Mind the Gap

chapter Sixteen

china plates

Jazz descended the stairs that led down into the lair of the United Kingdom as carefully and quietly

as she could. Opening the hatch door at the top of the steps ought to have brought a creak of metal hinges,

but she moved slowly and opened it only wide enough to slip through. It wasn't that she planned to sneak up

on Harry and the others. It was more that, after so many weeks learning to be a thief, stealth came

naturally now. Her mother had raised her to be invisi-ble when she wished —unseen—and unwittingly gave

her daughter the skills and philosophy to become an excellent thief.

As she neared the door at the bottom of the stairs, she. caught the smell of frying sausages, and

her stomach growled. Terence had made her breakfast. He'd been noth-ing but a gentleman to her, and

now he'd be thinking she had lied to him and run off, even though she had left the gear behind. He seemed

so sincere that she had been tempted to trust him, had wanted to take a walk and con-sider how much of

her own life and her own theories she would reveal to him over breakfast. Now the question had become

moot.

Harry liked his sausages burned, the same as Jazz. The aroma made her mouth water. God, she was

ravenous. But she had a feeling Harry wouldn't be in the mood to cook her breakfast.

Not that she cared about Harry's mood.

As she closed her fingers around the door handle, she paused to listen. She heard muffled voices;

Harry wasn't alone. It had taken her nearly an hour to get to the Palace from Terence's, taking the Tube

and then navigating the labyrinth of the Underground on foot. It had to be half past nine at least, which

meant the United Kingdom would be out for their first shift of the day, some of them searching for pockets

to pick, others for goods to nick from shops and street vendors. The rest would be doing errands, including

picking up Harry's newspaper.

Jazz had no difficulty hazarding a guess as to who might have stayed behind.

She turned the handle and pushed open the door, step-ping into the Palace. Harry stood at the stove

with a frying pan. Stevie sat at the table, cutting a sausage on his plate. A strongbox lay open on the table,

stacks of pound notes bound in rubber bands inside. Towers of one- and two-pound coins stood beside the

metal box. Doing their ac-counting over breakfast.

Their conversation halted and they stared at Jazz. For a moment she only stared back, but then she

closed the door behind her, crossed her arms, and raised her chin to fix her gaze on Harry.

"You and I need to talk."

Harry did not smile. His eyes were hard. "I suppose we ! do." He turned his back and stuck a long

toasting fork into each sausage, flipping them over. "Stevie, we'll finish tomor-row. Eat up, then put the box

away. I've been thinking about teaching Hattie to play the guitar. Go and see if you can't manage one,

would you?"

Jazz raised an eyebrow at the incongruity, then glanced at Stevie. He forked another piece of

sausage into his mouth and chewed slowly, staring at her as he might have a strange insect. The frisson of

attraction that had existed between them before had evaporated. Suddenly, they were strangers again.

"I'll see what I can do," Stevie said, standing up from the table.

He scooped the coins into one hand and dumped them into the strongbox, then locked it. Without

glancing at Jazz again, he went through the room to a door at the back and disappeared. She guessed they

had a safe down here some-where. Stevie would lock the money away and, if he fol-lowed Harry's bidding,

go topside in search of a guitar, of all things. Harry, playing father to the kids in his United Kingdom, giving

Hattie guitar lessons. Stevie was the big brother, half the time searching for Father's approval and the other

half desperate to start a life of his own.

So what does that make me? Jazz thought.

"Sit down," Harry said, turning off the stove and taking the pan to the table. "Will you have some

sausage?"

Pleasant as anything, as though nothing at all had hap-pened. Jazz had the answer to her question

then. If Harry was the father and Stevie the eldest brother, she was the prodigal.

"I'm famished, actually," she confessed, despising her-self for it.

He put a couple of sausages onto the plate that had been Stevie's, taking it for himself, and put the

other two on the clean plate he'd intended to use. "There you are."



The pan went back onto the stove. Harry sat down at the table while Jazz only stood and watched

him. At length he glanced up. "Well? Don't let 'em go to waste, Jazz girl. I actually paid money for those,

and they came dear."

Something seemed off. Yes, she'd been gone all night, and all the previous day, and that accounted

for the cold shoulder Stevie had given her. But the edge in Harry's voice and demeanor spoke of more than

that.

Jazz slid into a chair, picked up the knife and fork Harry had originally set out for himself, and cut

herself a piece of sausage. She'd come to confront him, but his behavior made her curious, and hunger

persuaded her to eat a little. Halfway through the first of the sausages, she caught him staring at her, but

instead of the suspicion or even malice she might have expected, his gaze contained only sadness.

