Clearing his throat softly, Sir Michael swiveled in his chair and stood up. He moved around the edge of the desk, his fingertips trailing over the smooth border. He paused on the other side to button his jacket, pull the panels down. He felt the weight of the gun in his pocket. He went to the door and opened it.

It was so dark out in the corridor that he had begun to step forward before he realized that a man was standing there. Even then, he was so startled, he couldn’t comprehend what it was he saw.

But it was a man. An enormous man who almost filled the doorway. With his vast shoulders and his heavy, cinderblock head, he looked like Frankenstein’s monster. He towered even over Sir Michael. And he came slowly into the room.

Stupid with confusion, Sir Michael could only back away at first. Back away and watch the creature advance. His thoughts had all been on Storm, on Storm up in his daughter’s room. He could not take this in.

Then he had a single moment of fear and half-understanding. He even had time to wonder if he had got it wrong, got it all wrong.

His hand flashed to his jacket pocket, to the gun. His mouth opened to shout, to warn Sophia.

Then the monster struck him unconscious to the floor.

22

A police car, with its siren blaring, is no good place for conversation. Pullod, driving, PC Slade beside him, Harper and Bernard in the backseat, all sat without speaking as the car laced through the evening traffic, as it plowed over the miles of the motorway.

Harper had her stick pressed against the floor, her hands folded on top of the dragon’s head, her chin propped on her hands. Bernard leaned weakly against the door, his long legs stretched as far as they would go under the seat in front of him. His eyes were closed. His body looked limp and slender and frail in the white T-shirt and sweatpants, in the blue windbreaker one of the cops had loaned him.

The monotonous wail of the siren made it difficult for Harper even to think. It went on and on as the car’s red lights flashed and faded over glimpses of night countryside. Car after car sank past the windows, sank back behind them. Harper leaned on her stick and stared at the seat in front of her, trying to string her ideas together. Now and then she glanced over at Bernard. He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes.

After a while she leaned forward a little, towards the back of Pullod’s head. She shouted to him over the racket.

“I wonder,” she said, “if it might be possible to have someone phone Belham Grange …”

It was Slade who half-turned to her. “Trouble with the line,” he shouted. “They’ve had a storm up there.”