Angleton is dead. Andy . . . Andy’s dead, too, and that’s worse, in a way. In a lot of ways. Angleton was an ancient monster, but Andy was just another guy, with a wife and kids trying to kick his smoking habit and learn something new for his ten-percenter project. And now he’s dead, and some poor bloody cop is sitting up late with Andy’s wife and children and wondering how the hell to make a decent withdrawal. Maybe if I hadn’t volunteered to help him he’d still be alive. Then again, if I hadn’t volunteered to lend a hand he was all set to zap himself on that stupid summoning rig he was working on . . . I don’t know. I’ll never know. And the terrible part is that right now I’m so tired that I’d rather get some sleep than stay up an extra hour to find out the truth, if that was somehow possible. The SA is right. I need to go home.

I stand up. “See you tomorrow afternoon,” I say. I strip off my filthy overalls, then stumble down the steps from the back of the OCCULUS truck, shivering in a tee shirt and jeans. I’ve got an app for a local minicab firm on my phone, and even though the shattered glass screen crackles when I touch it, it’s just about usable—I’ve got my home address and the New Annex bookmarked, and at this time of night there’s not much competition for fares.

• • •

I LET MYSELF INTO THE DARKENED HALLWAY OF MY OWN HOME like a thief in the night, skulking and shivering in unshod feet.

I’m tired, with a bone-deep fatigue to which is added a layer of despair and depression. I’ve lost co-workers and, dare I say it, friends tonight. To start with: Howe. Well no, he wasn’t a friend. But I’ve ridden along with him a number of times, from that crazy hole in reality that opened in Amsterdam to training sessions on Dartmoor. He’s helped pull my nuts out of the fire more than once. Now he’s gone, just a smelly stain on my damaged-beyond-cleaning Google tee shirt to remember him by. And my life is smaller as a result.

I shuffle through into the kitchen and switch on the lights on the cooker extractor hood—dim enough not to hurt my eyes or wake up the neighbors. I am a mess. I shrug out of my clothes in the middle of the kitchen floor. There’s a basket of clean laundry next to the washer-dryer, and I begin to rummage through it for something clean to wear against my skin for the long trudge upstairs when—

“Bob?”

I spin round: “Oh! Hi. You startled me.”

It’s Mhari. Hair tousled, still fully dressed. She’s staring at my hands, which are the only things between her eyes and my wedding tackle. She yawns, puffy-eyed. “What is this?”