Occasionally, something in one of the ruined houses gleamed white, and Harker looked away, because he'd seen enough naked human bones in this lifetime.

After about half-an-hour of weaving around the remains of Brixton, Clapham, and Streatham, Harker leaned over Tallulah's shoulder, peered at the map, and said, 'Reckon this is about it.'

'This is about what?' asked Eve.

'Well, this is Mitcham.'

Tallulah stopped the car. There was grass growing on what once had been a street, between some lumps in the ground where buildings had stood. Off to the right was half a stone wall. A hundred or so yards ahead was part of a wooden house frame. It stood like a dead tree, listing to one side and creaking in the wind.

Harker vaguely remembered Mitcham before the battle, and what he remembered was the air, thick with the scent of lavender from the bushes growing for miles around in all the fields. Now, the fields were stark and empty but for the flock of crows feasting on some dead animal.

'This is not Mitcham,' Eve said.

Harker ignored her. He couldn't even be bothered to sigh at her any more.

'Look. My Mitcham has tower blocks, and shopping precincts, and, and, and people, and buses, and cars! This looks like something out of a war film!'

'It is something out of a war,' said Harker, politely ignoring the last word, which he didn't understand.

'This is ridiculous! This is wait.' Eve's voice changed. The hysteria vanished, and in its place came a sort of relief. 'I'm still being filmed, aren't I?'

'Um,' Harker said. All right, she was crazy. Pity. That soft little body next to his in the car had been a pleasant thing to be thrown against.

'This is oh my God, this is like, what do you call it? That thing on MTV. Where they do something to celebs well, not that I'm much of a celeb any more, but this is all Let's Humiliate stupid Has-Beens, isn't it? You've been filming me the whole time!'

Tallulah turned in her seat to exchange a look with Harker. Her expression said she didn't know what the hell Eve was talking about, either.

'All right,' Eve called cheerfully, 'you can come out now. Where's the camera? There's probably one here, isn't there? In the car?'

'A camera,' Harker said. Who the hell was she talking to? What the buggery bollocks was MTV? A Multi Terrain Vehicle, maybe that was what the Coalitionists called them. 'The army doesn't have any cameras.'

'Yes, but this is not the army, is it?'

A pause, then Harker said, 'I'm pretty sure it is.'

'I bet it's in one of those building things. Where are we? 'Cos you just told me we were in the Tower of London and I believed it, but I bet it's a set, isn't it? A film set? It's pretty elaborate, but wow, I'm impressed.'

She sounded pretty cheerful, Harker thought. Of course, that was because she was completely insane.

'Where is it?'

Eve made to open the car door, but Harker leaned across. 'Where do you think you're going?'

'To look for the camera.'

'What camera?'

'Come on, guys, the game's up. Unless oh, you are kidding; you don't know, either?'

Harker gave her a measured look. 'No, I really don't,' he said. He started to get out of the car. 'You can get out and look around if you want, but I'm coming with you.'

'Fine.'

Eve waited for him to come around and help her out of the car, smiling conspiratorially at Tallulah, who smiled nervously back. Hand on gun, Harker watched Eve hop confidently over to a fragment of stone wall and peek around behind it. She seemed disappointed not to find anything there.

Poking at the rubble and weeds around the base of the wall also produced nothing. Eve hopped over to the wooden frame, her smile fading, and peered around it. She squinted off into the distance, where there were barren fields, several of which were undulated with shell holes.

Starting to hop over to one of them, Harker halted her, his hand firm on her shoulder.

'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Not unless you want to further the cause of the British Army by detecting landmines for us.'

She paused, and looked up at him uncertainly. He stared back steadily.

'Well, maybe the camera's on the car,' she said, and started back towards it. She poked at the doors, at the spare tyre on the back, at the camo netting strung along the sides. She was about to go for the gun on the bonnet when Harker once more stopped her.

'Please don't touch that.'

'But what if it's'

Harker flicked the safety catch, aimed at the empty field, and a spray of bullets kicked up mud.

'But' she began, and Harker lost his patience. He leapt into the car, grabbed the submachine-gun from the seat and, raising it over Eve and Tallulah's heads, sprayed bullets into a circle twenty feet wide around the car.

Eve went white.

'There's got to be a camera somewhere,' she whispered.

'There isn't,' Harker said. 'And if there was, there isn't any more. Now get back in the car.'

Eve, looking shocked, did so, this time without complaining.

'Lu,' Harker said, tucking the gun down beside him, on the opposite side to Eve, 'back to the bridge.'

Tallulah did as she was told, and rather faster than necessary. In the back of the car, Eve sat still and quiet, her face pale and her eyes big with confusion.

'But it doesn't make any sense,' she whispered at one, apparently random, point, and Harker replied, 'War rarely does,' and put his arm around her.

Chapter Six.

'Wheeler wants to see you,' Charlie said as Harker tugged off his jacket and looked for somewhere to put it. But unless he started colonising Captain Turner's desk, next to his, there wasn't anywhere.

