It was a relief when he came to a path which seemed to lead up to a park and trees.

The anxiety was coming under control now. He began to breathe more slowly. It was as if he’d left London behind him, as if he’d walked out of the city and was back in the countryside, now. He strolled on and up, through a meadow of long grass, towards a wood. He’d just get to those trees and then he’d sit down for a little while, see where his imagination took him. Because that’s all it was, imagination. He wasn’t really cursed with some sort of black prophecy. He hadn’t brought forth a chain of ill-luck, just by feeling strange when someone spiked his drink at a spoilt teenager’s party. He remembered that he’d been listening to Led Zeppelin when the sensation first started to creep up on him. Those guys were into all sorts, weren’t they? The occult and stuff. Pentagrams and black capes and the Tarot. That was probably what had brought on the sense of doom he’d had at the party.

There was bare earth under the trees and it felt cool in the shade, substantially less warm than in the open, as if it was a different day altogether. He felt the coolness on his skin, the relief of it. Maybe he’d just got too hot walking around and that was why his heart had started racing, earlier. Sitting with his back to a tree, he felt almost normal again.