"Your hair looks lovely," he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Bit of makeup, that expensive cut,

you could be a television presenter or something, up in the world. Is that it, then? You think you can still

return to the illusion they paint as normality? Steady pay, a husband, and a couple of kids? Probably want a

dog too."

She lost her appetite, let the fork fall to the plate, and pushed back from the table, glaring at him. "All

I want are answers."

Harry sighed. "And you think Terence can give you those? Poor girl. Bloke takes you to a posh

salon, and in spite of everything you've learned about the way the world really works, you still think you can

be a princess, live hap-pily ever after."

Jazz stared at him. The words cut her, and a part of her wanted to scream at him, tell him just how

full of shit he was. But the tempest of her rage had been undone.

"How could you know that? Were you following us?"

"I didn't have to follow you, pet. When you described the thief you met at Keating's house, there was

only one man it could be. Then you didn't come back last night, which created two possibilities. The cops

had you, or you'd seen Terence again. From the new hairstyle, the smell of per-fumed soap, and the clothes

you're wearing, I surmise you haven't spent the night behind bars."

He waited for a response. As she stared at him, the idea of Harry Fowler as parent and herself as

errant, prodigal child began to fester.

"You know what? That'll be enough of that," she said, pushing her plate away. She jabbed an

accusing finger toward him. "I don't owe you an explanation for anything. You're the one with all the lies

and secrets, Harry, and it's time I had an-swers. You act like you're this benevolent creature, some f*cking

shepherd, gathering your flock of lost lambs. But you're not so innocent, are you? And it may've taken me a

while, but I'll tell you now: I'm no f*cking sheep."

Slowly, leaning back in his chair, Harry began to ap-plaud.

"Bravo," he said, rising to his feet and striding toward a cabinet set against the far wall. "Truly. A

little ferocity will take you far, Jazz girl. Could keep you alive as well. Might be you'll need it soon."

Harry opened a drawer and began to slide something out.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded.

He returned to the table and she saw what he held in his hands, and for a moment words failed her.

Harry set down the two photographs. The one of the Blackwood Club, whose frame she had accidentally

shattered while retrieving the stolen piece of the apparatus, he placed on top. Her fa-ther's face stared up

at her from the group photo, and for the first time, she noticed that the photograph had been arranged so

that her father was the focal point. The Uncles were all there —Mort and the rest of them—but James

Towne was the center.

"Where did you get those?" she asked.

Harry studied them, not looking up. "I saw broken glass on the floor in the corridor upstairs, just

below the door to the old service lift. I've walked that way dozens of times; would've seen it if it had been

there before. So I had a look. Careless of you, really. But when I found these inside, I knew we'd be talking

soon. There are things I wished you would never have to know. But it's too late for that."

Jazz uttered a small noise that sounded almost like a laugh. It was anything but.

"Who are you, exactly, to decide what I should and shouldn't know?"

Harry began to reply, but she waved him to silence.

"No. It's a rhetorical question. I've had a think, and I figure you can't be working for the Blackwood

Club or the mayor, 'cause they'd never have beat you like that, and you'd have served me up to them by

now. Maybe you think that makes you some kind of hero. Well, I hate to shatter your il-lusions, but you're

not. You're an old man who's run away from something. I know plenty about hiding, Harry. And you can

keep it up, for all I care. But this concerns me. My family's all wrapped up in it, tangled in f*cking barbed



wire, and I want to know what you know. How you and Terence know each other, how you ended up

photographing the Blackwood Club, what you know about the damn apparatus and London's ghosts —all of

it."

She leaned over the table. "But the first question is this: was it all a setup, me finding you? We're

connected, Harry. You, me, Terence, and the damn Blackwood Club. But you didn't find me. I came upon

the old shelter by chance. F*cking stumbled into it. Seemed that way, at least, but I can't believe in a

coincidence like that, Harry. So tell me, how did you do it?"

For the first time since she'd entered the Palace this morning, Harry's face lit up with a smile of real

humor and mischief —the smile of the Harry Fowler she'd known.

"I didn't do a thing, pet. Not a blessed thing. It's magic, isn't it? The entire history of England is

constructed on the fates and destinies of people. Some of them were extraordi-nary, and some ordinary.

Once upon a time, magic influ-enced everything. And with magic, there's no such thing as coincidence."



