The Key to Midnight
“The bleak December sky was so low and heavy that the city seemed to huddle beneath it in expectation of being crushed. The tops of the tallest buildings disappeared into gray mist.
The taxi driver who picked up Alex and Joanna in front of their hotel was a burly man with a neatly trimmed white beard. He wore a rumpled hat and a heavy green cardigan. He smelled of peppermint and rain-dampened wool. “Where can I take you this morning?”
“Eventually,” Alex said, “we want to go to the British Museum. But first you’ll have to lose the people who’ll be following us. Can you do that?”
The driver stared at him as if unsure he had heard cor- rectly.
“He’s perfectly serious,” Joanna said.
“He seems to be,” said the driver.
“And he’s sober,” she said.
“He seems to be.”
“And he isn’t crazy.”
“That remains to be seen,” said the driver.
Alex counted out thirty pounds to the man. “I’ll have thirty more for you at the other end, plus the fare. Will you help us?”
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