This time, when the scrabbling came, I saw movement at the far end of the foyer, where the drapes half hid the archway to the rest of the club. A strange kicking motion in the fabric. I managed to bob my werelight in the right general direction and saw two human legs, probably female, protruding below. They were dressed in stockings—the same rich red color as the wallpaper. And one of the feet was still shod in a matching scarlet pointy-toed stiletto. As my light wobbled closer the legs began to kick, a spastic mechanical movement that reminded me horribly of early biological experiments with frogs. There were no human sounds apart from the heels drumming against the carpet, and the drapes hid anything above the thighs—assuming there was anything above the thighs.

It was possible a human being was in distress, and I had a duty to check it out—if only I could make my feet take a step forward. The legs began to kick more violently and I noticed that my werelight was beginning to dim and take on a redder hue. I was well practiced at werelights by this point, and they never normally changed color without me changing the forma. I’d seen this before when I’d “fed” the ghost of Captain de Vries and my best guess was that as the magic was drained off, the short-wavelength, higher-energy light dropped away first. Although saying that really doesn’t convey how sodding sinister the effect was in real life.

The legs kicked faster, the remaining shoe coming loose and spinning off into the shadows. The light grew dimmer and still I couldn’t make myself go forward.

“Shut it down, Peter,” said Nightingale from behind me. I popped the werelight and immediately the legs stopped kicking. He’d arrived with a bunch of serious-looking forensics people in noddy suits carrying their evidence-collection kits in camera cases. At the back a couple of Murder Team guys, including Somali ninja girl, were wrestling some portable floodlights down the last flight of stairs. Nightingale himself was in a noddy suit, which despite being the most modern item of clothing I’d ever seen him wear still made him look like the lead from a 1950s black-and-white sci-fi classic. He had one of his silver-topped canes in his right hand and a coil of nylon rope slung over his shoulder.

“Do not feed the animals,” he said.

“You think there might be something alive in there?” I asked.

“That’s something we’re going to have to discover for ourselves,” he said.

As the forensics people helped set up the lights, Nightingale stepped into a climber’s harness, attached one end of the rope, and handed the coil to me. He beckoned me closer and spoke quietly so the others wouldn’t hear.