And indeed there is a perfect hemisphere of darkness rising from the floor beside the end of the large table, atop a sheet of heavy paper that flops across the concrete: its darkness is so complete that in the twilight, it is almost invisible. Basil gestures at it. “I use this warehouse to store my meals. While they’re in stasis the progressive deterioration caused by the parasite is kept in check. I need to take them out of stasis while I’m drinking, so that they can feed the parasite and the parasite feeds me in turn . . . but it reduces the frequency with which one needs to kill. Reduces the risk of exposure, too. Would you care for a glass? I have a passable O Rhesus Negative on tap, stored in this chart.”

Alex’s stomach rumbles. Then, as if in sympathy, his phone vibrates.

“Give that to me.” Basil holds out his hand. As if in a dream, Alex watches himself hand his phablet over. The old man looks at it in distaste. “I see,” he says. “A primitive ward, without the standard organization backdoor. How annoying! How does one—ah.” Alex’s stomach lurches again as Basil removes the back cover and pulls the battery, then tosses the disemboweled phone along the work table. “No interruptions, if you please. Now attend.”

He bends down, then extends a finger towards a tracery of silver script that circles the base of the stasis field, and smudges out a single character. The dome of darkness disappears. In its place, there is a small wooden chair. A young boy, aged perhaps eight, sits in the chair—or rather, is strapped to it with duct tape at wrists and thighs and ankles. He’s cheaply dressed, in scuffed trainers and sweatpants and a hoodie that don’t fit properly, and his head lolls: he doesn’t seem to be aware of his environment. The green head-end of a cannula pokes from the top of his right hand, held in place by surgical tape; a box of syringes sits beneath the chair.

“He’s sedated, but if he could talk he would tell you that perhaps eighty minutes have passed while he’s been sitting on this chair. His mother sold him to me for two hundred pounds and an ounce of heroin a couple of years ago. She’s dead now, of an overdose. I think I got the better deal.” Basil picks up a 20ml syringe and bends over the boy’s wrist. His extraction is fast and practiced. “Here. Drink. The more time he spends out of stasis, the faster he’ll deteriorate.”