THE FOLLOWING afternoon, Vince visited Louie's disgusting flat in Chalk Farm, and they posted a series of enquiries on the Internet. While they were awaiting replies Louie made coffee the colour of pre-war nicotine, which he poured into mugs bearing the lip-imprints of generations of users.

'There are some serious considerations to take into account,' said Vince. 'If I do uncover conclusive evidence about the League and denounce Sebastian in print, I could wind up having an accident down a flight of steps. Besides, someone's bound to point out that we were friends, and that's going to make me look pretty stupid.'

'Why?'

'I took money from him, you bozo. He didn't seem so bad when we first met. He wasn't one of those toffs you instantly loathe, like Jeffrey Archer. He had a lot of charm.'

'You have to expose this guy,' Louie insisted. 'People like him always get away with it. Doesn't that make you angry?'

'Not particularly,' he replied. 'It's the way things are, the way they've always been and there's not much we can do about it. Or at least,' he added, 'if I have to stir up trouble, I could try exposing someone who can't afford to have me killed.'

'If it worries you that much, maybe you should go back to writing nice little history pieces about London,' said Louie sarcastically. 'Go for a milder kind of expose. Start with Kentish Town. Try and figure out why they put the local florists next door to a wet fish shop. You have to stick with the class piece, man. You've got the perfect way of bringing your ideas to life.'

'Might I remind you that just a few days ago you were warning me to stay away from the man?'

'You were his friend then. Now the gloves are off, you can make a monumentally disgusting spectacle out of him.'

The screen between them beeped and started downloading typewritten material.

'Whoa. Look at this shit.'

87 Articles Located/Prometheus League/see

searchrefs@Mosley/Fascism/January Club/Disraelian

Society/Freemasonry/Hermetic Orders/Modern

Paganism/Crowley/Book Of Enoch/Wheatley/Borley Rectory/'Blue

Flame'/Corpse-Blindfolding/'Girl In The Lake' mystery/Monk's

Parlour/NAACP Bombings/Anti-Semitism Accusations/CIA

links/Blunt/Burgess/Jack The Ripper/Star Trek:TNG

'I can see some of the links there,' said Vince, 'but I can't imagine what the Bible's lost chapter on fallen angels has to do with Sebastian.'

'That's the trouble with newsgroups,' said Louie. 'They spend too much time discussing crappy old sci-fi TV shows. They probably accuse the League of alien abductions somewhere. There's no point in going through all of that conspiracy stuff. It's knocked together by lonely fat guys who can't get dates.'

'It could happen to you.' Vince eyed the tantalising list. 'I think I might check out some of it, though, just for fun. You never know.'

'Be my guest.' Louie pushed his chair back from the monitor. 'It'll make you crazy after a while.'

'I'm going to have to buy myself a modem. Meanwhile, I need you to keep looking out for related material. Anything that helps explain what the League actually does.'

'Hey, what are friends for?' asked Louie.

On the morning of October the 22nd they met up at a deserted Tex-Mex cafe in Camden Town, and after ordering beers and nachos, Louie leaned forward, checking about himself with an air of exaggerated caution. 'So tell me, Secret Squirrel, how are your burrowings? Get any good stuff yet?'

'I'm three quarters of the way through the first draft now, about 16,000 words in.' Vince accepted a beer, waving away a glass. 'To think that just a short while ago I was eating off bone china. Now I'm back to drinking out of a bottle. Anything good come through on the Internet?'

'I downloaded a ton of stuff, but haven't had the chance to read much of it. It's mostly rubbish. Users who've come across the odd snippet about the League and want to convince you that they've uncovered another Roswell conspiracy, but nobody has any hard information. It's just the usual mystic mumbo-jumbo theoretical bullshit.'

'Well, I may have something.' Vince hunched down over his beer and gave a secretive smile. 'My contact, the good doctor, rang me last night. He made a couple of calls and found out that the Prometheans are holding their next meeting in chambers behind St Peter's Church, Holborn in nine days time.'

Louie made a quick finger-count. 'That's October 31st, man. You're not gonna tell me they're really into witchcraft ceremonies and stuff like that.'

'I don't know, but I need to be in the room where they're holding the meeting.'

'Do you think they'll let you attend? Hallowe'en and all. Could get strange.'

'I'm not going to wait for an engraved invitation. With any luck they won't even realise I'm there.'

'Couldn't you just put a bug in the room?'

Vince threw up his hands. 'How, Louie? How the fuck do you bug a room?'

'I thought you might know.'

'Well, I don't.'

'Okay, if you have to hide inside, try not to get caught, 'cause you'll be the one who's trespassing. They could take you to court.'

Somehow Sebastian thought that would be the least of his worries.

'YOU'RE NOT allowed to go in there,' the porter had told him, holding up his palm. 'Nobody's allowed in. Nobody.'

Vince responded well to a challenge. He had found a way in. He had entered the unassuming Holborn building to find a series of banqueting suites and meeting rooms that were leased out to special interest groups of every kind. He was surprised to find a black felt bulletin board helpfully pointing him up a broad marble staircase to the appropriate suite, but he was early and the great double doors to the meeting room were still locked.

On the opposite side of the corridor someone else's meeting was preparing to get underway. Vince had made himself known to the secretary of the Enrico Caruso Appreciation Society, and had borrowed the cleaner's keys he found hanging from their door long enough to unlock the room. After that, it was simply a matter of finding a hiding place in the chamber and closing the door behind him. He was nervous now, of course, but more in pain than dread. After he had been hiding under the table for almost an hour, his left thigh developed an agonising cramp. He tried massaging the muscle but it stayed locked, tightening further. Just at this moment, as bad luck would have it, they started filing into the chamber.

Ignoring knife-point prickles of pain, he forced the searing leg beneath him and peered out from beneath the crimson altar-cloth. There were twelve of them in all, males of course, no women allowed, and they were clad in rather boring grey suits and sashes. He had been hoping for more exotic attire, something between the Freemasons and the Sons of the Desert, a scarlet fez and a robe for each member at least. The sashes, in opal satin with a silver trim, were particularly camp and inappropriate. Instead of lending them an aura of mystery it made them look like a group of rejected beauty queens. If his leg had not been stinging so badly, he might have started laughing out loud.

What was it with 'clubbable' men? Why did they need to join societies and create funny little rules that only they could obey and understand? Was it a territorial king-of-the-castle thing, or were they so scared of women that they needed to build safe enclaves from them? Why did they need to keep secrets anyway? Who were they hiding them from? The Inland Revenue? At first Vince had assumed it was a class thing, but he remembered his father once taking him to a working-man's club where the wives were not allowed to buy their own drinks.