So it takes me a few seconds to sit up and grab the bedside phone when it begins to snarl for attention. I fumble the handset close to my face: "Whuuu—" I manage to drone, thinking, If this is a telesales call, I'll plead justifiable homicide, as Mo spasms violently in a twist of the duvet and rolls over, pulling the bedding off me.

"Bob." I know that voice. It's—"Jo here. Code Blue. How soon can you be ready for a pickup?"

I am abruptly awake in an icy-cold drench of sweat. "Five minutes," I croak. "What's up?"

"I want you in here stat, and I'm sending a car. Be ready in five minutes." She sounds uncertain . . . afraid? "This line isn't secure, so save your questions."

"Okay." The phrase this had better be good doesn't even reach my larynx: declaring Code Blue is the sort of thing that attracts the Auditors' attention. "Bye." I put the phone down.

"What was that?" says Mo.

"That was a Code Blue." I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and fish for yesterday's discarded socks. "There's a car calling for me in five minutes."

"Shit . . ." Mo rolls over the other way and buries her face in a pillow. "Am I wanted?" Her voice, muffled, trails away.

"Just me." I paw through an open drawer for pants. "It's Jo Sullivan. At four in the morning."

"She's with Oscar-Oscar, isn't she?"

"Yup." Pants: on. Tee shirt: on. Trousers: next in queue.

"You'd better go." She sounds serious. "Phone me the instant you hear something."

I glance at the alarm. "It's twenty to five."

"I don't mind." She pulls the bedding into shape. "Take care."

"And you," I say, as I head downstairs, carrying my holstered pistol.

I'm standing in the front hall when blue and red strobes light up the window glass above the door. I open it in the face of a cop. "Mr. Howard?" she asks.

"That's me." I hold up my warrant card and her eyes age a little.

"Come with me, please," she says, and opens the rear door for me. I strap myself in and we're off for another strobe-lit taxi ride through the wilds of South London, speeding alarmingly down narrow shuttered streets and careening around roundabouts in the gray pre-dawn light until, after a surprisingly short time, we pull up outside the staff entrance to a certain store.

The door is open. Jo is waiting for me. One look at her face tells me it's bad. Angleton warned me: This is where it starts. I tense. "What's happened?" I ask.

"Come this way." Jo leads me up the stairwell. The lights are on, which is abnormal, and I hear footsteps—not the steady shuffle of the night staff, but boots and raised voices. Something in the air makes me think of a kicked anthill.