An ear-splitting shriek, closely followed by the sound of breaking glass and a succession of thumps and clangs, all interspersed with cries of pain and language that would have raised eyebrows on a building site, ushers in Friday morning under the most unsolicited of circumstances. I sit bolt upright in bed, suddenly aware of how vulnerable I am as a girl alone in her room. Much as I hate to admit it, Suki Tatsukichi’s self-defence lessons may not have been such a waste of time after all.

I daren’t turn on the light, so I pick up my watch from the bedside table, carry it across to the window and pull back the curtains so I can more easily see the hands.

Ten to four. It’ll be pitch black out there for another hour and a half at least.

Voices drift up from the forecourt, carrying loudly in the cold, still air.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est passé?”

“Bitch shoved me through the fuckin’ window, didn’t she? Bleedin’ lot came down. Lucky it’s not smashed to bits.”

“Merde! Allons, vite!”

They’re going. Thank goodness for that.

I open the chest of drawers, discarding my buttonless pyjama top for the first T-shirt I come to. As I push back my hair I can hear an engine roar into life. I don’t need Jim Rockford standing next to me to know that the car screeching along Marine Parade loud enough to wake three-quarters of County Durham is a Rolls-Royce.

When I reach the second floor, Sylvia is already hammering on the door to room 7 like a slain Viking warrior demanding entry to Valhalla.

“Well, don’t just stand there!” she yells at me. “Go and phone the bobbies!”

Before I can comply Kerrie Latimer answers Sylvia’s summons, tying a blue oriental robe around her midriff. Devoid of make-up and with most of her top teeth missing, she looks her age and more.

“Egerton,” is all she says.

“Excuse me!” cries Sylvia, pushing past her to inspect the damage.

Kerrie beckons me over.

“He took the cathket,” she lisps softly. “But I’d hidden the notebook under my pillow.”

“Good for you,” I whisper back. “But what are we going to tell Sylv? She wants me to call the police.”

“Leave that to me.”

My hand moves to her shoulder.

“Are you sure you’re all right? He didn’t try to–“

“No, nothing like that.” She smiles and ruffles my hair, glancing at the two old ladies who’ve just appeared on the landing in their dressing gowns and curlers. “You’d better go and put the retht of your clotheth on, thweetheart. I think you’re going to have a buthy morning.”

Wearing a chunky white sweater and an old, musty pair of jeans that all but fell to their knees and pleaded for the rough-and-tumble of the washing machine, my messy locks tied back in a loose ponytail, I head down to the foyer for my second big surprise of the day. On the reception counter, propped up against the register, is a plain brown envelope addressed to Mrs N Russell. It contains five brand new twenty-pound notes, as well as a short message in an exquisite hand I assume belongs to Yvette de Monnier.

I apologise profusely for our unconventional departure and trust that this will suffice to cover our respective bills. Please do not attempt to contact us at the addresses we gave as they are fictitious.
Rooms 4 and 5.

I have to stop myself from laughing out loud. Thieves who pay their hotel bills and add a whopping great tip into the bargain? What’s next, talking seagulls? Secret portals to magic kingdoms?

Leaving the envelope for Sylvia to deal with, I go through the dining room to the kitchen and take a torch from the store cupboard at the back. As I shine it on the detritus from Egerton’s defenestration and estimate how long I’ll need to clear it up I’m reminded that my spell as Kerrie’s sidekick is over. Normal service will now be resumed.

Normal?

Well, I can always hope.

It goes without saying that once Kerrie has checked out I’ll have to expunge from my thoughts the issues our investigations raised. I can’t function in a world riddled with deceit and disinformation. If I’m forced to weave myself a cocoon in order to mature into the contented, self-possessed young woman I know I have the capacity to be, then that’s what I’ll do.

You work for us now. You always will.

Just think, there was a time when I actually believed that.

The pungent aroma of petrol assaults my nostrils. I point the torch in the direction it’s strongest; the beam falls upon Kerrie’s Volkswagen Beetle and the large puddle spreading from beneath it. Wires trail like spaghetti from the open bonnet.

Shit.

Now there’ll be merry hell to pay.

I crush a shard of broken glass with the ball of my foot, then tramp back indoors to give her the good news.

Tommy Cockburn could not only tut for his country, he’d be an automatic choice for the squad selected to represent the local cluster of galaxies. Rubbing his chin, he picks at the disembowelled Beetle’s entrails for several minutes before turning to its increasingly impatient owner.

“They knew what they were doin’ all right. Are yer sure it was kids?”

“Got eyes, haven’ I?” snaps Kerrie, her Lancashire accent coming to the fore. “Just tell us, can you fix blessed thing or not?”

Cockburn wrenches his eyes away from her black leather pants and low-cut cream top long enough to indulge in a few moments of humming and hawing. He seems to be nothing if not versatile.