****

Harry had been fascinated by magic his entire life, but not the sleight of hand that Terence

Whitcomb's father had enjoyed. He claimed to have had numerous encounters with magic during his

childhood, and it had scarred him, both physically and emotionally.

"How did you meet Terence?" Jazz asked.

"Magic again. And thievery. The twin stories of my life," Harry said. He wouldn't look at her now.

His gaze was fixed at some distant point, as though simply by speaking of these events he could see into the

past.

"In another age, the Fowlers were fairly well-to-do. My father taught university, though his family

had left him enough money that he could've retired at thirty. Instead, he taught until the day he died, at the

age of sixty-four. I was just shy of forty when I returned home for his funeral. My sister, Anna, awaited me

there. Hadn't seen her in five years or more. Afterward, we went back to my father's house to find that

someone had broken in during the service. Oh, there was no damage. But there were things missing,

includ-ing my mother's wedding ring. She'd been dead five years by then, and the ring had been on my

father's nightstand ever since.

"It gutted Anna, losing that ring. Some of Mum's other jewelry had been taken as well. My father

had nothing of value for himself, save a library of antique books. While he lived, nothing had mattered to

him but my mother's things. A queer desperation struck me then. I felt he wouldn't rest until I got them

back. Anna was distraught. For her, and for my father, I did something I'd sworn to myself I never would

do." His eyes grew dark as he spoke, and his nostrils flared with self-loathing.

Jazz studied him a moment, and she knew. "You used magic to find the thief."

Harry put his hands over his mouth and nose. His gaze seemed lost. "Yes."

"But... magic. It's all storybook stuff to me. You and Terence talk about it like it's... like you could

just reach out and touch it."

"Not so simple as that, love. Oh, it's here now, all around us. And some people —you and I

included—can sense it at times. Those who dare, those who know the right words or gestures or symbols,

can tap into it. But magic has faded, the same way the stories about it have."

Jazz rolled that around in her brain for a few seconds. Once it would have seemed completely absurd

to her, but she had witnessed the ghosts of old London and heard the Hour of Screams, and she knew there

was more to the world than what the worker bees rushing around the city could see.

"And the thief? It was Terence?"

Harry clapped his hands together. "Precisely. One of my father's students, in fact. Twenty years my

junior. Yes, I'm afraid I'm not quite as old as I appear. Time has not been kind to me.

"As you surmise, I located the thief, but his reaction was not what I would have expected at such a

discovery. Terence was so pleased that I'd been able to track him down that he gave me back everything

he'd taken from the house without my even asking. He wanted to know how I'd done it, of course. Such

things fascinated him. Thought there must be some trick to it and wanted to learn. I ought to have turned

him in to the police, but I did not. I told Anna that I'd found a bag tossed aside in the garden and there

would be no way to catch the thief. I said we ought to be content just to have gotten our things back.

"Terence and I crossed paths again a few days later. Anna and I had been packing up my father's

things to vacate the house —university property, you understand—when he appeared at the door and

insisted I tell him how I'd found him. The mystery had been driving him mad, he said. We made a bargain.

Simple enough. He'd show me some of the tricks of his trade if I'd tell him the truth. I was sure he wouldn't

believe me, you see. But, then, I didn't know about his father or the apparatus he was building. You see

what I mean about fate, Jazz girl? It seemed like more than serendipity that the two of us had come



together."

Harry paused then, and at last his gaze seemed to focus on their present circumstances. He looked at

Jazz.

"How much did Terence tell you?"

Jazz considered a moment, then said, "Not everything, I'm sure. I know they killed his father. They

wanted the ap-paratus for themselves, to gather up all the city's old magic. But they didn't have the battery,

so the apparatus was useless to them. Terence said they took it apart, scattered the parts about, so nobody

else could use it."

Harry nodded. "And they've been looking for the bat-tery ever since. So has Terence. I looked with

him for the longest time. We spent years stealing back pieces of the ap-paratus. These —" He gestured to

the photos on the table. "I created an elaborate ruse, even set up a photographer's shop with family money

and used all of the connections my late father's status would allow to manipulate myself into the good

graces of the Blackwood Club. I needed to know the identity of each member, so we would know where to

look."

Jazz held up a hand to halt him. "All right, I get it. Now, suppose for a moment that I believe all this.

How did you get from there to here? You had money, status, and a pur-pose. Terence is still topside, still on

his crusade. But you're down here in the dark."

