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to talk to her, talked about how
pleased the team all were.
    ‘Oh,’ he said now, ‘how’s she doing?’
    Laura was Sarah’s sister, who lived in Inverness and worked in computers. Quill had known her, when he’d first met Sarah, as Derek. There had been an awkward phone call before the
wedding. ‘Mate, listen, I’ve got a favour to ask. I want to come to the wedding as . . . OK, this is complicated, so I’m just going to say it. I’m having a sex change.
That’s not what they call it these days, but that’s what I call it. By the time the wedding comes round, I’m going to be living as a woman. Is that OK?’
    Quill had thought for a moment that Derek had been joking, but no. ‘Does Sarah know?’
    ‘Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first.’
    ‘It sounds,’ Quill had said, ‘like you and I are going to need a few pints of therapy.’
    When they went out, Quill had asked loads of questions, as coppers did, interested in someone who was doing such an extraordinary thing. He’d had a bit of awareness training back in the
day, but this was a mate. Derek had finally told Sarah everything. Sarah had been angry about Derek talking to Quill first, but Quill had seen the situation as a sign that he was getting on with
her family, and had talked and talked about it, to the point where the siblings had told him he could stop. He’d made sure Laura, as she now was, was welcome at the wedding.
    Now, they went out for a pint when Laura was in London, though Laura’s capacity for alcohol had declined a bit, and largely talked about Scottish soccer, of which Laura had an
extraordinary knowledge. Every now and then, though, Laura would, a bit deliberately, move the conversation to wider topics, in a way that Derek hadn’t. Quill had got the feeling she’d
been freed, and did his best to join in, though there were times he wanted to say that maybe Sarah should have come along too. He’d started to refer to her, a couple of pints in, as his
‘best mate’, which she probably was now that Harry had gone, but at one point, Laura had corrected him and said, ‘Best
friend
?’ Quill had nodded. So he now had a best
friend who wore dresses and make-up, and sometimes tried to get him to appreciate fabrics. He hadn’t seen her since he’d got the Sight, and the idea of going out with her and talking
about her stuff and not at all about the depth of shit he’d got lost in seemed like it could be a blessed relief.
    ‘She’s fine,’ said Sarah. ‘She’s had a promotion. She’s coming down at the weekend.’
    ‘Great.’ There was that momentary ache about the possibility that the sign over Hell’s doorway also referred to visitors to London, but no, he could choose not to believe
that.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sarah. ‘She’s house-hunting. She’s moving to London.’
    In his tiny flat above a shop in Walthamstow, Kev Sefton had finally managed to get to sleep, his boyfriend, Joe, snoring soundly as always beside him. The background noise of
London at night strayed in through the window, which was still open, just about, the first cool of autumn making the curtain flap.
    Sefton was dreaming tension dreams, his legs working at the duvet. Behind his eyes, he was looking up into the pleading face of . . . It wasn’t quite the actor who played Sherlock Holmes,
with the posh accent and the dextrous fingers. Sefton knew, in the way one knows things in dreams, that this was no actor; this was something from the heart of London itself, something with the
weight that sometimes crashes into dreams. This man had crashed in, desperate, panting, and was scrabbling at Sefton’s shirt, not trying to get it off – this wasn’t going to be
that sort of dream, no matter what his mind tried to make it. The man was trying to make Sefton understand something. Oh, it was Sherlock Holmes, the real Sherlock Holmes! (Was Sherlock Holmes
real?) He needed him; he was crying out. Sefton couldn’t understand what he was saying.