“I’ll get you into a hotel,” I said. “We can talk about what to do next then.” I concentrated on Simone, who was looking at me with a kind of sick longing. “Simone, we don’t have much time.”

She nodded. “I think we should leave immediately and never return.”

“But what about my things?” wailed Cherie.

“We’ll get you more things,” said Peggy, hauling Cherie to her feet.

“I’ll check the coast is clear,” I said. I stepped out onto the landing and pressed the pop-in switch thingy that turned on the miserly forty-watt bulb.

There was a crash downstairs, the distinctive double bang of a heavy door being smashed open and the rebound off a side wall. It’s no joke, that rebound. There have been plenty of instances where the first bastard through the door has been knocked right back out on his arse.

I was too late. I didn’t know if it was Nightingale with Caffrey in support or a CO19 armed response team sent in by Stephanopoulis. Either way I had to de-escalate the situation before they reached the top of the house. I told Simone and the others to stay in the room.

“Officer on the scene,” I shouted. “No weapons, no hostages. I repeat, no weapons, no hostages.”

I paused to listen. From down below I thought I heard someone sniggering and then a deep voice with a lisp said—“Excellent.” Then I definitely heard feet running up the lower staircases. I held up my hands at chest level, palm out to show I was unarmed. It wasn’t an easy thing to do—one of the reasons why the Met has to train its officers in conflict resolution is to overcome our natural London urge to get our retaliation in first.

The push-in light switch popped out and it suddenly went dark. I frantically slapped at the switch to get it on again—anything that can go wrong with armed men in the light can go twice as wrong in the dark.

The footsteps reached the landing below me and a figure came bounding around the corner and up the stairs.

And that’s when my brain let me down. Whatever you’ve been told, seeing is not believing. Your brain does a great deal of interpretation before it deigns to let your consciousness know what the hell is going on. If we’re suddenly exposed to something unfamiliar, a damaged human face, a car flying through the air toward us, something that looks almost but not quite human, it can take time, sometimes even seconds, for our minds to react. And those seconds can be crucial.

As when a chimera is racing up the staircase to reach you.