A little way from where he stood the leaf-shadow, or something concealed by it, moved. He peered more closely, trying to interpret what he saw, but there was not sufficient illumination to make settee of it. He heard a sigh however: a woman's. There was a couple in the shelter of the tree, he decided, doing what darkness had been created to conceal. Perhaps it was Loretta, her skirt up and her knickers down. It would break his heart, but he had to see.

Very quietly, he advanced a couple of paces.

On his second step, something grazed his face. He stifled a cry of shock and put his hand up to find strands of matter in the air around his head. For some reason he thought of phlegm - cold, wet threads of phlegm - except that they moved against his flesh as if they were a part of something larger.

A heart-beat later this notion was confirmed, as the matter which was adhering now to his legs and body, pulled him off his feet. He would have let out a cry, but the filthy stuff had already sealed up his lips. And then, as if this were not preposterous enough, he felt a chill around his lower bell. His trousers were being torn open. He started to fight like fury, but resistance was fruitless. There was a weight bearing dower on his abdomen and hips, and he felt his manhood drawn up into a channel that might have been flesh, but that it was corpse cold.

Tears of panic blurred his vision, but he could see that the thing astride him had a human form. He could see no face, but the breasts were heavy the way he liked them; and though this was far from the scene he'd pictured with Loretta his lust ignited, his little length responding to the chilly ministrations of the body that contained him.

He raised his head slightly, wanting a better view of those sumptuous breasts, but in doing so he caught sight of another figure behind the first. She was the antithesis of the ripe, gleaming woman that rode him: a stained, wretched thief, with gaping holes in her body where coat and mouth and navel should have been, so large the stars showed through from the other side.

He started to fight afresh, but his thrashings did nothing to slow his mistress' rhythm. Despite his panic he felt the familiar tremor in his balls.

In his head half a dozen pictures collided, becoming one monstrous beauty: the ragged woman, a necklace of coloured lights hanging between her sister's breasts, raised her skirts, and the mouth between her legs was Loretta's mouth, flicking its tongue. He could not resist this pornography: his prick spat its load. He howled against the seal at his mouth. The pleasure was short, the pain that followed, agonizing.

‘What's your fuckin' problem?' somebody said in the darkness. It took him a moment to realize that his cry for help had been heard. He opened his eyes. The silhouettes of the trees loomed over him, but that was all.

He started to shout again: not caring that he was lying in the muck with his trousers around his ankles. Just needing to know he was still in the land of the living.

3

The first glimpse Cal had of trouble was through the bottom of his grass, as he upped it to drain the last of Norman's malt whisky. At the door two of the printers from the Kellaway factory, who were acting as bouncers for the night, were engaged in friendly conversation with a man in a well-cut suit. Laughing, the man glanced into the hall. It was Shadwell.

The jacket was dosed and buttoned. There was no need, it seemed, for supernatural seductions; the Salesman was buying his entrance with charm alone. Even as Cal watched he patted one of the men on the shoulder as if they'd been bosom buddies since childhood, and stepped inside.

Cal didn't know whether to stay still and hope that the crowd would conceal him, or make a move to escape and so risk drawing the enemy's attention. As it was he had no choke in the matter. A hand was over his, and at his side stood one of the aunts Geraldine had introduced him to.

‘So tell me: she said, apropos of nothing, ‘have you been to America?'

‘No,' he said, looking away from her powdered face towards the Salesman. He was entering the hall with flawless confidence, bestowing smiles hither and thither. His appearance won admiring eyes on all sides. Somebody extended a hand to be shaken: another asked him what he was drinking He played the crowd with ease, a smiling word offered to every ear, all the while his eyes ranging back and forth as he sought out his quarry.

As the distance between them narrowed Cal knew he couldn't long avoid bring seen. Claiming his hand from the grip of the aunt he headed off into the thickest part of the crowd. A hubbub drew his attention to the far end of the hall, where he saw somebody - it looked to be Elroy - being carried in from the garden, his clothes in filthied disarray, his jaw slack. Nobody looked much bothered by his condition every gathering had its share of professional drunkards. There was laughter, and some disapproving looks, then a rapid return to jollification.

Cal glanced back over his shoulder. Where was Shadwell? Still close to the door, pressing the flesh like an aspirant politician? No: he'd moved. Cal scanned the room nervously. The noise and the dancing went on unabated, but now the sweating revelers seemed a mite too hungry for happiness: the dancers only dancing because it put the world away for a little time. There was a desperation in this jamboree, and Shadwell knew how to exploit it, with his fake bonhomie and that air he pretended of one who'd walked with the great and the good.

Cal itched to get up onto a table and tell the revellers to stop their cavortings: to see for themselves how foolish their revels looked, and how dangerous the shark they'd invited into their midst.

But what would they do, when he'd shouted himself hoarse? Laugh behind their hands, and quietly remind each other that he had a madman's blood in his veins? He'd find no allies here. This was Shadwell's territory. The safest thing would be to keep his head down, and negotiate a route to the door. Then get away, as far as possible as fast as possible.

He acted upon the plan immediately. Thanking God for the lack of light, he began to slip between the dancers, keeping his eyes peeled for the man with the coat of many colours.

There was a shout behind him. He glanced round, and through the milling figures caught sight of Elroy, who was thrashing about like an epileptic, yelling blue murder. Somebody was calling for a doctor.

Cal turned back towards the door, and the shark was suddenly at his side.

‘Calhoun,' said Shadwell, soft and low. ‘Your father told me I'd find you here.'

‘Cal didn't reply to Shadwell's words, merely pretended he hadn't heard. The Salesman wouldn't dare do anything violent in such a crowd; surely, and he was safe from the man's jacket as long as he kept his eyes off the lining.

‘Where are you going?' Shadwell said, as Cal moved off. ‘I want a word with you.'

Cal kept walking.

‘We can help each other...'

Somebody called Cal's name, asking him if he knew what was wrong with Elroy. He shook his head, and forged on through the crowd towards the door. His plan was simple. Tell the bouncers to find Geraldine's father, and have Shadwell thrown out.

‘... tell me where the carpet is,' the Salesman was saying, ‘and I'll make sure her sisters never get their hands on you.' His manner was placatory. ‘I've no argument with you,' he said. ‘I just want some information.'

‘I told you,' said Cal, knowing even as he spoke that any appeal was a lost cause. ‘I don't know where the carpet went.'

They were within a dozen yards of the vestibule now, and with every step they took Shadwell's courtesy decayed further.

They'll drain you dry,' he warned. Those sisters of hers. And I won't be able to stop them, not once they've got their hands on you. They're dead, and the dead don't take discipline.'