Three Kings. Группа авторов

than usual. His trimming had been less than perfect and he had to ease his shirt over his arms and back for fear of tearing it. The knot in his tie threatened to be too much for his fumbling fingers but, in the end, it succumbed to his slow, persistent assault.

      When he had finished, however, the lines of his suit were crisp, the tailoring doing much to smooth his uneven limbs. He silently thanked Bobbin for his skill. Such a blessing that one of the few tailors willing to cater to the needs of jokers was the protégé of London’s finest.

      ‘Yes,’ he said to himself. ‘This will do.’

      With a satisfied nod, he shut the mirror, trapping Roger Barnes and all of those old ugly thoughts inside.

      It wasn’t the cold grey misty day that made Constance cross. London weather was so predictably appropriate for a funeral. It wasn’t even the crush of mourners – that was to be expected when a celebrity died. It was knowing that Glory lay in the casket before her, that the flowers on Glory’s head – the expression of her joker – were rotting away, soon to be joined by Glory’s flesh.

      With a shudder, Constance remembered the time Glory’s flowers had been brutally shorn from her head. The blood. The dying lilies. Constance tried to shy away from the memory, but it was still there, same as ever, sharp and clear as glass.

      Bobbin took her hand in his. It was warm and surprisingly soft despite his constant handling of fabric. He was careful not to squeeze too tightly. The bony protrusions between his long, spindly fingers – so useful when he was sewing – could also hurt like nothing else. She glanced down and was amazed by their wrinkled, veiny hands. When had they become so old? She didn’t feel old at all. It was but a breath in time, and here she was seventy-six and Bobbin only a few years behind her.

      Bobbin tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, then gave it a pat. The small gesture almost made her cry. But Constance wasn’t a crier, at least not in public. If there was any crying to be done, she’d do it in private, where such things belonged.

      ‘How’re you holding up, m’dear?’ Bobbin asked. His face, as familiar to her as her own, was blessed by beautiful and kind gold-rimmed cerulean eyes. She let that kindness wash over her. Normally, she might have shied back from it – even with Bobbin she was careful not to get too close – but today was an exception.

      He knew the answer to his question. After all, they’d known each other for forty years. He knew her moods. Knew when to jolly her along and when to let her be. She leaned on him. Depended on him. And yet had kept one thing from him. (Not just one thing, my girl, she thought.) The dark, secret thing she and Glory shared.

      She studied the mourners. The cast from Wannabe A Hero were clumped together. She appreciated them showing up. Glory had been a guest judge on the episode in which the American ace, Golden Boy, had humiliated all comers – just as he had on the American version of the show.

      But the majority of the mourners were jokers. Normal people whose lives had been destroyed by the alien wild card virus.

      Certainly, there were jokers who had managed to do just fine. Jokers like Turing or the woman with the talk show, Peregrine. But that wasn’t the bulk of them. And her anger grew, because she burned with hatred for the Takisians and – fair or not – that included Dr Tachyon.

      And hating jokers? It didn’t supplant the old animosities, it just gave people an extra, new thing to hate.

      Bobbin squeezed her hand again and she managed a quick smile at him and some of her rage drained away.

      Bobbin had grown so important to her and the business that making him her partner seemed sensible. And in addition to hiring as many female tailors as they could, they also made a point to hire jokers, no matter the gender. If you wanted a Constance original, then you had to accept that it was lovingly made by women and/or jokers.

      But that all seemed rather unimportant standing here beside Glory’s casket. At the head of the casket was Mick Jagger in his lycanthrope form. It seemed as if time had taken its toll on him only in the sprinkle of white on his muzzle. Tears wetted the fur under his eyes, turning it dark.

      A massive blanket of white roses covered the casket. Constance knew this gesture was Mick’s because Glory had sprouted those flowers whenever he was near her. He might have had a lot of other women, but his one true love had been Glory. And that had been a tragedy.

      At moments like this Constance wished she’d never acquiesced to Bobbin’s suggestion and become an online presence. She knew her thousands of followers on Twitter and Instagram would be expecting her to say something about the funeral, especially with so many celebrities present, but they were going to be disappointed. This was personal. This was private.

      On the other side of the casket, hanging back near the edge of the cemetery, she saw Green Man. He was shadowed by a few dangerous-looking jokers. But then he was almost always in the company of dangerous-looking jokers. She knew he was a gangster and might even have ties to the Fists. Everyone in the East End suspected as much. It didn’t matter that she’d moved away decades ago, she still had deep roots in the community and was perfectly well aware of what was happening there.

      The vicar began intoning yet another prayer. Constance tuned him out. Her eyes burned, and things got blurry. She told herself it was because the wind had picked up, but that was shite and she knew it. The sharp pain of losing Glory wouldn’t leave and, unconsciously, she gripped Bobbin’s hand tighter, not even noticing when his thorns pierced her knuckles.

      ‘I’m always here for you,’ Bobbin said softly. ‘I know I’m not her, but you can count on me.’

      ‘I know,’ she replied quietly. There was a hitch in her voice and a lump in her throat that made it hard to swallow. The vicar kept droning on and Constance thought she might scream, Get on with it, you git!

      At last, the vicar finished, and the mourners began to make their way past the coffin. White flowers – lilies, chrysanthemums, and gladioli – were lovingly placed around the casket. She saw Green Man begin to make his way through the crowd carrying a delicate bouquet of violets.

      It made her like him a little, but only just a little.

      It pained Green Man to arrive anything less than early, but it wouldn’t do to be hanging around. He’d learned long ago that the trick to maintaining any kind of mystique was to give people as little time to talk to you as possible. And so, at the very last minute, he slipped in quietly at the back of the cemetery.

      Manor Park had lost none of its gravitas over the years. Even under a drab London sky it managed to look stylish and timeless, from the clusters of mature oak, ash and birch trees to the wrought-iron gates tipped with gold, to the neatly kept grass. Where many places of this calibre would have turned their back on the resident jokers, Manor Park and the rest of the East End had welcomed them with open arms. To them, jokers were just another quirk of an already vibrant community.

      A good-sized crowd had assembled to pay their respects to Glory Greenwood. She’d been something of a star during the sixties, and always popular. That was the thing about being different: to be accepted you had to be easy on the eye, and for the most part harmless. Glory had been both, and charming with it. A little bit of brightness in the East End that would be sorely missed.

      He allowed himself the slightest smile as the crowd became aware of him. Furtive glances were cast his way and a little ripple of reactions passed out from where he stood. He watched carefully, noting which faces seemed pleased, which afraid, and the few that were openly hostile – he’d make a point of talking to them later.

      Somewhere nearby, Wayfarer would be sitting in an innocuous-looking van with the engine running. A few of the more discreet Fists were also around, ready to run interference if need be. It was