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the darkness below me. I was badly equipped for this sort of crap. No flashlight. No camera. No idea what the hell I was doing. I carried on climbing down into increasing darkness, foot after foot, hand after hand. Every time I looked up I saw a smaller circle of blue light above me. It was not a comfortable sight. A blue circle floating in a sea of black. I began to feel dizzy, as if the walls were constricting, and I was trapped in a vertical tube and there was nothing else in the world. Nothing else anywhere. Utterly alone. And the stench from beneath was stronger, an almost choking sulphurous stink.
    I leant my head against a cold rung. I had to get to the bottom of this. As soon as the thought came into my mind I laughed aloud, and my laughter echoed hysterically around me until it slowly died out in what sounded like the mutterings of a devil. I took some deep breaths through my mouth. Step after step. Rung after rung. I had a nasty moment when the ladder seemed to disappear, but it was only where two ladders had been roped together somehow. I tried to empty my mind. Think about nice things. I thought about Karen Eliot naked in a bed, but then I started thinking about Barry and then about the Council and then about KHS and then I was back where I was. At the bottom of the hole. I was standing on stone. It was darker than any night. The blue circle that was my only visual connection to the surface seemed impossibly distant. I felt the cold floor beneath my feet. I felt around with my hands. Long cuts, or grooves, separated areas of flat stone. And then I realised. Flagstones. I was standing on a paved floor. Sixty feet or so beneath a rural valley in England.
    I felt around the sides of the hole. It wasn’t continuous. At times the walls just weren’t there. My hands traced nothingness. There had to be tunnels, or at least deep hollows, radiating like spokes from the hole. All of them seemed to be paved, like the floor I was standing on. And no way was I crawling down them. Not now. Not without a light. No way. Not without several more stiff drinks inside me. I fumbled in my pocket and had another swig. Some cocaine would have been good. Lots of it. I suddenly got the fear. Badly.
    I climbed back up the ladder, as fast as my cold arms and legs would take me. I seemed to move as slowly as a child hauling sacks of coal. The blue circle seemed to stay the same size for weeks, but eventually I could see the sides of the hole next to me, faintly illuminated by that eerie light. At long last I reached the surface. And I appreciated it. It’s a fine place, the surface. I swore I’d never take it for granted again. I stumbled out, hoping that my erratic path would somehow avoid the cameras, and burst out into the open air like someone who’s been underwater for almost too long. Almost long enough to drown.
    It was still raining. The sun had obviously decided to spend the day somewhere else. I wished I had that choice. But I didn’t. Choices were closing down around me like slamming doors. It was nearly 7:30 A.M . I walked back down towards the city as quickly as I could.
    I had a flat on a street north of the city centre. It wasn’t one of my favourite streets, but the rent was cheap. I let myself in. I showered and dumped my muddy, soaking clothes on the floor. I gave the flat a cursory glance. What a tip. I put on a suit, one of my less threadbare numbers. I had an idea, and I guessed that I needed to look at least semi-presentable for it to work. Then I called Kafka on his mobile.
    “Who is this?” he asked. Just woken voice. Not too pleased. But I couldn’t afford to worry about that. Things were getting too strange, too quickly.
    “It’s Martin. I need to meet you right now.”
    “Jesus. It’s—what—eight-thirty on fucking Saturday morning.” He muttered a few choice phrases then seemed to pull himself together. “Okay, okay . . . I’ll see you at, oh, I dunno . . . .” He fumbled with words for a while,