What beast’s lair was this? What unthinkable acts had taken place in this room?

Horrified to a degree never before or since experienced, Cody had somehow managed to locate the window and scramble back through it.

Stumbling and sobbing to her car, she’d made an anonymous call to the police alerting them to a dangerous psychopathic butcher living in Walton Street and then went on a long holiday.

The Frankburg building was her first break-in since then. It seemed clean. There was no blood on the carpet. At least none that her torch could pick out.

Cody followed a corridor that led to a stairwell. The doors to individual offices were locked. She climbed the stairs and found that all the second-floor offices were locked too, and so were those on the third floor. So was Frankburg’s.

She put her eye to the keyhole but saw nothing. She put her nose to the keyhole and sniffed the air from inside the room but could smell only the metal of the lock. She slipped a note under the door.

She went back down to the ground floor and stole the package that she had seen being delivered. It was in a Jiffy Bag, addressed to Dr. Frankburg, and it felt like a tape.

Good enough, she thought.

712

The young policeman stood staring at the mess on the Wellington Arms’ back curtain and sobbed. The poor man had twice this evening been confronted with spattered human being. He was beyond the poetically turned concealment of emotion that had so struck Samuel Thorn on the station platform. The world had become a barbarous and hellish place. He could only howl.

“I know,” said Miles. “Is that funny? Do you think this is what people expect when they come to a comedy night? No is the answer.”

The young policeman ran for the door.

“Don’t worry about him,” said his colleague. “It’s been a trying evening.”

“For him and me both,” said Miles.

“I just need you to confirm a couple of things about John Heron, sir.”

711

Samuel Thorn returned to the hotel and emptied the mini-fridge.

He looked at himself in the mirror and gave himself the caption “Jinxed Man Touched by Tragic Events.” He thought now would be a good time to cry but didn’t want to watch himself doing it. Too narcissistic.

He watched anyway, then fell into bed.

He didn’t set his alarm; he’d let the diggers wake him up. They always started early.

710

Cody listened to the tape.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Frankburg Ph.D. If you have already heard my tape You Too Can Fly you will know that there will be times during this tape when I will be encouraging you to concentrate solely on my voice. This is to draw you into a state of deep relaxation. So I’m asking you now to find an environment that is free from distractions. One where it is safe to close your eyes.”