It hadn’t been people. The crate stank powerfully of some kind of preservative, and inside was…a thing, a lobster the size of a man. Except it had clothes of a sort: a half-shredded poncho or coat made of something like canvas. There was metal amongst its hideous mouthparts, possibly a device or ornament. He had closed the crate and nailed it down, but they’d known he’d seen it. Rove himself had known. More importantly, he’d appreciated that May hadn’t breathed a word of his discovery, even though he believed he’d seen a dead extraterrestrial.

Rove’s mention of the incident had brought him out in a sweat. It meant there was more of that out there, and if his apparent ability to cope with the weird had secured his promotion, he was on a career path he would never have willingly chosen. Since then, part of him had always been treading carefully, lest the ground give way beneath his feet in the worst way. Right now, the weird was ghosting through his current job like wolves in the trees either side of a fleeing sled. He hadn’t been bitten yet, but on the downside, he now had to report a failure to his boss.

In the beginning, Mr. Rove had liked face-to-face meetings with his lead subordinates, not trusting phones or video chats. He met Lucas in rooms without windows, with a white noise generator, after a thorough sweep for bugs and with all proper deference. And that had been all right. Rove was one of those long-time rich guys who knew where he stood and expected his inferiors to know that where they stood was definitively below him. However, he paid well enough and his instructions were clear and blunt.

In recent years, personal meetings had become rare and finally petered out. Now his mysterious plan was advancing, teleconferencing with his subordinates was an acceptable security risk.

May hated this part.

After the debacle at Camden ending in the death of Billy White, he had given his team their instructions and then gone home. A text had arrived from Rove Denton’s usual automated number. Await contact. Duly primed, May had spent the small hours staring at the wall until it happened.

It had been a condition of his most recent contract with RD that he left one wall in his flat unobstructed by pictures or furniture. At the time it had seemed eccentric, in the way all rich people were eccentric. Maybe, he’d reasoned, it was feng shui.