One more hour, and the good Reverend Easter would arrive. Nikki felt a despondency creep into her. Hell, she didn’t even know what he looked like! Probably short and paunchy, with receding hair and a permanent holier-than-thou expression. Not that that mattered much to her. She glanced down at the masks, and thought maybe everyone wore a mask when it suited them. She certainly did, come to think of it. And why should she be worrying about the arrival of the newest addition to her shabby little team? If the jungle drums were correct, he’d just be another lamb to the slaughter, and if he had the balls and stamina of his predecessors, he’d be breaking the speed limit all the way back to Fenchester before nightfall. With a sigh, she picked up her coffee and one of the masks, and went to find the Super.

Superintendent Bainbridge lifted it up with a finger and thumb, and stared at the mask with distaste. ‘What the hell is it supposed to be?’

‘Part rat, part rotting corpse. And its origin is hazy, to say the least.’

‘Lovely. So why can’t we trace the source?’

Nikki drew in a long breath. ‘Beats me, sir. They don’t show up legitimately anywhere. Not in fancy dress hire places, or in novelty shops, or suppliers catalogues, nowhere.’

‘What about the Internet? That’s where practically everything comes from these days, isn’t it?’

‘First place we looked, sir, but we got a big fat zero.’

‘So how do these kids get hold of them?’

‘Sounds ridiculous, I know …’ Nikki ran her fingers through her hair and exhaled. ‘… but they just seem to turn up. Everyone we’ve interviewed has denied buying or purposefully acquiring them. They just seem to have come by them somehow, and being the opportunists that they are, have used them for whatever mischief or devious little crime they were planning on committing.’

The Super frowned. ‘And is there any connection between the youngsters who have been using the masks?’

‘Not really. The kids come from different schools, different areas of the town, even different ethnic groups.’ She shrugged. ‘The first users were a bunch of school kids nicking their classmates dinner money. Then they appeared on the Carborough Estate where some little scrotes were playing some sort of scary knock-down-ginger and putting the frighteners on whoever opened the door. Then we had a couple of handbag snatches with kids wearing them, and a mugging over near the railway station. Now, they are all over the place.’

‘And last night?’

‘PCs Collins and Farrow left me a memo, sir. One little toerag that they brought in called the mask by a name. Called it a Griffyx, apparently, then clammed up tighter than a duck’s backside. WPC Collins Googled it, but found nothing. I’ll have a word with them before they go off shift, sir, maybe—’