by that late hour the animals had already been let out of their cages and allowed to roam free for a while. Giggling young women in short skirts and high heels stumbled off kerbs, sweaty men in thin cotton shirts sank to their knees and prayed to some drunken deity, large figures in dark suits watched from neon doorways â uneasy sentinels trained to spot the flame of violence before it even flared beyond a tiny spark.
  The girl I was waiting for was standing in the doorway of a pub opposite the Metropole Hotel. She was just twenty-one, wearing a fake fur coat over an expensive Japanese designer dress, and her feet were clad in the latest pair of Jimmy Choos â bought with her father's money, of course. Despite the suggestion of glamour, the girl was more "sauce in the suburbs" than Sex and the City . She stood in the recess, leaning against the wall, one knee bent and the corresponding foot resting flat against the dirty brickwork. She was smoking a short handrolled cigarette and warbling along to whatever tune was playing inside the pub, her eyes bright from the ingestion of cheap narcotics and expensive alcohol.
  I stepped back into my own dark doorway, wary that she might see me. I'd been following her for a couple of days, ever since her father agreed to my slightly inflated fee proposal.
  Baz Singh was a well-known Bradford businessman. He owned three curry restaurants, an off licence, and a small strip club in the centre of Bradford which â if the rumours were true â also doubled-up as a brothel. The girl was his daughter, Kareena, and in my considered opinion she was certainly worth watching.
  Let me get something straight right from the start. I am not a private eye or some glorified down-at-heel shamus; I do not have an official licence to run around investigating things the police are paid good tax money to look into. My days are not dedicated to Chandleresque sleuthing and I certainly don't spout sudden bursts of clipped dialogue while I hunt down Maltese Falcons or tarnished McGuffins. No, I just try to help people out, people who ask and who are willing to pay me for my trouble. Sometimes this works, other times it doesn't. Often it all goes horribly wrong. But it's a damn sight better â and safer â than what I used to do for a living: better by far than mingling with the dead.
  My name is Thomas Usher and I am â well â that's part of the problem. I don't really know who or what I am, not any more. Not since I began to feel the maggot of self-doubt gnawing away at my guts, not since the potentially true nature of my peculiar abilities were revealed to me in a glimpse too brief even to be considered fleeting. Since then I have tried to stick to the right path and avoid all things⦠unearthly , for want of a better word. These days I was more likely to be looking for someone's missing teenage daughter or absent spouse than gazing into the heart of the abyss.
  But it wasn't always that way.
  I used to be gifted but now I feel cursed. At one time I thought my purpose in life was to help the dead find their way through the dark, but these days it seems that I might have been mistaken.
  These days I can't even help the living.
  Kareena Singh stubbed out her cigarette against the wall and pushed away towards the middle of the footpath, like someone kicking off from the side of a swimming pool. A small burst of sparks remained in her wake, held in the air for a moment like a tiny swarm of fireflies before being washed away by the rain. The intensity of the rainfall had diminished, leaving behind that fine, wispy rain that seems to get you even wetter than its heavier counterpart. My scalp was soaking and my coat was stuck to my back.
  "Come on, Byron." Her voice was pure Bradford: dull, dour, an ugly sound from a pretty mouth.
  "Yeah, yeah." The large shaven-headed Caucasian man she was
  The girl I was waiting for was standing in the doorway of a pub opposite the Metropole Hotel. She was just twenty-one, wearing a fake fur coat over an expensive Japanese designer dress, and her feet were clad in the latest pair of Jimmy Choos â bought with her father's money, of course. Despite the suggestion of glamour, the girl was more "sauce in the suburbs" than Sex and the City . She stood in the recess, leaning against the wall, one knee bent and the corresponding foot resting flat against the dirty brickwork. She was smoking a short handrolled cigarette and warbling along to whatever tune was playing inside the pub, her eyes bright from the ingestion of cheap narcotics and expensive alcohol.
  I stepped back into my own dark doorway, wary that she might see me. I'd been following her for a couple of days, ever since her father agreed to my slightly inflated fee proposal.
  Baz Singh was a well-known Bradford businessman. He owned three curry restaurants, an off licence, and a small strip club in the centre of Bradford which â if the rumours were true â also doubled-up as a brothel. The girl was his daughter, Kareena, and in my considered opinion she was certainly worth watching.
  Let me get something straight right from the start. I am not a private eye or some glorified down-at-heel shamus; I do not have an official licence to run around investigating things the police are paid good tax money to look into. My days are not dedicated to Chandleresque sleuthing and I certainly don't spout sudden bursts of clipped dialogue while I hunt down Maltese Falcons or tarnished McGuffins. No, I just try to help people out, people who ask and who are willing to pay me for my trouble. Sometimes this works, other times it doesn't. Often it all goes horribly wrong. But it's a damn sight better â and safer â than what I used to do for a living: better by far than mingling with the dead.
  My name is Thomas Usher and I am â well â that's part of the problem. I don't really know who or what I am, not any more. Not since I began to feel the maggot of self-doubt gnawing away at my guts, not since the potentially true nature of my peculiar abilities were revealed to me in a glimpse too brief even to be considered fleeting. Since then I have tried to stick to the right path and avoid all things⦠unearthly , for want of a better word. These days I was more likely to be looking for someone's missing teenage daughter or absent spouse than gazing into the heart of the abyss.
  But it wasn't always that way.
  I used to be gifted but now I feel cursed. At one time I thought my purpose in life was to help the dead find their way through the dark, but these days it seems that I might have been mistaken.
  These days I can't even help the living.
  Kareena Singh stubbed out her cigarette against the wall and pushed away towards the middle of the footpath, like someone kicking off from the side of a swimming pool. A small burst of sparks remained in her wake, held in the air for a moment like a tiny swarm of fireflies before being washed away by the rain. The intensity of the rainfall had diminished, leaving behind that fine, wispy rain that seems to get you even wetter than its heavier counterpart. My scalp was soaking and my coat was stuck to my back.
  "Come on, Byron." Her voice was pure Bradford: dull, dour, an ugly sound from a pretty mouth.
  "Yeah, yeah." The large shaven-headed Caucasian man she was
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