‘Things will go badly for you if you’re not careful, Henry.’ It sounds brusque and authoritative, and Henry shivers.

‘I didn’t think…’ he begins.

‘But one must think.’

He hears the tiny click of a lock and he knows he is alone. No use explaining that he’s worn out with work and bewildered after the collapse of the group – one has no right to be!

He has been released, and strides away. But he has not gone far before a voice calls from the wall beside which he is walking: ‘Stop! Henry, come closer.’

He stops. There is a guard-post here too. They must be everywhere, and now he is among those who must be watched and threatened. He is smarting with shame.

‘Very well,’ he says, standing with his head turned away from the person he is talking to, as he is supposed to.

‘We are watching you, Henry,’ says the voice calmly and seriously. ‘Best to remember that.’

‘I know you are!’ replies Henry, in anguish.

‘Well, don’t forget it. And go away from here.’

Henry is about to hurry away down the side passage. He has been sent away again. If this is to continue he won’t be able to hold out…. But then something happens: the instant the voice behind him stops speaking, a couple of men appear from somewhere and turn towards the door that is about to close. Henry sees it happen, for he turns, quick as a flash. They must have been lying in wait right beside the door. That’s how it is here. An eye for an eye. They insert a weapon into the crack of the door so quickly that the lock is prevented from closing. Another two men shoot out of the shadows, and all of them force open the door and rush inside. The door slams behind them.

Henry nearly cries out. He was standing in the middle of them without their noticing him. They were not bothering about him; all they were watching was one particular door. Now things will be going badly in there.

Henry feels sick. I must get away! But he cannot get away quickly enough. He hears a tiny slithering noise working its way forward from round the corner.

He sees nothing more after that. He staggers blindly away. It is sheer chance that he was not caught too. If they had realized that he was talking to someone behind him through the door, it would have been up with him. But he had been standing there casually, and others had been there too. But that’s how it is here. Here people shoot up out of the ground, and disappear down into it as well; and vanish into the walls. The foundations are being tunnelled. The bewitched house is struggling in the darkness and in the light from the arrows, and is falling apart from all that it shelters. The blind panes are bulging, and hot when you approach them.

Henry is walking away. Away from this latest event which flicked so close to his face. But away from it – where to? He has been involved long enough to know that such a place is not easily found.