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could feel the silence all around me—the hush of violence, sucking the air from my lungs. I could hear people looking on, whispering and muttering, but I couldn’t see them. All I could see was a narrow blacktunnel, with me at one end and a death mask at the other and a pale white ghost floating somewhere in between.
    I tore my eyes away from the mask and glanced at the ghost, but she wouldn’t look back at me. Her lowered eyes said, Go, please…for God’s sake, just go.
    I didn’t have enough guts to say no, so I just turned around and started to leave.
    “Hey,” said Iggy.
    I didn’t want to stop—I wanted to keep going and never come back—but I couldn’t help it. It was that kind of voice.
    I stopped.
    Paused.
    Then turned around.
    Iggy was leaning back in his chair and staring at me with a piercing chill in his eyes.
    “You like a smile?” he said softly.
    I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what he meant. I watched curiously as he grinned and raised his hand, then slowly drew his thumbnail across his throat.
    “I see you again,” he said, “you’ll be smiling to the bone.”

chapter three
    I don’t remember much about the train journey home. I remember going to the doctor’s and getting a tube back to Liverpool Street, and I vaguely remember waiting on the concourse, then walking along the platform and getting on the train, but after that…my mind’s a blank. I can’t remember the journey at all. All I can remember is thinking: thinking about Candy, thinking about Iggy, thinking about me…thinking myself into a hole. Candy…Iggy…Candy…me…Candy…Iggy…Candy…me…voices…faces…bodies…eyes…Candy…Iggy…Candy…me…
    And the next thing I knew, the train was slowing down and pulling into Heystone station.
    Not many passengers got off the train. A couple of half-drunk commuters, a beardy old man in a deerstalker hat, a busy-busy woman in clackety shoes…and that wasabout it. They didn’t hang around—out into the parking lot, into their cars, and they were gone before the train had left the platform. I waited for it to leave, watching it rattle out of the station, away up the tracks, disappearing into the distant darkness…until there was nothing left to see. I stood there for a while, staring at nothing, listening to the station clock clacking away its digital seconds— clack…clack…clack —then I turned around and went looking for a taxi.
    Outside the station, everything was quiet—the streets, the parking lot, the surrounding fields. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. No cars, no mad people, no flashing lights…
    No girls.
    No threats.
    No fear.
    No chaos.
    And no taxis, either.
    The rank was empty. Closed for the night.
    I didn’t really mind. My house isn’t far from the station—along Station Road, over the bridge, down Church Lane, and into the avenue—and it was a nice clear night, fresh and wintry, just right for walking. So off I went—walking slowly, breathing deeply, trying to sort myself out.
    Sometimes, when I’m walking, the sound of my footsteps helps me to think. It’s the steady rhythm, I suppose, the metronomic sound of feet on concrete— tap, tap…tap, tap…tap, tap…tap, tap —ticking away like a heartbeat, settling your body and freeing your mind to think. It doesn’t always work, but I was hoping it would that night, becausemy mind and my body were still in a state of shock: The scary-snakes were still wriggling around in my belly, making me feel sick; my jaw was aching from gritting my teeth; my heart was tearing itself apart; and, worst of all, an annoying little voice kept whining away in the back of my head, reminding me over and over again what might have happened, what could have happened, what nearly happened. You were lucky, really, it kept telling me. You know that, don’t you? You were lucky. It could have been a whole lot worse…
    I knew it.
    I knew a lot of things.
    I knew that Candy was a prostitute and Iggy