“So she wasn’t feeding off me. Then why did I pass out?”

“I’d bet she was feeding off you,” he said. “Just not enough yet for it to damage your brain.”

“She was doing it while we were having sex,” I said. “She practically told me that herself. Do we know what she’s actually feeding off exactly?”

“The damage I’m looking at is consistent with the early stages of hyperthaumaturgical degradation.”

“She’s a vampire,” I said. “A jazz vampire.”

“Jazz may just be the flavoring,” said Dr. Walid. “What’s being consumed is magic.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“We don’t know, as well you know,” he said and sent me off to get changed.

“Is it brain cancer then?” asked my dad as we got dressed.

“No, they just wanted to record your empty head for posterity,” I said.

“You’ve never been very lucky with birds, have you?” he said. It’s weird watching an elderly parent when he’s half naked. You find yourself staring in fascination at the slack skin, the wrinkles, and the liver spots, and thinking—one day all that will be yours. Or at least it will be if you can avoid getting killed or falling in love with vampires.

“Apart from the thing with Mum, how did the gig go?”

“Not bad at all,” he said. “We could have done with a bit more rehearsal, but then you always can.”

Even with sterile needles supplied by the NHS my dad had still collapsed the veins on his arms and I’d assumed he’d been injecting into his legs. But looking now I couldn’t see any tracks.

“When was the last time you had your medicine?” I asked.

“I’m temporarily off the gear,” he said.

“Since when?” I asked.

“Since the summer,” he said. “I thought your mum told you.”

“She said you’d quit smoking,” I said.

“And the rest.” My dad slipped into his rifle-green shirt with the button-down collar and shook his arm in the approved cockney geezer manner. “Got off both horses,” he said. “And to be honest giving up the fags was the harder of the two.”

I offered to take him home, but he said that not only was he all right but he was looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet. Still the sun was going down so I waited with him at the stop until his bus came and then I walked back to Russell Square.

I’m used to having the Folly to myself, so it was a bit of a shock to wander into the atrium and find half a dozen guys making themselves comfortable in the armchairs. I recognized one of them, a stocky man with a broken nose, as Frank Caffrey, our contact in the fire brigade and reservist for the parachute regiment. He stood up and shook my hand.

“These are me mates,” he said.