It was an interesting coincidence that he should be phoning now – on the day that she met James Quentin, on the day she realised there might actually be a story, some kind of story, that she wanted to be reported. It was too soon, though. She needed to talk to James again. Quentin. If she knew anything about Piotr, it was that he would have his facts – and they were rarely the facts she wanted. So she needed to have hers ready. She was pacing around the room, circling the piano as she began to organise her thoughts, to make a plan of action. But first, she was going to go for a run. It was starting to get dark, and it was cold out, and she didn’t care. She was going for a run, then she was going to do some research. And tomorrow she was going to find out what the hell was going on, and tell the world.

Piotr woke up with a start. He was on the sofa. His head was on Sweet Potato’s cushion. The cat herself was nowhere to be seen.

When had he fallen asleep on the sofa?

Sitting up, looking towards the window, it was clearly the middle of the night. London never got properly dark, but there was a lull, a couple of hours when you could almost believe that the city was sleeping. Piotr didn’t like being woken during the lull. He stretched, trying to feel each muscle all the way down to his toes, then stood and started walking to the bedroom.

On the table, his phone was lit up.

He had a message.

Sitting back down he opened it. Blinked. Read it again.

We have work to do. Tomorrow evening. My place.

He looked, confused, at the phone, at his hands. Then down at his feet. He was wearing his Friday socks: red and blue stripes, with a black heel. He was fairly sure he wouldn’t have been wearing his Friday socks if he had actually been dreaming. In his dreams, he was usually more suave than that.

I have no idea what’s going on, he thought.

I have absolutely no idea what is going on.

And then: shit.

Tomorrow.

His Friday socks were thrown in the wash, along with most of his clothes, which were all dirty. The spider’s web now reached pretty much to the floor. It was almost destroyed with the whack of a book before he changed his mind, put on some bright yellow Marigolds that he found under the sink, climbed onto the sofa, gently removed it from the ceiling, and then trailed it out of the window to flutter, slowly, to the ground. If there were spiders in there somewhere, at least they would have a fighting chance.