‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Neil.’

‘Neil who?’

‘Neil Gaiman.’

‘What? How did you get this number?’ Quill wondered if this famous person had picked the mother of all wrong moments to ask him about some detail of police work.

‘Listen, there’s something about what’s going on right now that you need to understand—’

‘Ostentation, yeah, we got that.’

‘Never mind that now. There’s more to it.’ Quill suddenly realized that Gaiman sounded almost as tense as he was. ‘I know what’s going on, and only I can help you. I’m in a car, coming in from the north. I can get you away. Where are you?’

‘Baker Street tube.’

‘Right, I’ll be outside in a few minutes. Call me back if you have to move.’

He hung up before Quill could ask him anything further. Quill was about to head for the exit, but stopped as he understood what he was looking at. From here he could see across several platforms. From trains at all of them were spilling, among other passengers, a number of Toffs.

He called Sefton. ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

‘Baker Street?’ said Sefton. ‘If what Twitter is saying—’

‘Right,’ said Quill. ‘They must have been prepared to form flash mobs in this general area—’

Again he stopped. Just slightly, the quality of light on the platform had changed. The weight of the Sight shifted within him, gravity turning his head like that of a prey animal smelling the predator, nausea and panic making him stare.

At the far end of the platform, light was leaping into the air above the crowd again. He turned, but the doors of the train had closed a moment before and now it was accelerating off. ‘He’s here again, Kev!’ he shouted.

He ran down the platform, shouldering through people coming the other way, the Victorian vastness of the station vault above him; shafts of sunlight illuminated him as if he was a small animal running through the forest. He ran past the snack bar. He raced along beside a train that was just pulling in, that nauseous light throwing his shadow against the side of it, shining into the windows, making one old lady look up at him and glimpse something terrible and then lose it again and look away.

He shoved his way along through another group of people clustered at one of the doors, waited to make his move until the doors were closing, then he dived in as they did. He was between the doors, heaving against them as they closed on him like vices, and then he was through them, into the train, as if he’d fought to be born, to stay alive. They slammed behind him.

Quill staggered to the other side of the train as it rattled off.