I make a careful judgment call and decide to exceed my lawful authority. Just this once, in order to facilitate the speedy investigation of a major threat—that’s what I’ll tell the Auditors if they haul me onto the carpet. Doing it by the book, I should go and round up a committee or a herd of managers to agree with me first—diffusion of responsibility, it’s called—but I honestly don’t think there’s time for that right now. Thirty thousand deaths a year corresponds to seven hundred a week. (Just sitting on it for the extra day it’d take to convince a committee could result in . . . let’s not go there.) “Whose authorization do you need?” I ask.

“Professor Everett can sign off on the paperwork to pull the patient records, but I’ll need to persuade him in turn that the Department of Health are happy about this.” She bites her lip. “K syndrome is a special case, of course, but this, this is . . .”

“This is suspected K syndrome, or a K syndrome-related condition of, um, what’s the right medical term?”

“Unknown etiology. Yes, that should do it. I need authorization to access medical records of deceased patients suffering from a spongiform encephalopathy of unknown etiology that is possibly associated with K syndrome. In writing. Preferably signed in blood. Can you get me that?” She does the tilt-shift thing again, like she’s trying to view me as a miniature diorama.

“Yes. I’ll email you a memo as soon as I get back to my office. Is there anything else?”

“Yes.” She stands. “Better pray to whatever nameless horrors you believe in that you’re wrong, Mr. Howard. If twelve people died of a new sudden-onset form of K syndrome in London in the last month, then you’d better hope it was just a group of cultists who got lucky. Because if it wasn’t, we’re in worse trouble than you can possibly imagine.”

6.

RENFIELD PLC

THE THING ABOUT OSCAR MENENDEZ, IN MHARI’S OPINION, IS that he is intelligent, charming, personable, manipulative, and utterly ruthless. He is not a normal workplace sociopath: he is that much more dangerous phenomenon, a not-quite-neurotypical person who has worked among the regular sociopaths for so long that he can see things from their point of view and manipulate them; a dolphin among sharks. Sociopaths aren’t good at impulse control or deferred gratification. Oscar works out what they want, dangles it in front of them like a shiny bauble in front of a kitten, and ensures that the shortest route from predator to prize takes them right where he wants them to go. Which is why the Bank gave him, if not carte blanche, then at least a clean sheet and a low seven-digit budget with which to establish the Scrum. It has been a pleasure to work with him, and to help steer the Scrum around the worst obstacles in its path. And now she’s going to accompany him to a meeting with their overseers where he is going to try and talk them into giving the Scrum a slightly larger pot to play with.