She sighs, a little sound in the dark. ‘I was offered a lifeline and I was too stupid to take it. Too slow, too cautious. Missed my opportunity. Nothing’s changed. The sun will come up, just the same as it does every day, and what happens will happen.’ She goes quiet for a bit, then says, ‘If you ever get a second chance, Grim, grab it with both hands. Don’t hesitate for a moment, you hear me?’

‘If I could hold a tune,’ I tell her, ‘I’d sing you a song.’

‘Spare me.’

‘What song would you want, if I could?’

‘Believe me, I wouldn’t.’

‘If it was me going out there, I wouldn’t want one of those trumpet-call, flag-waving things. I’d want a lullaby. I’d want to be sung to sleep quietly.’

‘What are you trying to do, Grim, turn me into a blubbering heap? Don’t sing, I beg you. I don’t want a march, I don’t want a ballad, I don’t want a dance. And I really, really don’t want a lullaby.’

‘Good,’ I say. Funny; my effort to stop her crying has left my own face all tears. ‘Because I’m the worst singer you ever heard. Even Strangler’s a better musician than me.’

‘Not crying, are you, Grim? A big bad fellow like you?’

‘Me? Nah.’

I’m just saying this when there’s a crash like the end of the world, and all of a sudden I’m lying on my back with everything coming down around me, and somewhere above me, above the heap of rubbish that’s weighing down my chest and legs and half covering my face, there’s open sky. Everyone’s shouting.

Takes me a while to get myself out; for a bit I think my leg might be broken, but no, I can move all right. Place is all chunks of stone, bent bars, splintered wood, like a huge storm has hit it, but there’s no rain coming down, no wind roaring over, just that sky calling me to climb up and get out, quick, before the guards come. Scrabbling noises tell me the others have the same idea, and now here’s Poxy clambering toward me across a mountain of rubble, his face all over dust, and after him comes Dribbles, making sobbing noises as if he can’t catch his breath.