Bloatface charged. I was conscious of Nick grappling with the Underhand – I was on my own. I lurched out of the way, just in time to avoid being head-butted straight in the ribcage, and slashed at Bloatface with the knife. When his elbow smashed into my cheekbone, all Nick’s training flew out of my head, as if the blow had knocked it loose. I hacked again and again and again – until finally, finally, the blade ripped through a hard-wearing jacket. Bloatface jerked his head around and bared a line of little white teeth. Doll teeth, too small for his mouth. He seized my wrist, wrenching me against him, thumping my breath away. I smelled the alcohol on his breath before his skull cracked into mine.

Bells rang in my ears. Blood burst from my lip as blinding pain erupted between my eyes.

Shock had numbed my sixth sense, but now it crashed and broke over the others like a wave. Suddenly I could feel the same pressure I had felt so often at school: the heartbeat in my temples, the quiver at the corners of my vision. I coaxed it out from hiding, playing myself in a mental tug of war, until it ignited and surged outward, into the alley. Being closest, Bloatface caught the brunt of it. Blood slithered from his nostrils, and his eyes watered.

Hector’s gang reeled away from me. Their expressions flicked from amused to shocked to wary.

Bloatface rubbed his fingers across his lips, smearing the blood away. He stared me out and slowly licked them clean, using the full length of his tongue. My hand shook as I raised the knife again.

That was when the spirit burst out of the station.

Above the gate, a lantern flickered and went out. Like actors at the end of a play, we froze.

A poltergeist was hovering above us. Anne Naylor. Drawn from her haunt – by the commotion, perhaps – she floated ominously at the end of the alley. I could see nothing, but my sixth sense knew it.

It had been seven years since I had encountered a poltergeist, but I remembered the friction in the æther, the flurry of ice through my blood, the way my lungs had forgotten how to take in air.

The glass panes of the lantern iced over. Hector’s lackeys backed away from the presence. Nick was restrained by the Underhand, whose massive arms embraced his throat. Bloatface grabbed me again and dragged me by the hair to the side of the alley, where he pinned me to a wall.

‘Nobody move,’ Hector breathed. ‘Hello, Anne.’

Anne only drifted.

‘There, now.’ Hector took a careful step towards her. ‘No need to be alarmed, sweet Nanny. All we want is for your murderer to get a little whiff of you …’

Anne began to tremble. Nick met my gaze.