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Coggley.
    ‘And what might you be up to? You can’t hang about ’ere you know.’ He peered at Pin curiously. ‘Do I know
     you?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said Pin, shrinking back.
    ‘But I do,’ said Coggley, taking him by the chin and forcing his head upward. ‘You’re that Pin Carpue. You
     can’t deny your queer eyes. What you up to now, lad. Causing trouble?’
    ‘No,’ said Pin indignantly, jerking his face away. He pushed against the heavy inn door and it yielded slowly.
    ‘Have you seen your father?’ called Coggley after him. ‘You’d better tell me if you have. He’s still a
     wanted man.’
    ‘I know,’ muttered Pin, ‘I know,’ and he stepped inside.
    TheNimble Finger Inn was one of many taverns that had occupied the same spot on the Bridge for centuries. It was a good
     spot, exactly at the halfway point, which meant people could feel that they hadn’t crossed to the other side. For if the northerners were reluctant to venture south, the southerners had no great desire to venture north. Whatever its name and
     whoever its owner, one thing hadn’t changed down the years: the quality of the clientele. It was often said that if you were a visitor to Urbs Umida, all you had to do was step inside the Nimble Finger to see a true representation of everything the
     City had to offer. It was all in there: the dirt, the smell and the good citizens themselves; the robbers, the swindlers, the cheats, the liars, the fakes and the forgers. Northerners and southerners alike and all treated equally by Betty Peggotty. Well,
     as equally as their purses allowed.
    The floor was covered with a mixture of sawdust and straw and mud and stains of a sanguinary nature. The noise was deafening –
     singing, shouting, screeching, laughter. And the smells. Oh, those smells. To Pin they were like a riotous odoriferous cacophony and he breathed deeply. All the excitement of the inn came to him on the air and he savoured it. There was gambling going on,
     he could smellthe tension; there was plotting afoot, he could smell the fear; and there was jollity and excitement. He smelt it all: the blood, the sweat, the salty tears, the drink, the fish from the dockworkers, and
     always the exotic aroma of faraway lands from the sailors. There was even a hint of love – only a hint, mind; the Nimble Finger was not really a courting sort of place. Having inhaled his fill he turned to the man next to him.
    ‘The Bone Magician?’ he asked. A grunt and a gnarled finger pointed him in the direction of the far side of the tavern where
     he could see a set of stairs. A man stood at the top outside an open door. Pin ascended, his curiosity awakening.
    ‘That’ll be sixpence,’ said the fellow on the door. ‘And you can ask a question.’
    ‘Whom shall I ask?’
    ‘Madame de Bona.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Pin. He could see into the room and it was already full of people.
    ‘Well, hand it over then,’ said the fellow impatiently. ‘They shuts the door at eight.’
     
    Pin found himself standing at the back of a crowd in the darkened room. Feet were shuffling and muttered conversations
     were going on all around him and snatches came to his alert ears.
    ‘I ’eard as she tells the future like, this Bona woman.’
    ‘I suppose she can see it, being as she’s passed over ’n’ that.’
    ‘’Ere, listen to this, God strike me down if I tell a lie, but Molly, you know ’er what lives opposite, well she
     asked about ’er poor Fred, you know what fell in the Foedus the other day.’
    ‘Pushed weren’t ’e? Some finks she did it.’
    ‘Wotever. But she says to ’er, the Bona skelington, that ’e was ’appy and waiting for ’er. And
     don’t you know, she died the next day and went to join ’im.’
    ‘Never! In the Foedus?’
    ‘Wot? Nah, not in the river, in the grave.’
    ‘Wotever, there’s plenty in the Foedus these days, with that fruit killer around.’
    Pin squeezed through the crowd to the front where he