The Benedictine had not travelled these roads until he was sent on his errand. He had no need. He walked the many lanes to and from the abbey, the Saxon city a honeycomb of streets within its defensive stockade; taverns, a mint and a bustling market place. Few travelled further than the farms that grew barley and hops and grazed cattle on land cleared by the ancient Britons under the guidance of their Roman overlords. Now, every stone, every spray canned wall, every flapping hoarding is logged; every mile trodden by his ancient feet. Monk. Swineherd. Huntsman. Jester, on his final journey north. Thomas MacHenry limps out of the bookies on the corner of Buckley Road and heads south towards the Kingdom. Sixty-six years old, a navvy from Sligo, his leg smashed when a crane cable snapped in the rush to finish the Jubilee Line in ‘77. MacHenry escaping the worst of it, but the pallet had bricks on, and enough of them dumped on him to cripple him. By then, he’d met Colleen who cut hair. Thomas MacHenry who lost his foreman’s job because he failed a breath test, who drove bin lorries until they tested him again after a night in the Galtymore. Some painting and decorating, a few odd jobs for a couple of landlords; cash in hand and advances on work not yet done as he’d already drunk or gambled the money. McHenry ambling along, his pate polished red and his hair white. Once, a man in his forties was venerable. A man aged sixty was almost unheard of. For hundreds of years, most people the clown knew died in their thirties; there were almost none who were old. People lived to procreate and, if blessed, survived to see their grandchildren. The clown passes MacHenry, a man long past any usefulness, eager to drink his sick money in a joyless, windowless room. A grave on the man, pissing away the years God gave him in a porcelain urinal at the back of a pub. The undertaker’s across the junction with Buckley Road has buried half of Kilburn, and men in black will come for MacHenry. A hurried eulogy. A wake in a dreary pub, thick cut sandwiches, pies; beer to toast the deceased, and done. The clown takes a cigarette from a pack with his teeth and lights it with one of the matches. Leaning against the window of the betting shop, he blows a smoke ring that rises and wavers before dissipating in the windrush of a passing Argos truck. He blows another. A brief flourish before the fade. Ilona Szabó looks over as she crosses the junction and sees a ring of smoke hover and then and evaporate above a clown’s head. Hands thrust deep in his pockets, the clown begins to tap dance. Szabó smiles self-consciously, but rather than stop and watch the show, she walks on, taking out her phone to check things that don’t need checking.