No, not insects. The way they move reminds me of Abraxas.There was another gantry across the well on the next level down, and the Doctor was standing there. He was right beneath Lecha.s.seur's feet, leaning on the rail with one hand extended holding a flower? Lecha.s.seur couldn't see clearly. Mestizer stood next to him. Their poise was easy, they were both relaxed, though Lecha.s.seur could tell nothing more from the tops of their heads.

'This is a very impressive set-up you've got here,' the Doctor said.

Mestizer didn't reply in a normal voice, she sang. She had a high strong voice but the words she came out with were a string of gibberish. The Doctor turned to her and showed her his hands and said something Lecha.s.seur couldn't hear, but the woman in black just kept singing. There was a third person on the gantry, Lecha.s.seur couldn't see properly. Abraxas? He leaned forward, risking them spotting him. No, it was too small for Abraxas. He recognised the outfit before the head of hair it was Amber. She had her arms folded over her handbag, where she'd kept her gun.

He couldn't see if the Doctor was a prisoner or if he was in charge of the situation.

The Doctor could take care of himself for now. Lecha.s.seur wanted a closer look at the machine, and a better shot at Mestizer.

'What do you hope to achieve with all this?' The Doctor's voice, contemptuous. 'Oh, very original. Where is he, by the way? You know, the Big Man. No, I can't imagine he'd be trotting at your heels all the time.'

Amber stepped forward to slap him but Lecha.s.seur didn't see the rest, already stealing across the gantry to the far side. Then he was through into another corridor and out of sight of the Doctor and his enemy, though Mestizer's atonal banshee-song chased him down the pa.s.sageway and wouldn't shift from his head.

He took a few more turns downwards to what he hoped would be the working floor of the machine, but the maze twisted deceptively and he found himself somewhere else altogether. It was a low circular antechamber, with pa.s.sages spoking out from it in all directions. He had a curious sense that this unremarkable room was the low, dead centre of the house. The key scratched against his chest, scrabbling to get loose of the chain. He clapped his hand over it.

In the middle of the room was a tall blue cabinet, property he guessed of the Doctor. It was the box that Abraxas had stolen for Mestizer, the box that Walken had coveted and died for, the box that Emily Blandish had witnessed before it wiped her mind clean. He'd seen them on street corners, there was one a minute's walk from his apartment, though he'd never paid it any attention.

POLICE, it said, white letters stencilled above the door, PUBLIC CALL BOX.

Lecha.s.seur had always distrusted the things. There never seemed to be one around when you really needed one. This was the most incongruous he'd ever seen, sitting in the middle of the monochrome maze. It was a poor prize to find at the end of the rainbow.

There was a set of narrow dusted-over windows in each door but they were dark, the box was lightless and lifeless.

He pushed at the door. It was locked. He unslung the key from round his neck and slipped it into the lock. It was a whim, it didn't look like they were compatible, but it slid inside easily and turned. He heard tumblers clicking distantly and the door opened a fraction, revealing a sliver of dark. Lecha.s.seur stepped back and walked in a circle round it,

hoping to find something unusual. Nothing. It was very disappointing.

'Step away from the police box.'He heard Amber c.o.c.k her small pistol. She was behind him aiming it at the back of his head, probably only three feet away. She'd shoot him before he could make a move. He backed away slowly and watched her as she hoved round between him and the open door.

'It's okay,' he told her, 'I wasn't planning to steal it. I'm about the only one who doesn't want to, I bet.' But her eyes were as shallow as he remembered and she didn't laugh.

'You don't even know what it is,' she droned. She had Mestizer's voice. 'You've been making this up as you go along, hanging onto the Doctor's coat-tails and not looking where he's going. He's all appet.i.te. He thinks he flits through the world leaving no waste and no tracks behind him, but he does. You're stepping in them.'

Lecha.s.seur shrugged. He could have grabbed the gun then but he found he couldn't move. His eyes had gone to the part-open door, to the very base of it where the darkness was suddenly broken by a thin line of golden light.

'So, now what?' he asked.