Harry let his gaze drop, a rueful smile on his face. "Terence tried to teach me as best he could, but

the shame-ful truth, my dear, is that old Harry never became half the thief Mr. Whitcomb was. Nor half the

actor. They found me out, tried to make me tell them who else I worked with. Didn't speak a word about

Terence. Not a word. I thought they'd kill me. But they weren't always as hard as they are now. They

knew me, yeah? Knew my family. They told me to disappear, to vanish myself forever. That if any of them

ever saw me again, they'd kill Anna. Couldn't have any con-tact with her. Not ever."

Shamed, he hung his head, but after a moment he glanced up, eyes damp with tears. "The worst of it

is that Anna died last year. Cancer took her. I went to the hospital, tried to say good-bye, but she didn't

know me by then. Barely conscious. She's dead and they've got nothing over me now, but I'm still down

here." His laugh was bitter.

"Wouldn't know what to do with myself topside any-more. I don't know how to live in that world.

And I've got the young ones to look after, don't I? Who knows what would happen to them without me?"

Jazz studied him. Despite her natural suspicion, every-thing Harry had said had the ring of truth. His

grief was painful to see. But looking at him, she was certain he had not told her everything.

"You knew my father."

Harry frowned. "Only to photograph him."

A niggling thought worked at the back of her mind, puzzle pieces attempting to fit together. "The

Blackwood Club killed Terence's father and threatened to kill your sis-ter. You see where I'm going?"

"You want to know if your father fell victim to his friends. The Senate burying their knives in

Caesar."

"Caesar?" she said, and a ripple of revulsion went through her as she realized what he meant. "My

father was... what? Club president?"

Harry got up and walked to a cabinet, poured himself a snifter of scotch, and leaned against the wall.

"I don't think they have such titles," he said, taking a sip. "Not so far as I know, anyway. And, yes. James

Towne ran the Blackwood Club, at least back in those days. The club goes back a long way, you see. More

than two hundred years. But Josephine —the ice queen in that photo—thought that, as the only living

Blackwood, she ought to lead them."

"She murdered him?" Jazz heard how small her own voice had become.

"Nothing of the sort. Your old man tried a bit of magic that was too big for him. Something dark and

ugly, from what the whispers said at the time. Cost him his life. Right after that was when they found me

out, drove me off."

"And my mother?"

"Never met the woman."

Images of her mother's corpse sprawled halfway off her bed and the words smeared in blood on the

wall filled her mind. Jazz blinked hard, holding back tears, but she knew that when she spoke, the quaver in

her voice would reveal her anguish.

"All those years, why did the Uncles —the Blackwood Club, I mean—why did they look after us like

that?"

Harry threw back the scotch in his glass and squeezed his eyes closed. When he opened them, his

gaze was intense. "They were obsessed and ambitious. Nasty, greedy bastards. But they had a loyalty to



the club. I can't know for sure, you understand. Just a theory, but from what little I knew of them, I expect

it was just them taking care of their own. You were James Towne's family, so they looked out for you. And

maybe they wanted to make sure you didn't know anything that could hurt them."

Jazz's throat felt dry. She wouldn't have minded a scotch herself. "Then why did they kill her?"

"That, I haven't the faintest idea."

His expression was blank, not a trace of a smile or frown, and Jazz knew he was lying. Her pulse

fluttered and she searched his eyes.

"Harry, don't —" she started to say.

A gunshot interrupted her, echoing down to the Palace from the stairwell and muffled by the doors.

Jazz stood, knocking over her chair, and took two steps away from the door.

"Christ!" Harry said.

She turned and reached out a beckoning hand. "Come on," she whispered. "We've got to go out the

back. It's got to be them."

Harry stared at the door. "I'm not sure about that."

He set his glass down on the table and went to the door. Jazz wanted to shout at him, ask him what

the hell he was doing, but making noise didn't seem like the smartest idea. She took a step toward the rear

exit. Even if they came through, she could still make it out as long as she reached that back door and locked

it from the other side.

She held her breath.

A knock came on the door, slow and methodical. Jazz flinched. She hadn't heard footsteps or voices,

just that one shot and now the knocking. Harry stared at the door a sec-ond, but then he turned the handle

and swung it wide open.

A figure stood framed in the doorway. For a moment all she could make out were the eyes, and they

were familiar enough to make her shiver. The magician, she thought. But then she saw that he had no hat,

and the clothes were differ-ent. This was no Victorian ghost but a flesh-and-blood man, and when he took a

step into the light she blinked in sur-prise. How could she have mistaken Terence for a ghost?

Stevie Sharpe followed behind him, pressing a gun against Terence's back. Stevie's lower lip had

been split and blood trickled down his chin. He wiped it away with his free hand, keeping the gun on

Terence. "F*ck's sake, Stevie!"

