'This is it,' Nepath confirmed. He pressed his hand against the bare rock, and it seemed to Urton that it sank slightly into the surface, as if there was a skim of mud across it. But when Nepath pulled his hand away a few moments later, it had left no imprint.

'I wish Patience could see this,' Nepath breathed. 'After all these years. Searching.'

'Patience?'

Nepath turned. His face was aglow, his lips curled back into a huge smile. 'My sister,' he explained. 'You will meet her soon.'

'Oh?' Urton stepped forward to examine the wall. 'It's just rock,' he said perplexed. 'Or packed earth.'

'She will be staying with us.'

Urton swung round. 'Staying? Now see here, Nepath -' he began, his voice booming round the cavern, echoing back to them.

'Lord Urton,' Nepath cut in loudly, 'I am now, I feel, in a position to offer you a partnership. Join us, Patience and I, in our venture.'

Urton gaped. He looked from Nepath to the bare rock wall and back again. 'Because of this?' he asked. 'Is this what you wanted to show me? What you came here to find?'

Nepath nodded. His face dipped in and out of flickering shadow.

'But why, for G.o.d's sake? What does it mean?'

'Feel it.' Nepath's voice was stern, emphatic.

Despite himself, Urton found he was reaching out towards the blank rock. His fingers touched the smooth surface, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed them away at once. 'It's warm.' He frowned, placing his hand gingerly against the rock. It was indeed warm. Not unpleasantly, but more than he could explain. Urton knew about rock and earth, about his mine. The wall should be damp, cold and clammy. Not warm and... spongy. He pushed, feeling his hand sinking slightly into the surface. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it away and stared at his palm. It had come away clean.

Then he leaned forwards, and peered closely at the surface. It appeared unblemished.

'Feel it,' Nepath repeated, his mouth uncomfortably close to Urton's ear, his breath hot an Urton's cheek.

'No,' Urton said. 'No, I don't think '

But Nepath cut him off. 'Feel it!' he shouted. And his hand slammed into the back of Urton's head.

'Feel it!' The words re*echoed round the chamber, hammering again and again into Urton's senses as his face slammed into to rock wall. He tried to cry out, but his face was smothered, covered, sinking fast and deep into the sweaty rock. The wall seemed to be pulling him into its glutinous surface. Smothering him. It was hot, getting hotter, searing its way through his skin, his flesh. Urton was screaming, but the sound was absorbed into the rock. And he felt it push back, flowing into his mouth as he cried out. Hot in his blistering throat. Scalding.

'Feel it! Feel it flow into you, through you!' Nepath's voice was all there was now.

And the burning.

Chapter Four.

Warm Reception It was their custom on a Sunday evening to sit round the fire. Rosie was in the back room getting the tea. James was reading aloud from the Book of Psalms.

Harry Devlin was proud of his family. But at the moment his pride at hearing his eldest son reading was tempered by the knowledge that in another week he would no longer have a means of providing for them. He remained calm and impa.s.sive. trying not to let his anxiety show. Rosie was terrified at the prospect, he knew. They had talked quietly and emotionally during the evenings and into the nights while the children slept in the next room.

He stilled little Annie's fidgeting with a glance, catching her eye and nodding towards James as he continued to read in a monotone of concentration. He read well. Better than Rosie. As well as Harry did himself. And Lawrence was catching him up. Of his three children, Lawrence would be the brightest. That was why Harry continued to let James read out loud on a Sunday. Wouldn't do for Lawrence to be seen to overtake him, not yet.

It took him a while to realise that James had finished. He sat with the Psalter open on his bare knees, waiting for a cue from his father. The fire crackled and popped in the grate.

'Well done, lad,' Harry told him. 'That was good. Very good.'

'Shall I read another?' There was an edge of worry in the boy's question. He was nearing the end of his concentration.

Annie shuffled uncomfortably on her seat. She was past her limit. Harry got to his feet and tousled James's hair. 'No, lad. That's enough for today.' He winked at Lawrence, and smiled to Annie as she looked at him expectantly. 'You can get down now. Get yourselves cleaned up for tea.'

There was sudden noise as the children raced off, each wanting to get to the pump first. A moment later came the shouts and remonstrations of their mother as they hared round the tiny kitchen and got in the way.

The knock at the door was loud, even above the sound of the children. Insistent.

Harry sighed and crossed the room. The front door opened directly into the living room. Off the living room was the kitchen. That was it. Upstairs were two small bedrooms, one shared by Rosie and Harry and the other where all three children kept themselves warm in a single small bed.

He lifted the catch and swung the door open. He was half expecting to find Pete Manson on the doorstep, grinning in his inane way and offering to buy Harry a pint. It wouldn't surprise Harry if Pete was back from Ambleton within the week. Strange he hadn't heard from him a note had been sent to the pub. Some message. They had worked together for a long time. They were friends.

