Now, do his eyes twinkle, or glitter? 'That's almost too kind of you, doctor,' I say.

Dr Joyce takes a moment or two to ingest this, but then he smiles. I take my leave, agreeing with the good doctor that the fog is a nuisance. I run the gauntlet of proffered tea and coffee, inane remarks and unutterably good grooming in his outer office without any psychological ill-effects.

As I leave, Mr Berkeley is led in by his policeman. Mr Berkeley's breath smells of mothballs. I can only assume he thinks he is a chest of drawers.

I walk along the Keithing Road, through the swirling cloud which has submerged us. The thoroughfares become tunnels in the mist; the lights of shops and cafes cast a fuzzy glow over people who emerge from the mists like dimly seen ghosts.

Beneath me are the sounds of the trains; every now and again a thick rolling cloud of their smoke bursts up from the train deck, like a clot of fog. The trains howl like lost souls, long anguished wails the mind cannot help but interpret in its own terms; perhaps the whistles were designed like that, to strike an animal chord. From the unseen river, hundreds of feet below, foghorns boom in still longer and lower choruses of baleful warning, as if every place they sound from had already been the site of a terrible shipwreck, and the horns placed there to mourn long-drowned sailors.

A rickshaw comes furiously out of the fog, announced in advance by the squeaking horns in the boy's heel-pumps; a match girl steps out of the way as it charges past; I turn and watch, seeing a white face framed by dark hair inside the wicker and cloth-dark depths of the contraption. It speeds past (I'd swear the occupant returned my gaze) a dim red light glowing fuzzily through the fog from its rear. There is a shout, then from ahead - as the faint light hazes over, disappears - the sound of squeaking heel-horns decelerating, stopping. I walk on, and catch the stationary rickshaw up. That white face, seemingly glowing through the mist, looks round the side of the device's canopy.

'Mr Or!'

'Miss Arrol.'

'What a surprise. I seem to be going in your direction.'

'Precipitously.' I stand by the side of the two-wheeled vehicle; the boy between the handles looks on, panting, his sweat glowing in the diffused light of a streetlamp. Abberlaine Arrol looks flushed, her white face almost rosy from close up. I am oddly delighted to see that those distinctive crinkles under her eyes are there yet; they may be permanent (or she may have spent another late night carousing). Perhaps she is just heading home now ... but no; people have a morning look and feel, and an evening one, and Chief Engineer Arrol's daughter positively exudes freshness just now.

'Can I give you a lift?'

'Your very appearance has already done so.' I execute a curtailed version of one of her exaggerated bows. She laughs, deep in her throat, where usually men laugh. The rickshaw-boy is watching us with an expression of annoyance. He takes his abacus from his waist and starts to click it with noisy ostentation.

'You are gallant, Mr Orr,' Miss Arrol says, nodding. 'My offer stands. But would you prefer to sit?'

I am disarmed. 'Delighted.' I step into the light vehicle; Miss Arrol, clad in boots, culottes and a dark, heavy jacket, shifts over in the seat, making room. The rickshaw-boy makes a loud 'tut' sound, and starts talking and gesticulating excitedly. Abberlaine Arrol answers in the same voluble tongue, with hand gestures. The boy puts the handles down with another loud 'tut' and marches into a cafe across the wooden-decked road.

'He's gone to get another boy,' Miss Arrol explains. 'It's worth the extra to maintain speed.'

'Is that entirely safe in this fog?' I can feel a half-seat worth of warmth seeping through my coat from the small padded bench beneath me.

Abberlaine Arrol snorts, 'Of course not.' Her eyes - more green than grey in this light - narrow, the slim mouth twists at one side. 'That's half the fun.'

The boy comes back with another, they take a handle each, and with a jerk, we are borne off into the mist.

'A constitutional, Mr Orr?'

'No, I'm returning from a visit to my doctor.'

'How are you progressing?'

'Fitfully. My doctor now wants to hypnotise me. I am beginning to question the utility of my treatment, if it can be called that.'

Miss Arrol is watching my lips as I speak, an endearing but oddly unsettling experience. She smiles broadly now and looks ahead, where the two running boys labour, tearing through the light-hazed fog, scattering people to either side. 'You must have faith, Mr Orr,' Miss Arrol says.

'Hmm,' I say, as I too watch our breakneck progress through the grey cloud for a moment. 'I think I might be more inclined to make my own investigations.'

'Your own, Mr Orr?'

'Yes. I don't suppose you've ever heard of the Third City Records and Historical Materials Library, have you?'

She shakes her head. 'No, sorry.'

The rickshaw-boys shout; we swerve round an old man m the middle of the road, missing him by less than a foot. I am pressed against Miss Arrol as the rickshaw heels over, then steadies.

'Most people don't seem to have heard of it, and those who have, can't find it. '

Miss Arrol shrugs, staring through narrowed eyes into the fog. 'These things happen,' she says, matter-of-factly. She glances back at me. 'Is that the limit of your investigations, Mr Orr?'

'No, I'd like to know more about the Kingdom and the City, about what lies beyond the bridge -' I watch her face for some reaction, but she seems to be concentrating on the fog and the road ahead. I continue, '- but that would probably require me to travel, and I'm rather restricted in that respect.'

She turns to me, brows raised. 'Well,' she says, 'I've done a bit of travelling. Perhaps - '

'Gangway!' our original rickshaw-boy shrieks; Miss Arrol and I glance forward together to see a sedan chair directly in front of us, parked right across the wooden deck of the narrow street. Two men are holding one of its broken poles; they throw themselves to one side as our two boys try to brake, bracing their heels, but we're too close: the boys swerve and we start to tip. Miss Arrol throws one arm across my chest - I am staring stupidly ahead - as our rickshaw skids and judders, creaking and squealing, into the side of the sedan chair. She is thrown against me; the side of the rickshaw roof comes up and slaps me on the head. Something incandesces in the fog for a second, then goes out.

'Mr Orr, Mr Orr? Mr Orr?'

I open my eyes. I am lying on the ground. It is very grey and strange, and people are crowded around me, looking at me. A young woman with crumpled eyes and long dark hair stands beside me.

'Mr Orr.'

I hear the sound of aircraft engines. I hear the swelling drone of those planes as they fly through the seaward fog. I lie and listen, wondering (frustrated, unable to tell) which direction they are flying in (it seems important).

'Mr Orr?'

The noise of their engines fades. I wait for the darkly drifting smudges of their pointless signals to appear out of the faintly moving fog.

'Mr Orr?'

'Yes?' I feel dizzy, and my ears are making their own noise, like a waterfall.

It's foggy, lights blaze like smudged crayon marks on a grey page. A shattered sedan chair and broken rickshaw lie in the middle of the road; two boys and a couple of men are arguing. The young woman kneeling beside me is quite beautiful, but her nose is bleeding; red drops gather under it, and I can see where she has already wiped some of the blood away, making a red smear on her left cheek. A warm glow, like a warm red light inside the fog, fills me from inside when I realise that I know this young woman.