She stared at him blankly; then down at herself; then back up at the picture on the wall. She began to masturbate absentmindedly, working her fingers into her groin.

“Christ,” said Kearney.

He took another look at Sprake. Sprake was clutching an old electric kettle in one hand and a pamphlet edition of Yeats’s Hodos Chameleontos in the other. A moment before, perhaps, he had been holding them up with his arms outspread in the hieratic gesture of a figure on a Tarot card. The floor in front of him was littered with objects that seemed to have fallen out of his lap as he died. Seashells, the skull of a small mammal: Serbian gypsy ornaments which had belonged to his mother. There was a feeling that something else was going to happen in the room. Despite the finality of what had already taken place, something else could easily happen.

Alice Sprake said: “He was good boy.”

She groaned loudly. The broken springs of the sofa creaked and were silent. After a moment she got to her feet and smoothed her skirt down over her thighs. She was six feet tall, Kearney thought, perhaps more. Her great size had a calming effect on him, and she seemed aware of that. She smelled powerfully of sex.

“I will see to this, Mikey,” she said. “But you must go.”

“I came because I needed his help.”

The idea seemed to give her no satisfaction.

“It is your fault that he is like this. Ever since he met you he has been mad. He was going to do wonderful things with his life.”

Kearney stared at her.

“Sprake?” he said in disbelief. “Are you talking about Sprake?” He started to laugh. “The day we met he was a fuck-up in a railway carriage. He did tattoos on himself with a Bic pen.”

Alice Sprake drew herself up.

“He was one of the five most powerful magicians in London,” she said simply. Then she added: “I know what you are afraid of. If you don’t go now I will send it after you.”

“No!” said Kearney.

He had no idea what she might be able to do. He stared panickily from her to the dead man, then ran out of the room, down the stairs and into the street.

Anna was asleep when he let himself back into the flat. She had wound herself in the duvet so that only the top of her head showed, and there were new notes everywhere. Other people’s problems are their own, she had tried to remind herself: You aren’t responsible for other people’s problems.