‘Okay,’ said Beverley. ‘I really hope one of you is a virgin.’

‘What now?’ asked Dominic.

‘We follow it,’ I said.

Which we did, but incredibly cautiously, all the way down to what Dominic assured me was School Wood – not far from where Stan had had her stash snaffled. I considered launching another werelight, but after a brief discussion with the others we decided to delay that until we were within a comfortable mad panicked rush of where Victor was parked in the Technical.

In fact, I had Dominic turn his phone back on so he could call to make sure that Victor was indeed waiting. You know – just in case.

The track had curved south so that the tall trees cast their moon shadows across the path, making it much harder to continue without lights. The warmth of the day was leaching out of the air and I shivered at a breeze that blew in from the north and riffled the tree tops.

When I figured we’d reached the point where the track started to descend sharply, I decided to give the big werelight another go.

‘And what’s your plan if Princess Luna turns up again?’ asked Beverley.

‘I want you two to hang back,’ I said. ‘While I go and try to make friends with it.’

‘And when it inevitably tries to kill you?’ asked Dominic.

‘You rush in and rescue me,’ I said.

Beverley kissed her teeth.

‘We have to at least narrow down where it’s coming from,’ I said. ‘So if it runs, we follow it again. And if it attacks, we see how far it follows us.’

‘Just for the record,’ asked Dominic, ‘what were you expecting to happen when we first met it?’

I told them I had thought our invisible friend would be a bit more insubstantial and a bit less like a carthorse with a lethal spike stuck on its head.

‘The girls are still missing,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to make another attempt.’

‘Fine,’ said Beverley. ‘Just stay out of the way of the horn, right?’

I promised I would.

Then I turned on the last of the cricket bats and put a werelight over our heads, a slightly bigger one than I meant to, one that I learnt later was visible as far away as Wigmore and Mortimer’s Cross.

As soon as it went up I felt Beverley clutch my arm.

There was a chill in the air and a sudden coppery taste in my mouth. A smell like smashed flint and a screech like a blade on a whetstone.

At the far edge of the werelight the shadows amongst the trees began to quiver.

‘I have to get off this ridge,’ said Beverley.

‘Why?’

‘There are some things you don’t do, some places you don’t go, unless you are seriously looking for trouble.’

‘Are we talking postcodes here?’