'Go in, you soft get!'

'Would you like me to have a dance or two?' asked the Doctor. 'Only, you see, I'm a little out of practice.'

'Have a look in your pockets.'

The Doctor found a pa.s.sport-sized photograph of a young woman and a roughly wrapped parcel. 'See the girl, right?'

said Shanks. 'Stick the packet in her handbag while she's not looking.'

'What does it contain?' asked the Doctor.

'Half a pound of cheese,' said Shanks sarcastically. 'Use your imagination.'

'It's drugs, isn't it?'

'Like I said, cheese. Now get on with it, I haven't got all night.'

'How am I supposed to get in? I haven't got any money.'

'One of my boys is working the door tonight. I could have got him to do this for me, but he's not the sharpest pencil in the pencil case, you know what I mean?'

'And what if this young woman isn't there?'

'Oh, she is, Doc. I've made sure of that.'

'What next?' asked Steven Chen.

'Well,' said Ace, 'the latest photo's a couple of years old.

Let's see what the state of play is now.'

'And how do you propose we do that?'

'Come on, dumbo, where'd you think these photos were taken from? I haven't seen a helipad at the vicarage.'

Steven looked around him. 'The church tower?'

Ace nodded, and led Steven Chen towards the winding stone staircase, half obscured by another thick red curtain.

'Last time I did this I was being chased by vampires.'

'Really?'

'Oh yes.' Ace's eyes, briefly caught by the torchlight, were hard and resolute.

The steps were cold and smooth under foot, and Steven had to steady himself many times on a metal handrail that had been hammered into the outer wall. By the time he reached the very top, through a small trapdoor that led out on to the flat surface of the tower, Ace was already scanning the horizon with a pair of khaki-coloured binoculars. 'Gulf War issue,' she said without a glance in Steven's direction.

'Makes night-time look like the middle of the day.'

Steven gingerly grasped the castellated wall. 'I'm not very good with heights,' he said.

'Don't be a wimp,' said Ace. 'Anyway, if you fell off now, at least you wouldn't be able to see the ground before you hit it.'

'Thanks,' said Steven through clenched teeth. 'So, what's out there?'

'It's difficult to make out that black mark, but I think I can see the edge. It's almost out of sight, going well beyond the copse over there. Look.' She handed the binoculars to Steven.

He fiddled with the rubberised controls for a moment. The churchyard, village and fields were all shaded an artificial green, but, as Ace had said, the detail was remarkable. He could see a young fox skipping between the gravestones and a single light left on in one of the cottages that shone like a beacon. The line where the black Hexen mark ended, and the surrounding, normal soil began, was just visible. He scanned the periphery of the dark stain, noticing that where it bisected fields scarecrows had been placed, as if they were marking some sort of boundary.

'You noticed the scarecrows?' he asked nervously.

'Yep,' said Ace.

He tracked along the ascending hills, following the edge of the shadowy area as it dipped slightly towards Hexen Bridge and the river that ran through it. In a field where he had expected some scarecrows there were only two wooden crosses, gaunt against the darkness.

Steven removed the binoculars from his eyes, handing them back to Ace. 'I think we'd better get out of here,' he said.

The Doctor descended the steps carefully, feeling his way forward in the gloom. If he tripped and fell the explosives might detonate, burying him and everyone else in the club under hundreds of tonnes of rubble.

At the bottom, the Doctor found himself in what had once been the cellar of an imposing Victorian hotel. While the Gothic facade of the building above the ground had long since crumbled, the subterranean chamber, with its ornate arches and sweeping ceiling, did retain a hint of ancient grandeur. Kaleidoscopic splashes of colour flickered over the walls. Ambient rhythms pulsed out of the large speakers placed around the room, reminding the Doctor of the fractal symphonies of the Third Draconian Era.

The nightclub thronged with young people. They came together in great jostling groups in front of the sweeping arcs of the main bars, spread out over the dance floor, and crowded around the tables and seats and potted plants. The Doctor watched as white-suited bouncers pushed through the crowds, their jaws jutting like Ogrons'. The Doctor knew that at least one of these individuals was working for Shanks.

In fact, for all he knew, the gangster might be watching the pictures from the club's closed-circuit cameras in the back of the van.

'Right, ravers,' announced the DJ at the far end of the room. 'This is the sound of Heroin Sheikh, and "My Body is a Temple".'

The Doctor looked around, bewildered and powerless. The girl's face was locked in his mind, but it would take a while to find her.