But he didn't even glance at her, his face grim and sullen.

"Hello, Jazz," Terence said, smiling at her. "I'm sorry to say it, but I suspect your breakfast has gotten

cold."

"But you've got. the gear!" she blurted.

He raised an eyebrow, shrugged. "Hmm."

Harry crossed his arms and stared at Terence for a mo-ment before glancing past him.

"Well done, Stevie. Smart lad."

Stevie spit blood onto the floor. "Hattie's guitar'll have to wait. Thought I'd keep an eye on the tunnel,

see if any rats came down after the cheese."

Jazz stared at the small pistol in his hand. "Where the hell did you get a gun?"

His smile was bitter. "You don't know everything, you know? We were doing just fine before you

came along. Would've been better off if you'd stayed gone."

His tone belied the words. Her staying out all night had stung him. Stevie was angry, which stunned

her. All the time she had fancied him, she'd never been sure how he felt. But none of that mattered now. If

they'd ever been on a path that could have led to some shared future, Jazz had left that path, and there

could be no going back.

"Hello, Harry," Terence said.

"Terry. Nice of you to pay us a visit. We were just rumi-nating on the little web that seems to have

entangled us all. Apparently you didn't think enough of her to tell her the whole story."

Despite his struggle with Stevie and the gun pressed against his back, Terence still managed a

roguish smile. But Jazz had seen the look before and knew it was a mask.

"I meant to continue the conversation over breakfast, but I found myself eating alone."

His gaze penetrated deeply. She did not want to trust him, did not even want to think well of him. But

at the same time, the idea that she had hurt him troubled her in ways that Stevie's feelings of betrayal never

would.

"It wasn't by choice," Jazz said. "I really did just go for a walk to clear my head. But a copper spotted

me. He got hold of me but didn't try to arrest me. He got on his mobile, said something about the mayor

giving him a reward if he brought me in. If I hadn't gotten away..."



She let the words trail off, hating that she was making excuses.

Terence and Harry exchanged a dark look.

"Stevie, the time for bullets has passed," Harry said.

Reluctantly, Stevie made the pistol disappear inside his jacket. Terence gave him a nod, as though the

boy had just done him a courtesy.

"Jazz," Terence said, "did your mother ever say anything at all about the apparatus or about the

battery? Anything at all? It's vital that you try to remember."

Harry snorted. "Honestly, do you think they'd have left the woman alive all those years if they

thought she knew anything?"

"I don't know what to think," Terence said, his eyes never leaving Jazz. "They must have decided she

did know, after all, or else they wouldn't have killed her. And if they want to get their hands on Jasmine this

badly, there's only one reason I can think of —they think she knows where the battery is."

Harry tilted his head to one side as though in thought. "Perhaps."

"You bastard," Jazz whispered, staring at Terence.

He flinched, narrowing his eyes. "Excuse me?"

"You knew who I was all along. I must have 'issues' with the Blackwood Club, that's what you said.

But you knew what my bloody issues were."

Terence opened his hands in surrender. "I just wanted it to come out in its own time. I was afraid

you'd think I was involved with them somehow."

"Aren't you?"

Harry and Terence both started arguing with her at once. Jazz waved them silent.

"Oh, shut up. You are involved. I know you didn't have anything to do with killing her, but you're

connected to all of this down to the roots, the both of you." She glared at Harry. "You still want to tell me

this is all coincidence? All f*cking destiny?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm afraid it is. Unless there's some-thing you're not telling us."

Jazz quieted at that. There were things she hadn't told them. Harry knew she saw and heard the

ghosts of old London —hell, he saw them as well—and Terence had hinted that he suspected as much. But

she hadn't shared with them the vividness of her visions of the ghosts or men-tioned the way the magician's

wraith had seemed to notice her in a way the other specters were incapable of doing. She hadn't told them

about the impulse she felt from time to time to descend even deeper underground, to go through certain

doors.

They had kept their secrets from her well, these two old disenchanted friends. Through one part

spite, one part cau-tion, and one part sheer stubbornness, she determined to keep what secrets she had left

from them.

Terence looked at her strangely, but Jazz ignored him.

"Now what?" she asked.

"I've asked Jazz to help me steal the battery," Terence told Harry.

Stevie moved around to the table, eyeing him with great suspicion. He took Harry's glass and poured

himself a shot of scotch, knocked it back, and grimaced as it went down. Then he crossed his arms.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "You know where it is?" he asked, but it was clear he didn't believe it.

