CHAPTER 47

THE HUNTER HUNTED

There is a phenomenon that all hunters of dangerous prey who stay long in the field become aware of eventually: a vague unease creeps in and–prompted perhaps by some horripilant tingling in the triangle between the shoulder-blades and the back of the neck–the hunter wonders if at some stage the roles have been reversed, and the prey he seeks has doubled back and is perhaps even now stalking him.

Hodge got this feeling as he walked carefully along the ridge of a roof above one of the nastier rookeries on the westernmost limits of the City. Even at this height, the smell was so bad that he wondered how Jed could possibly distinguish anything useful from the rich and varied stink, a noisome concoction of damp coal fires, rotting vegetables and raw sewage bound together by the underlying accreted funk of the hundreds of unwashed occupants of the ramshackle mess of dwellings below.

This jerry-built hotchpotch of buildings was crowded so close around the maze of alleys that at certain points they seemed to lean over them and drunkenly support one another. This kept light and fresh air out, and ensured that life at ground level took place in a permanently crepuscular miasm of shadows and stench which made it dangerous and unhealthy in equal degree, though the sullen and usually gin-soaked knots of corner-men lurking in the gloom contributed an extra level of threat to the unwary.

Jed worked the alleys, keeping his nose down and his head low to the ground. Hodge took the high ground, walking the roof ridges and gable ends with the ease of a practised urban mountaineer. He carried a small grappling hook which swung easily from his hand and as he moved, and which was attached to a strong length of manila rope. On the steeper pitches, he would lob the hook ahead, secure it and then pull himself onwards and upwards. He was sure-footed but he was not reckless, rather relying on the methodical and practical side of his nature, the one that balanced the berserker streak that also ran through him.

It was his methodical approach that kept him so relentlessly on the trail of the breath-stealer even though the scent was still lost to him and Jed. He had begun by circling the building the Alp had been in at a ten yard radius, hoping to cross the trail. When that failed, he had painstakingly widened the circle and tried again and again. Failure had not dented his determination; rather it had bedded it in and strengthened his resolve.

Now he was patrolling a circle whose radius was almost a full mile and a half from the room in which he had discovered the dead baby, a wide sweep that brought him to both the roof ridge upon which he now stood, and the moment when he became aware that something or someone might be watching and following him.

He squatted in the lee of a crumbling chimneystack and made himself as still and as calm as he could. He wished the Raven was with him, but it had been decided to leave it watching the house on Chandos Place. If he had been able to use the Raven’s eyes as it circled above, it would have been easier to spot if there was another person moving in tandem with him, keeping pace or perhaps closing in.

He slowed his breathing and let his eyes meander across the surrounding roofscape. He knew the easiest way to catch sight of something was not to look for it with the eye direct, but to allow attention to drift across a scene and catch any anomaly with the tail of the eye as it passed.

The irregularity of his current perch and the nearby slates and gables spread away on all sides before flattening out into more recognisable and uniform formations hinting at the wider streets and orderly squares beyond. Here and there, church spires jabbed through and pointed hopefully at the louring sky above, and far in the distance he saw the comforting swell of St Paul’s dome. He did not see anyone following him or watching him.

“You’re there though,” he growled. “I can feel your damn eyes on me.”