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before bursting into laughter – a weird, ululating hyena cackle – and then running forward and kicking him in the face: once, twice, three times, each impact stunning Heck into dizziness, exploding inside his head.
    Yet somehow he managed to cling to consciousness. His brain was spinning, but he had a fragment of awareness left, just sufficient to watch as his opponent cackled again, turned, backed up to the east side of the roof, and took a wild charge forward, employing huge strides, before leaping out over the chasm – and crashing headlong into the web-work of suspended power-lines passing between the platform roofs.
    In all the excitement, he’d evidently forgotten about that. Or perhaps he hadn’t even known about it and in the deep canyon gloom had failed to spot it. Either way, he now fell to earth amid a cascade of flashing sparks and spitting cables.
    As the Spider fell, Heck fell too, his struggle finally having loosened the broken timbers he was wedged between, though he managed to grab one of the slender metal joists underpinning it all. It bent and broke, but it slowed his descent and allowed him to slide by hand another few feet, before dropping the final ten, landing upright, and then pitching down onto his side on the platform’s edge.
    Nearby on the railway line, the Spider lay over one of the metals, still tangled but now juddering and twitching, smoke pouring off him in acrid clouds.
    From somewhere close by there came a hammering and smashing of wood. In his mind’s eye, Heck pictured Bill Murphy wielding the Big Key. A rumble of feet sounded from the stairs as a bunch of uniforms, Murph at their front with sledge hammer in hand, descended, the beams of their torches slashing back and forth.
    The sergeant grimaced on seeing the twisted, blackened thing on the railway, but quickly homed in on Heck, his eyebrows arching at the sight of his constable’s battered face. ‘You’re going straight to Casualty …’
    ‘It’s nothing, sarge …’
    ‘No arguments!’
    Heck tried to get to his feet, two or three helping hands shooting in to assist and steer him towards a bench. Murph moved to the platform’s edge, wafting at the foul smoke. ‘Robbie,’ he said distractedly. ‘Get onto Comms, tell them we want an ambulance ASAP, and to contact British Transport Police. This whole section of line needs deactivating. That’s if it hasn’t already blown. All trains to be cancelled forthwith.’
    Robbie Mulroony, the relief’s fresh-faced probationer, scurried away.
    ‘Oh Christ,’ Shawna McCluskey said, approaching from the stairs and shining her torch onto Heck.
    ‘Looked better, haven’t I?’ he grunted.
    She glanced up at the hole gaping in the canopy. ‘You fell through
that
?’
    ‘The Spider took a harder fall.’
    ‘How did he … I mean …?’
    ‘Guess he didn’t see the power lines in the dark.’
    ‘He didn’t already
know
they were there?’
    ‘Just wanted to escape. Probably wasn’t thinking right.’
    ‘Heck, you did … I mean you
did
try and warn …’
    He threw her a hard glance, the eyes like moons amid his blood and bruises. ‘How’s Alice Henshaw?’
    ‘Oh … on her way to hospital. They’ve got a rape-kit standing by.’
    ‘Least we shouldn’t need too many more of those.’
    Shawna glanced again at the smouldering relic. ‘Assuming this is the right bloke.’
    ‘It’s the right bloke, don’t you worry.’
    There was a brief
fizzle
from Shawna’s radio as Comms tried to get through. She adjusted the device, but got no joy. ‘It won’t surprise you to learn that Sergeant Crawford wants a full report. He’s been chirping away ever since you dropped off the grid.’
    ‘Better give him one then …’
    ‘Me? I wasn’t even here.’
    ‘Well,
I’m
off to Casualty.’ Heck got up and lumbered towards the stairs. ‘On Murph’s orders.’
    ‘Heck, wait …’
    ‘It’s not difficult, Shawna.’ Heck paused, rotating his head to check that the