Chris McGrath, for the gorgeous cover and Adam Auer-bach for stellar design.
Mom and Hal, my number-one fans.
And finally, the bands who made the music that is the lifeblood of Black London: the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Anti-Nowhere League, Nick Cave, Concrete Blonde, the Pogues, Generation X, the Supersuckers, and many more.
Rock on.
PART ONE
London
Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither.
— Charles Dickens
Chapter One
Michaelmas daisies bloomed around Pete Caldecott's feet the day she met Jack Winter, just as they had twelve years ago on the day he died.
That day, the unassuming tomb in a back corner of Highgate Cemetery was overrun with the small purple flowers. Jack crushed them under his boots as he levered the mausoleum door open.
Fear had stirred in Pete's stomach as the tomb breathed out bitter-smelling air. "Jack, I don't know about all this."
He flashed a smile. "Afraid, luv? Don't be. I'm here, after all."
Biting her lip, Pete put one foot over the threshold of the tomb, then the other. A wind whispered out from the shadowed depths and ruffled her school skirt around her knees. She backed out of the doorway immediately. "We shouldn't be here, Jack."
He sighed, pushing a hand through his bleached crop of hair. It stood out in wild spikes, gleaming in the low light. His hair was the first thing Pete had seen of Jack in Fiver's club three months ago, molten under the stage lights as he gripped his microphone like a dying man and screamed.