“Bit o’ weldin’ll sort out the tank. Ignition’s the main problem, otherwise it’s not too bad. Should be ready by Monday afternoon. Better say Tuesday to be on the safe side.”

“What good’s that to me? I’m supposed to meet me sisters in London this afternoon.”

“Is there no way you could do it any quicker?” I interject.

“Sorry, lasses. Electrics isn’ summat yer can rush. It’s not like wirin’ a three-point plug.”

“What about hiring us a car?” enquires Kerrie. “Can you organise that before clocks go back again?”

“There’s Neasham’s over at Stranton...”

“I’m givin’ you an hour.”

She opens the front passenger door and unfastens the hinge to the glove compartment. All I can see within is a packet of boiled sweets.

“They’ve taken me bloody insurance documents!” she fumes. “Right, that’s it! Do what you like. I’ve had it up to ‘ere wi’ this place.”

She storms towards the main entrance, bushes withering in her wake. Cockburn turns to me as if I’m the fount of all wisdom.

“Just take it in,” I tell him. “I’ll get you her address and phone number.”

By a quarter to ten I’ve begun to slot back into my routine: changing sheets and pillowcases, cleaning and disinfecting bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming and all the other mindless tasks at which I’ve become so proficient during the last fifteen weeks. I’m in the middle of turning over the mattress on the skeleton’s bed when Kerrie appears at the door.

“Sylvia says there’s a train at eleven o’clock. It connects with the five to twelve from Darlington. We should be in Kings Cross by half-past three.”

I do a double take worthy of James Finlayson.

“We?”

“You’re coming with me, I hope.”

“What?”

“I’ll need someone to back up my story.”

“You want me to go all the way to London with you?”

“Cosham. I’m not involving my sisters in this until I know what’s going on.”

“But I can’t just throw everything down and leave…”

“It’s all right, I’ve cleared it with Norah. I managed to persuade her that the hotel won’t go to rack and ruin if I keep you on for a few more days. I’ll bring you back when I return for the car and the rest of my things.”

I lean the mattress on the headboard, then walk round the end of the bed so I’m close enough to speak to her without the risk of being overheard.

“You said you’d kept the notebook, right?”

“Yes, I want to show it to Cathryn. With her academic background she should be able to shed some light on the cult Helen ran up against.”

“You realise that if Egerton and de Monnier know about it, they’ll have discovered it’s missing by now.”

“I’m not scared of them, sweetheart. Egerton was obviously under instructions not to lay a finger on me. How else could I have fought him away so easily? As for her, if she comes near me again I’ll rip her nipples off.”

I wouldn’t put it past her, either.

Norah having given the matter her seal of approval, I have little choice but to accede to Kerrie’s demands. Shaking my head, I go off in search of Sylvia; I find her in the room Egerton occupied, going through each drawer in turn.

“Have you heard the latest?” I grumble. “Now she wants to cart me off to the other end of the country!”

“You’d better get packing, then. And take something apart from jeans, unless you want that woman’s family to think she’s brought a scarecrow to stop with them. I don’t know, you’ve got a whole wardrobe full of stuff you’ve hardly touched since you started here. Would the world come to an end if you dolled yourself up a bit more often?”

She’s right, of course. Now’s the ideal time to step out in a posh frock and stiletto heels.

Fortunately I can lay my hands on three pairs of clean, dry jeans. But I still need to choose enough other clothes for four different outfits; I’m only taking an overnight bag, so everything will have to be light and easily folded. Shoes, underwear, toiletries…and tampons, I mustn’t forget those. Although my next period isn’t due until Wednesday or Thursday, I’ve learned that where the menstrual cycle is concerned there are no rules set in tablets of stone.

But before I sit at the dressing table to let down my hair and see to my make-up, I lift out the envelope Ruth left for me at Belvedere House and clear a space for it at the bottom of the bag.

Just in case.

Nowhere articulates the gangrenous decay that has reduced Northcroft-on-Heugh from a thriving industrial port to a somnolent backwater with more eloquence than the railway station on Commercial Street, between the town centre and the disused Victoria Dock. Although the impressive nineteenth-century façade remains intact, the forecourt and the wide steps leading up to the main entrance are closed to public access, concealed behind an ugly concrete wall daubed from end to end with meaningless graffiti. The concourse and all but the western end of one platform are at the mercy of the elements following the removal of the great arched canopy, a heartless act of desecration that changed the local skyline for ever; cordoned off by wooden boards, they spend the little time they have left before the return of the demolition crews playing host to every kind of debris it’s possible to imagine. It’s a far cry from the bustling place I remember from my childhood, when people would flock to the buffet for one of Florrie Wilkie’s legendary cooked breakfasts, each mouthful a greasy delight, relax cradling a pint of strong, frothy ale in the adjoining bar, or stock up with crisps, fizzy drinks and puzzle magazines from the kiosk in the booking hall. Today the sole facility available to them comes in the unprepossessing shape of a weather-stained prefabricated hut that acts as a combined ticket office, waiting room and newspaper stall. The only information on display is a badly typed list of departures stapled to the glass partition above the serving hatch. It is not a lengthy document.

