VINCE KNEW he had one advantage over the League. He could talk to people out here in the queue beneath the freezing arches and get some honest answers. Sebastian and his pals had no street sense. They had made a mistake with this challenge, playing into his hands for once.

'How big is this place?' he asked a hypertense young black man in a fake-Armani jacket at the back of the line.

The young man bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, his face scrunched up in puzzlement.

'Yah-what, man?'

'How many bars are there inside?'

'Bars? Lessee, now. Upstairs. Downstairs. Balcony. Dive-bar. Restaurant. Club Lounge. Chill-out Room. VIP Suite. Terrace.'

'They're all different?'

'There's four different entrances, man. They're all numbered. This the third.'

…To Three of Four Doors… at least he was in the right line.

'Sounds big.'

'Different club nights. House. Garage. Jungle. Banghra. Hardbag, Techno. Funk. Thrash metal. Trance-Dance. Retro. Pop. Jazz. Loungecore. Straight. Gay. Bi. Can hold three thousand people on a good night. Not at the rate these guys admitting us, though.'

'They have a strict door policy?'

'Strictest-ever.'

Given the number of stabbings that occurred in such places, most of the clubs in the area were extremely choosy about whom they admitted. Vince was able to work his way further along the queue, jumping a few places by telling a complex but convincing lie about a lost jacket. When he reached the front, the doorman finally admitted him to a tiny foyer of sweating white-painted bricks, where he could decide Vince's fate at leisure.

'How much is it?' asked Vince, digging into his duffel bag.

'How much is what?' the bouncer asked back, smiling quizzically. Music thudded heavily beneath their feet.

Oh, it's going to be like that, he thought. Just what I need. 'I'm meeting someone inside, actually.'

'Only if you get in – actually.' His smirk turned to a grin. 'Where do you want to go?'

'What's at the top?'

'You don't want to go upstairs. Upstairs is rubber. You got any rubber?'

Vince shook his head. The bouncer persisted. 'Latex? PVC? Padded vinyl? Nylon? Plastic? Spandex?'

''Fraid not.'

'Yeah, well. Makes people sweat,' he replied consolingly.

'What's downstairs?'

'Twenty-two pounds fifty.'

'That's expensive.'

'It includes the price of having your nipple pierced.'

'Just the one? There must be something else.'

'Garage.'

'I like garage music.'

'No, it's just a garage. Full of cross-dressers tonight.'

'You mean angry -'

'No, transvestites. I get muddled up, meself. It's like stalactites and the ones that come up from the floor. You wouldn't like it in there. A lot of bonding going on.'

'How close?'

'Very close. You'll be better off in the alternative lounge, middle floor. Eight quid.'

Vince figured it was the minimum he'd get away with spending. He paid his money, had the back of his wrist branded with a purple day-glo stamp and stepped into darkness, slowly climbing beer-slick concrete steps to the centre of the building.

…The Challenge of The Crenellated Pachyderm… So he was looking for some kind of elephant? In here? The walls vibrated as a train rumbled past, seemingly through each of the crowded dance floors. He was hungry, thirsty and dead-dog-tired as he reached down to a red styrofoam sofa covered in cigarette burns and collapsed into it.

'Hey, wake up, man.' A cadaverous creature with cheese-and-onion-crisp breath was leaning over him. Vince had nodded off for a moment, and awoke with a start to be confronted by what appeared to be a Mott The Hoople-era hippie. He had hair extensions and cropped patches like bleached corn-stubble. 'You look knackered.'

'And you look like a dealer,' Vince replied.

'Who made you clairvoyant?'

'Making sure the house is sorted for es and whizz, are you? I don't want any.'

'Hey, don't be so aggressive, man. Gern, take your pick, every one's a winner.'

He pulled open his black nylon bomber jacket to reveal an array of brown plastic medicine bottles fixed to buttons in the lining with rubber bands. 'Doves, Hearts, Downs, Whippets, Jellies, Wobbly Eggs, Purple Screamers, Heebie Jeebies, Blue Poison, Black Death -'

Vince made a face. 'Christ, they sound awful.'

'Oh I don't know, it does you good to get out and have fun occasionally. I'm providing a service.' He pulled a bottle from his jacket and held it out. 'Here, they used to give these to injured soldiers just before they had amputations. Two quid apiece.'

'That's cheap.'

'I mix them with something from my shed and pass the savings onto you.'

'You got something to keep me up all night?' He leaned out of the strobing lights and shielded his eyes. 'Come here a second.'

The dealer realised his mistake and started to back away, but Vince caught him by the sleeve of his jacket and pulled. 'Mr Wentworth? Jason? It is you! Christ, I can't believe you're doing this. You used to be our art teacher.'

The dealer moved sheepishly towards him. 'I didn't recognise you. Vincent Reynolds, isn't it?' He sat down beside him on the sofa. 'How are you getting on? I hope your figure drawing's improved.'

Vince was aghast. 'You were going to get back to nature, go off and live in the Algarve. You said the light would be better for painting.'

'Yeah, well, I went there for a while but it wasn't like I thought it would be. All golf clubs and holiday parks. Really expensive. I ran out of money after six weeks. Teamed up with some bloke who was planning to open a beach disco, persuaded me to draw out all my savings to invest in it. Bastard only spunked out the first half of his dosh before clearing off. He was supposed to put in the same amount as me, only he never turned up to the bank when we went to secure the loan. The British embassy had to pay for me to get home. I'm married now. I've got responsibilities.' He pulled a vial of white tablets from his coat pocket. 'You still want something to keep you awake?'

'Only if it works all night long.' Vince wearily pulled himself up from the seat. 'I'm on the search for the "Crenellated Pachyderm". You can help me find it if you like, but don't blame me if someone tries to kill you.'

'It's your go, Maggie,' said Harold Masters. 'Stop daydreaming.'

'I can't help thinking of that poor boy out there all by himself,' said Mrs Armitage. The flame-haired occult specialist of Camden Town was not concentrating on her hand. 'We should be doing something to help him.'

'The best thing we can do is be on the other end of the telephone line when he calls,' said Masters, checking his cards once more.

'Perhaps we should ring the police.' Mrs Armitage ran nervous fingers through the brightly varnished shell necklace that looped her neck. 'Explain what's going on. I have connections. I know people who could psychically assist them in their investigations.'

'That would slow them down a bit,' said Stanley Purbrick, a curator at the British Museum whose usual field of expertise was Victorian ornithology. He had no time for Maggie Armitage's new age brand of vaguely holistic spiritualism. He was a rationalist, and a conspiracy theorist. He could find a conspiracy inside his morning cereal packet or behind the lateness of the train that bore him to work, and frequently did so. 'They have no idea what goes on in this city. Besides, talk to the police and it stays on your files for ever. For God's sake play your hand, Maggie, you're driving us all mad.'

'What files? They have files on us?' Mrs Armitage distractedly laid out her cards in a hand that made so little sense it seemed impossible to imagine that she had been paying attention for the last half-hour.