‘It’s going!’ yelled Ross.

Sefton broke into a run. He felt the material falling away at his heels. It was crumbling to the left. He ran right, veering away from Quill and Ross. He leaped and in the same moment he heard Costain yell too. He daren’t look to see what had happened to him.

Sefton hit the far wall at a corner by the crumbling edge where Ross and Quill stood. His hands scrabbled desperately. He just got one hand around the frame of one of the paintings, then swung to grab it with the other. He managed to hang on.

The picture held, impossibly. He swung in the void, his forearms in agony, his legs scrambling for a purchase they couldn’t find.

Ross had Costain, he saw. She’d thrown herself to the edge of the crumbling floor, had grabbed Costain’s hands. Quill had taken a step back, realizing that in a moment he might have to try and haul both of them back at once. Wondering if he could, if he was going to have to leave Costain to fall.

Sefton knew he had to do this or die. With one huge effort, all he had, he hauled himself up the painting. There was something extraordinary holding this thing on to the wall. The mad-looking fat man depicted in the portrait glared balefully at him. He started to swing from side to side, wondering about making the leap. ‘Jimmy!’ he shouted. ‘It has to be now!’

‘Okay!’ bellowed Quill. He got to the edge of the remaining carpet, squatting, his hands out awkwardly.

Sefton flung himself sideways. He hit something. Quill had missed him! His hands grasped air. He was going to fall! He got about half his body onto the crumbling edge. He felt it giving beneath him. He’d got so far—

Quill grabbed him under the armpits and heaved and rolled. He was up, and out. They were on solid ground and both stumbling quickly to their feet as they felt it start to give way too.

*   *   *

‘Don’t bloody let go!’ Costain bellowed at Ross.

‘Like I’d do that!’ She only had a few seconds before her arms gave out, a few seconds until the crumbling edge in front of her broke away and his weight dragged her with him. She should let him go. But she wouldn’t.

She heaved upwards, thinking only that she was giving her life for no good reason when she couldn’t actually save a colleague.

Then she felt Quill and Sefton join in. They grabbed Costain around the wrists and pulled too. The three of them managed to haul him up. They staggered upright. They dashed for the doors as the floor continued to vanish from under their feet. They burst through them together and the carpeted hallway disintegrated as they ran. They raced up the stairs, which fell away behind them too, until they were standing once more, safe, in an empty, evacuated, normal bar. They all looked back to the entrance to the staircase. It all suddenly fell away in one moment, leaving a gap in the floor which, with a slam, replaced itself with the same wooden flooring as the bar had.