Faceless wasn’t stupid. He could see the odds had shifted. He threw one more fireball and I ducked—but it wasn’t aimed at me. It went up and a moment later the searchlight went out. I made a lunge for Faceless’s last known position but he was no longer there and by the time my eyes readjusted to the gloom I saw he was gone from the roof. Above me, the helicopter made a stuttering, clanking noise. It’s not the sort of sound you want to hear a helicopter making, especially when it’s right over your head.

I watched it as it lurched sideways over the street, wobbling while the pilot fought to get it under control. I should have been getting off the roof but I couldn’t take my eyes off it—Soho is as high-density urban as you can get. If it came down here the death toll would be in the hundreds. I heard the engine change pitch as the pilot pushed up the throttle and fought to gain altitude. There were screams and yells from the street below as people saw what was happening. There would be lots of phone-camera footage on the news that night from people with more media-savvy than brains.

I decided that the lack of brains included me when the helicopter lurched back toward me and I realized that my face was level with the landing skids. I ducked as they swept over my head in a blast of downwash that brought the smell of overheated oil. I could see where flying debris had dinged the paintwork on the underside of the fuselage and where cape-wearing boy had blown a hole the size of my fist through the housing of the sensor bubble on the nose. Then, with a clattering roar, the helicopter labored upward and away as the pilot went looking for somewhere safe to put down.

Apart from the approaching police sirens, it was suddenly much quieter. I sat down on what I still liked to think of as Simone’s and my mattress, caught my breath, and waited for more trouble to arrive.

First through the roof door was Thomas “Tiger Tank” Nightingale. He saw me and gestured at his eyes and then the blind spot behind the stairwell. I shook my head, pointed at the body of Tiger-Boy, and then made a walking motion with my fingers. Nightingale looked puzzled.

“He ran away,” I shouted.

Nightingale stepped out of cover and did a 360 just to be on the safe side. Frank Caffrey and a couple of mates followed him out. I’d expected the paras to be dressed in full-on ninja-commando rigs but of course they were still in their street clothes. If they hadn’t been armed with their service rifles I wouldn’t have given them a second look.

Two peeled off to check on Tiger-Boy, who stayed stubbornly dead even when one of them kicked him in the ribs.