The woman to whom this question was addressed smiled what he couldn't help but feel was an overly brilliant smile. She was youngtoo young to be looking at this particular (very fine) property off High Holborn (rich with potential), and her straight black hair was streaked at the front with brilliant blue. Though she'd clearly tried to dress up for the meetingarranged with all of twenty-five minutes noticebeneath the hem of her slightly too-short black trousers she wore purple boots, and on her shoulder bag were pinned nearly a hundred badges proclaiming, to Bryan's growing alarm, messages in favour of peace, brotherhood and social equality.

"Coffee shop," she replied briskly, looking around the empty hall of the office. "Coffee Unlimited is the company namewe make simply amazing coffee." Then, as if it had been bugging her for a while, "It says 'Coming Soon' above the door to this placewhat's coming?"

"Well, that depends, Ms Li," replied Bryan, tugging at his individualistic, borderline-racey blue-and-white-striped tie. "I think you'll find the price per square foot of floor is very reasonable, considering the superb location-"

Sharon cut in, "So... nothing's coming?"

"Hopefully, you are! The development potential of this site is absolutely wonderful and I think you'll find that among its many attractions are" his voice deteriorated briefly into a jumble of misplaced syllables and grunts as, in his enthusiasm to demonstrate the attractiveness of the space, he stumbled backwards into an overturned paint can, the nearly solid liquid still clinging to the lip and a smell in the air, an odd... almost refuse-like aroma clinging on from the recent past "are its uh... its..." His voice trailed off. Really, was this what coffee executives looked like these days? But he'd looked up Coffee Unlimited and it had seemed reputable enough, and if they were looking to expandbut her hair was blue, and the look on her face as she examined the open-plan floor of this (excellent for the asking price) retail space was...

... disturbing.

But then he'd found this place disturbing for a while.

There was something in it, a muffled quality to the street noises outside, a thinness to the light creeping through the plywood over the windows, a loudness to his step on the dust-covered floor that was disproportionate to the force that made it. A hollowness in the air that made him want to run.

"What was the last business here?" she asked almost too casually.

"Uh... a herbal remedy outlet."

"And how long did they last?"

"I believe that they moved on for internal administrative reasons."

"Yeah, but how long?"

"About four months."

Sharon nodded and didn't look surprised. "And before that?"

"Before the herbal remedies?"

"Uh-huh. I'm asking cos of the important business data stuff," she added to assuage his reluctance.

"I believe it was an optician's."

"And how long was that here for?"

He hesitated, then blurted, "Coffee shops do very well round here, very well indeed; you're in the perfect place for the lunchtime crowds and there are so many offices-"

"Yeah, and how long?" she pressed.

Bryan sagged. "Six months."

He felt hot round the back of his collar. He hated coming here, hated trying to sell this place and hated, above all, hated the fact that in the last three months not one, not one customer, regardless of how low he pushed the price, had been remotely interested. He didn't understand. He was offering prime real estate at a rock-bottom price in a central part of towna deal which under any other circumstances would have got him firedand yet people left nervously, as if someone had died and there was a bloodstain on the floor that hadn't been cleaned up.

He realised Sharon was taking notes meticulously on a flip-up notepad under a heading which looked for all the world, from this angle, like Saving The City. Nor did he miss the emphatic double underlining with a ruler.

"Anything... odd happen here, ten months ago?" suggested Sharon. "Any complaints from the neighbours? Chanting? Dancing? Like, did anyone repaint the walls or anything in a way that made you think 'Yeah, animal sacrifice' or something like that?"

Bryan swallowed. This was getting a bit too individualistic for his taste. He thought about his sales figures and the flat in Fulham and replied, "Uh... not that I'm aware of. The property's only been on my portfolio for ten months, so maybe the previous management company might know something about that? But they can't offer you the same deal," he added, "which is, I must say, absolutely incredible for the-"

"How about uncontrollable screaming? Possession? Like, girls in pyjamas climbing off the walls and their heads doing this thing..." Sharon tried to turn her head all the way round to demonstrate the thing in question, tongue sticking out between her teeth, before returning to a rather more normal manner. "Anything like that?"

"You'd have to speak to the previous management company."

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, pen poised over the largely empty notebook page. "Is this freaking you out?" she asked. "I'm okay with subterfuge when you need it, but a lot of the time I figure a direct approach, combined with a sort of doe-eyed charm, probably hacks it. My mate Tom says it's hypocritical to play the dumb blonde, not that I'm blonde, in order to get what I want and be angry about it at the same time, but Tom has had issues ever since the incident with the pogo stick so I'm not so sure if... Are you sure you're okay?"

"Uh..." It was the long syllable of a man for whom language will no longer suffice.

"I've got several management techniques for when things freak me out," she went on. "I used to get panic attacks back at school, owing to the fact I really wasn't fitting in. Breathing through your nose helps, and so does counting from ten backwards. I was taught this saying too'I am beautiful, I am wonderful, I have a secret, the secret is-' "

"I'm not freaked out," insisted Bryan with near-asthmatic intensity. "I'm happy to help in any way I can."

