Quill supposed that bloody Mora Losley would be somewhere in this lot as well, and Rob Toshack and Harry and Harry’s dad and a bunch of others who might bear him a grudge, but he wasn’t planning on trying to find them.

*   *   *

Quill walked to where he thought Bermondsey should be, and asked around for Ross’ dad, Alfred Toshack. He was directed to a small park, where he found an enormous tree that grew to a tremendous height above all those around it. Putting a hand to his eyes to shield them from the dull glare of the sky, Quill looked up into its highest branches and found a noose there. But there was nobody hanging from it. Alfred had, according to the passersby Quill stopped and asked, been ‘sent to the Tower’.

Quill went to the Tower of London, but his authority wasn’t enough to get him in. Walking away from it, though, he had an idea. According to Ross, Alfred Toshack had been able to see every detail of what was going on in the everyday world from his vantage point in Hell. It was part of his punishment. If Quill could find somewhere high enough that he could access – in his condition he didn’t fancy trying to climb that tree – perhaps he could duplicate that. Perhaps he could find out, from Hell, things he wanted to know about the real world.

*   *   *

He was told the centre of London was where, in the modern version, the Centre Point building would be. He went to see what was there, and Hell anticipated that, enjoyed it. He wondered if it would be a tall building.

He felt the shadow a long time before he saw, over the buildings, what was making it. At the centre of Hell’s London stood an enormous statue of the Smiling Man. There was an entrance at its base. Like the Statue of Liberty, it seemed, one could walk up inside it and, yes, he saw movement behind them, look through the eyes.

He discovered, when he got to the entrance, that to do so would cost him. Of course it would. But he needed to do this, so he paid. Hell had known that he would.

He climbed the stairs inside the statue, which took all his energy, emphasizing each of his pains – of course it did.

He reached the top and looked out of one of the eyes. Beside him, helpless, sobbing newcomers were doing the same from the other. They had come here, like him, in a vain search for hope.