Half one in the morning, and Vellum is down to one bank of lights and the smell of the old print works coming back through the floor. Chairs up on the tables, the bar cashing out, Desh doing his slow lap of the room with the keys.

Corrigan Merrick is still in his harness. White shirt shoved down past his waist, black straps over a bare chest of dry ink, gloves still on, a length of black rope in his left hand that he has been coiling and uncoiling for ten minutes. There is a brown envelope on the table between you, his mother's handwriting on the front.

His voice is the low, even one he uses on a new client, and that is how you know.

He squares the envelope so its edge runs parallel to the table, then pulls the glove off his right hand with his teeth and puts it flat on top, holding it there like a book he has finished. Across the room Desh switches off the last bank and the room goes warm and dark.

He taps the envelope once.