Chapter III.13

'Now this I would strongly recommend for a single gentleman such as yourself: a first floor conversion. Bathroom suite in blush-pink avocado with matching wall tiles, living room with a real bay window, and a separate kitchen with fitted units in solid melamine—tell me, do you do much cooking?'

'Cooking?' asked Loofah, 'What on earth are you talking about?'

The Under Manager scowled, sniffed with disdain and turned to the spread of papers on her desk.

'The kitchen is compact but complete,' she said coldly, 'I think it will suit your needs.'

Miss Leggett was now back in her business suit, which strained manfully to contain her ample curves. Loofah sat on the opposite side of her desk in a tubular metal chair, this being upholstered in salmon pink to match the carpet and the delicate floral wallpaper. The estate agent's office was hermetically quiet and smelt of the assured efficiency of modern commerce. Sunlight streamed in through the window and the glass door, flooding across the carpet and filling the space with a deceitful sense of cheer.

'The master bedroom overlooks the communal gardens and there is a second bedroom in case of guests—although I dare say you won't be getting many of those.'

As the Under Manager continued to expound at length on the virtues of the offered property, Loofah's attention began to wander. He exchanged quick grins with Sutton, who was at the next desk fidgeting with his stapler while waiting for custom, clearly anxious about his commissions for the month. And silhouetted against the sunlight above the top of the window display, he could see the helmeted heads and shoulders of the two giant policemen, keeping patient guard on the pavement outside.

When at last she had finished, Miss Leggett slapped the details of the flat on the growing pile of paper in front of him and jabbed at it with a stubby finger.

'There you are,' she said, 'Ideal bachelor accommodation for the sophisticated modern urbanite.'

Loofah looked without much interest at the photograph of the first floor living room. Decorated in pale pastels, it was furnished with something Scandinavian in white-wood and maroon suede, with swirling abstract art plastered tastefully over the walls and surfaces. It was a nice enough room, he couldn't deny it, but just as he was beginning, half-heartedly, to ponder whether his hi-fi speakers—assuming that he had some—would fit on the mantelpiece (genuine Italian marble effect—an original Victorian feature, tastefully recreated) a man entered from the kitchen. With bouffant hair, he wore a lilac silk shirt and a terracotta cravat, tied at the throat. He was smoking a Turkish cigarette in an ivory holder and stalked across the white shag pile with the affected poise of a catwalk model—presumably this was the sophisticated modern urbanite himself. Loofah glanced down at his own shamefully grubby attire and was just beginning to worry how this stylish flat would feel about having a such a chic-challenged occupant when he remembered Mrs Antrobus's stern words about his residence status.

'Well?' demanded the Under Manager.

Loofah shook his head.

'Why not? It's a perfectly good flat. You should be grateful that the Company is giving you the chance to buy a property of this quality. You can't say you've done anything to deserve an investment opportunity like this, can you?'

Loofah sighed and rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

'Miss Leggett,' he said, 'I really don't see why we're doing this. Have you forgotten that I'm an outsider here, visiting rights only, and that whatever happens I can't stay? I don't see the point in me buying somewhere to live.'

After a sharp intake of breath, the Under Manager squared her shoulders.

'In view of the considerable difficulties you have caused since your arrival here,' she said, 'Mr Stobart and I have agreed that it would be better to have you in a known location where you can be kept under proper supervision—until such a time as you find the mutant woman for us, that is.'

Loofah stared grimly into her smugness and swallowed back a rising tide of bile.

'Find her for you?' he sneered, 'What on earth gives you the preposterous idea that I am going to find her for you?'

Miss Leggett leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowed to a pair of meat skewers.

'Am I to understand,' she said quietly, 'that you are still working for that filthy foreign pervert?'

'I'm not working for anybody.'

'You been seen with it—on numerous occasions.'

'I happen to find Monsieur Dentressangle a charming and agreeable companion. Let me point out that with whom I spend my time is up to me, not you or Mr Stobart.'

'That—creature,' she spat, hardly able to contain her revulsion, 'is a public enemy. As you are well aware, it is attempting to undermine all of Mr Stobart's achievements and good works, to bring an end to the Company's peace and order, and to return us all to chaos. Is this something that you find "charming and agreeable"?'

