It was in the Whittington, scared and angry and desperate, that he’d killed his first grown-up. A fat nurse. He pushed her down some stairs. Didn’t mind that at all. It had been a release for him. Didn’t get scared in a fight. But he didn’t like hospitals. Didn’t like nurses. Didn’t like doctors.

A movement caught his eye and he turned to see a dark, squirming shape outside. The others had spotted it too. Brandon stood up.

‘Look at that.’

Big Mick couldn’t work out what it was. He’d spooked himself so badly he was getting confused. The tinted windows didn’t help, all crusted with dirt and dust. It looked like there was one big shapeless thing out there, writhing against the glass. Forming, breaking and reforming, like something under a microscope. Liquid. Shape-shifting. Then he saw that it had eyes, and teeth, and legs, legs all over the place. Hundreds of legs.

Not possible.

Not freaking possible.

Chapter 42

42

‘How many kids did we see this morning?’

Justin looked at his notes. ‘Thirty-two.’

Maxie sighed. It had felt like a lot more than that. A whole lot more. And still no closer to figuring out who the traitor was. A weird word that, like something out of a history book.

She was up in the staff canteen at the museum with Maeve and Justin and Brooke. Robbie had gone to lie down in the sick-bay. Worn out. Maxie felt tired too, almost more tired than when she was out on the streets doing stuff. She hadn’t had to think this hard, really concentrate, in a long time. She could do with a lie-down.

She stared at her food. Tiny portions, but she was used to that.

‘Who have we got left?’

‘It’s mostly smaller kids now,’ said Justin. ‘Made sense to start with the older ones, the ones more likely to be able to do something like that.’

‘Unless it was a little kid mucking about,’ said Maxie, ‘and they opened a door by mistake, you know, like they were playing a game or something.’

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said Justin. ‘But they’d have had to have got the keys off one of the older kids.’

‘And we’ve spoken to all the kids who had keys?’

‘Yep, all except for Jamie, who was killed, and Paul Channing.’

‘Who’s missing?’

‘Yep.’

‘So it’s most likely that whoever got the keys got them off one of those two?’

‘I suppose so, yeah. That makes sense.’

Maxie thought about this for a bit. She was pushing the last forkful of rice around her plate, making it last, holding off eating it, as it would mean there was nothing more.

‘And so far nobody really remembers seeing this Paul guy all evening?’ she asked, looking up at Justin.

‘No. But he’d been keeping pretty much to himself since his sister got killed. He was pretty depressed.’