“No. I’m not doing that. Father, he… will you shut up and listen? His heart’s packing in again and standing around on a street corner in plain sight of anyone who might want to kill us is not helping either. So I’m not asking your permission to get him somewhere safe; I’m telling you that’s what I’m doing and I’ll call you again when I’ve done it.” Her thumb stabbed down and the phone was thrust away again inside its secret pocket. “Where are we going?”

“Imperial college. But not by Park Lane. Goes too close to Green Park.”

“Bad?”

“Very. We’ll have to go through Hyde Park.”

She didn’t look certain. “I ought to just call an ambulance.”

“If they’re monitoring admissions, I’ll be dead in minutes.” He forced his legs to carry his weight. “You don’t have to come with me. It’s probably better that you don’t.”

“Shut up, Sam.”

There was nothing more to say. She marched him over the road. They passed the glistening shaven-headed man at Speakers Corner proclaiming a new machine jihad to the empty pavement, and slipped through the gates set in the wire fence that half-heartedly enclosed the park. Before them lay the warren of tents and shacks and shanties.

“Keep your eye on the Albert Hall. Too far left and you’ll end up in the Serpentine.”

She nodded grimly and looked up, fixing the dome against the buildings behind it. The rain had extinguished the open fires and damped down the miasma that hung over the refugee camp. It had even driven most of the inhabitants inside to seek whatever shelter they could scavenge.

It was loud, the drumming of the droplets on corrugated iron and stiff plastic; a roar that was deafening and disorientating.

“We could go round the long way,” she said.

“I won’t last the long way. Besides,” said Petrovitch, “neither the Oshicoras nor Paradise will follow us in. A priest and a nun should get a free pass.”

It was as if she was looking at him for the first time. “But you’re not a priest.”

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.” He plunged on into the narrow, twisting alleys, ready with a smile and a wave and a benediction, but determined never to stop. Hyde Park was where people went when they burned out of domik life. People went there to die. Petrovitch wasn’t going to be one of them.

Sister Madeleine followed, and he was glad for her at his back. If it hadn’t been for her, he would have tried the perimeter road. He hated Hyde Park: he could only look at so many hopeless faces before he felt rage overtake him. But who would he choose to grab and shout at? Too many, too many.