"Not precisely. I've got all of the other pieces, save the battery. I've been inside the homes of every

member of the Blackwood Club. To say they're displeased would be under-stating it quite a bit. I'd planned

to come and see you once I had all the pieces of the apparatus. Jasmine moved my plans up by a day or

so."

He smiled softly at her. Jazz smiled back, unable to help herself.

Stevie gave a derisive sniff.

"I need your help, Harry," Terence said. Harry glanced at Jazz. Something about the way he looked

at her made her skin crawl, as though he was evaluat-ing her somehow.

"That's all in the past for me. You know that." "Why?" Jazz asked.

All three of them looked at her in surprise.

She shrugged. "Your sister's dead, Harry. There's noth-ing to stop you helping Terence now."

Harry shook his head in obvious disappointment. "Your memory is short, Jazz girl. Have you

forgotten our Cadge so quickly? These people murdered him. I won't risk the lives of the others."

"Shouldn't that be up to them?" Jazz said.

Throwing up his hands, Harry crossed over to the table and sat down. "It doesn't matter, anyway," he

said, poking a cold bit of sausage with a fork. "I looked before, remember? Nowhere left to search. And the

Blackwood pricks never had the battery to begin with."



"Maybe not back then," Terence said, all humor leaving him. "Last couple of years, they've been

after me harder than ever. I've had to give up on two houses in the past twelve months because they almost

found me, they were moving the few bits of the apparatus I hadn't already lifted more and more often... and

the only reason I can think of is that they were close to finding the battery and afraid I was too."

Jazz frowned. "You don't know that. You don't know a damn thing. They could have been watching

you all along or just been content that if they couldn't find it, neither could you. Jumping to conclusions

would be stupid."

Terence gave her a sharp look. Jazz did not flinch.

"Let's say they did find it," Harry said. "It could've been moved a hundred times. A thousand."

Terence dismissed them both with a gesture. "I haven't found it, so they must have."

"All right, spit it out!" Jazz said. "Where is it?"

"You said you'd been in all of their houses," Stevie Sharpe said, suddenly taking an interest.

"I haven't been in the mayor's house."

They all stared at Terence.

"The bloody mayor's house!" Stevie snapped.

"He's not even a member of the club," Harry said.

"True enough," Terence replied. "But he's their man, isn't he? Does their bidding, yeah?"

"That's what you want my help with?" Harry asked.

Terence glanced at Jazz. "I couldn't do it by myself. Once I saw young Jasmine's talents, I knew it

could be done with her assistance. But it'll take more than that. I'll need people outside, a distraction. And it

wouldn't hurt any if you could take a walk past the house and tell me if you can sense anything."

Jazz frowned. "What do you mean, sense anything?"

Terence arched an eyebrow. "Harry didn't tell you about his little sixth sense? It's why he was so

helpful to me, back before he became a tunnel rat. He may not touch magic any-more, but he's got a sense

for it. He can practically smell it."

"Bullshit," Stevie said, snickering at the absurdity of it all.

But Jazz was watching Harry, and he didn't laugh at all. Didn't even smile. After a moment, Stevie's

smile went away as well.

"And if it isn't there?" Harry asked.

Terence shrugged. "Then I'm no worse off than I am today."

Long seconds passed until, finally, Harry lifted his gaze. He studied Jazz, glanced at Stevie, and

turned at last to Terence.

"All right. We'll give you a hand. The mayor sent a crew down here to drive us out, make some nice

headlines about fighting crime, cleaning up London. They killed one of my boys. I owe the f*cker. So

there's a bargain here. You'll go in. You'll take Jazz, but you're taking young Stevie as well. He's the best

I've got, and I suspect you'll need him. And while he's there, he's going to do a bit of damage and nick as

many baubles as he can lay hands on. Mayor Bromwell's got to pay for Cadge."

Terence narrowed his eyes. "This isn't about revenge, Harry."

Harry smiled. "Isn't it? You can talk all you want about the way the world ought to be, how we've

got to put magic behind us to find the glory of the new age, or whatever bol-locks you're spouting now. And

maybe there's something to all of that. But once upon a time, back at the start, it was about the bastards

murdering your dad. We all have debts to collect, Terry."

Terence glanced at Jazz. "You in?"

She nodded. "Doesn't mean I'm not still angry with you."

"Fair enough," he said.

He walked to the table and put out his hand. Harry stood and took it, and the two thieves shook,

sealing the bargain.