The noise of their feet on the stairs partly drowned the music out and when they got to the top Blue realized it had finished; there was just a weird, repetitive clicking noise. At least nothing had attacked them. There was another candle burning in the office; he could see its flickering glow through the window.

‘A game,’ Ollie had said. And that’s what it felt like. The things, the monsters, the creatures … whatever they were, were playing with them. Blue wanted this over now. Wanted his questions answered. He’d had enough. If there was something nasty waiting for them in the office then he was ready for it. He’d smash it to pieces. He shouldered his way to the front of the group where Achilleus had halted again, pushed past and went on through, three of the others coming in behind him.

There was nothing waiting for them in the office except an old-fashioned record player standing on a desk. It was a wind-up one with a big, shiny brass trumpet thing where the music came out. The sort of record player you saw in old movies. There was a black plastic record turning on it, the heavy needle clicking over and over at the end of the track. Blue went over to it, lifted the needle off and pulled a lever that acted like a brake, stopping the turntable from rotating.

‘They got us where they want us,’ said Jackson. ‘Now what?’

‘It’s up to them now,’ said Blue. ‘I ain’t playing their games no more.’

Ollie came in and lifted the record off the turntable. Read the label.

‘“Take the ‘A’ Train.”’

‘You take it,’ said Blue wearily and Ollie laughed.

‘It’s what the track’s called. Duke Ellington.’

‘If you say so.’ Blue was too strung out to try and get his head round this piece of information. Was the track important? Was it a message? Or was it just …

‘In here.’ A voice called to them from somewhere behind the office, through an open doorway. Blue glanced at Ollie and Jackson. Shrugged. He was the leader. It was up to him to lead. He wasn’t sending Achilleus ahead this time. The ‘monsters’ had had plenty of opportunities to lay traps for them. He set his face hard, raised his spear and started to walk, brushing the door frame with his shoulder as he went past it. Ollie and Jackson followed him.

There was a large raised area back there, a platform with a floor made of wooden boards. It extended out above some lower shelving units and had protective railings around the edges. It had something of the feel of a secret den, or a kids’ tree house. A selection of furniture had been dragged up there: armchairs, sofas, rugs, tables, some beds, a sideboard with an empty goldfish bowl on it, a fat, old-fashioned TV set with no workings inside it.

And monsters.