“Don’t you dare write anything about me!” Ramsay finally snapped and threw a punch, badly aimed as he was awash with Mother’s Milk. The blow found only empty air as Quinn, surprisingly light on his feet, had already neatly sidestepped out of the way.
“You’d better be off before you do yourself an injury, Coker,” he laughed. “Anyway, I’m going back to the party. Pingo’s promised to play ball with me. Or was it Bingo? I don’t suppose it matters. I’m sure it will be an explosive game. ’Night, Coker.”
He did a silly little skip as he returned in the direction of the gardens they had just left.
Ramsay thought he might kill Quinn. Stab him in the heart and watch him realize what a fool he was as his life ebbed away.
* * *
—
As soon as Ramsay parted company with Quinn it began to rain and, inevitably, there wasn’t a cab to be found.
He turned a corner and noticed the car parked beneath a streetlight that illuminated its shiny yellow bodywork. He knew very well whose car it was. He panicked and spun around, ready to run, but, as in a nightmare, there was Azzopardi himself, blocking his way.
“Going somewhere, Mr. Coker?” He grinned and waggled a finger at Ramsay, a gesture that managed to be both comic and horribly menacing at the same time. The reckoning was upon him, Ramsay thought, his stomach swooping high and then falling into the abyss. Azzopardi opened the car door and said, “Shall we go for a little drive, Mr. Coker? You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve thought of a way for you to repay me.”
* * *
—
Azzopardi dropped Ramsay off in the same place that he had picked him up and drove away. Ramsay felt so weak that he had to sit on the curb to recover. He had promised Azzopardi the money he owed him, telling him that he would go to Nellie and ask her to give it to him. （Would she? Quite possibly not.） Or Niven, Niven had money, his brother would see him out of this hole. Surely? But no, it was too late for all that, Azzopardi had said.
Quinn was wrong—Azzopardi didn’t want Ramsay as a forfeit. （Would he have agreed if it meant it would clear his debts? It was an unanswered question.） But Quinn had been right about one thing—Azzopardi didn’t want money. He wanted something that he considered to be much more valuable. He wanted paper.
Ramsay lit a cigarette and as he looked up from the flame of the match his eye was caught by something on the other side of the street. It was that dratted Egyptian mummy from ten days ago again. Not lurching comically along like last time, but striding quite purposefully in the direction of Lowndes Square as if it were late for something. The Baby Party, presumably, although the dress code had been ignored. Whoever was inside all those bandages must be particularly fond of their horrid costume.
The figure no longer struck supernatural dread in him—it was absurd to be frightened of such a stupid mannequin, he thought. But then, as if it had heard him, the mummy stopped in its tracks and turned to stare at him. Its eyes were almost entirely concealed by the bandages around its head but nonetheless Ramsay could feel the malice in its gaze. And then, horror, it stepped off the curb and began to cross the road towards him. He didn’t wait to find out its intentions but scrambled up from the pavement and ran.
* * *
—
Quinn walked slowly around Lowndes Square. He, too, was trying to clear his head. He’d ingested rather a lot of dope and was beginning to feel quite unwell. Someone had told him that some of the stuff doing the rounds wasn’t good and he wondered if that was the problem.
Or maybe it was because he was feeling guilty—remorse was an unaccustomed emotion for him. He had delivered the head of John the Baptist.
He had taken Ramsay to that spieler in Belgravia at Azzopardi’s request. Azzopardi had a hold on him, of course. Photographs, taken secretly, and so on. He would be finished for ever if they got into the hands of his fellow members of the press. He’d end his days in a grubby garret in Soho, living off the charity of some old queen, or, worse, back in Kettering, living off the charity of his ageing, appalled parents.
Someone in fancy dress approached. The Invisible Man. Or, more likely, an Egyptian mummy, as people were so obsessed by Egypticity. Quinn presumed it was a man as the figure was quite tall. “Good costume,” he said politely as it drew near. Did it want something from him? An unlit cigarette dangled from its mouth, or rather from a hole in the bandages where he presumed its mouth was.
“Do you want a light?” Quinn asked. The mummy didn’t respond but Quinn felt impelled to pursue a conversation with it.