"There are support groups," offered Sharon. "Just saying."

Bryan's glassy-eyed look suggested that, even if a support group had walked up to him right then and offered the secret of eternal happiness, all he could have done was try to sell it a condo. Sharon sighed and went back to her notebook. "So... you come along ten months ago and take over this place, and since then it's been silent? I mean like... you haven't been able to rent it?"

"The economic climate," he replied, recovering himself a little. "The recession. People are so reluctant to take courageous decisions, to see a great opportunity even when it's laid out before them."

"Why'd the last lot get rid of it, then? I mean, why'd your company get involved?"

He was sweating now; he could feel a slow stain seeping out beneath his armpits. And, oh God, had he remembered to put on deodorant this morning? "New buyer," he blurted, though he really wasn't sure why he felt the urge to be so honest. "A new company bought it but they didn't really want the place, they were only here for a few days then they moved out but they own it outright so we were brought on board to try and let it but they don't really seem to care and I'm just saying it's a wonderful opportunity for... a wonderful opportunity... a..."

Something in Sharon's smile, her fixed, radiant smile, was making the sweat prickle down his spine. "This company," she sang out sweetly, "what's its name?"

Chapter 32.

Do Unto Others As You Would Have Done Unto Yourself He said, "But they-"

She said, "Now Mr Mayor..."

He said, "They're a bunch of total-"

She said, "Now really, Mr Mayor, may I suggest, just suggest, that before you suggest the sponsors of the biannual Aldermen's dinner, stakeholdersand serious ones at thatin our very own Harlun and Phelps, suppliers of half our weaponry, and the gentlemen who pay for the golf memberships of senior staffmay I suggest you think before suggesting that these gentlemen engage, as a universal collective, in acts of a socially untoward sexual nature?"

He seethed, fingers drumming on the edge of his desk. A desk, how he hated having a desk; it reminded him every day of how easy it was to fall, how quickly you could forget the things that matter and throw them into the trash can to eternity that lay tucked beneath his damn desk. "Okay," he said. "Okay, Kelly. Leaving aside, for a moment, the sponsorship and the dinner and the shares and the golf; leaving aside, in fact, any reference to sex or death, can I just say this: they are evil."

"Mr Mayor-"

"And before you say anything, may I just add, I didn't call them tossers or wankers or festering warts on the arse-end of the devil's rotting behind. I didn't say that they were irredeemable gits, blaggards no less, nor the sewer that lies beneath the nether pit. Oh no! I kept it simple, I kept it pure, I kept it almost polite; you could have tweeted my views and still had characters to spare! Burns and Stoke," he concluded, with his arms flailing in their grubby coat, "are evil bloody bankers!"

Chapter 33.

Let Your Surroundings Reflect Yourself There had been some time spent on the Internet.

Then there had been some time spent on the phone.

Sharon discovered, to her annoyance, that by being flappy and vapid she got much better results than if she phoned up and just asked a simple question.

It took three hours, but the answers began to come through.

Retail space, High Holborn, unoccupied. OwnerBurns and Stoke.

Industrial unit, Clerkenwell, unoccupied. OwnerBurns and Stoke.

Brownfield site, Bromley; empty residential estate, Kentish Town; abandoned sixth-form college, Deptford; rotting community hall, Mitchamthe more she looked, now she knew what she was looking for, the more they began to emerge. All across the city Burns and Stoke owned properties with nothing much in common except that they were all empty, all abandoned, and no one seemed to want to do anything with them.

What had Sammy said?

"It ain't a good death; it ain't fire or flood; it's a declining death that don't bother to say hello or bye bye and you don't even notice you're dying until you're already dead."

Sharon sat back in her chair in a small Internet cafe off Holborn ViaductWe Repair Computers & Sell Fresh Smoothies!and considered. She was feeling, it has to be said, remarkably on-it. She hadn't felt this on-it, in fact, since that time during sociology AS level when the teacher asked the class what social construct meant and she hadn't only given an answer, it had been a good answer, and everyone had seemed very surprised. Was this, she wondered, what having a fulfilling career was like?

There only really seemed one thing for it.

She googled Burns and Stoke.

The Internet and Sharon Li had had good times and bad times, but if there was one truth about their relationship, it was that they had had a lot of times. There was nothing html could hide from her for long.

Burns and Stokethree years ago, a small investment company struggling with the fact that the debt it had bought in London and sold in Hong Kong to be sold to Shanghai to be sold to Paris to be sold to New York to be sold to New Delhi to be sold to Washington to be sold to Tokyo... had turned out not such a solid debt after all.

She flicked through articles warning of closure, whispering of redundancies and, ultimate sin, no Christmas bonuses. The imminent demise of this company didn't seem to have attracted much more attention from the press than as another sob story waiting to happen in a time of crisis until, at the very last moment...

