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It was just that it didn’t make sense.

And finally, the word in his belly erupted out through his throat.

‘Buggery!’ he shrieked.

Suddenly, his face was exposed to the air again, and he realized – with more than a little disgust – that he must have walked right through the monstrosity. Walked through it and out the other side. He opened his eyes.

‘Congratulations,’ said Catcher, flatly.

Erskine Morris blinked. He was still in the man’s labyrinth, but the corridors were behind him now, having led him to a wide room made up of the same indented walls. In the dead centre of the floor was some kind of table, its design peculiar and unsettling; it almost looked like a mushroom, an organic thing, a six-sided dais topped by a column of pure crystal.

Catcher himself stood at the far side of the dais, still in his drab little jacket and brass-knuckled shoes, while all around him stood the other members of the ‘inner circle’, faces covered by their ridiculous hoods. Their heads were bowed.

Like bloody monks, thought Erskine, and he found himself identifying them by their physiques. The fat one was Walter Monroe, the broker. William Beaumont the book-keeper, George Mistral the layabout. O’Toole. Van Owen. Grey, faceless people. He tried to picture them with fish-gutting knives, eyes blazing with Satanic fury. He very nearly laughed.

Something brushed against his neck. With a start, he realized that the monster was still hovering in the passage behind him, squirming impatiently.

Erskine met Catcher’s gaze. The eyes were cold and empty.

For a brief and fleeting moment, he thought he understood why.

‘You’ve proved yourself to be a man of Reason,’ Catcher said, as if that explained everything, and reached out to untie Erskine’s wrists. Erskine tried to tell him what he thought of him, but all that came out of his throat was a sickly spluttering noise.

The harbour was a hundred yards across the water, a low wall of buildings that shielded the towns beyond from the sea.

From here, all you could see were dim constellations of lamplight, forming imaginary patterns against the backcloth of the evening. On-off on-off. Signals in the darkness.

What kind of darkness?

‘My lady?’ Tourette was still by Duquesne’s side, entirely incapable of knowing when he wasn’t wanted. ‘My lady, I wished to know if it were now your intention to enter the towns yourself...?’

‘I have already crossed the Atlantic to be here, Monsieur Tourette. Having done so, it would be a pity for me to remain on this ship and not see the local sights.’

Tourette, however, had little or no understanding of sarcasm. ‘But there may be dangers, my lady. For one who is unfamiliar with the customs of the brutish American people –’

‘I appreciate your concern, Monsieur. However, you must understand that I possess certain talents that even a...

professional... like yourself can lack. There may be a caillou here, non?’ This is his territory, Duquesne thought, and he wants to keep me away from it. He probably hopes he can get to the bottom of all this by himself and get promoted by the Shadow Directory. Shallow idiot.

‘I beg you, my lady –’

‘Tourette!’ She forgot the ‘Monsieur’ that time. ‘I promise you, should I have any difficulties, I shall be in direct contact with you. Or with another local agent.’

That had put him in his place. For once, the man seemed lost for words.

‘If there’s anything else...?’ Duquesne prompted.

‘No, my lady.’ Tourette began to shuffle backwards across the deck, his back hunched as if he were unsure whether to bow again or not. By the time he reached the part of the deck to which his rowing-boat was tethered, he was practically bent double. ‘I wish you good fortune in your endeavours –’

‘ Au revoir,’ Duquesne told him, dryly.

She watched the rowing-boat drift off towards the shore.

Once Tourette had vanished into the dark, and his gruntings and pantings had faded away – the sound of a man who finds it difficult to come to terms with a piece of machinery as complex as an oar, Duquesne thought – her gaze was drawn back to