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their pictures, left at the site,
we think, as a demonstration of that power.’
    ‘Right.’ She seemed to have decided something, but it wasn’t a pleasant decision. From the look on her face, it meant a whole world of tough choices. ‘That’ll be
all, Detective Constable.’
    Sefton was amazed. ‘But—’
    She gave him a look that dared him to make her repeat herself.
    When Sefton had left, Rebecca Lofthouse let out a long breath and put both hands on her desk. She did the breathing exercises to make herself calm, the ones she’d been
using since just before she’d visited Quill’s team in Docklands, when they’d been exploring the ruins of the ‘temple’ of the Continuing Projects Team. That had been
the point when horror had entered her life. That horror had known what she was going to discover when she visited them. She had already made attempts to do something about her situation: slightly;
quietly. She’d thought she’d moved covertly, but if, as she’d been told during the Russell Vincent case, MI5 had noticed what she’d been up to, then, she was sure, so could
the terrible power that was watching over her.
    Now things had to change. Sefton’s visit had crystallized a feeling she’d had herself. For the sake of James Quill and his team, she had to start taking some risks.
    A week later, at the end of another working day that had been devoted to tidying up the loose ends of Operation Dante, Quill stopped his car outside his semi-detached house in
Enfield and shut off the engine. He hesitated, as always these days, before going inside. He just needed to take a moment, to prepare for the role he had to play at home. He had to appear to be a
jolly daddy for Jessica and reassure the continually worried Sarah that he was OK.
    It’s everyone who ever lived in London.
    That was what the sign above the entrance to Hell had said. He saw it in his memories every day. He had so many questions. He worried about what that meant in practice. He’d seen, in Hell,
people from all time periods. Did ‘everyone’ include visitors to London? Was one night at a Holiday Inn in Clapham enough to sentence you to eternal damnation? Better act like that was
the case. Some of those in Hell had thought, in their confused way, that there’d been other sorts of afterlife before, that this was a recent change. Could it change back?
    He hadn’t told anyone. He couldn’t bring himself to. On his journey home tonight, he’d seen the usual horrors of hidden London. They seemed obvious now, meaningless. They were
nothing compared to what was waiting.
    He got out of the car, went and unlocked his front door, and when he heard Jessica calling from inside, he made himself not think about what the things in Hell would do to her. He made himself
not think, as he did, over and over, that there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Instead, he forced himself to smile.
    ‘Laura called.’ Sarah had that expression on her face again as they made dinner: busy, happy engagement. It was one she’d held on to for weeks. When Quill had
first come back to life, had literally returned from Hell, she’d waited for a while, then had gently begun asking lots of questions, trying to get him to talk. He’d burst into tears,
the first time, then yelled at her to stop. The tears hadn’t come back, but the yelling had. Over the weeks, her questions had fallen away, and she was now being supportive, hoping he’d
come to her. She would wait forever. He was angry all the time. He was full of fight or flight, waiting, every moment, for a blow that might kill him, might send him to Hell again. He had thought
he was brave. He wasn’t. His depression . . . well, he didn’t know where that began and actual sanity ended now, because now there genuinely
was
no future. The previous evening,
she’d carefully asked him about the end of the operation, and he’d done what he’d started to do instead of yelling, played the part of himself