But the figure on the doorstep was not Pete Manson. The man was too tall, wearing a hooded cloak that was altogether too lavish for Pete to afford in a month of Sundays. His face was shrouded in shadow, and he shuffled past Harry and into the room unbidden.

Only when he was inside did the figure push back the hood. Harry had been on the point of demanding an explanation, of throwing the man back out into the street. But now he just stared. The firelight flickered behind the man's shape, silhouetting him, glowing round him.

'Your Lordship!' Harry said aghast. 'I'm sorry, I wasn't '

Lord Urton gestured for him to be silent. 'No matter, Devlin.' His voice was crisp and precise. It lacked the friendly expansive tones that Harry was used to from the mine.

'What can I do for you, your lordship?' Harry ran a finger round his collar, feeling the sheen of sweat. Suddenly he was feeling hot.

'I want you to work for me,' Urton said. 'At the mine.'

Harry frowned. 'I do do work for you at the mine,' he said. 'For the next few days, any road.' work for you at the mine,' he said. 'For the next few days, any road.'

Urton shook his head, the hint of a smile touching his mouth. His eyes glittered in the firelight.

'Who is it, Harry?' came Rosie's voice from the kitchen, followed immediately by her call to the children to be quiet.

'It's for me,' Harry called back, not taking his eyes off Lord Urton. There was something about him, about his manner...

'We're going to re*open the mine,' Urton said softly. 'You and I. And my partner, Mr Nepath.'

'To dig for... what?' Harry asked, amazed at his own impertinence. Why not just accept it? This was the best news he could have imagined, yet he felt nervous. Apprehensive.

Urton ignored him, or perhaps did not hear. 'We shall need a few men. Just a few to start with. Until the machinery arrives.'

'Machinery?' Harry shook his head.

'The latest mining equipment from London and Birmingham.' Urton turned towards the door. 'We have some serious excavating to do,' he said as he crossed the room. 'Be at the mine tomorrow morning at eight o'clock sharp.' He opened the door, turning back towards Harry as he crossed the threshold. 'There is something you have to see,' he said.

Then he stepped out into the darkness, closing the door behind him.

Harry stared at the door for a while. He was still there when Rosie put her hand gently on his shoulder. 'Tea's ready,' she said.

He flinched, in surprise, then followed her through to the small kitchen. Suddenly he felt cold.

The gla.s.s roof was black from the smoke. The air was full of it, a dense cloud that did little to m.u.f.fle the noise of the people and the engines. Professor Isaac Dobbs pushed open the door of the carriage and stepped down on to the platform, waving for a porter. Dobbs was in his later years, his hair a shock of tousled white that seemed out of place in the grimy station.

'You know,' he said to his companion as a porter hurried up to their first cla.s.s carriage, 'it is difficult to see that science has much further to progress. We can travel even to these remote places at the speed of steam and we have within our grasp the secrets of the universe.'

The younger man smiled in reply. 'Oh I think there is a good deal of room for advancement still, Professor. Whole areas that are as yet unexplored. That is why we are here, after all.'

Dobbs waved the porter in the direction of their baggage and watched as the man easily loaded the suitcases on to a trolley. 'I think we shall find a rational explanation well within the boundaries of our existing understanding, don't you?' he told the younger man. 'There is surely no mysticism or quirk of supernature to be discovered here.' He levelled a stare at his companion. 'Despite your rather fanciful and I might add unproven whims and ideas.'

The younger man did not answer. He followed Dobbs along the platform, the porter pulling his trolley after them. The porter's whistling seemed to cut through the smoke and steam and rise above the noise around them.

There were several taxi*cabs waiting outside the station. The cabbies were wrapped up in dark cloaks against the cold, the reins emerging from layers of dense fabric to connect the drivers to the horses which blew more hot steam into the heavy atmosphere. Dobbs waited for the porter to lead them to the frontmost cab. As the bags were loaded, he gave instructions to the cabbie.

'Middletown, if you please. We are expected at Lord Urton's house within the hour. Do you know it?'

The cabbie nodded, his face emerging into the glow of the gaslight for a moment as it tilted forwards. 'I know it,' he said.

'How long will it take?' the younger man asked as he clambered after Dobbs into the cab. 'Time is of the essence.'

'This time of day, shouldn't be more than an hour. Could be a bit less.'

The young man paused, mid*way between the ground and the compartment. 'Thank you,' he said. 'That's very helpful.'

As they left the cobbled streets of Ambleton and headed through the countryside all light disappeared. There was heavy cloud, and nothing was visible through the windows. Dobbs shifted nervously in his seat, checking his pocket watch every few minutes.

