Forming a Möbius door and looking through, he saw a hedgerow paralleling a ribbon road that stretched into the distance straight as a ruler. Vehicles thundered by on the metalled surface, their lights strobing the bushes of the hedgerow into a flickering kaleidoscope of yellow, green and black. And even as Harry watched, so the Frigis Express truck whoofed by.

A short Möbius jump took them a mile farther down the road, where they exited inside a catwalk spanning the Al's multiple lane system. And a minute later Harry said: 'Here he comes.'

They gazed down through the walkway's windows, watched the Frigis Express truck thunder by beneath them to rumble on down the road. As its lights diminished and merged with those of the rest of the night traffic, Penny asked, 'What now?'

Harry shrugged and checked their location. 'Borough-bridge is a mile or two further south,' he said. 'Johnny might stop there or might not. In any case, I don't intend to monitor his progress mile by mile; but I do know that somewhere along the line he'll call a halt, probably at an all-night diner. That's his modus operandi, right? It's his venue, the hunting ground where he finds his victims; women, on their own, in the dead of night. Except ... I don't have to tell you that, do I?'

Penny shuddered. 'No, you don't have to tell me that.'

They looked around. On one side of the road was a petrol station, on the other, a diner. Harry said, 'I'm happy now that I can find Johnny any time I want him. So let's take a break for a coffee, OK? And I can maybe explain something of how I want to play it.'

She nodded and even managed a shaky smile. 'OK.'

They headed along the walkway towards steps leading down to the cafeteria. People were coming up the steps, heading down to the petrol station and its car park. Before they could climb up to the walkway's level, Penny grabbed Harry's arm. 'Your eyes!' she hissed.

Harry put on his dark glasses, then took her hand. 'Lead me,' he said. 'You know, like I was a blind man?' It wasn't a bad idea. From then on, in the cafeteria where a handful of travellers were eating, people only looked at them once and quickly looked away.

It's a funny thing, Harry thought, but people don't much look at someone with an affliction. Or if they do, they look sideways. Hah! They'd jump sideways if they knew the nature of my affliction!

But they didn't.

Not all of them, anyway...

On the bank of the river some little way from Bonnyrig, Ben Trask and Geoffrey Paxton stood in the dark of the night under the moon and stars and listened to the gurgle of blackly swirling waters. They 'listened' for other things, too, but heard nothing. And they watched.

They watched the old house across the water - the house of the Necroscope, with all its lights ablaze - watched it for movement behind the open, ground-floor patio doors, for shadows falling on the fabric of the curtains in the upper windows, for any sign of life ... or absence of life, undeath. And watching it they fingered their weapons: Trask his sub-machine-gun, with a magazine of thirty 9mm rounds seated firmly in its blued-steel housing, and Paxton his metal crossbow, loaded with a hardwood bolt under pressure sufficient to hammer through a man like a nail into softwood.

A mile away, on the road into Bonnyrig, two more E-Branch operatives sat in their car, waiting. They had small talents of their own but weren't telepaths; neither one of them had Ben Trask's experience, or Paxton's 'zeal'. But if it became necessary, certainly they would be able to do whatever must be done. Their car was equipped with a radio, tuned in on London HQ. At the moment their job was simply to relay messages, and act as back-up for the men up front. If Trask or Paxton called them, they could pick them up in little more than a minute. Which at least gave the men on the river bank a feeling of security; Paxton a little less than Trask, for he had been here before.

'Well?' Trask whispered now, taking the telepath's elbow. 'Is he in there or isn't he?'

Standing close to the very spot where Harry Keogh had tossed him into the river, Paxton was nervous. The Necroscope had warned him that next time... that there had better not be a next time. And now that time was here; and Trask's hand still gripped Paxton's arm just above the elbow. 'I don't know.' The telepath shook his head. 'But the house is tainted, for sure. Can't you feel it?'

'Oh, yes.' Trask nodded in the dark. 'Just looking at it, I can see it's not right. What about the girl?'

'An hour ago she was here, definitely,' the other answered. 'Her thoughts were clouded - mind-smog, yes - but readable to a degree. She's in thrall to him, no doubt about it. I thought Keogh was here, too - in fact I was sure he was, briefly - but now...' He shrugged. 'Telepathy with vampires is a very tricky business. To see without being seen, and to hear without being heard.'

Before Trask could answer him or make further comment, a tiny red light began to flash on his pocket walkie-talkie. He extended the aerial and depressed the incoming-call button. There sounded the customary wash of background static, and then the quiet, faintly tinny voice of Guy Teale, saying: 'Car here. How do you read me?'

'OK,' Trask answered him, soft and low. 'What's up?'

'We've had a call from HQ,' Teale came back. 'We're to move to final strike locations now, situate ourselves, from there on in maintain radio and ESP silence, and wait for the word.'

Trask frowned and said: 'We can ready ourselves, sure, but how will we be able to strike if our target isn't here? Ask HQ that, will you?'

Without pause Teale came back: 'HQ says that in the event there's no one in the house when they give the word, we remain in situ, stay alert and wait to see what happens.'

Trask's frown deepened. 'Ask them to repeat that, will you? With some of the blanks filled in?'

'I already did.' Teale's sigh was clearly audible. 'Before I even called you. As far as HQ knows, Keogh has the Sanderson girl with him, and he and she are on to the serial killer. Likewise we have people on Keogh and Found - within limits, that is - and also people on Trevor Jordan, on a night train bound for London. So, we'll let Keogh and/or the police settle with Found, then move on the Necroscope, the girl, and Jordan simultaneously, wherever they are at that time.'

Trask nodded. 'So if our people don't get Harry at their end - and if he escapes back here - we'll be waiting for him, right?'

'That's how I see it,' Teale answered.

Trask nodded. 'OK, secure the car and come on in on foot. Meet us at the old bridge, ready to cross in ... ten minutes' time. Then we'll reorganize, split into two pairs and choose vantage points at the front and rear of the house. That's all for now. Be seeing you.'

He pressed the off button.

Paxton, nervously scanning all about in the darkness under the trees, said, 'Do you think Teale and Robinson will be OK working together? I mean, I'm sure we'll be fine together, but they don't strike me as having a hell of a lot of candlepower between them!'

'You're probably right.' Trask stared hard at him in the dark of the night, disliking everything that he saw and felt; especially the fact that every now and then he'd feel Paxton's talent tugging on the covers of his mind and trying to turn them back. 'So I'll team up with Teale, and you can take Robinson.'

Paxton turned more fully towards him and his eyes were slightly feral in fleeting moonlight. 'You don't want us to work together?'

'Paxton, let me put you right,' Trask told him. 'The only reason I wanted to work with you up here in the first place was to keep an eye on you. See, I think you're full of it, and it's leaking on your attitude. So you're right, I don't want us to work together. In fact, I'd rather work with raw shit!'