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Stephanie turned and hurried out of the bedroom.

Upstairs in the living room the hologram of Jack Blood stood waiting patiently for O’Hara to finish his conference call.

‘Frankly, I don’t care what route we follow,’ the Oriental woman was saying. ‘So long as profits continue and there is agreement. But I have to know soon.’

‘Don’t be mistaken,’ said the boy. ‘Unless there is continuing progress I will cease to back your project.’

‘Have some faith,’ bellowed Mr Pegram.

‘I agree with the prince,’ said the Oriental woman. ‘My company withdraws its support if there are any setbacks.’

‘There will be continuing progress. There won’t he any setbacks,’ said O’Hara.

‘That’s more like it,’ said Mr Pegram.

As Stephanie came into the room the Oriental woman disappeared from the wall, closing her call. The boy went next, leaving just Mr Pegram’s image. The old man, his face huge on the wall, stared at O’Hara.

‘You must succeed, my friend,’ said Mr Pegram as his image began to fade. ‘We must triumph over the flesh.’ One of his pinkish eyes was spasming wetly, buried deeply in its nest of wrinkles. He might have been trying to wink.

O’Hara turned to say something to Stephanie. But before he could speak, the hologram of Jack Blood unfroze, the B&O coming off pause.

‘The exciting life of one hovercraft continues its eventful course in New York City,’ said Jack, speaking in his newsreader’s voice. ‘In a bizarre accident a G-8 hovercraft has crashed into a security installation outside the King Building, killing one guard and injuring three others. Once a police vehicle, the hovercraft was sold into private ownership and has only just been confiscated for use in a robbery. However, it now appears to have been stolen from the police pound and abandoned in spectacularly destructive style.’

* * *

‘So, which drug is doing this to me?’ said Justine.

The floor of the pub consisted of bare planks scattered with sawdust, and the sawdust was doing a surprisingly good job of soaking up the blood. However, there were thick puddles here and there, and it was in the puddles that the policemen were dancing. Most of the policemen were completely naked now except for their socks and big clumsy boots.

The one coming towards Justine’s table was also still wearing his striped CID tie.

Justine leaned closer to Mrs Woodcott, who had put on her spectacles and was now watching the policemen with some interest.

‘Is it the neurotoxin or the billy?’ said Justine.

The pale damp skin of the policemen had a pronounced mottling now, a diseased fungus appearance. They moved and danced more or less as a single unit and now they began to caress each other lasciviously.

‘Right, that’s it,’ the fat man behind the bar sighed and stopped drying beer mugs. ‘Gents, gents, you’re well out of order.’ He was reaching to ring the brass bell over the bar when two of the policemen dragged him to the floor and began to dismember him.

‘In answer to your question, most likely neither,’ said Mrs Woodcott.

‘Neither?’

The CID man with the tie reached the table just as Justine ran for the bar. She jumped up on the beer‐ and blood‐soaked surface and pulled one of the ornamental sabres down. The blade snagged on the string of Christmas tree lights but it had an edge on it like a razor blade. It sliced through the wire as Justine pulled it free. It went through the CID man’s neck almost as easily.

‘No dear,’ said Mrs Woodcott. ‘These hallucinations are almost certainly being caused by a little something extra I slipped in. A mind‐bendingly powerful psychedelic, for instance.’

‘You mischievous old bitch,’ said Justine, swinging the sword again.

Mrs Woodcott’s white‐haired old head went spinning across the pub floor and struck the brass foot rail in front of the bar. It sounded like a bowling ball hitting the brass.

‘Ouch,’ said Mrs Woodcott’s head. ‘I didn’t do it purely because I was a mischievous old bitch, however.’

The other policemen had