Behind Ed came a hunched figure, with Ed’s friends from earlier walking on either side of him. He was shrouded in a blanket. She could see his skinny legs sticking out underneath. At first Brooke thought he was wearing green trousers, and then, with a little jolt, she realized that his legs were bare and his skin was covered in green mould.

Behind them came a little girl carrying a violin case and two small boys, one with fair hair, the other with a mad shock of dark hair. He was wearing what looked like a dress with a sleeveless leather jacket over it.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Achilleus. ‘Here come the clowns. The circus is in town.’

They came through and waited on the black and white tiled floor, looking round at the massive dinosaur fossils. Brooke went over to them. Smiled at Ed.

‘We’ve got somewhere ready for him,’ she said. ‘But not everyone likes the idea. You have to promise he’s not gonna be dangerous.’

‘I can’t promise anything.’ Ed wasn’t smiling back. ‘But he’s my problem. I’ll watch him.’

The little fair-haired boy came over to her. He looked like he’d been crying. This must be Sam. Small Sam, Ella had called him, and Brooke could see why. She felt desperately sorry for him.

‘Is it true that my sister was here?’ he asked. ‘She’s called Ella.’

‘Yeah,’ said Brooke. ‘I know. She was here, darling. She’s all right. Don’t worry about her. She’s gone, though. She wanted to get out of London.’

‘I told you, Sam.’ Ed sounded tired.

Sam looked suddenly cross. He swiped at Ed’s arm.

‘We should have come last night,’ he shouted. ‘I wanted to come.’

‘We couldn’t, Sam, you know we couldn’t. It was too dangerous and we were all too shattered. If I’d known we were going to miss her, of course I’d have tried to get here, but we didn’t know. How could we have known? It’s just bad timing. Bad luck.’

Sam sat down on the floor and his head dropped. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘We’ll find her, Sam.’ Ed tried to pull the little boy up. Sam wasn’t having any of it, though. He struggled against Ed.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll find her,’ Ed went on. ‘Not today. But when we’re ready we’ll go after her. We’ve got to get ourselves sorted first. Find out where she might have gone.’

There were tears running down Sam’s face. This was too much for Brooke. She didn’t want to think about it any longer. She turned her attention to the man, who was covered by the blanket.

‘Does he have to stay under that?’ she asked.

‘He doesn’t like the light.’

Kyle lifted up the side of the blanket.