It was a forbidding prospect, worse than he’d expected. The alley was thick with night. The oppressive walls seemed to angle towards each other as they went in. The hulking form of the Mercedes rose between them. And beyond that rose another shape, big, dark: a rearing hump of stone, a silhouetted spire. A church, sinister, against all that was visible of the sky. With this, the alley abruptly ended.

Bernard hesitated. There was, he saw, a weird blue glow coming from the place, and a vertical line of yellow light—as would appear at the edge of a shrouded window. He licked his lips again. His heartbeat was fierce and loud. His palms, pressed to the wall behind him, were clammy.

He peeled off the building and started into the alley.

Crouched, his hands lifted, held before him, he moved with predatory grace. He was now, he decided, absolutely terrified. His eyes darted here and there. To crannies of blackness. Clutters of bins and boxes. To the hump of the Mercedes, which seemed to him ready to rear up at any moment and spring. The alleyway closed over him, the dark closed over him. Yes, absolutely terrified—that was the phrase he wanted.

He came up behind the waiting car. Peered, as well as he could, through the rear window into the unlit interior. It was quiet in there. There was no movement. But he couldn’t make out the floor in back, and beyond the front seats he could see nothing at all.

Yet he began to squeeze around it. A tight squeeze. The brick wall scraped the back of his black windbreaker. The door handles plucked at the buckle of his belt. He could be fairly certain now that the car was empty. He edged past it, around to the front, under the rising church.