Icarus and Johnny Boy were steered across a massive concourse. There were wooden crates and boxes, many bearing enigmatic symbols and letterings, stacked in mighty bulwarks. And thousands and thousands of barber’s chairs, all wrapped up in plastic. And on and on, beneath these and between, the two men plodded. Urged at the point of a gun and followed by the loathsome being that was Cormerant.

Icarus did take time to wonder over Cormerant. When first he had encountered him, in his guise as a man in the shop of Stravino, he had seemed a meagre creeping nervous body. Just some put-upon clerk in a city-gent’s rig-out, that few would have noticed at all.

And Icarus wondered whether this was what the chauffeur was seeing even now. Whether the chauffeur could hear the cold cruel edge to the creature’s voice, or see the arrogant, bombastic manner of its movements.

Evidently not, thought Icarus.

Although, possibly so.

Which didn’t really help much at all. So Icarus thought on hard regarding the matter of his escape.

“Down there,” urged the chauffeur. “Through that door.”

Through that door led them into a hallway. It was a long carpeted hallway. High-ceilinged, papered in richly patterned silk, ornamented with red circles and beryl coronets. Marble busts stared blindly from niches in the walls. Icarus counted six of Napoleon, three of Wellington, one of Churchill and none at all of Noel Edmonds. Icarus didn’t count these busts for fun. He was passing many doors and Icarus counted these also. He wanted to remember exactly where the way out was, when he chose to make a run for it.

At length he was brought to a halt before door twenty-three. Just beside the empty niche that awaited Noel Edmonds.

Cormerant knocked and a voice called, “Enter.”

Cormerant turned the handle and opened the door. “In,” said he to Icarus.

As Icarus harboured no preconceptions as to what might lie beyond the opening door, he was neither surprised nor disappointed by the sight that met his troubled gaze. But neither was he impressed.

Baffled, yes.

But not impressed.

Beyond the doorway lay a barber’s shop.

It was a regular ordinary down to earth, spit and proper barber’s shop. It might well have been that of Stravino, but it wasn’t. For this one was way deep down in the ground and this one had smarter barber’s chairs.

But all the rest was very much the same. The same fag-pocked linoleum on the floor. The same yellow nicotine up on the ceiling. Same pitted mirror with its souvenirs and whatnots. A row of faded cinema seats and even a brown envelope.

Of the smarter barber’s chairs, there were three. Stravino had only two in his shop. The second one, he’d told Icarus, was for the son who would one day succeed him. But that particular chair remained for ever empty, as Stravino had fifteen daughters, but no son.

But that is by the by, for we are here. In this subterranean barber’s shop, which has three chairs. And leaning against the furthest and smoking a cigarette, there stood … a barber.

This barber, like Stravino, was obviously a Greek. He had the complicated cookery thing that they always wear above the left eyebrow and the shaded area on the right cheek that looks a bit like a map of Indo-China. And he stood and he grinned and he dished out a welcome.

“Welcome,” he said, “and come in.”

Johnny Boy edged nervously forward. “I don’t want a haircut,” he muttered to Icarus. “I do my own. I have a four-in-one home hairdressing set.”

“Shut it, squirt,” said Cormerant.

“Come sit here,” said the barber.

Johnny Boy shook his tiny head.

“No, not you, dolly man. The big boy. The one with all the presents. Someone take his presents, please. And has someone had a look-see in his pockets?”

Cormerant shook his hideous head.

“You no search this boy at all?” The barber raised his unencumbered right eyebrow. “You no check to see whether he carry big bomb that blow our bottom parts off?”

Cormerant shook his hideous head a second time.

“Then perhaps you’d better do it now, damned clerk with runny nose.”

The chauffeur wrenched the papers and the boxes and the spectremeter from the grip of Icarus. Cormerant reached forward to go through his pockets. Icarus bit hard upon his bottom lip as the creature’s terrible scaly hands probed about his person.

“My wallet,” said Cormerant. “And where is my watch fob and where is my briefcase?”

“All in the time that’s good,” said the barber. “The boy will tell it all to us.”

Icarus eyed the barber. Here indeed lay a mystery. He was not a wrong’un. Not some demon. He was a man, as Icarus. And he was not a bad man. Icarus could see the man within the man and what Icarus could see was loyalty. This man was honest and loyal. He believed in what he was doing. He thought that what he was doing was right. Icarus shuddered. That was how it worked, of course. That was how it all worked. People mostly did believe that what they did was for the best. For the good of others. This man worked here. In this evil Ministry, run by demons in the guise of men. And he believed he was doing the right thing. For queen and country, perhaps? For national security?

“You come sit down here my boy,” said the barber, indicating the middle chair. “You look like you need a haircut. What shall it be, do you think? Perhaps a Tony Curtis?”

“No thanks,” said Icarus.

“But you sit here all the same.”

Icarus saw the flicker of colour darting round the barber’s head. Dark blue for determination. Not a man to be argued with.

Icarus made his way to the chair and sat down hard upon it. The barber flourished a Velocette and swung it over the lad’s shoulders.

“We don’t have time for this pantomime.” The cold cruel tone of Cormerant’s voice jarred in the relocator’s ears. “Call her out, make her get on with it.”

Her? Icarus glanced into the mirror. The barber’s expression was grave. The colour of his thoughts was yellow. Fear, that colour was.

“She come soon,” said the barber. “She out clubbing it up, you know what young ladies are. I just give this boy a Tony Curtis, make him look a regular back street prince.”

“No need for that.” Icarus turned his head at the voice. A woman had entered the barber’s shop. She was a most attractive woman. Five feet two and eyes of blue, in a black leather dress and a high-heeled shoe. Golden hair, wide-lipped smile, she moved with elegance and style. Beyond the beauty and the grace, Icarus could see a brooding menace.

“Miss O’Connor,” said the barber.

“Introduce me properly,” said Miss O’Connor.

“Boy in chair, this is Miss Philomena Christina Maria O’Connor. She is an exo-cranial masseuse. She massage your head all nice. Make you feel all dreamy dreamy. Very good for the scalp. Make follicles spring up like little lambs eat ivy.”

“No thank you,” said Icarus.

“Yes thank you,” said Philomena.

“It not hurt a bit,” said the barber. “You feel grand, I promise.”

Icarus could see the lie and Icarus wanted out. He gripped the arms of the barber’s chair, prepared to spring and make a fight of it.

Click and click went the arms of the chair and two steel bands curled to fasten his wrists. Icarus wrenched and twisted, but the steel bands held him captive.

“Just relax,” said Philomena, approaching the chair. “It really won’t hurt much. It’s just a little massage.”

Icarus fought to keep his head down, but her hands were suddenly in amongst his hair. “My mother taught me this,” said Philomena. “Back in the old country. She was a hairdresser, but she’d studied phrenology. She could tell people’s fortunes by feeling the shape of their heads. She became very good at it; she had the gift, you see. And she could see a potential in it that few people ever sought to realize. That by applying subtle pressure to precise areas on the skull, you can actually cause changes to occur within the human brain. It’s a bit like acupuncture, or acupressure. Once you know exactly where to press and how hard and for how long, you can achieve the most remarkable effects. Here, for instance.”