'The problem, Miss Leggett, is that I've now heard another side of the story. I've heard that things were better before Mr Stobart took over, I've heard that—like all plutocrats—Mr Stobart is concerned about one thing and one thing only—namely himself and his own interests.'

It took three seconds for the Under Manager's complexion to turn from undercooked pastry to fresh ox liver.

'Who has been telling you these foul lies?' she managed to splutter, 'The deviant?'

'Not only Monsieur Dentressangle.'

Miss Leggett glowered across the desk, struggling to control her fury.

'So,' she said, 'you've come across one of those degenerate half-things, have you?'

'And what if I have?'

'Poisonous vermin,' she muttered, with a shudder, 'They're all as bad as each other, the scum from over there. They caused chaos and misery in the past and now the filthy foreigner wants to start it all again—and you, it seems, are on its side.'

'For the umpteenth time, Miss Leggett, I'm not on anybody's side. I'm looking for the double woman so I can go home. Norbert sometimes helps me and that's as far as it goes.'

‘Helps you?’ she sneered, ‘You imbecile! Don't you realise that the perverted pile of foulness is playing you for a fool? Don't you realise that if you lead it to the she-mutant, then it will use her for itself—and that you will be stuck here forever, like one of your half-thing friends?'

Something cold tightened around Loofah's bowels.

'That's rubbish,' he said quickly, 'Why would Norbert want to stop me from going home?'

'Because it wants to get back there itself. Surely this tiny little fact can't have escaped your notice?'

'Perhaps Norbert wants us both to go.'

'Don't be ridiculous: the two-faced witch can only take one, you must know that by now.'

Loofah blinked twice, not fully comprehending her words.

'If the pervert goes, you stay,' Miss Leggett elaborated, 'And if you go, it can't. It's as simple as that.'

'I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you.'

'It's an indisputable fact. If you want confirmation, then I suggest you consult the relevant government memorandum. I believe that you do have a degree of privileged access to this documentation, do you not?' she added, not without a trace of bitterness.

Loofah stared at the Under Manager, though without seeing her unattractive features. For what filled his vision was a creature in a white basque with long, lovely legs—but with the predatory reptilian head of a velociraptor on its elegant, sculpted shoulders, its elogated snout glittering with dagger teeth. Bent over its dead prey, its lizzard eyes glittered with predatory gratification and its magnificent bust shuddered as the savage jaws ripped off hunks of bloody flesh. Loofah recognised the hapless victim: a bloodhound in a lime green dog-coat, its faithful and trusting face still recognisable despite its missing throat.

'Well?' The pebble of Miss Leggett's harsh demand shattered the fragile globe of his reverie.

'Well what?'

She leaned forward and stabbed her finger onto the pile of property details.

'Which do you want?' she said.

'Miss Leggett, I really don't want to buy a flat.'

'You must. It would be in everybody's best interests.'

'Well, I won't. You can't make me.'

She looked at him long and hard, and then sighed.

'Sutton,' she said, without taking her eyes off Loofah, 'Go and tell the officers that we haven't been able to sort out our friend's accommodation needs. I'm sure they'll have one or two useful suggestions of their own.'

As the marketing executive got to his feet, Loofah glanced quickly at the towering giants silhouetted against the sunlit window.

'Very well, if you really do insist,' he said, reaching forward and pulling a sheet from the pile at random, 'I'll have this one.'

The Under Manager snatched the paper out of his hand, examined it for a moment and then tossed it back onto the desk.

'That's a quality family house,' she said, 'for decent, respectable people. Completely unsuitable for the likes of you.'

Loofah gritted his teeth and went to choose again. But the photograph on the discarded sheet caught his eye: it showed a neat suburban house, detached, with prim flowerbeds and a copper Norwegian maple in the front lawn. As he watched, the mock-Georgian front door opened and a woman emerged, followed by a boy and a yellow-haired girl. He was aware of a mysterious something stirring deep within, an unexplained tremor of his psychic tectonic plates. Then, as if with the flick of a switch, his mind was made up. Picking up the sheet again, he waved it across the desk at the glowering Under Manager.

'If I have to buy a property, then this is definitely the one I want,' he said, firmly.

'Don't be ridiculous. Just pick one of the flats, will you? and stop wasting my time.'

