She rounded the corner and wound her way carefully through the snatching foliage to the stairs, trying to minimize the clack of her hard-soled boots as she began to climb. The handrails were broken in places, and Hawkins tested each step before transferring her weight, aware that the old fire escape might give way without warning.

She paused halfway up, hearing sounds from inside the building; low voices too rhythmic in nature to be normal conversation. She listened, trying to make out words, but what was being said wasn’t in English.

She resumed her ascent, approaching the upper landing, now able to see a doorway above her, a sliver of light escaping from the near edge showing that it wasn’t secure. She could also see detail through the windows for the first time. Above her in the building’s apex, Hawkins made out dark buttresses supporting what was left of a roof, regular gaps in the sheet metal canopy revealing sections of dark cloud beyond. The place was a ruin.

The light cast by the flames danced against the remaining panels, confirming that the fire was definitely inside, as large pieces of blackened kindling floated silently up and away through the holes into the night.

Hawkins reached the top, squatting outside the door to listen again as the chants from within became more insistent.

She rotated slowly, making sure there was no one watching her from the ground. The road was deserted. The adjoining yard looked equally abandoned, the hulls of a few wooden boats marooned on stilts, rotting peacefully in the dark.

She turned back to the unit, rising out of her crouch to peer in through the cracked corner of her viewing platform window.

The first thing she noticed was that there was no upper floor, the ruined remnants of a mezzanine level having been ripped out long ago. Below the patchwork roof came naked brick, unbroken at first, then punctuated lower down by regularly spaced windows. Graffiti was scrawled in the gaps. But as Hawkins stood fully, she saw all the way to the floor. She almost recoiled.

Fifteen feet below her was a scene that belonged in the dark ages.

45

Lines of grass and weeds grew along cracks in the ground floor of the disused factory, while invading foliage from outside filled three of four corners. Brambles snaked their way in through most of the windows, dropping down to compete with the low-level vegetation.

A fire blazed in the centre of the room. Around it, dismembered branches had been arranged in the shape of a pentacle. Outside the circle, five people in hoods were silhouetted against the flames, each holding a tapered baton. And at the head of the star, behind some kind of low table, stood a tall figure in ankle-length robes, wearing a mask in the shape of a goat’s head with long, jagged horns.

The master of ceremonies.