‘You don’t know where the Pod is. I wonder if it has been destroyed. Laylock is sometimes very fallible, and on occasion… untrustworthy. If the Pod has failed, we may at least discover some important information about you. I know they have a lighthouse on a place called Gallifrey,’ Serif murmured. ‘Tell me, does Aberdeen have defences?’

‘A sea wall, that’s all. To stop the flooding. There’s no soldiers here. Nothing special about the town at all, except for the rock⁠ —’

‘Ah yes, the radioactive granite, so conducive to mutation.’

‘No, the rock with “Greetings From Aberdeen” written through it. Very tasty.’

Smith glanced up at the headland above the beach. ‘Oh my God! Verity!’

Serif followed his gaze. A young woman with a moon-like, innocent face was staring down at them from the shore.

‘Ah, so there is beauty in truth. Who is she?’

‘A girl. We used to be together. Now we’re not.’

‘What does she mean to you?’

‘She’s what I’m always just missing. We met here once. We were very different, from opposite sides of town.’

‘Are some of the citizens of Aberdeen better off than others, then?’

‘You could say that. There’s a poor house, run by the Church. That’s where I was brought up.’

‘Really? What was the name of your teacher? What did he tell you of the sea wall?’

Smith opened his mouth, and suddenly found himself convulsing. He fell to the ground, his hands grasping frantically at the pebbles. It was as if something huge had given way inside him. ‘No! No!’ he shrieked. ‘Can’t tell!’

He reached out a hand piteously as the woman on the shore turned and walked away. ‘Verity!’

‘So you know there are certain things you should not say. Interesting.’ Serif raised his gloved hand and clicked his fingers.

Smith found himself back on his own living-room floor again, paralysed. The pain flooded back into his finger. He struggled to breathe, and managed to gasp regular, shallow gulps of air as Serif got up and wandered over to his bureau. ‘You’ve been writing fiction,’ the dark man whispered, picking up a page from Smith’s story and glancing at it. ‘In fiction, we reveal our deepest unconscious thoughts. Would it be of any use to me to read this? You may speak.’

‘Unconscious?’ Smith gasped. ‘How can thoughts not be conscious?’