“Only because I caught you out, and I really don’t think I need to know.” Julia stepped back while her discontented gaze remained on me. “Carry on, then,” she said. “Read to the end if it makes you happy. Just don’t go harassing Roy and Bella about it, or anything else for that matter.”

If I’d sent a retort after her it would have involved speaking up, which might even have provided an excuse to eject me from the room. As I peered at the book I heard Julia murmuring to Lister at the desk. I needn’t imagine they were discussing me, let alone act on the notion. By the time I managed to locate in the midst of the inky labyrinth the point where my reading had been interrupted, I was virtually unaware of them.

How perfect are the curbs which I have set about my servant? In my absence it is powerless; yet perhaps I should reinforce its dependence upon myself and no other. Though it be an avatar of the demonic, its essence is my creation and my triumph. It lives but to serve me, and should give thanks to me for its existence. Ought it to be permitted to retain the name it brought out of the dark, or might renaming it confirm my mastery? For the nonce it responds when called Bal or yet Bel…

I had no idea what sound I made, or how loudly. The sight of the variations on a name paralysed not just my body but my mind until I heard a noise like the tolling of a glassy bell. It was the door, and Julia had left the archive room. I lurched to my feet with my finger in the book, and was making to chase her when Lister said “Excuse me, can you leave that here?”

“I need to show Julia.”

“You mustn’t take it out of the search room.”

“All right, then will you stop my wife?”

He glanced after her as I dumped the book on the cushion, which uttered a sound like a muffled breath. “Your wife.”

“She used to be,” I said and stalked fast to the door. “Forget it. I’ll catch her myself.”

I felt brittle with the information I had to impart, as though it had reduced me to a sketch of my nerves. The shrill note of the door could have been expressing my state. “Julia,” I called, and louder “Julia.”

At least a dozen people seated at computer terminals in the expansive outer room turned to stare at me. They were more responsive than Julia, and I was on the edge of shouting when she halted with her back to me. She didn’t speak until I’d overtaken her. “What is it now, Patrick?”

“I’ve found something in the book you need to see.”

“No, I need to be upstairs. I’m already behind on some work.”