Christopher Fowler - Disturbia

'Well, if there's no other way -'

He read the instructions slowly enough for her to write them out. The paper was drying, but had not yet started to dissolve.

'Christ, you'll have to spell out the Latin stuff.'

'I don't have the time.' Vince glanced back, half expecting to see figures running through the shadows. 'Just put it down as it sounds. You'll have to concentrate on the first part.'

'But how can I? I failed history and I was never any good at languages, I don't know -'

'Wait. Call this guy, explain who you are and ask him to help you. I'll ring you back in ten minutes.' He gave Pam the home number of Dr Harold Masters and replaced the receiver. Then he pushed himself back against the wall of the building, waiting for his pulse to slow. He studied the letter again.

Three dead men.

They were setting him tasks whose solutions reinforced their own beliefs, in order that he might learn lessons; the solution to the first challenge had shown a disapproval of mixed marriages, the second and third suggested a nostalgia for times past, solid right-wing notions. What on earth could this be?

A historical puzzle. Corpses tried in court, buried only to rise and continue talking – as what, ghosts? That had to be it, the spirits of dead men, but whose? A fine damp mist had settled at the end of the crescent, causing penumbral light-cones to form around the streetlamps. His feet were growing numb. He stamped and checked his watch. Just gone eleven o'clock. They had generously given him two hours to solve the puzzle this time, but he had already lost the first hour. Even if he somehow came up with a correct solution, he still had to allow for travelling time.

He reinserted his phonecard and called Pam again. The line was still engaged. He tried Harold Masters's number. This time the call was answered.

'Hullo there, Vincent. I think your friend is just about to ring you.' Far from being annoyed, the doctor sounded pleased to have been asked to participate in the evening's events. 'I've got something. I was just checking the exact location in my A-Z. I think this is to do with the revenge taken on Oliver Cromwell.'

That made sense. The League would have heartily disapproved of such a man. They saw a symbolic threat to the monarchy, plain and simple. No sense of Charles I's absolutism or Cromwell's puritanism. World history in black and white. 'What about him?' he asked. 'Wasn't there some confusion about where Cromwell was buried?'

'That's just it. Cromwell and his parliamentarian colleagues Ireton and Bradshaw were originally interred in Westminster Abbey, but after the Restoration their bodies were exhumed and brought to trial at Westminster Hall.'

… tried in court as if alive…

'They were found guilty of regicide and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. As a mark of public humiliation they were dragged on sledges to Tyburn…'

'The Tyburn route is now Oxford Street, isn't it?'

'Yes, but the actual site of Tyburn tree, the name of the triangular gallows, is at the junction of the Edgware Road and Bayswater Road, although Charles Dickens pointed out that the exact location was still under dispute in his time. There's supposed to be a stone marking the purported spot on the traffic island there.'

'You're both geniuses, thanks,' said Vince.

'Well, not really because -'

'I've no time to spare, Doctor. I'm on my way.'

'You misunderstand me,' said Masters, 'that's not where the clue is sending you at all.'

But Vince had already returned the receiver to its cradle. Even now he was running into the mist enveloping the end of the road.

HAROLD MASTERS stood in the kitchen with his hands in his pockets watching his wife making a cup of tea. Jane had been working at the Victoria and Albert Museum when they'd met. A shy, almost reclusive woman, one of the world's leading experts on Peter Carl Fabergé, she had asked his advice about the supposed rediscovery of a jewelled casket, a legendary 'lost' piece that had vanished during the Russian Revolution, and in doing so had unexpectedly awoken a deep and abiding passion within herself. Finding a strength she had not known she possessed, she had asked him to marry her, and Harold had gratefully accepted. They never did manage to locate the missing Fabergé casket. Jane was his voice of reason, his calm centre. He had already decided that he would take her advice on the matter that was troubling him.

'It's a bit late to start getting people together,' she pointed out, placing the kettle on the stove.

'It's supposed to be for insomniacs, for God's sake!'

'We're not due to meet up until next week, and that's meant to be at Maggie's place, not here. I've hardly got anything for them to eat.' She removed two cups from the cupboard and set them out. 'I suppose you could call around and see who's available. Ring Arthur, he'll definitely be up for it. The poor man never seems to sleep at all.'

Masters slipped his arms around Jane and gave her a quick hug. Anyone else would have considered his idea preposterous. 'I don't just love you because you indulge me, you know,' he said.

'I know.' Jane smiled and began digging about in the refrigerator. 'Go on, then. Get out of my way. Go and make your calls.'

Vince was going to miss his deadline for the fourth challenge, he knew it. Nobody would be safe then. Alighting from the half-empty tube at Marble Arch he made his way up to ground level and exited on the north side of Oxford Street. Any day now the stores would start staying open late for Christmas shoppers, but tonight they were dark and silent. Absurdly postured mannequins bore blank witness as he passed. The great floodlit block of Marble Arch, designed as the main entrance to Buckingham Palace and moved because it was too narrow for coaches to pass through, rose above the traffic, a remnant from a grander time. And there, running through a revolving phalanx of black cabs in the centre of the intersection was – Pam, dressed in a navy-blue two-piece with gold buttons and pink high-heels, looking like a cosmetics representative late for a date.

But he didn't want to see Pam – couldn't see her. There were traffic cameras staring down at every section of the road. She had placed herself in terrible danger coming here. Vince turned away and began hastily walking in the opposite direction, back towards the searing neon lights of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant further along the street.

'Wait, Vince, it's me!' Pam had spotted him. There were few other pedestrians left on the streets. The cameras were bound to pick her up. There was nowhere to hide. He searched the cornices of the buildings; nearly every single one had a small black box at its apex. He imagined the two of them, soft grey figures colliding and talking as their electronic images sprawled across banks of TV monitors. Pam was running full pelt towards him, stilettos tick-tacking across the tarmac, her candy-blonde hair flying about her face. Vince fell back into the unlit doorway of a shoe store, praying she would pass by.

'What are you doing, it's me!' Pam came to a halt in front of him.

'We can't be seen talking,' hissed Vince. 'Do you want to get killed?'

'No one's expecting to see us here, Vince, you're safe.'

'You don't believe me, do you? That I saw somebody murdered tonight? That anyone who talks to me is at risk? They're watching each of the challenge sites.'

'But this isn't one of them,' said Pam breathlessly, 'they're not expecting to see you here. That's what I'm trying to explain, if you'll only have some patience and listen for a minute. You hung up on the doctor too quickly. You're in the wrong place. I came to tell you -'