The train pulled in at Victoria. He got to his feet and smoothed down his suit. There was something odd here, he thought. What was it? A strange sound in the distance, from the station concourse. The commuters around him were noticing it too as they all got off the train, looking in that direction, not hesitating to walk swiftly together towards it, but worried now, looking at each other. The sound grew louder as he went through the ticket barrier. There was noise echoing from the archway that led from the station. Slogans and chants and yells and drums. Those bloody protestors again. Near the tube entrance, the image of a Toff mask, now almost a logo, had been painted over a poster for Les Misérables, the paint still dripping.

He went into the underground, got out at Embankment, and walked the short distance up the hill to Charing Cross. He was startled now to hear the same noises echoing across this concourse too, coming from the road outside. He went out there and took a look. Near the Charing Cross itself, disrupting the taxi ranks, with drivers hooting at them, a small party of protestors in masks and capes had assembled. ‘Burn it down,’ the leader was yelling into a megaphone, ‘and start again!’

Yeah, he could understand the appeal of that. Sensible policies for a happier Britain. He turned to head towards his destination, but a sudden thought struck him. He took out his mobile and called Sefton. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘what you said about … “ostentation” was it? Is anyone still keeping tabs on where Twitter says the next protest is?’

‘Wait a sec, I’ll check out my saved searches.’

‘Only they seem to have split into different groups…’

‘Are you around Charing Cross?’

‘Yeah.’

‘They were starting to say it’s kicking off outside the station there about ten minutes ago.’

Quill looked behind him, and saw more and more protestors, many of them in the Toff outfit and mask, arriving from all directions. ‘You can see how that works, practically,’ he said, ‘but in London, what you found out was that saying something’s going to happen is also sort of encouraging it to happen, right?’

‘Yeah, Gaiman thought that was how it worked.’

Quill turned, staying on the phone as he waited to head across the road, looking all over, hoping to see a uniform, but not finding any. ‘We ought to get Lofthouse to get the Met in general on to this: watch Twitter, find out where there are rumours of protests and anticipate them—’

‘I don’t know how much that’d help; there are loads of small potential trouble spots tonight, by the looks of this. And, you know, with the strike coming up, every department’s trying to get stuff completed before it starts.’