The subway from Camden Town to Waterloo is express on the Northern line—which was probably just as well. I’d only had about five hours’ sleep, and I was so tired that the whole world seemed to be shimmering and moving in slow motion. Tim was just as bad. He had a terrible nightmare in which he was lowered, still standing up, into Lenny’s grave—and woke up screaming. I suppose it wasn’t too surprising. He’d fallen asleep on the escalator.

But the two of us had livened up a little by the time we’d reached the other end. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. The rain was sheeting down, sucking any color or warmth out of the city. We had left Waterloo Station behind us, making for the South Bank, a stretch of London that has trouble looking beautiful even on the sunniest day. This is where you’ll find the National Theatre and the National Film Theatre, both designed by architects with huge buckets of prefabricated cement. There weren’t many people around. Just a few commuters struggling with umbrellas that the wind had turned inside out. Tim and I hurried forward without speaking. The rain lashed down, hit the concrete, and bounced up again, wetting us twice.

I had made the telephone call just after breakfast.

“Mrs. Lee?”

“Yes. Who is this?” Fiona Lee’s clipped vowels had been instantly recognizable down the line.

“This is Nick Diamond. Remember me?”

A pause.

“I want to meet with Lenny Smile.”

A longer pause. Then, “That’s not possible. Lenny Smile is dead.”

“You’re lying. You know where he is. I want to see the three of you. Hoover, Lenny, and you. Eleven o’clock at the London Eye. And if you don’t want me to go to the police, you’d better not be late.”

You’ve probably seen the London Eye, the huge Ferris wheel they put up outside County Hall. It’s one of the big surprises of modern London. Unlike the Millennium Dome, it has actually been a success. It opened on time. It worked. It didn’t fall over. At the end of the millennium year they decided to keep it, and suddenly it was part of London—a brilliant silver circle at once huge and yet somehow fragile. Tim had taken me on it for my thirteenth birthday and we’d enjoyed the view so much we’d gone a second time. Well, as they say, one good turn deserves another.