They had arrived at the house.

Usually things here were so happy. But now there was quite a different atmosphere as Clothilde and Effie walked into the drawing room. Pelham Longfellow was there, looking grave. Cosmo had come down from his tower. Rollo looked furious. And there was a woman with them that Effie had not seen before. She looked very, very old, and was wearing the same kind of soft pointed hat as Cosmo. Was she related to him in some way? Or maybe she was from the council?

“Are you all right?” Pelham asked Clothilde, springing up from the sofa and touching her on the arm.

She nodded.

“Dear child,” said Cosmo to Effie. “I hear you’ve had yet another adventure.”

“They’re getting closer to us,” said Clothilde. “What do they want?”

“The Collective has gone completely mad,” said Pelham. “It’s exactly what I don’t miss about being here.”

Clothilde gave him a look that was half sad and half angry.

“We’ll talk about all that later,” said Cosmo. “For now we need to resolve this other matter. You’d better leave us alone with the child.”

Clothilde, Pelham and Rollo left the room, exchanging meaningful looks as they went.

Wolf couldn’t concentrate on anything while he waited for the phone to ring again. He sat at the desk holding a pen, ready for whatever was going to happen next. His stomach rumbled, and he didn’t move. He started to get cold. Normally he would have switched on the ancient oil heating system or lit a fire by now. But if there was any chance of hearing about Natasha he was not going to miss it.

It must have been almost an hour before the phone rang again.

“Hello?” said Wolf, after picking up the receiver as fast as he could. “Hello?”

He was greeted curtly by the same voice as before.

“Please take down this address,” said the voice. Wolf wrote down exactly what the caller said. It was somewhere in the Borders. “If you can get here by noon I will explain how to get the information you require.”

“By noon?” said Wolf. “But—”

“Don’t be late,” said the voice. “In fact, I’d get here as quick as you can. We operate on a first-come, first-served basis. And there’s intense competition for the places on our program. I’d waste no time if I were you. This will probably be the only chance you’ll get to find out where your sister is. It is your sister you seek, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Natasha Reed. Please can you just tell me where she is?”

“Everybody is searching for something, young man. What makes you think your quest is so special?”

Wolf didn’t know what to say to that. “She’s only ten,” he said. “She needs to be protected.”

“Indeed,” said the voice. “Get here by noon and we’ll talk.”

7