He saw a ruddy jaw with tallowy runs of flesh tucked underneath and a lanyard that ran to a strange pendant lying on the quilt.

Look for every detail, was one of Garrick’s lessons. Drink it all in with yer eyes and maybe it will save your life.

No chance of saving my life, not tonight.

Riley took another sweeping step and felt his forward foot grow curiously warm. He glanced down and to his surprise and confusion saw that the toe of his shoe glowed green. In fact a cocoon of light had blossomed round the frame of the sleeping man, its heart an emerald blaze emanating from the strange pendant.

Garrick’s words gusted past his ear. ‘Hell’s bells. Trickery! Dirk him now, boy.’

Riley could not move, petrified as he was by the spectral light.

Garrick pushed him further into the strange warm glow, which immediately changed hue, becoming a scarlet hemisphere. An unnatural keening erupted from somewhere in the bed, piercing and horrible, rattling Riley’s brain in the gourd of his skull.

The old man in the bed was instantly awake, popping up like a wind-up Jack from his box.

‘Stupid sensor malfunction,’ he muttered, his accent Scottish, his eyes rheumy and blinking. ‘I have a pain in my...’

The man noticed Riley and the blade emerging from his fist like an icicle. He allowed his hand to trail slowly down towards the glowing teardrop pendant resting on his scrawny chest, then tapped the centre twice, silencing the dreadful wail. The pendant’s heart displayed a glowing series of numbers now, seemingly written in phosphorus. Flickering backwards from twenty.

‘Now there, lad,’ said the old man. ‘Hold on to those horses. We can talk about this. I have funds.’

Riley was transfixed by the pendant. It was magical certainly, but, more than that, it was familiar somehow.

Garrick interrupted Riley’s thoughts with a sharp prod in the ribs.

‘No more delay,’ he said briskly. ‘Make your bones, boy. Unto dust.’

Riley could not. He would not become like Garrick and damn himself to an eternity in the pit.

‘I-I...’ he stuttered, wishing his mind would supply the words to extricate both himself and this strange old man from these dire straits. The man raised his palms to show they were empty, as though fair play was on offer in this dark room.

‘I’m not armed,’ he said. ‘All I have is unlimited currency. I can run you up whatever you need. Easiest thing in the world to print a few thousand pounds. But, if you harm me, men will come to make sure you didn’t take my secrets—men with weapons like you have never seen.’