‘Want some water?’ asked the fireman. He didn’t wait for me to answer. Instead he gently pushed a plastic drinking straw between my lips. ‘Just a little bit at first,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry there’s no paramedic for this, but things are a little tricky.’

Water trickled into my mouth and tasted the way water does when you’ve been thirsty for hours – like life itself. How long had I been buried? I tried to ask, but it just made me cough. I stuck to drinking the beautiful water instead. I sluiced it around my mouth and pulled my head back – the fireman withdrew the straw. I realised that he was lying on the platform floor peering down at me through a hole. Behind him was a portable floodlight on a tripod and behind that, visible in the reflected light, was more rubble. This was confusing me. I was fairly certain I’d only fallen a couple of metres.

It took them at least another hour to dig me out.

It’s difficult to describe the serenity of rescue, like a second birth. Only this time you’re secure in the knowledge that you know what you’re going to do with your life – even if it’s just what you were doing before.

They put me on a stretcher, plugged me into a drip, a heart monitor and gave me a cool breath of oxygen. It’s was all good right up to the moment Lady Ty leaned over and frowned down at me.

‘Tyburn,’ I said.

She smiled thinly. ‘Who were you expecting?’ she asked. ‘International Rescue?’

I didn’t say Toby the Dog because I don’t have a death wish.

‘Did you hear me calling?’ I said, checking to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. ‘I was calling with magic.’

‘I smelt you, boy,’ she said. ‘You were stinking up the sewers and, while I had half a mind to leave you, I couldn’t take the risk that you’d smell worse dead.’

She leant down until her lips were by my ear. Her breath was spiced with nutmeg and saffron. ‘One day,’ she murmured, ‘I will ask you for a favour and do you know what your response will be?’

‘Yes ma’am, no ma’am – three bags full, ma’am.’

‘You only become my enemy if you get in my way, Peter,’ she said. ‘If you get in my way you should make sure my enemy is what you want to be.’

She straightened up and before I could think of something clever to say she was gone.

22. Warren Street

22

Warren Street

I’ve never been one of those people who tell everyone they’re fine and try to climb out of their hospital bed. Feeling as shit as I did is your body’s way of telling you to lie the fuck down and take in fluids – preferably intravenously – so that’s what I did.