He hailed a passing cab and shoved Dan inside. Dan sat back in the cab's rear seat and then sprang forward and rolled down the rear window.
‘Why did your client stab the fish? Was it a revenge attack for Steve Irwin?’
‘No, he told the police it was because he had just found out, and this is a direct quote, “That his bird was preggo”.’
Dan considered this for a second and then nodded in understanding.
‘You gotta love this city. By the way, Jenna Francis is expecting to meet you in Starbucks on Bold Street, in – ’ he checked his wristwatch ‘ – twenty minutes. She looks like Nicole Kidman, you can't miss her!’ And then he banged the driver's seat with his hand and the cab pulled away.
Erasmus instinctively searched for his cigarettes and then, for the thousandth time in the last four weeks, found himself remembering his promised Abby he'd quit. He had broken many promises over the last couple of years but there was no way he would break a promise to a six-year-old girl who also happened to be the most precious thing in his life.
Mayor Lynch reached for the plastic pillbox in his jacket pocket. For a second he panicked as his hand failed to locate the box but then he remembered that he had left the dispenser in his desk drawer.
He opened the drawer and was rewarded with the sight of the opaque, light green pillbox. He eagerly popped a pill from the container, swallowing it before he realised he had no water to wash it down with.
The Mayor's aide, Anthony Torpenhow, watched the familiar scene. His face betrayed no emotion as he passed the Mayor the half empty can of Diet Coke he had been drinking.
The Mayor greedily accepted the can and flushed the pill down his throat, visibly relaxing long before the pill could dissolve and have any effect.
‘Ah. Thanks, Tony. I really don't know what I'd do without you.’
The two sat for a moment in silence.
The Mayor had noticed these silences growing in length in the last six months, as the depth and seeming impossibility of the financial crisis affecting the city hung over them like a hungry dog waiting to feed. He also blamed the oppressive atmosphere of the office that came with the Mayor's position, so different from the vibrant campaign offices in Bold Street surrounded by bars, bistros and the younger, more diverse population of that area. In this part of town, at the top of Castle Street, the streets were dark and silent after six o'clock and the gloom that descended on them seemed to pervade the town hall.
The office was lined with dark oak panelling and furnished with oil paintings of Liverpool maritime scenes and Victorian merchants. In places there were pale patches of oak surrounding newer photographs of the Mayor with visiting dignitaries and local football and reality TV stars. The placing of the photographs had been the Mayor's first executive decision: replacing oil paintings that depicted aspects and notable personages of Liverpool's commercial history as a major port in the slave trade. His actions had echoed his campaign slogan: A break from the past!
It was Anthony who usually broke the silence. Sometimes, he thought that if he did not speak the Mayor would be happy to sit in silence for the rest of his term in office.
However, on this occasion, it was the Mayor who spoke first.
‘I was thinking about how we won the election. Do you remember it?’
‘I do indeed, Mr Mayor. It was history in the making, the first Liberal elected mayor of Liverpool, the first in the country. Your speech was very special.’ He didn't need to add that he had written it.
‘Remember what I said?’
‘How could I forget?’ said Anthony.
The Mayor didn't pick up, or chose to ignore, Anthony's tone.
‘I talked about Churchill uniting the country in adversity, of this city's proud past fighting the fascists and how we would stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to face this new challenge, to build a modern, tech-based city, modern but with values, to come together in a noble purpose.’
There might have been tears welling in the Mayor's eyes. Anthony's were dry and unblinking.
‘And how the best party for the job was the Liberals and I the best man. We made it a matter of principal, party politics goes in the dustbin when the barbarians are at the gates. And the city came together in a common purpose, to save Liverpool.’
‘Great days indeed, Mr Mayor.’
The Mayor looked up as though only just realising that Anthony was present. The Mayor scratched behind his right ear, a trait that Anthony had come to treat as a warning.
‘And now we know why the Labour fuckers didn't put up a fight! They knew it was a poisoned chalice didn't they, Anthony, eh! We, you, should have seen this coming. The fucking city is bankrupt. We are the fucking hangover after the party. Crash, bang fucking wallop, eh! 2013 we haven't got fifty pence for the meter, 2014 we are going to end up a Third-World city.’
‘It's developing nation, Mr Mayor.’
The Mayor looked confused. ‘Eh?’
‘It's not “Third World” any more, that is considered an insensitive Western expression. We say “developing nation” now.’
The Mayor waved his hand in the air and looked at Anthony in disgust. He ignored the interruption.
‘I've got Craig, the snivelling little cockney twat, demanding that I don't screw up the first real chance to show that we can govern on our own but he hasn't got any cash to give me, has he? No, just wise fucking words!’
The Mayor swept his arm across a pile of blue folders that covered his desk, the folders and the paperweight went flying onto the parquet floor. He slumped back into his chair.
‘We are well and truly fucked. The city is bankrupt. Unless your Oxbridge educated arse can pluck a rabbit out of a fucking hat!’
Anthony got up from his chair and slowly picked up the folders and placed them back on the Mayor's desk. He picked up the paperweight weighing its heft in his hand before gently placing it on the desk. He took out a Mulberry wallet from his inside jacket pocket and removed a white business card embossed with grey lettering from its folds. He handed it to the Mayor.
‘May I present to you, Bugs Bunny.’
The Mayor looked at the card.
‘Have we really come to this?’ he asked.
‘It's this or the city goes under.’
The Mayor felt something twist in his stomach. Maybe it was the pill lodging in his bowel, causing an internal bleed, a contraction that would be the first step on an organic breakdown that would lead to a total system failure.
He sighed.
‘Call him.’
Bold Street ran north to south up a hill to the gutted St Luke's church that had been bombed out by the Nazis and left empty as a reminder of the destruction the city had suffered in the war. The roofless church was now filled with sculpture: dozens of multicolored lamb bananas – crosses between a lamb and a banana by Taro Chiezo that had become the unofficial mascot of the city, second only to the Liver Birds.
The street was filled with small, independent shops, galleries, bistros and Paola's, a tiny espresso bar run by Mario that had been there for years before coffee became a chain store concern. Erasmus passed Paola's, waving at Mario through the plate-glass window and cursed before entering the Starbucks a few hundred yards further on.