The explosion came from nearby and it jolted through the room, the shock knocking Amber down. Lecha.s.seur grabbed the police box, held fast, and watched the interior light creep up the height of the door. It was a blinding glow, spilling out of the narrow open line of the cabinet. He flung his arm over his eyes and staggered back.

'What have you done?' Amber was howling, staring into the light from where she'd fallen. 'What have you done?!'

As Lecha.s.seur stumbled back he heard the light, the magnesium hiss of it as it flared up brighter from the door. He risked a glance and saw the police box enveloped in an egg of annihilating whiteness. The halo trembled, ready for another burst, another expansion. It coughed, he fell back through the doorway and watched the light blossom out to fill the entire chamber. He blinked and saw POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX printed black under his lids.

The box wasn't a box, he could see that, even as its silhouette faded from his retina. The box was a disguise for the light. This was its true form. It had swallowed Amber. He could see her shadow rising but she was stripped down to a narrow black blur writhing in the glow. If she was making a sound he couldn't hear it, the speed of light outstripped her voice.

The lightline crept forward. He turned and ran before it could absorb him. There were more blasts, close by and jolting, but he kept his footing. He wasn't sure if he'd set off the blasts by opening the box, or if this was something clever the Doctor had done to Mestizer's machines. Whatever, it felt like an ending, Mestizer's plans vanishing in a show of sound and fury. His path took him onto the machine floor and the light followed him, eating through the walls. Around him tall metal cones crumbled into nothing as it advanced and the bald slaves, shackled to the machine by the cords of their eyes, sat stoically at their consoles as the light rolled over them and swallowed them whole. It was a voracious thing.

He ran, he ran, he ran. He pelted down the corridors hoping instinct was taking him in the right direction. Pandemonium erupted in the pa.s.sages around him as all the occupants of the house struggled to make their getaway. No one and no thing tried to stop him or fight him on the way out. He lost the gun, risking a glance back so that he could toss it into the light. Then he turned and ran faster, the light ate the revolver and didn't stop.

He burst out into the conservatory and made for the darkness outside, but even so the light followed him. He ran for the trees, making one long breathless dash of the lawn. Only when he'd reached the trees' sanctuary did he look back and see that the light was no longer close behind him. It was streaming out of every hole in the house wall, every door and every window and every crack it could find in the facade, but it had stopped its relentless forward roll.

The light flared into a pillar stretching towards the moon. The crazed outline of the house flickered colourfully in the heart of it, then vanished, and finally the light was satiated. The pillar collapsed in on itself, folding down into a single point in a matter of seconds before winking out. Lecha.s.seur coughed cold b.l.o.o.d.y air out of his lungs then sank down by the trees. He stared out at the stark, blackened empty lawn and shook with a moment's laughter. The house was gone, taking everything that had been inside with it. Even the corpses of the men he'd killed were gone, though their deaths weren't washed away.

The Doctor was gone, and Mestizer.He'd seen them once, just for one weary moment when he'd stopped and turned back to face down the light. He had a clear view straight into the heart of brightness, right back to the police box door. He'd seen them there by the box, silhouetted but not completely swallowed by the glare around them. They had been locked together, struggling he thought, or dancing. He watched them wheel round one another, their limbs interwoven, their hands pushing and pulling at their opponent's body. The Doctor's hat had been knocked off and went tumbling into oblivion. Mestizer's hair streamed round her crown. They moved silently in front of the lightgiving box.

Lecha.s.seur hadn't looked back after that. He wondered which of the two, if either, had won the fight.

Does it matter? It's over.He slumped by the trees for half an hour, holding his head in his hands and laughing to himself. The house was gone. How could a house just vanish like that? It didn't seem possible. He was no longer hurting, the pain had washed away in the darkness, but there was a lingering ache in his limbs. He could fall asleep right here, right now, and not wake up until this time next week. He felt his eyes flutter shut.

The Doctor said: 'There'll be a few loose ends, of course.'

And the Doctor said: 'You're a smart man. You'll work it out.'

And Lecha.s.seur stepped forward, with his revolver raised, and said: 'Emily.'

Lecha.s.seur was awake, back on his feet, running for the wall, running for the car, running harder than he had ever done before. The light was gone and there was only darkness at his back.