'Miss Leggett, there's no point in arguing. After all, I'm the customer and this is the house I want to buy.'

There was something solid in his voice, immovable like medieval masonry, and the Under Manager seemed to lose a little of her confidence.

'In any case, it's far too expensive,' she ventured, 'You couldn't possibly afford it.'

'What's the asking price?'

'Eleven thousand, although they'd probably accept ten.'

While the Under Manager was examining the signed contract, her expression a mixture of irritation and puzzlement, there was a restrained electronic purr from Sutton's desk phone.

'Right then, Miss Leggett,' said Loofah, 'if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go and get settled into my new home.'

'No time for that just yet,' she said, folding the document and slipping it into her jacket pocket, 'First we need you to bring us fully up to date on the quest for the mutant woman.'

At the next desk, the marketing executive was engaged in a whispered exchange into his receiver—although his words were too muted to be audible, the increasingly tense expression on Sutton's face indicated a degree of urgency.

'But I'm exhausted,' pleaded Loofah, 'It's been virtually non-stop since the very moment I arrived and right now I just need a little space to relax and unwind. After that, I'll be at your disposal.'

'Out of the question, I'm afraid. There can be no respite in the battle against the forces of darkness and the sooner you understand that, the better.'

Loofah was determined to press his protest, but as he was about to respond Sutton smarmed up to the Under Manager's chair and bent close. In the quick exchange of muttering that followed, all of the arrogant complacency and most of the colour drained from her face.

'I've changed my mind,' she said, when they had finished, 'The police officers will now accompany you to your new accommodation, where you will clean yourself up and clarify your thoughts. After I have attended to a pressing item of business, you will be brought to me for a full debriefing. Is all of this clear?'

Loofah glanced again at the breast-headed giants outlined against the glare. He knew he needed to think fast—and on this occasion his wits were well up to the task.

'No need to waste valuable police time,' he said, after only a nanosecond's pause, 'Why not ask Mr Sutton to take me to the house?'

Miss Leggett frowned and started to shake her head.

'I'm sure the officers could be put to much better use in assisting you,' Loofah went on, 'And don't worry about me backing out of the deal—after all, you do have my cheque as security.'

The Under Manager picked up the rather crushed packet of crisps and examined it dubiously.

Curving up the hillside, the road scored a brutal V-shaped gash into the green and pleasant landscape. Sutton's car sped forward up the rising arc of tarmac as a steady stream of vehicles hurtled towards them and roared silently past, manic monsters driven by suicidal daredevils. The scrubby embankments sped past in a silent blur, overcast by the window tint despite the reality of the brilliant sunshine. Stunted gorse bushes choked on exhaust fumes and, planted against their will as a futile balm for the raw wound of the cutting, withering saplings in orange plastic tubes longed for death.

The tint also cast its shadow over Loofah's soul, where the little maggot of angst gnawed with exceptional vigour. Of course Miss Leggett could not be trusted any further than she could be thrown—which certainly was not far—but her words had embedded and were now festering like infected pieces of shrapnel, and in half reflection on the windscreen in front of him the dreadful scene still played and replayed itself, of the chimeric courtesan devouring the mutilated bloodhound.

Loofah clenched his fists and bellowed a silent 'no!' into the echoing cavern of his skull; Dentressangle clearly had his own reasons for finding the double woman, but he certainly wasn't that treacherous. With gritted teeth, he forced himself to remember the horrors of the termite queen and the carnivorous toilet, struggling to project the memories of the Frenchman's timely and heroic interventions over the image of the feeding courtesan.

The car launched out of the cutting, sliding into open country; endless fields of oilseed rape, incongruously blue-tinted, stretched into the far distance where dark woods lowered against the horizon like thunder clouds.

At last Loofah seemed to succeed; the reptile head was gone and the familiar magazine loveliness was back in place on the magnificent body, smiling—as always—with sultry invitation. With a sigh of at least partial relief, he turned quickly away before the hard-won change could be reversed—and indeed a moment later these uncomfortable reflections were thankfully terminated as the car swerved violently to overtake another vehicle. Sutton flashed Loofah a conspiratorial grin as he forced a little bubble car onto the grass verge, obviously relishing the terror on the elderly female face that peered out of the wobbling windscreen.

