But at least he’d got the Narrow Man’s attention away from the boy. Virgil walked forward towards the cliff edge, putting every ounce of strength he had into pretending his body wasn’t about to fail at any moment.

“This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Virgil asked. His words sounded wrong. Thick. His mouth was dry. “You wanted a showdown, didn’t you? The Shroud versus Insidio, one last time? Well, here you go.”

Virgil stood his ground while his adversary moved closer and loomed over him. Up close and personal, the Narrow Man’s eyes were bottomless pits leading straight to hell. There was an emptiness in there, a void, that would have turned Virgil’s skin cold were it not for the sharp wind that had already succeeded in that regard.

But those eyes also looked into Virgil, and, as much as he tried to fight it, Virgil knew what the Narrow Man saw in there. He saw a faded actor and an old man. He saw a bad heart and all the pills that were needed to keep that heart ticking. He saw a shrivelled presence, the stooped shadow of the man he had once been.

The smile faded on his adversary’s face, and settled into a thin, wide line. The Narrow Man turned away, walked back towards Austin.

Virgil was failing.

He broke into a run, a desperate, old man’s run that nonetheless took him past the Narrow Man and out on to the Shard, because he was such a non-threat that the Narrow Man didn’t bother to stop him. Gasping, Virgil stood in front of Austin as a trembling, decrepit shield. They were close to the very point of the Shard now. There was mud beneath his feet. Virgil tried not to look to either side, tried not to look down. He must be 300 feet up. The wind plucked at his clothes. He focused on the task at hand.

Fine. So Javier was right. Virgil needed a scriptwriter. So what? His body might have been failing, but his mind was as sharp as ever.

“This is where it ends!” Virgil called out. “This is where I put a stop to your decades of evil!”

The Narrow Man froze, listening to words that had been written years earlier, that had been first spoken when the cameras rolled for the final episode of When Strikes the Shroud.

“For too long you have walked this earth,” Virgil continued, “destroying the lives of those you meet. No more, you hear me? No more!”

The Narrow Man came closer, the smile on his face again, and Virgil gave him a smile back beneath his mask.

“Do an old actor a favour, why don’t you? You say you’re a fan? Here’s your chance to be part of it all.”