Ollie snorted. He couldn’t think of anyone less like Achilleus.

‘What are you talking about?’ he said.

‘I don’t think I really care about people.’

‘That’s nuts,’ said Ollie.

‘Oh, I long ago came to the conclusion that I’m nuts,’ said Einstein and he chuckled and walked off.

Ollie shook his head. Einstein was one of those kids who couldn’t help making snotty comments and had probably been badly bullied at school. Now he’d found a place for himself at the museum. He had some useful survival skills after all and he was making the most of it. It wasn’t enough just to have good fighters; without clever kids there was no hope of getting through this.

He was aware of a movement and he turned round to find that Lettis had scooted along the pew and was sitting looking up at him.

‘OK?’ he said and she nodded, keeping her lips tightly pressed together. Looked like she’d been crying.

There was a shout from the other side of the church. Achilleus was giving little Paddy a hard time about something. Ollie could see Paddy rubbing his shoulder where the strap of the golf-bag had dug into him.

‘That poor kid,’ he said. ‘He lugged that heavy bag full of weapons all this way without making a fuss. That’s real hero worship.’

Lettis didn’t say anything. Just sat there staring at him.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s find you somewhere to sleep.’

Chapter 31

31

A stripe of bright early-morning sunlight lay across the laboratory floor illuminating a small crimson spatter.

‘It looks like blood.’ Maxie was squatting down inspecting the tiles.

‘Could be anything,’ said Justin. ‘Food, blood, something from an experiment.’

‘Don’t suppose you can do DNA testing?’ said Maxie.

‘Not really, no. It’s a very complicated process and it’s not like it is in films basically …’

‘Justin.’ Maxie straightened up. ‘I was joking. I know you can’t do DNA testing.’

‘Oh, right. Yeah, OK.’

They’d waited ages for Samira to return last night. In the end Maxie, Maeve and Boggle had led a party over to the Darwin Centre laboratories. They took along some of Lewis’s fighters and Gordy, the last person to have seen Samira. He talked all the way, trying to shift any blame.

‘She didn’t want me to stay … She was just picking something up … I thought things were safe now.’

In the end Maxie had snapped at him. ‘Yeah, but even so, Gordy, with everything that’s been going down here, you might have thought to wait.’

The lab doors were still unlocked and they could find no sign of Samira in the darkness. So they abandoned the search and went back to the minerals gallery, left someone on guard at the entrance just in case she did show up.