Christopher Fowler - Disturbia

'Dealing drugs?'

She gave him an old-fashioned look. 'No, dancing round their handbags.'

'Do you know which hospital they'll take him to?'

She rolled her eyes at him. 'They're not gonna take him to a hospital, you moron. He's carryin' for the club, isn't he? See the pub at the end of the next street?' She raised a satin finger and pointed to a corner tavern lit with strings of grubby, coloured bulbs. 'The bouncers'll drop him off over there.'

'In a pub ?'

'Well, he's got mates there who'll sort him out. If he goes to hospital it's the start of a long chain of events ending with the club closed, the licence fucked and him inside, so what do you reckon's the best solution? Here, my name's Betty. Let me give you my number.' She pulled a business card from her purple satin cleavage and pushed it into his hand. Vince read the card in his palm.

'Hostess/Escort Service and Ace Van Hire?'

'They're sidelines. I also do bereavement counselling and candle-art. Turn it over, that's my home number. No, I'll tell you what, you look like you need a drink inside you. You wanna buy me one? Go on, be a sport, it's the best offer you'll get around here.'

'I don't know,' said Vince. 'You're a bit aggressive.'

'You've got to be,' she replied. 'Didn't you notice? Girls outnumber blokes two to one in there. You need to find an original angle just to get a bit of chat out of someone.'

Striking up a conversation about who's been stabbed lately should do it, thought Vince. Betty was an extremely attractive woman, although she seemed to be suffering from battle-fatigue. It was hard work meeting new people these days.

'Look, I've got to say goodbye to my friends. Go on, go over there and wait for me. I'll have a large Black Death vodka and grapefruit. I'll see you in two minutes. Honest. God, I'm freezing my tits off.' She pulled at her décolletage, but goose-pimples were stippling her pale breasts. 'I knew this would be one of those fucking trouble-nights.'

Vince watched in wonder as she tottered away through the slush on three-inch heels. Then, helpless until he could locate the envelope containing the sixth challenge, he set off in the direction of the tavern.

'I WONDER if you understand what has happened to your country,' said Sebastian, pulling out a pine chair and reversing the seat so that he could sit astride it, facing Pam. He had sent St John Warner, Caton-James and the others up to the top of the house to monitor Vince's progress more carefully. Accorded the status of a dog, Barwick was allowed to remain.

Christ, thought Pam, he's got a captive audience. I'm going to get a speech.

'I believe the start of this city's decline into barbarism occurred between 1941 and 1943. Up until then we were a disciplined race. Did you know, they set up psychiatric clinics to deal with Londoners' neurotic illnesses during the Blitz, but hardly anybody attended? People stayed calm, drank tea and chatted about their problems with friends. No, it wasn't the bombing raids that broke our will, it was the silences between them.'

Sebastian shifted his chair closer. 'Three years of just getting by, surviving on rations, clearing rubble, making and mending. Londoners grew fractious, tired by the shoddiness of it all. The Regency buildings that typified this city – and there were a great number of them – decayed and disappeared. They couldn't ring church bells for fear the belfries would collapse. Soldiers were everywhere, trampling the parks. The only thing that rose from these ashes was London Rocket, the flower that sprang up on bombsites.' His eyes lost their focus. He looked past her to the night beyond the mullioned windows.

'And gradually, it changed. People lost their cheeriness, sleepwalking through their lives, no longer surprised by any deprivation. Delivered into chaos, their young became difficult to control. Vandalism was born. Women rebelled, worked alongside men, entered public houses unescorted. The LCC-controlled British Restaurant chain that provided cheap meals for those remaining in the city gave rise to a national reputation for poor cuisine. Temporary housing became permanent. A shabby wrecked city and its exhausted populace were poorly patched up and packed off into the next decade. Which leaves us where we are today, not seeking out inner peace and spiritual improvement but "competing in the world marketplace". In short, dear lady, we won the war and lost ourselves.'

Pam had been released from her post for Sebastian's visit, and was still rubbing her chafed wrists. She felt like a character from a prisoner-of-war movie, except that prisoner-of-war movies didn't usually make you sit through lectures about the good old days. She sensed a change of mood occurring; Sebastian had snapped out of his reverie.

'Time for you to answer some questions, I think,' he told her, rubbing at his eyes. He looked tired. 'Why were you following your friend?'

Pam thought it was obvious. 'I wanted to make sure he wouldn't get into trouble.'

'Excuse me?' Sebastian was incredulous. 'He got into trouble when he decided to break into our premises and access private information. He has no further rights of his own, and he's certainly violated ours. I think we've been very fair under the circumstances.'

'By scaring the life out of him with this ridiculous game?' Pam snapped back. 'What do you want from him?'

'I thought I'd made that pretty clear. Your friend needs to be shown that the city is not his personal playground. There are parts he is simply not qualified to enter.' He held up his hand and ticked off each point on his fingers. 'He is not free to publish whatever he feels like writing. We could simply wait for him to try and then sue his publisher for libel, but that's not the Promethean way. We intend this challenge to be instructive. I hope that eventually it will teach him how to behave in a once-civilised society such as ours. I was prepared to give him a fighting chance of publishing his book. I told him that if he completed all ten challenges successfully, he would be released from his contract with us -'

'Vince signed no contract.'

'Released from his contract,' he said, talking over her, 'and allowed to enter a modified version of his report for publication.'

'What do you mean a modified version? One that you've censored and rewritten?'

'I intend to fact-check it, yes,' he agreed. 'Which brings me to the main purpose of this meeting. We know he made two hard copies of his manuscript. Where are they? Who has them?'

'Why don't you ask him?'

'I'm asking you, Pamela. Is one of them in your charming Primrose Hill apartment?'

She had not told them her name, or where she lived. How the hell did they know?

'Look, I don't know what you think you're playing at -' she began.

'Oh for fuck's sake just tell me where I can find the fucking manuscripts!' he shouted in her face. 'Do you have either of them, and if you don't, where do you suppose they are? I can't be any plainer than that.'

His sudden change of mood alarmed her. Pam tried to think clearly. She knew the location of both manuscripts, but there might be even more than two. Vince had meticulously covered his tracks. Esther Goldstone had one copy. There could conceivably be another at the college or in Vince's apartment. Anyway, there was bound to be a version of it on disk somewhere. She doubted there was much point in trying to bluff Sebastian. His diatribe against declining standards had failed to explain the night's entertainment or his pleasure in finding a worthy opponent, and there was something in his defensive attitude that suggested another more mysterious purpose behind his bursts of self-righteous anger. If this was just a diversion for bored rich kids, it was an absurdly baroque one.