New Faces at Burns & Stoke Shares recover on the news of a new management team taking over at the beleaguered investment firm Burns and Stoke. The new chair of the board, Mr Ruislip, promised to overhaul every aspect of the company's portfolio in an attempt to see where interests may be broadened in these difficult times...

And without any real warning or explanation, without any deal or bail-out or tangible change at all, from what Sharon could see, suddenly it seemed as if Christmas was back on the menu for Burns and Stoke.

It occurred to her that she knew nothing about banking.

She wondered if this would be a problem.

Hell, no, after all...

"I am beautiful, I am wonderful, I have a secret," she muttered.

She wrote down the address of the head office, picked up her bag, her notebook and Travelcard, and went in search of trouble.

Two Underground changes and forty minutes later, and Sharon stood on the street opposite the front door of Burns and Stoke and wondered if she hadn't made a mistake.

"Door" was in itself inaccurate. "Door" implied a nicely made pair of tall wooden panels that swung out on hinges, with maybe a matching frame and a brass knocker. This wasn't a door. This was a gateway, made of glass, all of it, not a single steel support in sight. It was a doorway for the king of the giraffes to parade through, flanked by his minions the overweight elephant and the portly bear. It was a spinning blade of a door, a perpetual swishing entrance to wonders, guarded by a man in white gloves and a bowler hat. Visible beyond him at a reception desk sat two women more beautiful than anything Sharon thought she had ever seen, who flashed smiles brighter than a full moon on a cloudless night. Their perfect nails clattered over keyboards as they noted your name, visiting office, date of birth, present address, National Insurance number, retinal pattern and political intent. A palm tree hung over a pool of pebble-lapping water, fed by a silver waterfall that fell from three storeys up with the same impossible silence as that of the opening door. The wall beyond the reception desk was also glass, revealing a hint of private pavement that led straight out onto the river, though, Sharon noted, no one seemed to have felt the urge to install tables or chairs for any workers wanting to admire this view. Clearly all they needed they already had within these crystal walls.

She felt tiny standing outside this monument to wealth, a gnome in purple boots. She hugged her bag to her chest and waited for the man with white gloves to look at her and call security, who were doubtless discreetly scattered around the half-hearted rock garden that ran down the centre of the square outside. The offices of Burns and Stoke felt no need to vaunt their presence on the building itself, but signs quietly pointed, with an old-fashioned innocence, from around the former docks of Canary Wharf, indicating which silver-clad embodiment of wealth lay above which private gym or behind what exclusive wine bar. Overhead, the Docklands Light Railway was as politely subdued as the signs themselves; underneath, subways bustled and hummed with shops full of the swish of silk on leather, the buzz of men buying expensive ties and women searching for designer handbags. It was a paradise, a testimony to wealth, health and clean livingbright, brilliant and utterly soulless.

Look and see, as only a shaman can.

There are shadows here, memories of things that went before, but they are crushed, buried beneath the reflective surface of the streets. When as a shaman she moves, when she walks and the boundaries grow thin between what is seen and what is perceived, the shapes of the creatures burrowing just beneath the surface become visible, like the shadows of fish beneath murky water. It is a place for cold zephyrs, for the spirits of the icy wind. Beneath the underground tunnels a greedy-eyed minotaur lurks, chewing on gold watches and playing the markets, while in the warm server rooms fire salamanders with flickering tongues warm themselves on the mother boards; all unseen, unknown, but no less real for that. Torn sheets from the daily newspapers swirl across the ground and sometimes, as the wind catches them and throws them up, they have a shape, form and limbs.

Sharon took a deep breath and walked towards the building. The man with white gloves eyed her, polite but doubtful, as she stepped into the revolving doors. They spun at precisely the speed to knock little old ladies off their feet, but not fast enough for the raging impatience of anyone late for a meeting. Inside, Sharon looked up, then up a bit further, through a shaft of glass: glass walkways linking glass offices which looked out onto elaborate glass sculptures. She shuffled up to the desk where the most beautiful receptionists in the world smiled their lighthouse smiles and felt, if possible, even smaller and possibly a bit spotty.

"Uh..." she began.

"Hi, how can we help you?"

"Well I..."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Um, no."

"Who are you visiting today?" The voice was sparkling, the smile was blinding, everything about them was sensory overload, the words hardly registering.

"Well, I, uh... I'm... I'm writing an article on urban... urban redevelopment and I was wondering if I could uh... like talk to someone in Burns and Stoke about their uh... their stuff. Yeah."

The smile shimmered like a mirage.

"And who would you like to talk to?"

"Um. The development guy?" she hazarded.

"Do you have his private extension?"

"No."

"An appointmentoh no, you already said. How about press credentials?"

It occurred to Sharon that for a smile to stay that fixed and that brilliant must have taken months of training and possibly surgery. "Are you fulfilled by your job?" she demanded, and couldn't quite believe the words had come out.

The smile stayed fixed, the eyes unnaturally wide.

"Pardon me?"

"Your job," she repeated. "Are you fulfilled by it?"