CHAPTER 24

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“Take the weight off your back foot.”

“I can’t.”

“Try it.”

“Like this?”

“Like that.”

Nervously, hesitantly, almost, she told herself, as if – She stopped telling herself what what she was doing was like because she had a feeling she didn’t altogether want to know.

She fixed her eyes very very firmly on the guttering of the roof of the decrepit warehouse opposite which had been annoying her for weeks because it was clearly going to fall off and she wondered if anyone was going to do anything about it or whether she ought to say something to somebody, and didn’t think for a moment about the fact that she was standing on the hands of someone who wasn’t standing on anything at all.

“Now,” said Arthur, “take your weight off your left foot.”

She thought that the warehouse belonged to the carpet company who had their offices round the corner, and took the weight off her left foot, so she should probably go and see them about the gutter.

“Now,” said Arthur, “take the weight off your right foot.”

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

She hadn’t seen the guttering from quite this angle before, and it looked to her now as if as well as the mud and gunge up there there might also be a bird’s nest. If she leaned forward just a little and took her weight off her right foot, she could probably see it more clearly. Arthur was alarmed to see that someone down in the alley was trying to steal her bicycle. He particularly didn’t want to get involved in an argument at the moment and hoped that the guy would do it quietly and not look up. He had the quiet shifty look of someone who habitually stole bicycles in alleys and habitually didn’t expect to find their owners hovering several feet above them. He was relaxed by both these habits, and went about his job with purpose and concentration, and when he found that the bike was unarguably bound by hoops of tungsten carbide to an iron bar embedded in concrete, he peacefully bent both its wheels and went on his way. Arthur let out a long-held breath.

“See what a piece of eggshell I have found you,” said Fenchurch in his ear.

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