Mahmood Shabro let go of Charlie's arm. "Save me the taxi fare, take her home."

He liked Mahmood Shabro. Since cutting loose from his mother and pitching up in London without a family, Mahmood Shabro had been a friend, a sort of uncle. He knew why he was Mahmood Shabro's friend. He never asked the man for anything.

The secretary had come to his corner of the room, taking her boss's place. She had a bottle of champagne in her hand.

He thought it must have been the last bottle, and she had come to him first to fill his glass almost to the lip before moving on and pouring out a few drops for everyone else. She came back, bearing the empty bottle. She said that Mahmood Shabro had told her to put a bottle aside for herself. She said with those eyes that had been worked with such care that she would not object to sharing the bottle. She told him that she would have to clear up. He told her his address and gave her a key and a note to cover the cab, and he said that he had to meet a man on his way home, that she was please to wait for him.

He went out into the early summer night. It was already dark. The headlights of the traffic flow scratched across his features. He walked briskly. He preferred to walk. He could check for a tail. He just did the usual things, nothing flash.

Round the corner and waiting. Stopping on a pavement, spinning, walking back, checking the faces. Just being sensible.

He went to his meeting. He had put out of his mind the gathering of no-hopers, losers, dreamers, in Mahmood Shabro's office.

She was nineteen.

She was a mainliner.

The middle of the evening, and the darkness spreading.

She stood in shadow at the side of the toilets in the small park area off the main shopping street. She was a mainliner because dragon chasing and mouth organ playing were no longer sufficient to her.

Lucy Barnes was a tiny elf girl. She felt the cold. She had been waiting for two hours, and when she had left the squat the sun was still hovering amongst the chimneys of the small terraced homes. The sleeves of her blouse were fastened at her wrists. The light above the toilet block had been smashed and she was in a black hidden space, but she wore a pair of wide dark glasses.