'Excuse me,' the Doctor said to a man who pa.s.sed. 'I'm looking for...' he began. But the man's eyes were glazed and he seemed not to hear.

The Doctor concluded that the people serving behind the bar would be best placed to help him in his search. He turned, and stumbled straight into the young woman he was looking for.

'I'm sorry,' said the girl, reaching out to steady the Doctor.

'Clumsy of me.'

'My fault entirely,' noted the Doctor with a charming smile, doffing his hat. 'In actual fact, I've been looking for you. A mutual friend has sent me with something for you.'

The darkened interior of the van was filled with surveillance equipment. Light from a monitor splashed over Shanks's face, framed by a set of headphones.

'You're not supposed to talk to her!' shouted Shanks into a microphone, linked to the tiny receiver in the Doctor's ear.

'Just give her the packet!'

Shanks could see the Doctor on the screen in front of him.

The little man glanced around, as if looking for the CCTV cameras. Then he and the girl disappeared behind a column.

'What are you playing at, Doc?' screamed Shanks into the microphone. 'I told you, one false move and the place goes up.' He turned to one of the men at his side. 'Get Dean to move in. I need to know what the Doctor's doing,' he ordered.

The Doctor put a finger to his lips, quelling the girl's surprise.

With the piece of pencil lead under his nail, he scribbled on to a beer mat: 'Important. We are in danger.'

'Well,' said the Doctor brightly. 'I have a gift for you. But you mustn't unwrap it yet.'

'Go along with what I say,' he wrote.

'OK,' said the girl, the uncertainty obvious in her voice. The Doctor was just hoping that she'd humour him for a few moments. 'Who's it from?' she added lamely.

'Ken,' said the Doctor instantly. 'Ah,' said the girl. 'I remember Ken.'

Shanks switched off his microphone and cursed loudly.

'What's he playing at?' he asked rhetorically. 'Shall we detonate?' asked a man at his side. 'No,' snapped Shanks.

'That's not what I had planned. Denman has to really really suffer.' suffer.'

'So...?'

'So, has the Doctor pa.s.sed on the merchandise?'

'Dean's not sure.'

'Plan B, then,' said Shanks. 'Tell Jane to move.'

The Doctor handed over an imaginary parcel. 'There you are,'

he said.

The girl clearly considered the Doctor a harmless lunatic.

'Er, thanks,' she said, pretending to pocket something just as one of the bouncers burst through a crowd of people. He stared at them, mouthing something into a walkie-talkie, then swept past a moment later as if he'd not seen them at all. 'Now, I really must be going,' said the Doctor, raising his hat again. He walked as quickly as he could towards the exit.

He had gambled on the fact that Kenny Shanks hated his plans being interfered with so much that he wouldn't actually detonate the bomb; that the explosives were there simply to intimidate the Doctor, and to incriminate him later. But he couldn't rely on a man as erratic and violent as Shanks. He had to get out.

A young woman stumbled into him as she skirted the expansive dance floor. The Doctor reached out an arm to steady her. 'I do beg your pardon.'

'No worries,' said the girl with a smile.

'He thinks thinks the package was handed over, boss.' the package was handed over, boss.'

'Cretin!' exploded Shanks. 'I'm not falling for that song-and-dance. Get the law in there, now.'

Jane sidled up to Nicola cautiously, one hand in her pocket, resting on the package she'd lifted from the small man in the pale suit. It hadn't been difficult to steal the parcel from the man, but then it was Jane's pickpocketing skills that had first brought her to Shanks's attention. When Jane was twelve, she had started stealing old women's purses as a dare. She didn't need the money, but she craved the buzz.

Then one day she'd been caught by a plain-clothes security man running through the automatic doors of Marks & Spencer. When the police investigated her room, they found hundreds of wallets and purses, many of them still crammed full of money. Her friends had said she'd be sent to borstal, but Shanks got her off with a weak rebuke from a greedy Magistrate.

She'd been paying him back ever since.

Nicola's back was turned, her handbag hanging half open at her side. Holding her breath, Jane pushed at the zip, then gently lowered the package into place. With a trailing hand, she pulled at the zip again, walking around in front of Nicola.

'Who was that I saw you with?'

'Oh, just some nutter,' said Nicola. 'Off his head.'

Jane was about to say something when she became aware of a commotion behind them. Uniformed figures were descending the stairs.

'd.a.m.n' she said. 'Looks like another raid.' In truth, she was just glad to be shot of the package - you didn't have to be Einstein to work out what it contained.