He saw Morgan and Martin rush forward, heaving on the door together, swinging it open, and switched his gaze to the next screen in time to see them enter the interior of the vault itself.

He jumped to his feet, excitement racing through him, started to turn away and paused, a cold chill spreading through his body.

He was looking at another screen – the one that gave a view of the passageway linking the cellar by which they had entered the building with the strongroom. A man was moving along the passage cautiously, tall and dark in sweater and pants, gloves on his hands and a nylon stocking pulled over his face.

Fallon cursed savagely, turned and ran to the door, knocking over the chair in his haste.

Beyond the van a monumental cross reared into the night and here and there, marble tombstones gleamed palely. The mason’s yard was dark and lonely, a place of shadows that was too much like a cemetery for comfort and Frankie Harris huddled into the driver’s seat miserably, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat.

He was getting old, that was the trouble – too old for this sort of action by night. He seemed to have been waiting there for hours and yet it was no more than forty-five minutes since his three companions had entered the manhole.

His feet were so cold that he could no longer feel them and after a while he opened the door and stepped into the rain. He walked up and down for a minute or two, stamping his feet to restore the circulation, and then paused to light a cigarette, his hands cupped around the flaring match.

He gave a sudden, terrible start as the light picked a face out of the night – a dark, formless face lacking eyes and mouth that could belong to nothing human.

He staggered back in horror, the match dropping from his nerveless fingers, and his throat was seized in a grip of iron.

‘Frank Harris?’ The thing had a voice. ‘You’re just out of the Ville, aren’t you?’

The pressure was released and Harris nodded violently. ‘That’s right.’

‘How long?’

‘Ten days.’

‘You bloody fool.’ Suddenly he found himself being jerked round and propelled towards the gate. ‘Now start running,’ the voice said harshly, ‘and don’t stop. Anything that happens to you after this, you deserve.’

Harris ran along the alley as he hadn’t run since he was a boy and when he reached the end, paused, leaning against the wall.

‘Christ Jesus,’ he sobbed. ‘Oh, Christ Jesus.’

After a while he pulled himself together, turned into the main road and started walking briskly in the direction of the Central Station.