Drake by Peter McLean

nosy while I was in the shower. To be fair, if she had, if she’d stumbled upon the Burned Man, I doubted she would still be there.
    â€œRight,” I said, “first things first. Coffee?”
    â€œOn your desk,” she said.
    I blinked. She had actually made coffee, which was great, but that meant she must have been in the kitchen. That wasn’t so great. There were still the two dead toads left over from last night lying in the sink, after all.
    â€œOh,” I said. “Thanks.”
    She shrugged. “Sit down Don,” she said.
    I sat in the chair behind my desk and pulled the coffee gratefully towards me. She’d got it dead right, black as tar and so strong it was almost burned. Perfect. She smiled at me as I sipped it.
    â€œNow then,” she said, “are you awake enough to listen to me yet?”
    I nodded. “I think so,” I said, wondering if she was going to mention the toads.
    She didn’t.
    â€œGood,” she said. “You messed up last night.”
    I almost choked on my coffee. “What?”
    â€œYou know very well what,” she said. “Don’t give me that innocent look, Don, it won’t wash with me. I’m not Debbie. Not by a long way I’m not.”
    I feigned another coughing fit to give myself a moment to think. Not only did she know about last night but it seemed that she knew about Debbie too, and that was bad. That could be really bad, and it knocked all thoughts about what she was doing there in the first place clean out of my head.
    â€œDebbie is a good woman,” Trixie went on. “Ally is not. If you carry on like this, Don, you’ll be seeing a lot more of Ally and a lot less of Debbie, do you understand me?”
    â€œSeriously?” I said. “You’re here to give me relationship advice? Maybe I like Ally.”
    Trixie stared at me. Her eyes were a truly astonishing shade of blue, like chips of frozen sapphire. I gazed into them, feeling strangely lost. Oh fuck me no, I wasn’t in my right mind at all, was I?
    What are you fucking doing to me, woman? I thought. I tried to muster my will and put a stop to it, but I was so hungover and emotionally battered I just couldn’t seem to focus.
    â€œDon Drake, drunken wanker, it says on your door,” she said. “Don’t make that true, Don.”
    I flushed. Damn that sign, I thought. I really must do something about that.
    â€œYeah, I know,” I said, feeling ridiculously embarrassed. “I’ll sort it.”
    â€œYou do that,” she said. “You do that soon, Don. You need to sort a lot of things, don’t you?”
    â€œI s’pose,” I said, although now I wasn’t even completely sure what we were talking about anymore.
    She crushed her awful Russian cigarette out in the bottom of the cup and stood up. Her long, thick braid flicked over her shoulder as she tossed her head. She met my eyes again, and I could feel my head swimming.
    â€œI won’t be far away,” she said.
    She picked up her handbag and left me sitting there, dazed and bewildered but strangely not feeling at all hung over anymore. I heard her shoes clicking down the stairs, then the sound of the front door opening and shutting again behind her. I sighed and drank the rest of my coffee.
    I really didn’t feel right and I had no idea what all that had been about, but I remembered one thing from last night very clearly. I was absolutely never going to do that again.

Chapter Five
    N oble thoughts don’t pay the bills. I’d done Wormwood’s job for him, that was something. Whatever happened now, at least that was sorted, but I had no idea what I was going to do for money from now on. Hieromancy wasn’t likely to keep me alive on its own, that was for sure.
    Trixie had left me with a lecture I didn’t really understand, a flat that stank of Russian cigarettes, and a vague sense of uneasy arousal that I