– Someone’s electricity bill upstairs will be huge for this! We made sure it was ran off the council’s bill. A just retribution, no?

Bill nods.

Picks his way across to her.

His hat skims the roof.

He takes it off and holds it in front of himself respectfully.

Holds out the money.

It disappears.

– Pick a tune, Bill.

He goes over to the jukebox. It has circles glowing in blue light under the glass dome. Puts a coin in. The record arm drops down. ‘The End of the World’ by Skeeter Davis – lilts through holes in stone walls and travels off down into the catacombs below the city.

– My favourite young poet. Just a blink of an eye since you were last here, no?

– It feels like that, Little Mama.

– Doesn’t it?

– Always.

He’s walked out that door and had a year elsewhere. Or that was just the dream and he has been here all the time. That’s how it feels. He nods. He wants to do it here. Little Mama gets her accoutrements together.

– Are you living here now, Little Mama?

– Aye, still got the same supplier. They live up in the gods – seventh floor. They take their cut, and stay out of the polis’s sight. I stay high. Win-win. I fall asleep here sometimes. I’ve got a flat down in Granton.

She waves her hands around the basement like she is in the Los Angeles Hilton.

– Did you go back inside, Little Mama?

– Twice.

Little Mama looks like a child fixing up.

– You remind me of my ex-wife.

– Aye? Why d’ye think yer back here then, Mr Burroughs?

– All things happen for a reason, Little Mama. We live in a magical universe.

– We sure do, kid.

– I got love in me.

– Oh really? For me? I hope you don’t cut yer wee finger off tae impress me?

Bill smiles.

– That’s sick.

– Why, thank you, Bill!

– It’s why I like the people of this city, you are nothing if not dark-humoured. You know, they say I cut it off to impress my lover, but it was actually demonic possession. They would have locked me away for longer if I’d told them. Why do you think I got so good at scrying?

– You really curse those who cross you?

– Damn right I do.

– I bet you do a good curse, young man.

Bill sticks his stumped finger up at her and she laughs with glee. He selects another button on the jukebox with it. ‘Be My Baby’ by the Ronettes spins.

– When ye going back to London, Bill?

– Probably in the morning, or maybe Sunday, or Saturday, I don’t know – it depends on what happens before then.

– Be careful, things are tight in Scotland just now. They’re clamping down on all crime hard.

– Is that right?

– Aye, they just hanged a man.

– Where?

– Aberdeen, few weeks back.

– What for?