Something from the Nightside

I considered the matter. How much, to go back into the Nightside? How much is your soul worth? Your sanity? Your self-respect? But work had been hard to come by for some time now, and I needed the money. There were bad people in this part of London too, and I owed some of them a lot more than was healthy. I considered the matter. Shouldn't be that difficult, finding a teenage runaway. A quick in-and-out job. Probably in and gone before anyone even knew I was there. If I was lucky. I looked at Joanna Barrett and doubled what I had been going to ask her.

"I charge a grand a day, plus expenses."

"That's a lot of money," she said, automatically.

"How much is your daughter worth?"

She nodded briskly, acknowledging the point. She didn't really care what I charged. People like me would always be chump change to people like her.

"Find my daughter, Mr. Taylor. Whatever it takes."

"No problem."

"And bring her back to me."

"If that's what she wants. I won't drag her home against her will. I'm not in the kidnapping business."

It was her turn to lean forward now. Her turn to try and look dangerous. Her gaze was flat and hard, and her words could have been chipped out of ice.

"When you take my money, you do as I say. You

find that spoilt little cow, you drag her out of whatever mess she's got herself into this time, and you bring her home to me. Then, and only then, will you get paid. Is that clear?"

I just sat there and smiled at her, entirely unimpressed. I'd seen a lot scarier than her, in my time. And compared to what was waiting for me back in the Nightside, her anger and implied threats were nothing. Besides, I was her last chance, and both of us knew it. No-one ever comes to me first, and it had nothing to do with what I charge. I have an earned reputation for doing things my own way, for tracking down the truth whatever it takes, and to hell with whoever gets hurt in the process. Including, sometimes, my clients. They always say they want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but few of them really mean it. Not when a little white lie can be so much more comforting. But I don't deal in lies. Which is why I've never made the kind of money that would allow me to move in Mrs. Barrett's circles. People only come to me when they've tried absolutely everything else, including prayer and fortune-tellers. There was no-one else left for Joanna Barrett to turn to. She tried to stare me down for a while, and couldn't. She seemed to find that reassuring. She rummaged in her bag again, took out a completed cheque, and tossed it onto my desk. Apparently it was time for plan B.

"Fifty thousand pounds, Mr. Taylor. There will be another cheque just like it, when this is all over."

I kept a straight face, but inside I was grinning broadly. For a hundred grand, I'd find the crew of the Marie Celeste. It almost made going back into the Nightside worthwhile. Almost.

"There is ... a condition."

I smiled. "I thought there might be."

"I'm going with you."

I sat up straight again. "No. No way. No way in Hell."

"Mr. Taylor ..."

"You don't know what you're asking ..."

"She's been gone over a month! She's never been gone this long before. Anything could have happened to her by now. I have to be there ... when you find her."

I shook my head, but I already knew I was going to lose this one. I've always been a soft touch where family is concerned. It's what comes of never having known one. Joanna still wouldn't cry, but her eyes were bright and shining, and for the first time her voice was unsteady.

"Please." She didn't look comfortable saying the word, but she said it anyway. Not for herself, but for her daughter. "I have to come with you. I have to know. I can't just sit at home any more, waiting for the phone to ring. You know the Nightside. Take me there."

We stared at each other for a while, both of us perhaps seeing a little more of the other than we were used to showing the world. And in the end I nodded, as we both knew I would. But for her sake, I tried one more time to make her see reason.

"Let me tell you about the Nightside, Joanna. They call London the Smoke, and everyone knows there's no smoke without fire. The Nightside is a square mile of narrow streets and back alleys in the centre of city, linking slums and tenements that were old when the last century was new. That's if you believe the official maps. In practice, the Nightside is much bigger than that, as though space itself has reluctantly expanded to fit in all the darkness and evil and generally strange stuff that has set up home there. There are those who say the Nightside is actually bigger than the city that surrounds it, these days. Which says something very disturbing about human nature and appetites, if you think about it. Not to mention inhuman appetites. The Nightside has always been a cosmopolitan kind of place.