‘And the other way?’

‘About the same distance that way. There’s a T-junction. Another door.’

Boggle’s voice sounded hoarse, and there was a catch in it. Blue shone his torch in his face. Boggle was crying.

‘You all right?’

‘Not really, no.’ Boggle looked at the dead girl. ‘She was called Emma. She was a friend of mine.’

‘Sorry. You cool to carry on?’

‘Yeah. Don’t want anyone else to get hurt. We need to fix this up.’

‘Good man.’ Blue held out his hand and locked wrists with Boggle. Boggle took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

‘I’m with you, mate,’ said Blue and they crept down the corridor side by side, Blue’s troops sticking close behind them. After about thirty metres they came to where another identical corridor branched off to the right.

They found two lads of about thirteen crouching there in the dark. They were staring off along the corridor towards an open door and nearly jumped as high as the ceiling when Blue’s team stumbled on them.

Once they’d got over their shock they looked hugely relieved to see Boggle.

‘What’s happening?’ Boggle asked.

‘There’s loads of them down there,’ said one of the boys, who was clutching a short ornamental sword like Boggle’s. It was splashed with blood. ‘We don’t dare go any further.’

‘We got to lock that door,’ said Boggle.

‘We ain’t going no further. No way, Boggle.’

‘Any idea what happened tonight?’ Boggle asked the boys.

‘Don’t know. We checked all the doors earlier. They was fine. But maybe we made a mistake. Maybe we mucked up. Maybe it’s our fault. That’s why we came down here. And then our candle burned out and we were stuck in the dark.’

‘We checked them all at nine o’clock,’ said the other boy. ‘Just like always. Even though Robbie’s not around. They was all locked. We’re sure of it.’

‘We found Jason,’ said the first boy.

‘Who’s Jason?’ asked Blue.

‘He’s on one of the other security teams,’ said the boy. ‘He also checks the doors. We found his body, what was left of it, half eaten. God knows how, but all the doors are open …’

Blue looked at the frightened faces of the boys. Somebody here had either been careless or crazy, but finding out the answer to that would have to wait till later; right now they had to deal with the grown-ups.

‘Looks like you got a war on your hands,’ said Blue.

‘Don’t I know it,’ said Boggle.

‘So come on,’ said Blue. ‘Let’s win it …’