Nightingale lament

I peered up and over the reception desk, and saw one of those icily gorgeous secretaries who are de rigueur in all the better offices. The kind who would bite their own limbs off before letting you past without an ap­pointment. She studiously ignored me. The phone rang, and she answered it in a cool and utterly business-like way, as though there wasn't a half-dead private eye bleeding all over her lousy carpet. It could have been just another day in any office, anywhere.

I turned around slowly, gritting my teeth against the shooting pains, and put my back against the desk. After I'd got my breath back from the exertion, I realised there were other people in the office apart from me. In fact, there was quite a crowd of them, filling all the chairs, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, and leaning against the walls. Young, slim, fashionable and Goths to a boy and a girl, they lounged bonelessly, flipping through music and lifestyle magazines, chatting quietly and comparing tattoos, and checking out their elaborate make-up in hand mirrors. They all had the same uni­form of black on black, pale faces and heavy dark eye make-up. Skin like chalk, eyes like holes - Death's clowns. Piercings and purple mouths and silver ankhs on chains. A spindly girl curled up in a chair noticed me watching and put aside her copy of Bite Me magazine to consider me dispassionately.

"Damn, they really put a world of hurt on you. What did you do to make them mad?"

"I was just being me," I said, trying hard to keep my voice sounding light and effortless. "I have this effect on a lot of people. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, we're all just hanging out. We run errands, sign fan photos for the stars, do a bit of everything really, just to help out. In return, we get to hang, hear all the latest gossip first. And sometimes we even get to meet the stars, when they show up here. Our favourite's Rossignol, of course."

"Of course," I said.

"Oh, she is just the best! Sings like a dark angel, love and death all wrapped up in one easy-on-the-eyes package. She sings like she's been there, and it's all going to end tomorrow ... we all just adore Rossignol!"

"Yeah," said a skull-faced boy, in his best sepulchral growl. "We all love Rossignol. We'd die for her."

"What makes her so special?" I asked. "Worth dying for?"

They all looked at me like I was mad.

"She is just so cool, man!" a barely legal girl said finally, tossing her long black hair angrily, and I knew that was all the answer I was going to get.

"So," said one of the others. "Are you, you know, anyone?"

"I'm John Taylor," I said.

They all looked at me blankly and went back to their magazines and their conversations. If you weren't in the music biz, you weren't anyone. And none of them gave a damn about my condition or predicament. They wouldn't risk doing anything that might get them ba

The door to the i

Finally, I looked at my hosts. The Cavendishes re­sembled long spindly scarecrows clad in undertakers' cast-offs. Even standing still, there was something awkward and ungainly about them, as though they

might topple over if they lost concentration. Their clothes were City Gent, both the man and the woman - characterless, anonymous, timeless. Their faces were unhealthily pale, the skin u

They both stepped forward suddenly, to stand right in front of me, and their movements were eerily synchronised. Mr. Cavendish had short dark hair, a pursed pale mouth, and a flat, almost emotionless glare, as though I was less an enemy than a problem that needed solving. Mrs. Cavendish had long dark hair, good bone structure, a mouth so thin there were hardly any lips to it, and exactly the same eyes.

They made me think of spiders, contemplating what their web had brought them.

"You have no business here," the man said suddenly, the words cold and clipped. "No business. Isn't that right, Mrs. Cavendish?"

"Indeed it is, Mr. Cavendish," said the woman, in a very nearly identical voice. "Up to no good, I'll be bound."

"Why do you interfere in our business, Mr. Taylor?" said the man.

"You must explain yourself," said the woman.

Their ma

"Tell me," I said. "Is it really true you're brother and sister as well as husband and wife?"

I braced myself for the beating, but it still hurt like hell. When the Somnambulists finally stopped, at some unseen signal, it was only their grip on my shoulders that kept me upright.

"We always use Somnambulists," said the man. "The very best kind of servants. Isn't that so, Mrs. Cavendish?"

"Indeed yes, Mr. Cavendish. No back talk, and no treacherous independence."

"Good help is so hard to find these days, Mrs. Cavendish. A sign of the times, I fear."

"As you have remarked before, Mr. Cavendish, and quite rightly." The woman and the man looked at me all the time they were speaking, never once even glancing at each other.

"We know of you, John Taylor," said the man. "We are not impressed, nor are we disposed to endure your famous insolence. We are the Cavendishes. We are Cavendish Properties. We are people of substance and of standing, and we will suffer no intrusions into our affairs."

"Quite right, Mr. Cavendish," said the woman. "You are nothing to us, Mr. Taylor. Normally, you would be utterly beneath our notice. You are only one little man, of dubious parentage. We are a corporation."

"The singer Rossignol is one of our Properties," said the man. "Mrs. Cavendish and I own her contract. Her career and life are ours to manage, and we always pro­tect what's ours."

"Rossignol belongs to us," said the woman. "We own everything and everyone on our books, and we never let go of anything that's ours."

"Except to make a substantial profit, Mrs. Cavendish."

"Right you are, Mr. Cavendish, and I thank you for reminding me. We don't like anyone taking an un­healthy interest in how we manage our affairs, Mr. Tay­lor. It is no-one's business but ours. Many would-be heroes have tried to meddle in our concerns, down the years. We are still here, and mostly they are not. A wise man would deduce a useful lesson from these facts."

"How are you pla

"On the whole, we deplore violence," said the man. "It's so ... common. So we have others perform it for us, as necessary. If you a