Neverwhere

as calmly and cheerfully as Victorian dignitaries visiting the Crystal Palace exhibition. When they arrived at a crossroads, Mr. Croup would kneel and find the nearest spot of blood, and they would follow it. They were like hyenas, exhausting their prey. They could wait. They had all the time in the world.
Luck was with Richard, for a change. He caught a black taxi, driven by an elderly man who took Richard home by an unlikely route involving streets Richard had never before seen, while holding forth, as Richard had discovered all London taxi drivers will hold forth—given a living, breathing, English-speaking passenger—on London’s inner-city traffic problems, how best to deal with crime, and thorny political issues of the day. Richard jumped out of the cab, left a tip and his briefcase behind, managed to flag down the cab again before it made it into the main road and so got his briefcase back, then he ran up the stairs and into his apartment. He was already shedding clothes as he entered the hall: his briefcase spun across the room and crash-landed on the sofa; he took his keys from his pocket and placed them carefully on the hall table, in order to ensure he did not forget them.
Then he dashed into the bedroom. The buzzer sounded. Richard, three-quarters of the way into his best suit, launched himself at the speaker.
«Richard? It’s Jessica. I hope you’re ready.»
«Oh. Yes. Be right, down.» He pulled on a coat, and he ran, slamming the door behind him. Jessica was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. She always waited for him there. Jessica didn’t like Richard’s apartment: it made her feel uncomfortably female. There was always the chance of finding a pair of Richard’s underwear, well, anywhere, not to mention the wandering lumps of congealed toothpaste on the bathroom sink: no, it was not Jessica’s kind of place.
Jessica was very beautiful; so much so Richard would occasionally find himself staring at her, wondering, how did she end up with me? And when they made love—which they did at Jessica’s apartment in fashionable Kensington, in Jessica’s brass bed with the crisp white linen sheets (for Jessica’s parents had told her that down comforters were decadent)—in the darkness, afterwards, she would hold him very tightly, and her long brown curls would tumble over his chest, and she would whisper to him how much she loved him, and he would tell her he loved her and always wanted to be with her, and they both believed it to be true.
«Bless me, Mister Vandemar. She’s slowing up.»
«Slowing up, Mister Croup.»
«She must be losing a lot of blood, Mister V.»
«Lovely blood, Mister C. Lovely wet blood,»
«Not long now.»
A click: the sound of a switchblade opening, empty and lonely and dark.
«Richard? What are you doing?» asked Jessica.
«Nothing, Jessica.»
«You haven’t forgotten your keys again, have you?»
«No, Jessica.» Richard stopped patting himself and pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his coat.
«Now, when you meet Mister Stockton tonight,» said Jessica, «you have to appreciate that he’s not just a very important man. He’s also a corporate entity in his own right.»
«I can’t wait,» sighed Richard.
«What was that, Richard?»
«I can’t wait,» said Richard, rather more enthusiastically.
«Oh, please hurry up,» said Jessica, who was beginning to exude an aura of what, in a lesser woman, might almost have been described as nerves. «We mustn’t keep Mister Stockton waiting.»
«No, Jess.»
«Don’t call me that, Richard. I loathe pet names. They’re so demeaning.»
«Spare any change?» The man sat in a doorway. His beard was yellow and gray, and his eyes were sunken and dark. A hand-lettered sign hung from a piece of frayed string around his neck and rested on his chest, telling anyone with the eyes to read it that he was homeless and hungry. It didn’t take a sign to tell you that; Richard, hand already in his pocket, fumbled for a coin.
«Richard. We haven’t got the time,» said Jessica, who gave to charity and invested ethically. «Now, I do want you to make a good impression, fiance-wise. It is vital that a future spouse makes a good impression.» And then her face creased, and she hugged him for a moment, and said, «Oh, Richard. I do love you. You do know that, don’t you?»
And Richard nodded, and he did.
Jessica checked her watch and increased her pace. Richard discreetly flicked a pound coin back through the air toward the man in the doorway, who caught it in one grimy hand.
«There wasn’t any problem with the reservations, was there?» asked Jessica. And Richard, who was not much good at lying when faced with a direct question, said, «Ah.»