'It didn't bother Lord Lucan, mate. I guess we move in different circles. I trust myself and Crippen. And I don't even trust him because he'll go with whoever feeds him. And I especially don't trust this city. The richer you get the more private you become, the more private you become the more you disappear. And when you disappear, you can hide anything. London 's so private it's almost invisible. A place of great secrets. I think you should protect yourself.'

'How?'

'You could give me a copy of what you've written. I'll put it somewhere safe.'

There was a distant booming as the train approached.

'It's on my computer. But I made copies on disks.'

'Where?'

'I have one on me.'

'Then let me look after it. Trust me. Just in case anything weird happens.' He hoisted Crippen into his arms and wrapped him inside his overcoat. Vince hesitated. He knew nothing about his companion, beyond the fact that he was willing to help a stranger. Suppose Sebastian had planted him, instructed him to help Vince out with one of the clues, just to show that he was genuine? For what purpose though, to make him hand over what he had written? There was no point in that, not when the League had shown how easily they could enter his flat. He could afford to trust no one, not tonight, perhaps never again.

'I think I'll hang onto this, if it's all the same to you.' As the train rushed in Vince reached for his bag and held it close to his chest.

The darkened theatre stood on Puddle Dock, at the edge of a blank new section of the city. Between the building that housed it and the sluggish grey waters of the Thames ran a four-lane road that passed alongside the gilt statues of Billingsgate on its way to the Tower of London. The area had been bombed flat during the Blitz, then rebuilt to accommodate a fast-lane society that was only beaten by the city's Barbican Centre in its spectacular failure to co-exist with pedestrians. There was nothing remotely theatrical about The Mermaid. It was modern, anonymous, red-brick, hardly a theatre at all, more like a bottling plant. There were no glass awnings, no strings of bulbs, no Art Nouveau balustrades behind which to hide an envelope.

'This has to be the place,' said Vince. 'Look, there's even a picture.' He pointed to an encased poster showing the character of Blind Pugh displaying his dread message. Strangeways hopped up and down, trying to see above the entrance. Crippen decided that this must be the signal for something interesting and threw himself about in circles, growing ferociously overexcited.

'I can't see anything. Maybe it's inside.'

'The building's locked up. He wouldn't leave it in a place that was completely inaccessible to me. Sebastian wouldn't be interested in playing if he thought I didn't have at least a sporting chance.'

'Sounds like you know a lot about him.'

'I'm learning, believe me.'

Beside the theatre an arch passed over a narrower road, a slipway to the brilliant yellow tunnel which led to the bypass. From here came the sudden loud clang of steel on steel. Vince and Strangeways exchanged looks. The noise emanated from the rear of the building. As they followed the wall around, they left the main streetlights behind for an area where pedestrians were trespassers.

At the back of the theatre an extraordinary sight confronted them. Tall, waving palm trees. Dozens of them stood in rows, their emerald plastic fronds eerily rustling in the cold night air. The polystyrene logs of Ben Gunn's island stockade stood against a wall, awaiting assembly. The vast steel doors to the stage stood wide, and the prow of a great wooden ship could be glimpsed within. Scenery shifters often worked at night, after performances. They must have been here only moments ago, but were nowhere in evidence now.

'It's there, look, that's got to be it.'

Strangeways waved excitedly at him, pointing to one of the trees.

'I don't see anything.'

'Here, take Crippen a sec.' He threw Vince the string lead and ran forward into the artificial forest. It took Vince a while to spot the envelope taped high up in the tallest palm. Strangeways began climbing the trunk. 'I'll bring you back a coconut.'

'You don't know if it'll take your weight. They're not made to -'

Strangeways had already reached the envelope and pulled it free when he seemed to lose his balance. 'Oh, fuck.'

The plastic foliage was rattling and shaking, then shaking still harder, shedding fronds. Something was flying through the trees – a tiny silver bird.

'Strangeways?' Vince could only imagine that he had slipped on the base of one of the trees, had fallen further into the faux-undergrowth and was attempting to pull himself back up. He ran forward, pushing through the cellulose tatters, trying to see in the faint light flickering from the arch. Strangeways was in the grass below him, and suddenly grabbed upwards at his jacket. He was like a winded footballer, too surprised by a foul to cry out. His hooked fingers were red and lustrous, as though they had been dipped in gloss paint. Vince saw the sickly oval of his face, his puzzled eyes. Heard him try to speak, only to spatter his chin and neck with blood. A black arc twisted his throat into a deathly grimace; the skin had been opened with a razor. Dark liquid poured over the lower rim of flesh like a flooding bath. As his head fell back, the parted wall of his trachea revealed itself in pornographic detail. The cascade abruptly ceased, and his body dropped down.

Strangeways passed from life to death in just a few seconds.

There was someone else in the prop-jungle, the blurred figure of a man in retreat, clambering over the papier-mâché rocks and hillocks. He felt Strangeways's hand still digging at his stomach, and looked down to see the envelope crushed in his fist.

Then Vince was stumbling, slipping into the road, nearly swiped by a passing car, dodging across the entrance to the dazzling tunnel, vaulting over the railings, swerving across the bypass, brought up short by the wall of the Embankment. Hacking, gasping, vomiting into the river, frantically wiping the blood from his hands and jacket as he relived the strange speed of the attack. A man he had known for little more than an hour, a body bleeding to death among tropical palms…

And in his jacket the mobile phone, the phone he had failed to return, was buzzing against his chest. As he punched open the line, he fought to keep the bile from once more rising in his throat.

'Perhaps now you'll learn to keep this affair private, and to take me a little more seriously,' said a sickeningly familiar voice. 'It's getting late, Vincent. There's no time to mourn. You'll never make it to the next deadline.'

SHE CHECKED her watch again. 10:27 p.m. Pam could not understand it. Vince never missed out on a meal, ever. She switched her gaze from the empty chair opposite to the window and the traffic-filled street beyond. She'd been waiting in the café-bar for nearly half an hour, overdosing on garlic bread while fending off the disgruntled Italian waiter. At ten-thirty she called Vince's flat, but there was no answer. He couldn't have forgotten that they were having supper together tonight. She had been looking forward to hearing about his progress on the book. Unlike Louie, Vince was almost boringly reliable about such arrangements. He didn't like to let people down. Where could he be?

She was aware that Vince had been warned away from Sebastian Wells and the League of Prometheus. He had told her that it would be dangerous to upset them. Perhaps they'd kidnapped him? She rang Louie and caught him just as he was leaving for the gig.