The sergeant folded the paper in half and sharpened the fold by running his fingers along it several times.

“Ellis,” he said to the man behind the desk, “you see these three stay here.”

“Yes, sir.”

The sergeant stepped down the hall and took out his phone. Stephen folded his arms over his chest, but from the way he clenched and unclenched his fists, I could tell that he wasn’t entirely sure this was going to work. The desk officer studied us. Callum turned toward the wall to hide his alarmed expression.

“What number is that?” he hissed in Stephen’s direction.

“One of our overlords,” Stephen whispered. “And he’s not going to be happy I gave out his number.”

The conversation was a brief one. Sergeant Maybrick marched back down the hall in our direction, past the curious desk officer.

“Outside,” he said, walking right past us to the door.

Once outside, he moved away from the building. He had a coughing fit, then took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one.

“What are you?” he asked. “Special Branch? CID?”

“I’m not authorized to tell you that,” Stephen said.

“Then I really don’t want to know. You sure you want me to tell you this with her here?”

I guess my pajamas didn’t inspire much confidence. Or the fact that I was hopping on my toes to keep warm.

“I do,” Stephen said.

“King William Street was a nasty business, one I was glad to have behind me.” Sergeant Maybrick shook his head and took a long drag of his cigarette. “Call came in that shots had been fired and officers were down. We didn’t know what they were doing down there or why. Four of us responded in the ARV. We were directed to a building on King William Street—Regis House. There was a door in the basement that led to the old station. It’s deep, no lift, long set of stairs. I remember sizing that situation up—four of us, walking into a completely unknown terrain, underground. If the shooter or shooters were still down there, they’d be cornered. They could pick us off on the stairs, or we could end up in a situation where they’d end up killing everyone. No good no matter how we looked at it. Absolute pitch-black down them steps, seemed to go on forever, round and round. Lost radio contact. We shouted that we were coming, flashed our lights—gave whoever was down there every chance to stand down. Dead silence.”

He looked at me again before continuing.