“Ah, well, love.” Khan snagged a coffee cup off a nearby table and deposited a knuckle of ash into it. “That is why they’re not here with a room full of high-tech nonsense, isn’t it? Apparently there’s—”

“A computer,” Alison said. Khan stared at her, and she went on, “I’m right, aren’t I? An…interdimensional computer. That’s what they’re using to communicate. But it’s not reliable, is it? It comes and goes, and so do these cracks, these doors.” She thought of the stockbroker computer. It had been using CIT-Space to read the entire market, as though it was laid out conveniently on a map. “They’re going to open these fissures of yours to kidnap you back to wherever the hell they come from. Does that sound like they’re interested in fixing the problem?”

Khan regarded her for a stretched moment, one eyebrow cocked. “Well…” she started, and then everyone around them stood up, dusting themselves off. For a moment Alison thought she’d found the secret of secrets, and now they were going to kill her. But instead there had been some silent, independent signal, and now it was time to go.

There weren’t any handy interdimensional portals this time, so they took a minicab, making Alison feel she’d been consigned to some kind of death by bathos. The vehicle that pulled up outside their swanky apartment block at what must have been past midnight was a big people carrier. Only four of her captors could fit in, along with her and Khan. She tried to catch the attention of the driver, to silently communicate that a kidnapping was ongoing, but the man didn’t seem to use his rear-view mirror, alarming in itself.

So they could walk into and out of my flat, but it’s by road across London? She had a ready answer to that, if she thought about it. Because I found the cracks and pried at them, didn’t I. I helped make a space. She had been contributing to her own downfall all the way.

When the minicab stopped, she fumbled a card from her pocket and left it on the seat, hoping that someone would call the office. When they were outside on the pavement, though, one of the big men just tucked the card judiciously back into her hand with a disappointed expression.

She heard Khan make a surprised noise. “Wasn’t expecting this. You here to look up some relatives?” They were standing outside the grounds of the Natural History Museum in Kensington. Not so bloody far from my flat, for God’s sake.