'Fuel injection,' said the marketing executive, patting the steering wheel, 'with computer regulated carburetion. Nought to sixty in seven point three seconds. One hundred and ten percent performance in all conditions, right? Right.'

'Company car?' asked Loofah.

Sutton nodded proudly. 'Management grade model, right?' he said, 'Hydro-electronic powered steering. Fully digitalised ABS velocity reduction system. Solar responsive light ingress control, with customised DVD-ROM player and solid state speaker units fitted as standard.'

Loofah looked around the interior of the vehicle, taking in the styled fascia and instrument panels, the sleek moulding of the console, and the hermetic occlusion of the bodywork that sealed the outside world into another universe.

'Nice sunroof,' he said, noting the manual wind-handle, 'Is it electric?'

Sutton squirmed uncomfortably and then pressed a button on the instrument panel.

'The windows are,' he said hopefully, as the passenger window slid down, letting in a gust of air and a blaze of untinted sunlight.

But Loofah was not impressed—he had scented blood.

'Presumably it's got fully computerised climate control?' he asked. Sutton squirmed again, but did not reply. 'Low profile carbomer tyres with silicon-based pressure rectification?' The marketing executive tensed noticeably, but still said nothing. 'Alloy modulated wheel rims? Twin exhaust systems, with micro-graduated output polarisation and plasma cell hyper-drive adjustment?'

Still no response from the driver—Loofah smiled to himself, with an edge of wickedness.

'Then you must have the full complement of ether-net linked cylinder governance valves,' he went on, showing no mercy, 'I know for a fact that they wouldn't give a man of your abilities anything less.'

Sutton winced, staring intently at the road.

'Surely you're not saying it hasn't? I can't believe it!'

'It is an epsilon reg,' whimpered the marketing executive, 'Only six months old.'

'Last year's model!' cried Loofah in exaggerated horror, watching Sutton's knuckles whiten on the steering wheel, 'Tell me, does Miss Leggett drive an obsolete car without ether-net governance valves?' Sutton's jaw muscles went into spasm, with a crackle of splintering tooth enamel. 'It's not right, Dave, it's just not right, treating a man of your potential like this: office boy jobs and now a crap car. Where on earth did she learn her management skills?—dog training classes?'

The marketing executive shook his head sadly, with moisture glistening behind his lenses. The road swung into a dark corridor between tall conifers and Loofah sighed with sympathy.

'She's not up to the job if you ask me. Just look at the mess she's making of this hunt for the double woman. If you want my opinion, Stobart's got the wrong man in the Under Manager's chair. We could have had it wound up by now, you and me, all done and dusted and delivered to the Chief Executive.'

As they swept between the curving walls, something loomed out of the darkness ahead: twin blue strobes that stabbed at the dim light either side of a shapeless confusion of metal and people.

'Looks like trouble ahead, Dave,' said Loofah, 'I'd take it carefully if I were you.'

They pulled up onto the grass verge and Sutton turned off the engine. The road ahead was strewn with vehicles, fused into each other and stacked into untidy piles as in some anarchic breaker's yard. Two ambulances with silently rotating lights, one parked on each side of the road, formed a gateway to the scene and just beyond them a police van was disgorging uniformed officers.

Perversely, the vision of chaos seemed to have a strange hypnotic effect on Loofah and the marketing executive. For a long while they sat without speaking in the hermetic quiet of the car, staring blankly into the rhythmic pulse of blue dazzle. When Sutton eventually did get out of the car, he moved with the zomboid languor of a sleepwalker, heading towards the accident as if being pulled by some strange gravitational force that was emanating from the heart of the pile-up. The same unseen tractive power then seemed to open the passenger door and Loofah followed.

An almost reverential silence filled the still air, ruffled only by the hiss of fractured radiators and distant summer birdsong. The tall pine trees crowded over the scene like curious spectators, eager to see.

A few yards beyond the police van, an executive's battle chariot lay upturned on the verge; the black oiled metal of its engine steamed with quiet impotence and a rear wheel rotated noiselessly, showing perfect tread and an unscathed hubcap. The metallic dark blue of the near-side wing was fused into the trunk of a young larch, while in the compartment the pinstriped driver twisted in mute agony as he melded gently into the moulded plastic of the steering column and his life trickled out onto the grass to blend with hot black oil from the fractured sump.

