Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

were raised for these. They belonged to a man named Captain Adam Carris, apparently. Ring any bells?”

Adam sighs. “I don’t want them.”

“You’re going to need them.”

Pulling back the firing hammer, Adam meets less resistance than he’d been expecting. “They’ve been disarmed,” he says. “They’re ornamental.”

Magpie taps ash from the end of his cigarette. “You and I both know they can be repaired. And I’m working on getting you some gunpowder.”

Placing the pistol back in the package with its fellows, Adam seals the paper shut. “What do I need them for?”

“I promised to show you what I’ve been spending all my brother’s money on,” says Magpie. “It’s in Manchester. I’ll drive. And when we get there, everything will start to become a lot clearer. You just hold on to those, for now.”

“You could have just bought me a new gun.”

“In Britain?” Magpie laughs. “You’ve been living in the USA too long, Adam. Besides, I took those old pistols showing up to be an omen.”

They make their way back out of the pub. The terrible comedian has been replaced by a slightly better comedian, and the crowd are at least chuckling. “Tweed doesn’t suit you,” says Adam, as they emerge into Edinburgh. The problem, he thinks, is that the tweed suit makes Magpie look like a parody of a person. But then, maybe that’s the point.

“Everything suits me,” says Magpie, stamping out his stolen cigarette.

* * *

Manchester: like a piece of London has floated away, become an island, and rejected its heritage. Broad streets and eclectic architecture are wrapped in a layer of scaffolding and orange warning mesh, cars guided more by traffic cones and diversion signs than the marks on the roads. Construction cranes stand like flocks of yellow flamingos, looming over everything. Manchester: a sprawling, metropolitan, in-between place, neither north nor south; wholly itself, and wholly nothing of itself.

“Do you know,” says Magpie, thoughtfully, “I saw Snake here, once.”

“You did?” Adam can’t remember the last time he saw Snake.

“Yes.” Magpie weaves a clever route through the streets, dodging queues at temporary traffic lights. “He was working at a petrol station on the other side of town. I only noticed him when he started filling up my car.”

“How was he?”

“Well enough, I suppose. Tired looking. Wearing overalls a size too big. I don’t think he recognised me. The thing was, this was back when people were starting to get wary about smoking in petrol stations. A few explosions will regulate an industry like that. But all the while he was filling up my car, Snake had a lit cigarette at the corner of his mouth, limp between his lips. I was watching him in my wing-mirror, waiting for the cigarette to drop.”

“Do you think he knew?”

“I’m not sure,” says Magpie, carefully. “I don’t think it was like that. I think he was just tired. He didn’t even meet my eyes when I paid him. Just thanked me and moved on.”

“Did you see him again?”

“Not after that. I went by the next week, and it was someone else filling up the cars. There was a new sign warning about smoking in the station. Maybe he got fired. Or maybe he did recognise me, and wanted to move on.” Magpie shrugs. “Do you think about him much?”

Adam considers the question. “Not really.” The truth is that Adam tries not to think about anything too hard, these days. The needling mass of thorns filling his skull makes it difficult.

Gradually, the orange warning signs recede, to be replaced by intermittent scrappy parks. Dog walkers keep tight grips on leashes as their pets snarl and growl and snap at each other, and exchange polite pleasantries above the contained violence. The edges of grasses poke beyond their fences, trying to find cracks in the concrete so they might burst free of their containment. Black birds hop among the piles of litter, dragging white plastic bags around until their rotting treasures spill out across the paths. The monolithic towers of central Manchester are being replaced by low, suburban houses, no longer terraces, but semi-detached.

Looming above the houses is a stadium.

It’s an old, wooden place, marked by time, and the closer it gets, the more worn it seems. The weather has left scars across it, and some of its beams have rotted away, to be replaced by perilously balanced sections of scaffolding. The streets around it are composed of houses used to living beneath its shadow; sullen faces peer out from behind net curtains at the lone car as it passes down the empty streets. Then, when there are no more houses, there are the vast, weed-encrusted car parks surrounding the crumbling stadium, completely deserted, cracked white division lines being erased by years of rain.

Magpie parks somewhere near the back, steps out and takes a deep breath.

“Bracing, today,” he says.

“What is this place?”

“I forget the name of the club. The team was terrible, though. Some upstart manager with too much money bought a few cheap footballers and had this place put together. They lasted three seasons before the money ran out. I got it very cheap at auction.” Hauling open the boot of his car, Magpie rifles around until he finds an enormous set of keys. “So far as the council knows, I’m an eccentric millionaire using it as a private garden. I pay my taxes, contribute to various local organisations and charities, send the occasional hamper out to the surrounding houses, and everyone leaves it alone.” When he gets close enough to the stadium’s lowest extremities, he runs a hand across the peeling green paint. “No graffiti, and no tags. Football is a kind of religion in this area, from what I gather. The locals seem to think of this place as a sort of grave site, and that my bit of gardening is respectful.”

Magpie retrieves the rose from the back seat of the car. It’s still brilliant and perfect, contained in its bell jar; only marred by a crimson handprint across the glass. He hands it to