‘You’re bleeding,’ I observed.

Spike wiped it away with his hand.

‘It’s nothing. He gave me a bit of a struggle—!’

I looked in the back seat again. The wolf was sitting down, scratching its ear with a hind leg.

‘—but I’m immunised against lycanthropy. Mr. Meakle just won’t take his medication. Will you, Mr. Meakle?’

The wolf pricked up its ears as the last vestige of the human within him remembered his name. He started to pant in the heat. Spike went on:

‘His neighbours called. All the cats in the neighbourhood had gone missing; I found him rummaging in the bins behind SmileyBurger. He’ll be in for treatment, morph back and be on the streets again by Friday. He has rights, they tell me. What’s your posting?’

‘I’m—ah—joining SpecOps 27.’

Spike laughed loudly again.

‘A LiteraTec!? Always nice to meet someone as underfunded as I am. Some good faces in that office. Your chief is Victor Analogy. Don’t be fooled by the grey hairs—he’s as sharp as a knife. The others are all Ai Ops. A bit shiny-arsed and a mite too smart for me, but there you go. Where am I taking you?’

‘The Finis Hotel.’

‘First time in Swindon?’

‘Sadly, no,’ I replied. ‘It’s my home-town. I was in the regular force here until ‘75. You?’

‘Welsh Border guard for ten years. I got into some darkness at Oswestry in ‘79 and discovered I had a talent for this kind of shit. I trannied here from Oxford when the two depots merged. You’re looking at the only Staker south of Leeds. I run my own office but it’s mighty lonesome. If you know anyone handy with a mallet—?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ I replied, wondering why anyone would consciously wish to fight the supreme powers of darkness for a basic SpecOps salary, ‘but if I come across anyone, I’ll let you know. What happened to Chesney? He ran the department when I was here last.’

A cloud crossed Spike’s usually bright features and he sighed deeply.

‘He was a good friend but he fell into shadows. Became a servant of the dark one. I had to hunt him down myself. The spike ‘n’ decap was the easy part. The tricky bit was having to tell his wife—she wasn’t exactly overjoyed.’

‘I guess I’d be a bit pissed off, too.’

‘Anyway,’ continued Spike, cheering up almost immediately, ‘you don’t have to tell me shit, but what is a good-looking SpecOps doing joining the Swindon LiteraTecs?’

‘I had a spot of bother in London.’

‘Ah,’ replied Spike knowingly.

‘I’m also looking for someone.’

‘Who?’

I looked over at him and made an instant judgment call. If I could trust anyone, I could trust Spike.

‘Hades.’

‘Acheron? Flatline, sister. The man’s toast. Crashed and burned on the four.’

‘So we’re led to believe. If you hear anything—?’

‘No problem, Thursday.’

‘And we can keep this between ourselves?’

He smiled.

‘After staking, secrets is what I do best.’

‘Hang on—‘

I had caught sight of a brightly coloured sports car in a secondhand car lot on the other side of the road. Spike slowed down.

‘What’s up?’

‘I—er—need a car. Can you drop me over there?’

Spike executed an illegal U-turn, causing the following car to brake violently and slew across the road. The driver started to hurl abuse until he saw that it was a SpecOps black & white, then wisely kept quiet and drove on. I retrieved my bag.

‘Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you about.’

‘Not if I see you first!’ said Spike. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up on your missing friend.’

‘I’d appreciate it. Thanks.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘So long.’

‘Cheerio,’ said a timid-sounding voice from the back. We both turned and looked into the rear of the car. Mr Meakle had changed back. A thin, rather pathetic-looking man was sitting in the back seat, completely naked and very muddy. His hands were clasped modestly over his genitals.

‘Mr. Meakle! Welcome back!’ said Spike, grinning broadly as he added in a scolding tone: ‘You didn’t take your tablets, did you?’

Mr. Meakle shook his head miserably.

I thanked Spike again. As he drove off I could see Mr. Meakle waving to me a bit stupidly through the rear window. Spike did another U-turn, causing a second car to brake hard, and was gone.

I stared at the sports car on the front row of the lot under a banner marked ‘Bargain’. There could be no mistake. The car was definitely the one that had appeared before me in my hospital room.

And I had been driving it.

It was me who had told me to come to Swindon. It was me who had told me that Acheron wasn’t dead. If I hadn’t come to Swindon then I wouldn’t have seen the car and wouldn’t have been able to buy it. It didn’t make a great deal of sense, but what little I did know was that I had to have it.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ asked an oily salesman who had appeared almost from nowhere, rubbing his hands nervously and sweating profusely in the heat.

‘This car. How long have you had it?’

‘The 356 Speedster? About six months.’

‘Has it ever been up to London in that time?’

‘London?’ repeated the salesman, slightly puzzled. ‘Not at all. Why?’

‘No reason. I’ll take it.’

The salesman looked slightly shocked.

‘Are you sure? Wouldn’t you like something a little more practical? I have a good selection of Buicks which have just come in. Ex-Goliath but with low mileage, you know—‘

‘This one,’ I said firmly.

The salesman smiled uneasily. The car was obviously at a giveaway price and they didn’t stand to make a bean on it. He muttered something feeble and hurried off to get the keys.

I sat inside. The interior was spartan in the extreme. I had never thought myself very interested in cars, but this one was different. It was outrageously conspicuous with curious paintwork in red, blue and green, but I liked it immediately. The salesman returned with the keys and it started on the second turn. He did the necessary paperwork and half an hour later I drove out of the lot into the road. The car accelerated rapidly with a rasping note from the tailpipe. Within a couple of hundred yards the two of us were inseparable.

I took my new car for a drive in the countryside with the top down; the rushing air was a cool respite from the summer heat. The familiar landscape had not changed much; it was still as beautiful as I remembered. Swindon, on the other hand, had changed a great deal. The town had spread outwards and up. Light industry went outwards, financial glassy towers in the centre went up. The residential area had expanded accordingly; the countryside was just that much farther from the centre of town.

It was evening when I pulled up in front of a plain semi-detached house in a street that contained forty or fifty just like it. I flipped up the hood and locked the car. This was where I had grown up; my bedroom was the window above the front door. The house had aged. The painted window frames had faded and the pebbledash facing seemed to be coming away from the wall in several areas. I pushed open the front gate with some difficulty as there was a good deal of resistance behind it, and then closed it again with a similar amount of heaving and sweating—a task made more difficult by the assortment of dodos who had gathered eagerly around to see who it was and then plocked excitedly when they realised it was someone vaguely familiar.