‘That’s absolutely fine, miss. Would you care to sit down for a while? Perhaps we could have a little chat.’ Abelard opened the partition and showed the nurse towards the row of chairs that ran along the edge of the room. ‘Now, were you in the hospital this afternoon when… when something awful happened?’

‘Yes!’ The nurse hopped up and down, smiling at him. ‘I was because I did it!’

‘Did you really, miss?’ Abelard reached for his notebook, suddenly wondering if he ought to put in a call to the constables from Berridge, who were still helping to clear up at the hospital. No, this girl was obviously round the bend. ‘What was it that you did, then, exactly?’

The nurse let go of her balloon, which floated up to the ceiling, and unbuttoned her cuff. She showed Abelard her wrist. ‘Watch! Nothing up my sleeve, just like a real magician. And now… ta-dah!’

The inside of her wrist split open like a piece of meat on a butcher’s rack. There was no blood, just a black capsule that plopped neatly out into her hand. The wrist swept shut again.

Abelard stepped back, astonished. ‘How⁠ —’

‘Now, here’s the clever part…’ The nurse began to unscrew the cap on the capsule.

‘Sarge!’ shouted Bickerston. ‘That’s the gas, it must be! Stop her!’

Abelard dived forward and wrenched the black capsule out of the nurse’s grip. He stared at it for a moment. She glared at him, her hands on her hips. ‘Oh!’

‘For goodness’ sake, hurry up, can’t you, Aphasia?’ August wandered in and shot Abelard through the head.

As the body slid down the wall, he turned his gun towards Bickerston, but the constable had already dived under the counter, grabbing the telephone as he went.

‘Balloon,’ Aphasia sighed, recovering her gas capsule from the bloody wreck on the wall. ‘Behind the desk.’

The balloon swept down from the ceiling and dropped below desk level, from where the sounds of frantic dialling issued.

‘Hoff’s back at the dome,’ August told Aphasia. ‘Have you seen Greeneye?’

‘No, but I got a message from him.’ The dialling had stopped, the receiver slammed back down again, and now the sound was a violent thrashing and muffled shouting.

‘Did he say where he was?’

‘No, but he said he had a new plan.’ The sounds from behind the desk grew quiet, and then stopped. The balloon floated back to Aphasia’s grasp.

‘That’s all we need,’ August sighed. ‘If it’s anything like the last one, we’ll all get injured this time.’

The telephone behind the desk began to ring. ‘Go and get Serif, would you please?’

August asked. ‘Oh, and kill anybody else you find.’

As Aphasia ran through into the interior, he opened up the partition and squatted down. He nudged the body of the constable aside and plucked the receiver from his fingers.