With the roar of the train there was no way to talk, and the tunnel made it too risky to move, so I lay flat and waited for the train to stop. After only a couple of minutes I felt the pressure as the train engaged its brakes and began decelerating, slower and slower. It came to a halt with a final screech of metal and a moment later I heard the engine door open up ahead. I knew the driver would be coming down on the right and I reached up to touch Anne, signalling for her to descend on the left. We climbed down the carriage, slipped by the driver as he hurried past on the other side, and started walking towards the fuzzy grey patch that marked the end of the tunnel ahead.

By the time we came out into the open we could hear distant sirens, but the section of track we were on was empty. We walked along the lines until we found an exit and climbed up and out to street level. No one followed.

Chapter 8

chapter 8

By the time Anne and I cleared the area the sirens had converged behind us. We took a looping course around, heading back towards Camden Town as more and more emergency vehicles arrived. My phone was under half a ton of rubble in my bedroom but Anne had managed to keep hold of hers, and as we walked back through the empty streets the first thing we did was check what had happened to Luna and Variam. Anne’s first call didn’t get an answer, nor her second, nor her fifth, but as we crossed Chalk Farm her phone beeped. Anne read the message and gave a sigh of relief. “They’re okay.”

“Both of them?”

“Both of them.”

I relaxed a little. Putting Anne in danger had been bad enough. If Luna and Vari had been hurt . . . “Can you call them?”

Anne shook her head. “They’re busy with the police. It . . . didn’t sound like they were going to get away soon.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Bomb going off in Central London. Right.” Now I was going to have the antiterror divisions of the Metropolitan Police and MI5 crawling over my flat. This was going to be a major headache.

“Is it going to be a problem?”

“I can probably call in some favours and get it settled, but I’m going to have to stay away from the shop for a while. Getting dragged into a police station with Will’s lot out there would be bad.” I nodded at a side street. “This way.”

We crossed the street. “Will Luna and Vari be okay?” Anne asked.