8: WITNESS.

I AM A CYPHER, CLEAN AND BLANK, TABULA RASA.

Spitalfields' scarred white church has a blasphemous new gargoyle. It hunches on a narrow perch, casting its gaze left to right across the horizon. Its leathery snout twitches, teasing out a single human scent from a city of teeming millions. It finds a trace, quicksilver thoughts echo in the bowl of its skull. It swings off its perch and leaps. It remembers being a man, and as it bounds from rooftop to rooftop, it thrills with boyish pleasure.

The woman on the railway tracks, so quirky-faced and fresh you might mistake her for a girl. The skies drizzle on her, her stolen coat whips in the wind and she's got nothing warm under that. She has hair full of rainwater and a head full of misery. She's just learned who she once was. She keeps her name stuck in her throat though for the past week she's wanted nothing more than to bellow it at the top of her voice and tell the world who she is.

The fixer hunches forward in the front seat of his borrowed car, hurrying to meet an urgent appointment. He's too far off, he might as well be on the moon for all the good he could do. He bangs on the stolen steering wheel but that doesn't make it go any faster. He knows, at last, exactly what the Doctor hired him to do. Spread before him London is sparkling, a city that never sleeps with an electric nimbus lighting the sky.

He's guessed the answer to the Doctor's riddle, the difference between

the city at war and at peace. It was blacked out during the Blitz. Tonight, London is full of light.

More than once, the girl in pink pyjamas had been tempted to stand outside the guest house and scream her name at pa.s.sers-by. She'd creep down the stairs quietly so as not to disturb Mrs Beardsley and crouch by the front door building up the courage to reach for the latch and pull it open. She warmed up slowly like a television set Mrs Beardsley was thinking about getting one in time for the next Olympics, now she could afford it and one day maybe she'd warm up enough to step outside and shout 'I'm Emily Blandish! I'm Emily Blandish!' at the world.

She doubted the world would care. It didn't mean anything, the name. It didn't connect to anything in her head. She'd lied about some of the things she could remember. There were glimpses in her mind from the time before the crowd had found her at the market, from after the moment when the light had welled up to obliterate all that she'd ever been. She was running, she remembered that clearly, pulled through the alleys of East London by the man in black. Behind them beat the batwings of their pursuers. Her companion threw compulsive glances over his shoulder. 'They're gaining!' he shouted.

She remembered his face but didn't know his name. He looked halfwise and full of quiet desperation. When she couldn't run any more, he pulled her aside and told her they would have to split up. 'It's me they want,' he said. 'They'll let you go. They won't even notice you.'

His eyes were frosted and unconvinced. He looked afraid but she trusted him. 'Will I see you again?' she asked.

Her friend nodded. 'At least twice.' Then he was gone.

She hadn't told anyone about that. She hadn't even told Lecha.s.seur, the miraculous black man who'd come to restore her name. She hoped he would return but he never had, frightened away by her landlady's brother. The evening after his visit, Mrs Beardsley had sat her down and made her repeat lies about Lecha.s.seur again and again under threat of being abandoned on the street until she almost believed what she was saying. Fewer people were coming to the house to see the celebrity, the stream of visitors was drying up.

Mrs Beardsley had a face like a stone toad ornament and she could probably read minds. She'd taken to locking the front door and hiding the key. The customs of these people were unfathomable.

That morning another man had come to visit Emily and brought flowers. He'd said she was pretty and asked to take photographs. Then he became aggressive and unpleasant so she threw the flowers in his face and pushed him out of her door. There was no lock but she pushed the chair under it and sat quivering on the bed while her visitor then Mrs Beardsley herself pounded outside and called her names. The visitor had dropped his camera she opened it and pulled out the film, trying to see her face frozen in the grey perforated strip.

That evening Mrs Beardsley drew an ice cold bath for her and sluiced her hair with bitter freezing jugfuls when she complained. The cold stung, worse than the soap, but it made her bolder. She fixed her landlady with a serious glare and asked whether it was true what Lecha.s.seur had said about newspaper money. Mrs Beardsley had taken her dirty neck and pushed her down under the water to drown her for a minute.

