‘The Gronk first appeared twenty years ago, not long after Gretl died – and she was a huge fan of Rodgers and Hammerstein.’

‘Still pretty tenuous.’

‘Agreed,’ said Lloyd, staring at the desk.

We’d been told to invoke the Rule of Least Astonishment when assessing aberrant Winter phenomena, and this seemed a good time to do so, because everything was less astonishing than suggesting the Gronk took Lucky Ned. It could have been a nightwalker, Consul, winsomniac, sleepwalker – even someone in a modern Mk XXII shock-suit, the one with an H4S built in. And what better way to cover one’s tracks than by making it look as if it was the Gronk? Lucky Ned might have engineered the whole thing to put the fear of Morpheus up us. Villains like to mess with your head.

I thanked Lloyd and walked towards the elevator with, I admit, a dull feeling in my stomach. But it wasn’t just the hunger, the stresses of the day, meeting Toccata or even that I’d been there when the Gronk appeared and took Lucky Ned – no, there was something else, something that had been nagging at my conscience all afternoon, something that just wouldn’t go away.

Birgitta.

Something rotten in the winter

‘ . . . The Dormitorium as a social hub lives long in the resident’s psyche. A place of safe harbour, warmth and slumber, it is not hard to see why loyalty to a particular Kipshop can be so strong. Moving is rare; your Dormitorium name, number and floor family become part of what you are. Abandon them and you abandon part of yourself  . . . ’

– Handbook of Winterology, 10th edition, Hodder & Stoughton

I took the paternoster to the ninth floor, unlocked the door to my apartment and chucked my jacket over the back of the sofa. I slid a cylinder at random onto the phonograph and pretty soon the restful melody of the Suite Bergamesque filled the air. I walked to the kitchen area and brewed myself a cup of tea, ate a bag of cashews and made a large peanut butter and jam sandwich. I then picked a packet of Jaffa cakes and three Club Oranges from the basket, placed the tuck in my pockets and quietly opened the door. Unsurprisingly, there was no one about but I removed my slippers anyway and padded in my socks around the corridor. I stopped outside Birgitta’s room, paused to check the coast was clear, then unlocked the door and slipped inside.

The room was pretty much as I had seen it that morning: full of paintings, but with anything organic either chewed or eaten: all the spare food, most of the cardboard and even the candles, soap and the rubber off a spatula. Before Lloyd had released Birgitta into the basement she had consumed what little protein she could find – even the curtains looked chewed.