousers can’t keep, Castor?”
“That’s a valid question,” I said, trying to reengage the parts of my brain that weren’t connected with panting and sweating. “Cheryl, this isn’t me. This is just a sort of hangover from—”
She stopped my mouth with a kiss, which tasted very faintly of coffee and cinnamon. I had ample opportunity to taste.
When we broke off, she smiled at me again—a smile with a world of promise in it.
“Someone could just walk in,” I reminded her, making one last doomed effort to be the voice of reason.
“That’s where the keys come in handy,” Cheryl said. She crossed to the door, closed it, and locked it. Then she came back over and began to unbutton my shirt.
“I’ve got cuts and lacerations,” I warned her. “In some of the parts you may be planning to use.”
“Poor boy. Let Auntie Cheryl have a look.”
She had very gentle hands—which she used to do a number of things that were highly prejudicial to the exorcist/client relationship. I responded in kind, and things went from bad to wonderfully bad.
But even as Cheryl drew me into her with a wordless murmur of approbation, I was thinking of the parcel tape and the plastic bags. Where did they go?
Fourteen
WE SAT UP IN THE ATTIC IN A COMPANIONABLE POSTcoital languor, leaning against the bare wall. We’d already made ourselves decent again, and anyone clattering up the bare stone stairs would announce themselves from a good way off, so we didn’t have to worry about being caught in a compromising position.
“You never suggested using a condom,” I commented.
“Have you got a condom?”
“No.”
“There you go, then.”
“Are you always this happy-go-lucky?”
“I got carried away. So did you. But I’m on the pill. Are you saying I should still be worried?”
I shook my head. I steer clear of relationships. I’ve always been afraid of someone I love turning up dead, and then—having to live with that or having to deal with it. Having to face the choice. So although I’m not entirely celibate, I think I count as chaste.
“And no more should you. Word. Let’s change the subject.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “Can we talk shop?”
“Sure. Go on.”
“Have you ever heard of a strip club called Kissing the Pink?”
Cheryl laughed; she had a dirty laugh that I liked very much. “I’m glad we’re talking shop now,” she said. “I’d hate to think you were gonna ask me out on a date. No, I don’t know it. I’ve never been in a strip club in my life. I saw the Chippendales once, if that’s any good.”
“Have you ever met a man named Lucasz Damjohn?”
“Nope.”
“Or Gabriel McClennan?”
“Nope again. Felix, what’s any of this got to do with my Sylvie? You’re sounding like a private detective.”
“It’s all tied together somewhere,” I said, aware of how lame that sounded. “Cheryl, what about these rooms? Do they ever get used for anything?”
“Not yet. We’re gonna expand into them eventually. Some bits of stuff get stored up here, but not much. Why?”
Instead of answering, I got up, breaking what was left of the drowsy, intimate mood. I crossed to the window and looked out. Then down. Three floors below was the flat roof of the first-floor extension. A plastic bag lay on the gray roofing felt, the wind making it jerk and flurry, but not shifting it.
“What’s underneath us on this side of the building?” I called over my shoulder.
“Strong rooms,” said Cheryl.
“Just strong rooms?”
“Yeah, just strong rooms.”
“With no windows?”
“Right. Why d’you want to know? What’s going on?”
“I thought I heard someone up here,” I told her, going for a half truth. “When there shouldn’t have been anyone.”
“That’d be Frank, then,” said Cheryl.
“Sorry?” I said, turning back to face her. “Why would it?”
“He does his meditating up here. Jeffrey said he could.”
“Frank meditates?”
She grinned. “How’d you think he got that laid-back? We’ve got the only Zen security guard in London. Only he’s really a butterfly dreaming he’s a security guard.”
“This was at night. When the archive was closed.”
“Yeah?” She blinked. “Okay, I take it back, then. Frank only comes up in his lunch hours. But—what were you doing up here after the place was shut?”
“Long story,” I said. “Would you mind keeping it a secret for now?”
“You’ll have to buy my silence.”
“With what, exactly?”
She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“I’m just a plaything to you, aren’t I?” I complained with mock bitterness.
“Too right, boy. Let’s say six o’clock tonight—give me time to get out of here. I’ll meet you at Costella’s. You’re gonna have to work hard to keep me happy.”
“Will I get time off for bad behavior?”
“We’ll see. Depends how bad you can be, I suppose.”
“Cheryl, is there an alley off to the side of the new annex?”
“Yeah, that’s where the wheely bins are. Why?”
“I’m going to go down there and shinny up on that flat roof.”
“As an aftermath to sex? A lot of people would just smoke a cigarette or something.”
I kissed her on the lips. “Smoking’s bad for you,” I pointed out.
“So am I, boy. I’ll do your back in.”
“I’m looking forward to it. Wait for me—I’ll only be a minute.”
I left her there and descended the stairs. Frank gave me an amiable nod as I went by. For the first time, there was a second guard on duty with him—a younger man with a military crew cut who gave me a fish-eyed stare. I smiled a smile of good-natured idiocy and kept on going.
The alley was a cul-de-sac, lined on both sides as Cheryl had said with the wheely bins of the adjacent buildings—each standing black plastic coffin bearing a number in white paint that had dripped while it was drying.
Everything looked different from ground level. Judging the spot as best I could, I climbed on top of a Dumpster and then used the horizontal bar of a closed steel gate. It was an easy climb, which didn’t surprise me in the least. Someone at the archive was doing it on a regular basis, after all. But I was too far over, and I was looking into a builder’s yard. The flat roof of the Bonnington annex ended ten feet to my left. I tightrope-walked along the wall until I got to the roof. I could see the plastic bag lying close to the sheer wall of the main building—which, apart from the attic skylights at the very top, was an eyeless cliff face.
I went over to the bag and picked it up. Good Food Tastes Better at Sainsbury’s, it said. But whatever was inside it, it wasn’t food. It was heavy and rectangular. I tore open one corner and looked inside.