The remains of the windscreen crunched under Loofah's thin soles like granulated sugar. Spiral designs in black rubber skid careered across the cool tarmac, forming elaborate compositions with squirming oil slicks and quicksilver pools of rainbow-coloured petrol.

They passed a bright red family saloon that had welded its crumpled snout into the side of a white Mercedes. The rag-doll corpse of a young mother was slumped across the steering wheel, embracing it with enthusiasm as it pushed lovingly into her chest cavity to blend with the bone of her ribcage and enfold itself in the pink sponge of her lungs. Two of her children lay scattered around the glass-jewelled seats like discarded toys. The third, however, had made an acrobatic exit through the windscreen and now reclined across the bonnet of the Mercedes under the watchful eyes of its dead driver. She raised her little hand to wave at Loofah and as she smiled scarlet blood trickled from her shattered mouth to form sharp abstractions on the dazzling white paintwork. A fireman in yellow waterproofs rested on the other side of the bonnet, smoking a cigarette and discussing a recently televised football match with a colleague.

Warm petrol fumes blended incongruously with the fresh scent of summer pine. Loofah also caught a sudden waft of pungent rottenness: a stink-horn toadstool, its death-smell celebrating the carnage.

Some yards beyond the Mercedes, a four-by-four named after a Japanese warrior had reared up onto the back of a sports model to form the car with two roofs. As the door swung open and its broken driver tumbled out, a white-shirted policeman leapt out of the way to avoid soiling from her bleeding limbs. His colleague leant on the roof of the ravished sports car and chatted with the passenger, a young man whose amiable good looks were hardly marred by the red tracery that flowed from a gash above his hairline.

Schoolchildren clambered out of the crushed remains of a bus and limped across the tarmac in a tattered file, like soldiers returning from a lost battle. A middle-aged woman crawled through the shattered side window of an overturned Volvo estate, lacerating her palms on the lake of sugar-glass.

'Don't you touch me, young man,' she said crossly as Loofah went to help her.

Two blue-clad paramedics strolled past carrying a dead child on a stretcher.

'…of course it's not the same village,' one was saying, 'not since that awful immigrant…'

Loofah turned to follow, but they had already vanished into the maze of twisted metal.

The structure became more intense towards the eye of the storm. Here the cars were piled up and fused into patterns of delightful intricacy and symmetry, as if welded into place by an ambitious and talented sculptor. The air shimmered with petrol fumes and the tarmac was slippery with sump oil and clotting blood.

'Lovely weather.' 'Isn't it?—for the time of year.'

Sweeping curves of painted metalwork, bent and torn into origami shapes of oriental convolution, were decorated with filigrees of twisted chrome and wheel-arch trim. Embellished with oil slicked engines bereft of power and the occasional slowly spinning tyre, the intersecting cubist planes of body panels and under-sealed chassis seemed to be striving for aesthetic perfection.

'Mind you, that was a bit of rain we had last night, wasn't it?' 'A real downpour—but the garden did need it.'

Like dissection specimens, doorless passenger compartments revealed their pathological internal organs: seats torn from their mountings with blood soaked upholstery, and drivers melded into collages of flesh and machine with instrument panel assemblies and gear lever consoles. Flesh and metal, plastic and blood: it was a vast organic composition of unearthly beauty.

'Oops, I seem to have dropped my cigarette. I wonder if you could…?' 'No problem—here you go.'

Leather-clad motorcyclists impaled on amputated bumpers wriggled like tortured insects, while housewives crawled on shattered limbs from crumpled hatchbacks, calling to each other about damaged shopping, and drivers of commercial vehicles struggled to roll cigarettes with blood-sticky fingers.

'Thank you so much.' 'Please don't mention it.'

Serenaded by the hiss of escaping radiator steam and the gentle trickle of sump oil and gasoline, and by birdsong from the surrounding trees, Loofah followed the marketing executive through the curving corridor of twisted steel. He exchanged occasional pleasantries with friendly policemen and paramedics, and gazed in wonder at the soaring walls, the sweeping curves, the elegant fusions of flesh and metal and plastic.