'I hope we shan't be late,' he muttered. 'I do so hate to be late.'

'A few minutes at most,' the younger man said with a smile.

'And if we get lost?'

'The driver knows the way. Probably he travels this route many times a week.'

They travelled on in silence, a frown settling on to Dobbs's face. After a while, Dobbs unb.u.t.toned his coat and let it hang open, revealing his jacket and waistcoat beneath.

'Do you feel it too?' the younger man asked.

'Feel what?' Dobbs snapped. 'Not some more hocus pocus of yours, I trust?'

'A feeling of... oppression.' He sucked in his cheeks thoughtfully. 'As if there's about to be a summer storm.'

'It is the middle of winter, in case you hadn't noticed.'

'Mmm,' agreed the other man. 'Although it is is getting warmer. Don't you think?' getting warmer. Don't you think?'

'No. I don't.'

'Yet you have unfastened your coat, professor.'

Dobbs checked his watch again, as if to imply that it was to facilitate this that he had opened his coat. 'May I remind you, yet again... ' he said with exaggerated patience.

'I think you are about to,' his companion murmured.

'...That the Society for Psychical Research,' Dobbs continued with a glare, 'is an offshoot of the Royal Society. Not some crackpot mystic organisation given to experiencing feelings and doc.u.menting gossip. We are scientists, we apply precise rigorous rules to the study of these so*called psychic phenomena.'

'Even so, there is a difference, wouldn't you agree Professor, between approaching that application from a position of scepticism and approaching it with a mind open to the possibilities that they imply.'

'Hah. We have the tools of explanation already to hand,' Dobbs retorted. He gave a slight gasp as the cab lurched over a b.u.mp in the road. When he had recovered, he went on: 'What is not exposed as trickery or imagination can be deciphered by the application of modern science.'

'I beg to disagree.' The other man seemed to be enjoying the familiar debate whereas Dobbs resented the need for it yet again. 'We have the tools of a.n.a.lysis a.n.a.lysis. Explanation should surely follow. It is not... ' He looked round as if for inspiration. 'Not a taxi*cab to be jumped on before we know where our destination might be, where our journey may lead.'

Dobbs leaned forward, his face set in an expression that was dangerously close to a grimace. 'Primitive man must have marvelled at the supernatural magic of a lightning storm. Even our grandparents had no explanation for the phenomenon. Yet we know it to be an electrical discharge caused by a change in atmospherics. This warmth, this oppression you claim to feel is almost certainly a phenomenon of the same ilk.' Satisfied, he leaned back in his seat and turned his attention to the blackness outside.

'Once again, I fear we must agree to differ,' the younger man sighed. 'But one day, one day we shall come across something which your science cannot readily explain.'

'That may be, young man,' Dobbs said, his mouth curling into a faint smile. 'But whatever Lord Urton may suspect, I doubt very much that we shall come across it in this benighted neighbourhood.'

They drew up at last, several checks of Dobbs's pocket watch later, outside a large house. Lights were burning in several of the ground floor windows, but the upper floors appeared to be in darkness. The structure was cold and stark, a solid blotch against the darkened sky.

There were lights outside the porch, and in their yellowed suffusion Dobbs and his companion dismounted from the cab. The young man made his way to the front of the cab, and took the bags and cases as the cabbie handed them down.

'Your horse,' the young man said.

'What about her?'

'She's been ill.'

The cabbie paused, suitcase hovering above the young man's head. After a moment the suitcase continued its journey to his outstretched hands. 'Yes, she has' There was a note of caution in the cabbie's tone.

'But she's fine now,' the man a.s.sured the cabbie. He reached for the last case. 'Born under Aries unless I'm much mistaken. Given to moments of headstrong behaviour. Got a weak stomach.'

'I'll say.' The cabbie climbed back down to his seat. 'Found a pound of cheese in the gutter. Must have lain there a week or more. Made her sick for days.'

'How much do we owe you?' Dobbs asked, cutting across the conversation. He did not wait to hear the answer, but motioned for the other man to pay. Dobbs made his way to the porch and rang the bell. His coat flapped loose in the night air. There was indeed an uncommon warmth and humidity to the evening.

The taxi*cab departed in a clatter of hoof beats an the driveway. They waited outside the front door in silence. Eventually, deep within the house, they could hear footsteps approaching. The bolt was drawn back and when the door opened it revealed a middle*aged woman dressed in a neutral charcoal dress that complemented her undistinguished grey hair. Her face was long and her hooked nose threatened to reach down to her upper lip as it curled upwards to meet it. She surveyed the visitors through narrowed eyes.

'Professor Dobbs,' Dobbs informed her, 'and Mr Gaddis. To see Lord Urton.'

The woman did not move or speak.

'We are expected,' Gaddis told her.