'Of course she does.'

Charlie grinned and made a T with her hands. Harker nodded, in desperate need of something to take away the bad taste in his mouth that St James's always left him with.

'Did she say what it was about?'

'No. But I'm guessing it's our alien. What have you done with her, anyway?'

'St James's,' Harker said. He threw his jacket on the floor and sat down, swinging his boots on to the few inches of desk that Charlie kept clear for such a purpose.

'Shame,' Charlie said. 'She seemed to have spirit.'

'Yeah.' Harker frowned as he thought about the silent ghost curled up next to him in the car on the way back to the city. She'd had spirit, until he'd fired that gun and she'd ... deflated, like someone had sucked all the fight out of her.

He'd handed her over to the halfway house at St James's, explaining that she'd be fine there, and well-treated. It wasn't a prison as such, more a place to put people they weren't sure about. People they suspected of nefarious deeds, but didn't have any proof of.

The army was big on proof.

But Eve hadn't really seemed to listen. Stumbling, shivering, like a person in shock, she'd huddled into his greatcoat and avoided eye contact. In the end, Harker had given up trying to talk to her, and just left.

Coop had been there, though. Good old Cooper, one of his best sergeants. On light duties after getting shot. Again. He smiled. Cooper's fiancee, Rosie, said that if he collected any more lead they could use it to fix the guttering.

Your men come back. Well, yes; if Coop hadn't, Rosie would be wearing Harker's entrails as lingerie.

Charlie handed him a cup of tea and leaned back against his desk. She didn't have one of her own, although she ought to. But then, Harker ought to have his own office and didn't.

'Any word on our new captain yet, Charlie?'

She shook her head.

'I put you forward for it, by the way.'

He didn't need to tell her. Half her promotions had come through him. Wheeler herself had seen to the rest. Wherever Harker went, there was always Charlie Riggs. Some of them called her his spaniel, behind both their backs of course.

Harker considered that a folly. For one thing, they ought to know he heard everything said behind his back; and for another, if they thought Charlie was a spaniel, they clearly didn't know much about dogs. Or about Charlie, for that matter.

'Thank you, sir.' She looked at her watch. 'Drink up. Time and Wheeler wait for no man.'

Harker did so, grimacing. When he'd joined the army as an enlisted man, a nice cup of hot, sweet tea was almost his constitutional right. But now he was an officer, he never had the time any more.

'I dunno,' he said. 'Three months back pay I'm owed, and I still can't finish a cup of tea. Never had to put up with this shit when I was a sergeant.'

'Sir?'

'Never mind.' Harker grabbed his jacket, now dusty and creased, which was just the way he liked it.

Wheeler was donning her own immaculate coat and gloves as he entered her office. 'You wanted to see me, sir?'

'Yes, Harker. Walk with me.'

He did, following her back down the way he'd just come.

'Lieutenant-Colonel Green's men are clearing No Man's Land,' Wheeler said. 'In about an hour I will be sending in the Grenadiers.'

Harker waited to see where this was going.

'Did you drive your alien into the area?'

'Yes, sir. Found an old map and took her to Mitcham. Nothing there, of course, sir. She went a bit ...'

'Yes, Major?'

'Well, a bit mental, tell the truth, sir. Still don't know if she's mad or a spy, but I've sent her to St James's anyway.'

'Good. That's one less thing. See if they can get anything out of her.'

Harker bristled at the implication that he hadn't been able to, and almost forgot to open the door into the courtyard for Wheeler.

'Now, Major. Colonel Watling-Coburg passed on to me a recommendation from you for the position of captain in C Company.'

'Did she?' Harker shivered; it was damn cold out here.

'You know she did, Harker. And you know it was for Lieutenant Riggs.'

'Yes, sir. I really think'

'I agree with you, Major. She would make a fine captain. And as I understand it, she's been the de facto second-in-command of C Company for as long as you've had it.'

'She's been the de facto second-in-command wherever I've been. No disrespect to Captain Smith, sir, he was a fine officer, but Charlie's the best second I've ever had.'

'Yes, I know. I've often considered the two of you as brothers.'

'Er, d'you mean she's like my sister, sir?'

There was a pause as both of them brought to mind one Charlotte Riggs, the most ruthlessly unfeminine person on the planet.

'All right, brother,' Harker conceded.

'And a very good officer. It's shameful it took us so long to get her out of the ranks. But nonetheless, I am going to have to turn her down for the position.'

Harker blinked. 'Might I ask why, sir?'

'No, Harker. Not today, you may not.'

Anger boiled up within Harker, but years of experience had taught him to squash it, quickly.

'I see, sir,' he said, which was a direct lie.

'No,' Wheeler gave him a faint smile, 'you don't. I don't expect you to. I would explain it to you, Harker, but I'm afraid it's on a need-to-know basis right now, and you don't need to know. Colonel Watling-Coburg has made her recommendation, with which I agree.'

'Do I get any choice in this?' Harker asked gloomily.