'Going anywhere special?' asked an elderly lady. She was waiting on a stretcher while its two bearers leaned over the buckled roof of a black limousine attempting to flirt with an attractive but politely uninterested policewoman. The old woman's skin was grey and her breathing laboured and shallow.

'Er, I don't know really,' replied Loofah, 'At present my plans are little, um, uncertain.'

'Well in that case, as you're in the area, you really ought to visit the delightful village of Hollyoak Green,' she gasped in a fading voice, 'Part of the church is Norman and there is a much-admired terrace of early Georgian almshouses. Also there is a choice of two excellent public houses, both serving a selection of tasty food and fine ales.'

'It sounds very nice and I'll certainly try to not to miss it.'

'And the little difficulty there isn't nearly as bad as some people make out.'

'Difficulty?'

'The'—she coughed up a glob of pink foam, then struggled for air—'the… immigrant… problem—.'

Something tugged at Loofah's sleeve.

'Best not to hang around too long,' said Sutton with an unctuous smile, 'Lots to do—and we don't want to interfere with the emergency services, right? Right.'

Behind them a pair of firemen leaned against an elegantly twisted family saloon. One of them laughed at a joke and stubbed his cigarette out on the neatly curled fender, scattering ash onto the blood streaked face of a dead cyclist who lay under the wreckage.

'Of course, Dave, be right with you. Just want to check on, um, the time.'

With a reassuring pat on the marketing executive's suited shoulder, Loofah turned back to the dying woman.

'Tell me about the immigrant problem,' he whispered urgently, 'I don't wish to pry into village affairs but I really do need to know.'

But unblinking eyes stared into the tree canopy, the pupils dilating steadily, and nothing came from the twitching throat but a few final Cheyne-Stokes gasps.

The curving corridor finally opened out into a circle of empty tarmac: they had reached the epicentre of the mechanical hurricane, the convergence of the vast metallic arms of the great spiral. Ringed by pillars of piled metal and over-vaulted by the meshing branches of beech and chestnut, this clearing in the organised metallic chaos was an arena of tranquillity, a sanctum of sombre green light, cathedral quiet—and power.

For, in the centre of the clearing, skewed across the road at the hub of a spiral of tyre marks that spun out to meet the walls of the sculpture, was a magnificent and completely undamaged car.

An open-topped limousine the size of a cruise liner, its rich cream bodywork veritably flowed into the sweeping curves of the bonnet and wings, and the arrogant vaulting of the wheel arches. It had white-walled tyres, maroon leather upholstery, and quadruple slivered exhausts as wide as flood drains. Its trims glittered like jewellery, from the diamond tiara of the headlight assemblies and radiator grille, to the profusion of rear lights set like rubies in polished silver. A white suited chauffeur sat behind the wheel, impassive and inscrutable, the master of the vast power that throbbed quietly under the arching carapace of the cream bonnet, of the engine that turned the entire vortex of sculpted, moulded destruction around them.

Sutton had stopped dead and was hardly breathing, blinking under the twin miniatures of the vast car that glinted across his eye sockets. His mouth fell open and a glistening slug-trail trickled over his chin.

'Plutonium Wraith,' he muttered, as if intoning the name of the deity, 'Customised convertible with the V-24 titanium alloy engine. Limited edition model, right? Right.'

An acolyte approaching the altar, the marketing executive moved reverently forward—while Loofah looked around the clearing for the car's owner.

She was sitting on the bonnet of a crumpled Porsche at the edge of the arena, casually swinging a white stockinged leg. Her white skirt and matching jacket were a dazzling island in the dark sea of blood and sump oil. She took off her Raybans and smiled.

'Bad news on the house, I'm afraid,' she said, 'You've been gazumped. But don't worry: I know a very similar property that you might like to take a look at.'

'Really? How do I get there?'

'You're on the way already—just keep going as you are, you can't miss it.'

Loofah nodded towards Sutton, who was now standing a respectful few feet from the driver's door, torturing his craving eyes with the polished walnut instrument panel and the calf-clad steering wheel. The driver sat immobile, staring straight ahead through the moulded glass of the windscreen, his white-gloved hands draped lightly over the top of the wheel.

'What about him?'

