What had the dice advised? He was no more certain than he had ever been. He decided he would try to find Valentine Sprake. Sprake, who had helped him on and off over the years, lived somewhere in North London. But though Kearney had a telephone number for him, he wasn’t sure it was reliable. He tried it anyway, from Victoria Station. There was a silence at the other end of the line then a woman’s voice said:

“You have reached the BT Cellnet answering service.”

“Hello?” said Kearney. He checked the number he had dialled. “You aren’t on a cellphone,” he said. “This isn’t a cellphone number. Hello?” The silence at the other end spun itself out. In the very distance, he thought, he could hear something like breath. “Sprake?” Nothing. He hung up and found his way down to the Victoria Line platforms. He changed trains at Green Park, and again at Baker Street, working his way obliquely to the centre of town, where he would interrogate the afternoon drinkers at the Lymph Club on Greek Street, one place he might expect to get news of Sprake.

Soho Square was full of schizophrenics. Adrift in the care of the community with their small dirty dogs and bags of clothes, they were brought together at sites like this by an attraction to movement, crowds, commerce. A middle-aged woman with an accent he couldn’t quite place had annexed a bench near the mock-Tudor shack at the centre of the square and was staring around with a lively but undirected interest. Every so often her upper lip folded back and a fey, unpremeditated sound escaped her mouth, more than an exclamation, less than a word. When Kearney appeared, walking fast from the Oxford Street end, an educated look sprang from nowhere into her eyes and she began talking loudly to herself. Her topics were disconnected and various. Kearney hurried past, then on an impulse turned back.

He had heard words he didn’t understand.

Kefahuchi Tract.

“What does that mean?” he said. “What do you mean by that?”

Mistaking this for an accusation, the woman fell silent and stared at the ground near his feet. She had on a curious mixture of good-quality coats and cardigans; green wellington boots; homemade fingerless mitts. Unlike the others she had no baggage. Her face, tanned by exhaust fumes, alcohol and the wind that blows incessantly around the base of Centre Point, had a curiously healthy, rural look. When she looked up at last, her eyes were pale blue. “I wonder if you could spare me the money for a cup of tea?” she said.

“I’ll do more than that,” Kearney promised. “Just tell me what you mean.”

She blinked.