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the music box again, he looked up to find Green spinning the handle, laughing to himself, captivated by the simple tune.
    Boy caught only a glimpse before it was hidden in Green’s massive hand, but it was strange and beautiful.
    Boy sat in the dirt of the floor and rubbed his sore neck.
    Green lurched to his feet and sloped away across the room, pushing past people as he went. He staggered through the door to the latrine.
    Boy picked himself up, and followed Green. He couldn’t go back to Valerian empty-handed.
    As he stepped through the door there was a flash of light and a noise like a cork popping. Then everywhere was shrouded in purple smoke.
    He heard a thump and then the sound of feet clambering against the wooden wall of the crap-house.
    The smoke cleared and through the darkness Boy saw a shape at his feet. He knelt down and put his hand out.
    It was Green, and he was dead. Boy could tell that immediately from the peculiar angle of his neck.
    Boy was about to run when he saw something glinting in Green’s fist. His old magpie habits from his days on the street tugged at him. He prized the huge fingers open and there, unharmed, was the music box.
    He grabbed it and stuck it in his pocket. Then he heard the door to the Trumpet open behind him.
    He jumped to his feet and sped away up the side alley.
    “Hey!” shouted a voice behind him. “Hey!”
    “The Phantom!” cried the voice as Boy disappeared. “The Phantom has got Green!”
    As he ran it occurred to him that it was true. Green must have been struck by the Phantom, just as Boy was following him. It was a lucky escape. Any sooner and
he
might be dead too. Boy sped on, trying to ignore the fact that he had not got the information Valerian was after, and that now the source of that information was dead.
    Boy ran madly, until finally he turned a corner and ran slap into someone else. Together they flew into the mud of the street. Boy looked at the runner sprawled across him.
    “Boy!” Willow screamed. She was in a state, gabbling, “I saw-in his box…”
    A shadowy figure suddenly rose up in front of them.
    “In a hurry?” it asked.
    They looked up. From his black cape, and extravagant red-plumed hat, they knew who the man was. His was the garb of a City Watchman.
    Boy had spent much of his homeless years, the years before Valerian, trying to avoid the City Watchmen. In his opinion they spent far too much of their time trying to capture hungry boys who had stolen food, and not enough stopping people killing each other in tavern brawls.
    But Willow cried, “I’m so glad to see you!”
    “Yes,” said the Watchman sarcastically, “I’m sure you are. Now, would you like to tell me whose blood that is?”
    Boy looked at Willow and saw blood in her hair and across her shoulders. Then he noticed the Watchman was staring at
him
.
    Boy looked at his leg. He was covered in blood too.
    Things were getting messy.
    “I think you’d better come with me, don’t you?”
    Before either of them could answer he grabbed them both by the necks and dragged them away down the street.
    Some way behind, a tall figure followed, slipping in and out of the darknesses of the street.

13
    Dawn had risen on the morning of December 27, its pale light stealing into the cell where Willow and Boy lay. The room was about six feet square, with solid stone walls and a single window with no glass but a closely spaced grid of iron bars instead. This let the cold in and stopped the prisoners from getting out, which was just what the Watchmen wanted. Cold prisoners were less trouble. They often died of exposure before anybody had to decide what to do with them, which saved a lot of trouble all round.
    Willow and Boy lay on some sparse and dirty straw, trying to keep away from a man who lay snoring next to one of the walls. He was huge. Once or twice he had rolled over and they had shivered on seeing his scarred face. Fortunately he had so far shown no sign of waking up.
    “Why don’t