The nymph smiled and pushed herself off her bent metal perch.

'Sometimes it's better to travel alone,' she whispered, snaking cool arms around Loofah's neck and pulling his face towards hers.

His eyelids slide down, lowering him into a Radox bath of velvet darkness. As he sinks into her embrace, her arms become a protective circle of tenderness and her lips billow into soft pillows of wellbeing. Like being engulfed by a giant loving amoeba, he feels himself being drawn, inexorably but willingly, into the warm protoplasm that is the centre of her being. Fractured radiators hiss and amiable paramedics chat casually with their mortally injured charges—but far, far away. All that matters now is her all-enveloping presence, a tingling warmth that itches pleasantly as it spreads over his skin and oozes gently into his flesh and his blood, his bowels and his bones. He shrinks into the secure fortress her arms, feeling her possession; he is hers, he belongs to her, for now and for always. Wriggling, he wraps himself in her smell, her soft, safe smell, while she strokes his head reassuringly.

A babbling trickles in from the edge of time, like gurgling water. He opens his eyes and sees that another of them is standing in front of his mistress making a noise with its mouth; it is a male one with shiny clear stuff over its eyes, and he can smell its panic. His mistress coos something comforting in his ear, then holds him out to the fearful one who pats his head in a perfunctory manner (he thinks about biting its fingers, but decides against out of respect for her) before dashing away in a whirl of agitation.

A moment later he is on the ground, scampering around the benign tower of his mistress, padding up at her legs with his white forepaws and wagging his tail as hard as he can, delighted to be himself, delighted to be hers.

She bends down to ruffle his ears and he licks her hand, getting the taste of her and showing her that he truly is hers. Then she opens her little white bag and he wags with even more lunatic enthusiasm, hoping for a choc-drop. But it is a ball that she brings out, a red, bouncy ball: not quite as good, but nearly. She pats him again, lets him sniff the ball, and then swings her arm, tossing it high into the air. He watches it for a moment as it arches out among the piles of twisted metal and then, with a wild yap of pure happiness, he is off as fast as his four little legs can carry him.

He hurls himself across the oil-slicked tarmac as the ball curves to earth in front of him. As it thuds into the ground, he nearly has it but just misses and it is up again, sailing out of reach. Again he is after it, skidding between the burst tyres and broken fenders, dodging between the feet of jolly policemen and injured motorists with cheery, blood streaked faces. The ball bounces off a buckled green roof, hits the tarmac and ricochets onto the hubcap of a slowly spinning front wheel. He leaps up, mouth open for a catch, but again misses by millimetres.

Cannoning off the last broken car, the ball is then away into the woods, bouncing across the pine-needled ground. Without a thought, he is after it, scattering dried leaves and pine cones. His heart throbs with joy, his legs pound against the earth, and the flying red sphere fills his head, bobbing around in the limited space of his small skull.

Out of the dark wood and into brilliant sunshine, he leaps through rolling waves of grass like a delirious porpoise. But however fast he runs, however high he jumps, it is always ahead of him, it is always just out of reach. He bursts through a hedge in a cloud of white hawthorn petals and then hurls himself down a scrubby slope, scattering rabbits of purple, yellow and blue—the fleeing lagomorphs, however, are of no interest to him, not while the red ball still bounces.

The bottom of the little valley is straddled by another wood, though this one is deciduous and damp. He crashes through bluebells and swaying ferns in pursuit of his ever-elusive prey, leaps a patch of mud that might once have been a stream, and then charges up the tree-clad slope on the other side.

Again the ball bounces from wooded shade into open sunlight, though this time it thuds firmly onto hard ground. He flies after it, the tarmac hot under his paws. A shining metal monster screams towards him, bellowing fury from its glinting radiator grille, screeching rage from its skidding tyres. It swerves to a halt as he scampers across the road, then another of them thuds into the back of it with a sickening crunch of metal meeting metal. Utterly oblivious to the mayhem in his wake, he chases the ball along a path of grey flagstones beside a neat green hedge. It seems to slow and he senses a chance—but as he charges forward, it leaps up from the snapping reach of his jaws and spins into the dazzling sky. Silhouetted against the whiteness, the ball hovers for a moment, apparently defying gravity. And then he sees that it has wings.