They decided to at least go and check out Vincent’s mews flat, just in case he’d been foolish enough to use it again. Costain insisted he could drive and the others just nodded. He drove them through a London where something worrying could be glimpsed down the end of every side street. It was as if their own experience of having the Sight was starting to be translated into the mainstream world. The feeling of impending chaos was worse for them, because they all instinctively wondered what the wider implications might be, how London would react to amplify it, what the Smiling Man would make of it. They tried to keep talking to each other, shouting to each other, even, to stay awake. They took more of the meth. The intensification of the fear of London beat through them now too.

On the radio news, and on the police frequency, they heard reports of police officers putting on uniforms and turning out to help the army. There were rumours that the Police Federation was going to call the strike off early, point proven, themselves horrified at how the riots in the further boroughs had started joining hands, were becoming what the few news commentators actually out there rather than at home reading Twitter were calling a ‘ring of fire’, moving in towards the centre of the cities of London and Westminster. The schools would be closed tomorrow, the news was saying, the post offices and buses and underground too, as the people that ran these things decided that safety now meant staying at home. Ross wondered if she was watching a metropolis swiftly crumbling, a culture flying apart.

The news of Challoner’s murder was fighting the riots for the lead on all the websites, as if the Ripper was leading the charge, the symbol of everything that was happening tonight. The Herald was going big on that version of the story, inevitably. Its editorial was demanding that the army flood the streets with soldiers and impose martial law, because the government was clearly incapable of restoring order.

‘There’s another one,’ said Sefton, who was also looking at his phone. ‘Another Ripper murder.’ Ross went straight to the Herald’s site, because of course that would get it first. The new victim had been identified as a former stringer for various newspapers. Christ, here was another one: a private detective. As soon as Ross had started to read about that killing, Sefton shouted there was another, a financier.

‘It’s because of us,’ said Costain. ‘He’s killing everyone that could lead us to him.’

‘Does that mean we’ve scared him?’ said Sefton. ‘Or has he now got the luxury of tying up all his loose ends?’