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'Her name's Leela,' Ralph said. 'Leela Rovasevateem. She's from Russia or the former Yugoslavia or one of those' He looked at Leela. 'You didn't actually say which one, did you?'

'What are you doing in my lab?' the man pressed.

'You must be Doctor Ghostbuster Bazzer Hitchins,' Leela said. He did not look nearly impressive enough to have given himself such a name. 'The Doctor wanted to talk to you about your experiments in parapsychology.'

'You have no right to come barging into my laboratory.' The man sounded defensive suddenly. 'Your Doctor will have to make an appointment if he wants to discuss my work.'

'Don't start on her,' Chloe said. 'If it wasn't for her I'd have been in serious trouble.'

Out of the corner of her eye Leela saw the boy called Josh come out of the standing box. She tried to watch him without making it obvious. There was something about him she found intriguing. 'How do you work that out?' he now asked Chloe.

'You were right when you said it was a bloody great coffin. I could have died in there. I could have drowned,' she said. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to what was happening to me.'

The other girl spoke for the first time. "That's not true. Tommy never took his eyes off you for a moment. A technique he is demonstrating for us right now.'

Chloe stopped rubbing herself down and wrapped the sheet of drying material round her body.

'You were being monitored the whole time, Chloe,' Ralph said.

Monitored. That's the word,' the other girl said. 'Is that the word Tommy?'

No. I think bitchy is probably the word, Meg,' he said.

I don't care what you say,' Chloe said. 'It was Leela who got me out of there. It wasn't any of you. It was Leela who saved me.'

Saved you from what?'Josh mocked.

'I don't know,' Chloe said. 'A fate worse than death?'

'Is there such a thing?' Josh asked. 'Is there a fate worse than death? If there is I can't imagine what it would be. Can you?'

To Leela the question sounded like a challenge of some sort.

Chapter Nine

Death is not the worst thing that can happen to you. There is something worse than death that can happen. Living for ever in the darkness, always being afraid, always being alone. That has got to be worse than anything I can imagine. What if eternity turns out to be an airless agony of panic. I can't spend my whole life terrified of fear. I can't face the wait. I'd rather jump now than wait to fall.

Detective Constable Bartok finished reading the suicide note through the clear plastic of the evidence envelope and handed it back to the scenes-of-crime officer. 'Do we believe this?' he said to Detective Sergeant Simpson.

Simpson surveyed the blood-splashed study bedroom from which the body had not long been removed. 'I've seen worse,' he said. Then he thought for a moment and shook his head. 'No I haven't.' He sighed heavily. 'Poor little bugger. What was she thinking of?'

'From the lecture notes on the desk it looks like the handwriting matches,'

the SOCO said, tagging and listing the remaining physical samples.

The photographer finished the last of the close-up fingerprint photos.

'You've got wide shots of the room, haven't you?' Simpson asked. 'From both sides and from the doorway?'

'Every which way,' the photographer said.

'And he's got full sequences of the blood spatters from source to cutoff,' the SOCO said.

So is that it?' the photographer asked. 'Only I've got a wedding at three.'

The SOCO said, 'Don't forget to lose the suit. Turn up in all that white and they'll think you're the bride.'

The photographer shouldered his equipment bag. 'If I keep the cap and mask on,' he chortled, they'll think I've come to deliver the baby'

'Prints as soon as you can, yeah?' Simpson said.

A.s.a.p. chief,' the photographer said as he left.

'He's not our regular guy is he?' Simpson said to the SOCO.

'Outsourced leave replacement. We have to buy in the holiday cover these days.'

'Is he reliable?' Simpson asked. 'We don't want