‘Please…I promise, I will take care of you,’ she begged.

‘This is our home. You’re going to knock it down. You don’t care about any of us,’ Lilly said.

‘Kill her. Kill her,’ the Outcasts chanted, more insistently now than ever.

‘Stop now.’

The Outcasts turned at the sound of Mann’s voice.

‘Stop now and come away from the edge.’

The children turned and drew back when they saw the Africans. So many together scared them. They looked to Lilly for guidance.

‘Go away, Mann, otherwise I will kill her,’ Lilly shouted.

‘You’re not going to kill her, Lilly, and you know it. She’s your best friend. Haven’t you told the others yet that you and her are in all this together?’

Lilly gave a nervous laugh and brought the urumi crashing down a whisker away from Victoria.

‘No, you haven’t. You don’t care whether the Mansions get knocked down because you know you can just move into a luxury penthouse and be Victoria’s little pet.’

Lilly tried to speak. The mob had turned their full attention to her. They were waiting. She shook her head, she spluttered. She didn’t know what to say.

‘It’s true,’ said Victoria. ‘Lilly and I are a team. Lilly knew about everything.’

Mann advanced. ‘It stops here on this roof. It stops before anyone else gets killed.’ He lowered the stick. ‘Come on Lilly, give that to me.’

‘Kill him…use it,’ they chanted as Lilly stood there shaking, panic written all over her face. She stared at Mann. ‘Show us if you want us to believe you’re with us. Show us…kill him.’

Mahmud appeared behind Mann. ‘Don’t do it, Lilly. We’ve had enough killing.’

Voices went up from the mob: ‘Lilly has betrayed all of us. She’s as bad as all the rest.’

Lilly raised the urumi and brought it down on Mann. He felt the bands of razors slice: one into the muscles on his arms, one across his chest and another cut his eyebrow open with its tip. The urumi wound its way around the stick and chopped it in half. The Africans surged forwards to help. They cut a path through the Outcasts.

Victoria looked at Mann and saw how badly he was hurt, her eyes were wide with terror, her hair streaming out behind her. She was a she-wolf trapped on the ledge. She looked behind her nervously. One slip and she would be gone. She looked to her right. She watched as the attention shifted on Lilly. She saw a gap appearing to her left. She hesitated, they sensed she was about to run and they surged back towards her.

‘Lilly…’ Mann called, drawing their attention away again he clutched his bleeding arm to his side and wiped the blood from his eyes. Lilly raised the urumi again. It caught Mann across his face, his chest and his legs. It had cut him to the bone. In the pause when the three strands left his body and wheeled back into the air to join together and become one again he gritted his teeth and caught the ends of the weapon around his fist and held on to it tightly. Victoria seized her opportunity to run along the ledge and out of reach. The Outcasts stared frightened at the approaching Africans, they retreated towards the parapet, pushing Lilly ever closer to the edge. She held on to the handle of the urumi and Mann held on to the other end as he beat the kids back with what he had left of his baton.

Lilly screamed as she was driven over the edge by the mob. Mann wound the ends of the urumi round his hand and Lilly dangled at the other end. Its razor-sharp edges bit into his hand. He clenched his teeth against the pain. Blood dripped onto Lilly’s upturned face. She looked at it, horrified. David and the Africans forced the Outcasts to the other side of the roof, away from Mann.

‘Don’t drop me, please, please.’

‘Hold on, Lilly.’ Mann tried to pull against her weight. ‘Reach with your other hand.’ Lilly looked at him, terror and panic in her eyes. ‘Come on, Lilly, try…reach for me…do it.’

Lilly was terrified. She was dangling off the roof of a skyscraper and she was crying. He could see the whites of her knuckles around the hilt of the urumi. Her hand was slipping. Mann reached down with his other hand and tried to grab her, but she was too far away. He wrapped another coil around his wrist. He was so far over the side of the parapet now that he was struggling to stop from toppling over. He pulled with all his might and the urumi bit further into his hand; it was now cut so deep it had became stuck. He looked at her face and saw the splashes of blood, his blood, as the razor blades bit deep.

He heard Victoria screaming in his ear. She was holding on to him. ‘No, Mann, you’re bleeding. You’re losing your hand.’

He pulled harder as he saw Lilly’s hand weakening. She looked at him, terror in her eyes. ‘Hold on…hold on…’ He shouted down to her and with one almighty pull he lifted Lilly two feet upwards. Mahmud reached down and grabbed her other arm and pulled her up onto the ledge. The urumi snaked in the air as its coils unravelled. The only thing still attached to it were three of Mann’s fingers. The Outcasts scattered from the rooftop like scalded ants as they ran back down the stairs and through the Mansions.

Mann lay on the roof. His wounds were deep. He was losing blood fast. He felt the cold of the concrete under his back. He shivered. He closed his eyes. He heard Victoria talking to him and he heard the whoop-whoop of a machine overhead and then the world went dark.

Chapter 107

Shrimp lay in the absolute darkness trying to work out where he was and how he had got there. It was so dark he didn’t know whether his eyes were open or not. He tried to move his legs and arms and couldn’t. He was aware that he was naked. The last recollection he had was of being with Nina and now he was here in a place that smelt of death. There was an odour in the room of guts, faeces, carnage. He was lying on plastic. There was only darkness around. Next to him Sheng’s body lay. Shrimp felt its presence but he couldn’t see it. He could hear someone in the room with him.

‘Nina?’ he called. He could hear the sound of someone moving closer. ‘Nina?’ he said again.

The heat in the room was unbearable.

‘Nina?’ He was beginning to feel fear now. Then soft hands reached out to touch him in the darkness. ‘Nina, is that you?’ Someone ran their hand over his body lightly and then he felt the sting as a knife dragged across his thighs. Just once. Shrimp heard movement again, she was gone.

Ruby left Shrimp with a taster of what was to come later. For now she was busy. She went into the other room. She had to get her nurse’s outfit on, ready for the hospital. She took her spare urumi out from the cupboard, She had unfinished business with Mann. She knew which hospital they would take him to. There weren’t many capable of reconstructing a hand. Ruby slipped on her mac over her uniform and left.

Chapter 108

Mann lay in the hospital bed. His dreams took him flying on the back of the eagle. His eyes were on the horizon. He soared on the air currents, turned and faced the wind and then swooped. The wind was in his face, feathers beneath his hands, the sun on his back. Then he was falling through the air, hearing Lilly scream, seeing the terror in her face and hearing Helen calling him. ‘Wake up wake up sleepy head.’

Mann tossed and turned. He felt the stitches throb in his hand. Three hours of surgery had reconnected two of his fingers, but the third one, the forefinger, the eagle had recovered from the gardens below the Mansions and eaten it; it had developed a taste for fingers. The wounds from the urumi had cost him two hundred and forty stitches. Thirty of them were across his face; one more scar to add to his collection. He touched his face as he came out of the anaesthetic, prodding it with his numb bandaged hand. The fingers weren’t going to be working for a while.

He looked around the room. He heard Mia’s voice. He felt panic. He didn’t know why.