through an area of monolithic housing developments that could have been utterly deserted for all the signs of life they showed (no, she corrected herself to Vetter and Farnham in the small white room; she had seen one small boy sitting on the curb, striking matches), then an area of small, rather tatty-looking shops and fruit stalls, and then – no wonder driving in London was so disorienting to out-of-towners – they seemed to have driven smack into the fashionable section again. ‘There was even a McDonald’s,’ she told Vetter and Farnham in a tone of voice usually reserved for references to the Sphinx and the Hanging Gardens. ‘Was there?’ Vetter replied, properly amazed and respectful – she had achieved a kind of total recall, and he wanted nothing to break the mood, at least until she had told them everything she could.

The fashionable section with the McDonald’s as its centerpiece dropped away. They came briefly into the clear and now the sun was a solid orange ball sitting above the horizon, washing the streets with a strange light that made all the pedestrians look as if they were about to burst into flame. ’It was then that things began to change,’ she said. Her voice had dropped a little. Her hands were trembling again.

Vetter leaned forward, intent. ‘Change? How? How did things change, Mrs. Freeman?’ They had passed a newsagent’s window, she said, and the signboard outside had read SIXTY LOST IN UNDERGROUND HORROR.

‘Lonnie, look at that!’

‘What?’ He craned around, but the newsagent’s was already behind them. ‘It said, “Sixty Lost in Underground Horror.’ Isn’t that what they call the subway? The Underground?’

‘Yes – that or the tube. Was it a crash?’

‘I don’t know.’ She leaned forward. ‘Driver, do you know what that was about? Was there a subway crash?’

‘A collision, madam? Not that I know of.’

‘Do you have a radio?’

‘Not in the cab, madam.’

‘Lonnie?’