She opened her mouth and swallowed dirty water. There was nothing in her lungs and she wasn't in the bath but the river, pulled down into the lower depths of the Thames. Londoners would find her corpse years later, her flesh eroded away but her hair rippling towards the bright surface like pond weed. Then the airless hallucination got stranger, she was a man being held down by his enemies. Lecha.s.seur appeared, a gun in his hand, ready to pull her out and save her.

That was just a dream. Mrs Beardsley lifted her out leaving her blinded and choking. There was Thames sc.u.m floating on the chill surface of the water. The bathroom was unheated and Mrs Beardsley left her alone with a sc.r.a.ppy grey towel to dry herself, while she went down to listen to the wireless. The girl dried herself and scrabbled down to sit by the fire but her landlady had blocked the sitting room door with an armchair and the rest of the house was cold as the night.

She found her pink pyjamas and slipped them back on. While the radio voice hissed and barked its secret instructions to her landlady, she stole into the understair cupboard and took a coat and a pair of shoes, both too big for her. The strength she'd honed inside herself to call out her name now sharpened deepened into a desire for escape. She needed to break out of the house, burst through the prison walls and run into the night. The front door was locked but the back wasn't, why should it be? It opened onto a garden scrub and a low wood fence, beyond which the trains would rattle on their way to the docks.

Lecha.s.seur had told her to get out along the rails. He hadn't realised, not then, quite what she needed to escape from. The fence was runged like a ladder, she clambered over it in her outsize shoes and skidded down the bank on the other side. The lines were dark in both directions she'd hear and see the trains as they rolled by and didn't feel she was in any danger. Behind her the cosy little guest house was darkened, no light escaping from its windows and Mrs Beardsley would be listening to her sainted Light Programme for the rest of the evening. So which way now?

Emily Blandish walked south towards the Thames.

Honestly, Mrs Beardsley said, you'll catch your death.She'd left her sc.r.a.pbook behind, her own little history of the last few weeks. As the rain drove harder she considered turning round and going back for it, but that wouldn't be right. It was a catalogue of the life she'd left behind. There was so much outside the house to explore, she would never go back, she would lose herself in London.

There was a man waiting further down the track. The storm blasted around him but he wore a heavy coat, probably a signalman kitted out for the weather. At first she thought he was a soldier, still stranded waiting for the train to take him to war, but she shook that thought out of her head. It reminded her too much of her old landlady's brother, still br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with unspent violence. The figure turned and gave her a slow wave. He had a thick brown trunk of an arm. He was a tall man and there was a great bulk under his coat.

Emily span on her heels and ran back up the track, hard as she could. Her feet squelched and slipped in the mud. Behind her, she heard the Big Man coming, his legs taking long leisurely strides toward her. His coat flapped in the breeze, the beat of batwings. He caught up in seconds and leapt at her with a joyous whoop resonating from the buzzing radio of his throat.

She threw herself down in the mud and rolled out of the way. The Big Man overshot her, she saw him dart overhead in a graceful swing that belied his hugeness. She caught a glimpse of a compact head, round and grooved like a football. He splashed down in the mud beside her and when she looked up at him she saw goggle-gasmask eyes and a rubbery insect-mandible nose swinging to face her.

She didn't scream. It occurred to her that she'd seen and forgotten stranger things.

'Who are you?' (Her voice was trembling, stop shaking!) 'What do you want?'

I am Abraxas am Abraxas I have come to cut open your skull and spew acid on your brains have come to cut open your skull and spew acid on your brains His hands moved for her he stank of oil and musty dinosaur hide but she rolled out of the way, back onto her feet and across the tracks. They were humming with the song of an oncoming engine why now? Of all times, why now?! She ran on. This Abraxas, whatever it was, meant to kill her anyway. At least being struck by a train would be impersonal and ordinary. And perhaps it wouldn't even hurt. She couldn't tell which way it was coming from but its hollering bell clanged louder and louder until she was convinced it was all in her head. Bells mean death. Bells always mean death. Bells mean death. Bells always mean death.

Over her shoulder she saw Abraxas padding lazily towards her.

