‘We have a visitor,’ said Pod, trying to keep from smiling too broadly. He was evidently very pleased with himself.

‘Is it Nicola?’ David asked rather too quickly, sounding more excited than he had intended.

‘No.’

‘Oh … Who then?’

‘A couple of the guards spotted him wandering around in the road outside. Looked like he was trying to get in.’

‘Who is he, Pod?’ said David with growing irritation.

‘He’s from the Natural History Museum.’

‘Oh, right. Anyone we know?’

‘No. But he’s got an interesting story to tell.’

David leant forward over the table and smiled at Pod.

‘Where is he now?’

‘We’re keeping him down in the guardroom out of the way. Apart from me and the two boys who brought him in, nobody knows he’s here.’

‘And they know to keep quiet?’

‘Of course they do. They’re well trained.’

‘It’s just with everything going on here at the moment we have to be very careful,’ said David. ‘I don’t want the new arrivals talking to anyone from the museum.’

‘I know,’ said Pod. ‘But this guy might be just what we need to solve your museum problem big time.’

‘You’re either going to have to bring him in, or tell me more about him, Pod. You can’t keep teasing me like this.’

‘I’ll go and get him.’

‘And get Jester too. He needs to be in on this.’

‘All right.’

Pod hurried out and David stood up. He went over to the windows and looked out towards the gardens. It was black night outside so all he could see was his own reflection looking back at him. Could he dare to hope that all his plans were going to fall neatly into place so quickly? Not that anything was guaranteed. The Holloway kids were a deadly fighting force, but they were difficult to deal with and didn’t like being told what to do. He had their leaders safely tucked away in the sick-bay under armed guard, which was a start. And John was beaten. He finally had the squatters under his control. Nicola would have to stick to her agreement. She might not realize it, but she was his, and all her kids were his too. He rubbed his hands together. If this boy that Pod had found was all he had implied, then maybe the museum kids would be his soon as well.

It was all happening scarily fast, everything at once, but he’d been planning for a long time, setting it all up. That’s what it took. Not violence, not shouting and screaming and running around with a big stick, but careful planning and intelligence. Thinking things through. Organization. So that now he could let all the pieces slip into place.

He’d have a lot more to write in his diary tonight.

No matter. He liked to stay up late. Didn’t need much sleep. Up late and up early was what worked. Some kids liked to sleep all day, but not him. That was no way to get things down.

He grunted. Out of the corner of his eye he’d caught the reflection of one of the paintings. A full-length portrait of some long-dead princess or other. For a moment she had looked like Nicola.

Nicola …

He was trying to keep a cool head and a clear mind, but thoughts of her kept jamming the gears. He remembered her sitting there opposite him at the table. Remembered her getting up and coming over to him. Standing too close. She’d been mocking him, he knew that much, but all the same …

All the same.

He remembered the smell of her, the flecks of gold in her green eyes … Oh yes, he’d thought about her a lot lately. Pictured her standing by his side on the balcony. Pictured her …

Pod came back in. He had a boy with him who looked pale and thin and slightly crazy. There were dark rings round his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept for days. His hair was a mess, and as David watched he scratched his scalp with dirty fingernails, then rubbed his neck. There was an agitated, fidgety feel to him. His gaze flicked around the room. Seeing ghosts in the shadows.

David poured him a glass of water. Handed it to him. He drank it down in one long gulp.

‘This is David,’ said Pod.

‘Yes, I know,’ said the boy. ‘I know who David is.’

‘Were you looking for me?’ David asked. The boy stared at him, sussing him out. He sniffed. Put the glass down carefully on the table.

‘No, not really. Yes, a bit, yes and no.’ He giggled nervously. ‘I wasn’t sure what I was looking for … Something. Something or other. Or both. Or neither.’

‘You’re lucky you didn’t come across any strangers out there,’ said David. ‘Any grown-ups.’

‘Lucky?’ The boy gave David a withering look. ‘For me? Or for them? I kill grown-ups. I destroy them. I see any I’ll strangle them. I’ll kick their balls off. I’ll smash their sick faces into their heads. I’ll stick my knife into their guts and twist it.’

He mimed the action, leaning towards David and breathing foul sour breath over him.

David backed off. ‘Sit down,’ he said, and the boy sat, looking like he could spring up out of his chair at any moment. He was dressed all in black with a slightly grubby roll-neck jumper that he kept fiddling with, picking at the material.

‘What’s your name?’ David asked.

‘Paul,’ said the boy. ‘Paul Channing.’

66

They’d brought his head out on a pole. Poor doomed kid, he hadn’t stood a chance. His face looked peaceful, calm even, but he must have died screaming in terror. And once again Shadowman had been able to do nothing more than watch. For two days they’d been trying to get at the boy. He’d been hiding inside a Waitrose supermarket on the Holloway Road. Close enough to where Shadowman kept his secret stash of weapons and supplies to allow him to sneak back there whenever the action slowed. He could eat and drink and rest, and each time he returned he found the grown-ups still hard at work, nibbling away at the defences.

Shadowman had found a good look-out spot in a tiny flat above a carpet shop opposite the supermarket. It was high enough and the road was wide enough that he didn’t need to worry about being detected. He’d dragged a bed over to the window and, using pillows to prop himself up, he could lie there and watch what was going on through his binoculars.

The supermarket had been well fortified and Shadowman had been holding out some hope that the strangers might give up and go elsewhere.

No such luck.

Eventually they’d smashed their way past the barricades and got inside the shop. The place was so well fortified he’d assumed that there must be loads of kids hiding in there. In the end, though, there was only the evidence of this one dead body. This grisly, battered head on a stick. Why the others had abandoned the boy he had no idea.

There were loads of grown-ups gathered here now, every day more and more of them turned up, and all the while that they’d been attacking the shop they’d grown more confident.

St George was triumphant. He was a diseased commander at the head of an army. He paraded up and down the road, using the severed head as a banner.

Shadowman felt a cold fear grip him. The army would move on now, sweep through London like a swarm of locusts, devouring everything in their path, collecting more strangers as they went. St George was the leader, Spike, Bluetooth, Man U and the One-Armed Bandit were his generals, and the rest of them were his horde. Hadn’t Genghis Khan’s Mongol army been called the Golden Horde? This lot were hardly golden. They were a rabble, but they still needed a name.

If he named them, he would feel like he had more power over them.

What to call them, though?

The Horde?

The Mob?

The Enemy?

It was there, in the back of his mind, the word he was looking for, but he couldn’t tease it out.

The right word.

The right name for this terrible ragged army.

No point trying to force it.

It would come to him.

67