One

He stopped, feeling the chill breath of all these surrounding corpses flutter upon him. He gazed down at the stained paper mask of a child whose expression, in death, might almost have been one of bemusement. He looked like Stanley just after waking up. Kind of stupefied. Kind of cross. What will you do? He could almost see the question squirm from between gritted, grinning milk teeth. The shadow of his eye might have turned a little to regard him better. It's your move.

He realised he had been following the routes any passenger might when entering an airport, albeit in a reverse direction. But there was another territory at Heathrow unknown to the civilian and Jane had unconsciously been respecting its boundaries, a throwback to those days of heightened security and the sheep mentality immediately assumed once you found yourself in a world of cordons, channels and arrows.

He checked that the rifle was loaded and pushed through a door badged with the words Staff Only. There was a brief moment when he felt he might be granted some glimpse of nirvana, but there was no mystique to this prohibited area, just a grey, quotidian continuation of what he'd left behind. Offices, storerooms, corridors. He felt the dead echo of the closed door hanging in these smothered heights. The impression that what had caused the sound had passed by this way recently was strong.

He moved past a canteen where he pickpocketed a security guard for a caramel wafer that was as tough as cardboard but brought Jane to the edge of tears while he devoured it. There was nothing else but broken crockery and pans coagulated with inedible plaque. A newspaper offered headlines from a time he couldn't believe he had lived through. He was distracted from its fragile pages by a sound like a broom handle clattering to the floor.

As soon as he resumed his journey he felt a change, as if in the mood of the building. Prior to this moment he had not experienced any sense of wrongness, just the disorientation of an unfamiliar building and a mystery to be solved. Now came a foreboding similar to any number of awful events that had followed him down through the years. He was thinking about retreating, getting back out into the vast wilderness of the airfield where he would be able to see danger encroaching for miles in every direction, when he heard the grinding cry of hinges clotted by dust and years. And then a voice, muffled by the proximity of walls and ceiling, that called his name. It didn't matter that that could only be a good thing. He screamed anyway.

Their voices scrambled over each other, trying to disguise fear and relief with news and gossip and apologies. Aidan kept putting a hand to his belly and Jane kept meaning to ask if he was all right, but then there'd be a pause and a look and another hug and the question had missed its cue and could wait. In their collision of stories, Jane heard something that slapped him out of his excitement at seeing Aidan again. He had to ask him to repeat himself. Now that they were allowing each other to speak, fear crept back in, aware of the little moments of quiet, the space that was inveigling itself between them.

'Plessey is dead. I mean, he died. Was killed, is what I mean.'

'An accident?' Jane asked, knowing full well.

Aidan shook his head. 'I arrived at the market in the morning. Nobody in the shop, even though I used a secret knock. I didn't know what to do, so I was going to get over to one of the places you told me to find if I was in trouble or, you know, scared. Not that I was scared, but I was worried about Becky.

'But then I found him. He hadn't even made it out of the market. The Skinners had been at him, but his throat had been slit.' He suddenly grabbed Jane's arm, appeared unsure. He was fifteen – a wispy beard was a mask under which a man was being formed. But at moments like this, he was still just a boy. You looked hard enough, you could see the baby in him. 'Skinners . . . they don't do that, do they?'

'No,' Jane said. 'It would be kind of nice if they did, compared to their usual MO.'

'So maybe the same person who caught up with Fielding, you think?'

'Or someone in league.' Jane peered into Aidan's eyes. They were dark brown, so dark it was hard to discern their pupils. The rest of his face was open, fresh. He'd have had an innocent look about him if it weren't for those eyes and the soft frown above them. He'd seen a lot, Jane supposed. More than he ought. 'Where have you been, Aidan? You're your own man, I know, but we care about you. We're not your mum and dad, but we're your friends. It doesn't stop us from worrying.'

Aidan pressed his lips into a flat line. When he spoke again, it was with forced brittleness. Jane saw behind it immediately; he knew him too well by now. His hand at his belly again. Hungry, probably. Jane wished he hadn't snaffled that wafer.