Then the train roared across the far track and slammed him away.Lucky, lucky, lucky. She skittered across the tracks towards the far fence and scaled it, splinters scratching and p.r.i.c.king her feet on the way, though she didn't care. She leapt down, hurting but still running, onto scorched black scrubland. Mud stank on her coat and her skin but there was a worse smell up ahead, sewage stunk out by chemicals. She ran towards the stench, between broken columns of toppled stone. Abraxas' eyes couldn't be that sharp, maybe he was hunting through scent. She skittered across the tracks towards the far fence and scaled it, splinters scratching and p.r.i.c.king her feet on the way, though she didn't care. She leapt down, hurting but still running, onto scorched black scrubland. Mud stank on her coat and her skin but there was a worse smell up ahead, sewage stunk out by chemicals. She ran towards the stench, between broken columns of toppled stone. Abraxas' eyes couldn't be that sharp, maybe he was hunting through scent.

Anything was worth a try.Fires flickered amid the stones, against the rain. They'd made camps here, the derelicts and the dispossessed-by-war. She heard old men singing old soldiers' songs, one man's croaking voice coming loud and sweet out of the darkness. Coa.r.s.e and broken, unlike anything ever to be heard on the BBC, it was still pa.s.sionate and human. They will come back, They will come back, he sang, he sang, oh yes, they will come back, the dead will rise from their muddy graves to build the promised land, but they have already lost, the future will betray them and tear down their dreams. oh yes, they will come back, the dead will rise from their muddy graves to build the promised land, but they have already lost, the future will betray them and tear down their dreams.

The lament broke off into a long scream of alcoholic horror and she knew her pursuer must be close behind. The drunk wouldn't sing again for the rest of the evening he'd lie in his dry stone niche, howling fitfully at the horror he'd seen. Emily shot a glance over her shoulder and saw Abraxas taking silent flea-hops through the air. He bounded across the scrub towards her, and all around the tramps were dousing their fires and chancing the pneumonic cold for fear of being seen.

Emily kept running forward, fighting the pain in her feet and her legs. Her lungs were shredding cold air and there was a crease of pain in her stomach. She kept moving. She broke over a ridge and stumbled down towards the docks and the river, both still alive with night-time London bustle. The Surreyside bank was shimmering with light, diffused through the sheen of rain. She ran towards it but lost her footing and tumbled down the ridge, landing painfully on her back. There was another drop alongside her, into a channel filled with dark, slick water. A pipe outlet jutted further up the bank feeding the channel with a steady flow. It went straight down to the Thames.

Abraxas reached the top of the ridge and stared down at her.

You're the last witness, you know? You're the last witness, you know?

I wouldn't do this for just anyone wouldn't do this for just anyone The car came at Abraxas from the side, taking them both by surprise. Emily saw the two beams pa.s.s across him, picking out the smooth leathery detail of his body, and that was the only warning before the car ploughed into him and carried him screeching further down the bank. Locked together, Abraxas and the machine tumbled and rolled and skidded to a halt a good fifty feet away, tottering on the edge of the channel.

Lecha.s.seur had jumped clear of the door just before the car struck. He took quick sure steps down the bankside, all the while gazing frustrated at the burning metal wreck as the pinned but unhurt Abraxas heaved it aside.

He pushed his hand out to Emily. She took it and he pulled her up.'I should have been here earlier,' he apologised. 'It's what the Doctor wanted.'

'Abraxas!'

Lecha.s.seur made Emily crouch down behind him. She looked tough and wiry enough when she needed to be and she'd given Abraxas a better runaround than he could hope for, but she was also exhausted and shivering cold. Her feet were naked and b.l.o.o.d.y with cuts from her getaway. If he could keep her alive he'd take her to Mrs Bag-of-Bones' for the rest she needed. That was a.s.suming Abraxas didn't snap her neck the moment he got near her.

He hoped he could talk him out of it.'Abraxas!' he shouted. The Big Man had flung most of the burning metal aside and was staggering to his feet. He looked damaged, but not badly enough to make a difference. He stabbed an accusing finger at Lecha.s.seur.

You were warned and now I will cut you apart and pickle the remains in a jar You were warned and now I will cut you apart and pickle the remains in a jar