Creeping along at a pace a corpulent toddler could outrun, the two-car diesel unit negotiates the dilapidated harbour bridge, labours around the sharp curve that takes the railway onto Northcroft headland and finally shudders to a halt with a screech of brakes and a loud, drawn-out gasp of released exhaust, as though the twenty-four mile run from the main line at Darlington has driven the engine to the utmost limits of its endurance. Having been awake for seven hours, and with a demanding journey ahead of us, it’s a safe bet that Kerrie and I will soon know exactly how it feels.

The dozen or so passengers alighting from the train are raising collars, buttoning overcoats and fastening headsquares against the unseasonably cold breeze coming off the sea. I hoist the strap of my holdall onto my right shoulder, using my other hand to shield my face as the heaving sky jettisons the first drops of squally rain to sting my cheeks and spear my eyes. At least I can look forward to some better weather on the south coast.

I lead the way to the front carriage and what was once the First Class compartment behind the driver’s cab, where the seats are softer and more springy. A young man in army fatigues lifts our luggage onto the rack; Kerrie thanks him, her eyes making it clear that while she appreciates his gallantry, we have things we wish to discuss in private. I settle back, frowning at the circular NO SMOKING sign on the window, and remove the leather jacket I’m wearing over my T-shirt just as the sun peeps out from the angry clouds to highlight the hundreds of freckles covering my arms. A glance at my reflection shows it glinting off the studs I wear at weekends to prevent the holes in my earlobes from closing up — and by doing so confirms that my hair has come off second best to the wind.

“So what’s the order of play, then?” I ask, taking a brush from my bag.

“Well, you’ll be staying with my next-door neighbour Rosie. My two sons are home from university, so it’s either that or the garden shed.”

“You’ve got boys as well? That means you’ve had what, five children?”

“Don’t look at me as though I’m single-handedly responsible for the population explosion,” she grins. “Padraig and Eamonn are twins. They’ll be twenty in October. Sinead and Niamh were born within eleven months of one another, September ’63 and August ’64, so they’re actually in the same year group at school — which can make life interesting, to put it mildly. My eldest, Siobhan, lives with her boyfriend in North End. They had a little boy just before Christmas. His name’s Liam, and I absolutely adore him.”

Only the carriage ceiling prevents my eyebrows from puncturing the tropopause.

“So you’re a…”

“A grandmother, yes. It’s all right, you can say the word in front of me.”

A grandmother.

With pink, blue and green hair cropped short on one side and falling to her shoulder on the other.

And a cleavage that would attract attention on a desert island.

Joe Brown was right. Fings certainly ain’t wot they used to be.

“What’s Rosie like?” I ask, watching the thin-faced, bespectacled guard make his routine inspection in readiness for the return trip.

“A few years older than me. Divorced. A career woman, I think that’s the best way to describe her.”

“And Cathryn?”

“You’ll meet her on Sunday when we go across to the Isle of Wight. Until then I’m saying nothing.”

A buzzer sounds twice; the diesel rumbles away from the platform, and the familiar landmarks I grew up with — St Hild’s, the old pier, the large tidal pond at the back of the harbour known as the Slake — slowly disappear from view.

With them go the last traces of the person I was when I returned here.

Not dead, but held in that transparent yet securely locked container we call the past.

After limping through the flat, monotonous arable land south of Peterborough for nearly half an hour, the InterCity 125 finally begins to pick up speed again. It cruises steadily enough past Huntingdon, St Neots, Sandy and Biggleswade — towns well inside London’s commuter belt, as shown by the dozens of cars parked at each station — but slows to a crawl on the approach to Hitchin. With more than thirty miles still to go, our prospects of arriving in the capital before the weekend rush gets into full swing are fading fast.

“Trust British Rail to mess everything up,” I sigh, laying my copy of Vogue on the table next to the empty paper cups and plastic cartons left over from our improvised lunch. “At this rate it’ll be dark before we get there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Kerrie. “I was going to suggest we take our time crossing London. We’ll go for something to eat, recharge our batteries. Better safe than sorry.”

“I thought you weren’t expecting trouble…”

“I’m not. But if anything does happen, I’d rather we were both feeling refreshed.”

Only at this point do I remember that I’m not as clued up regarding the layout of central London as a girl who’s supposed to have spent her teenage years in SE9 ought to be.

“How well d’you know your way around?” I ask.

“Alan and I lived in Pimlico for four years, so you needn’t worry about getting lost.”

That’s me told.

The countryside is gliding by more quickly. Soon we’re passing the junction with the suburban line from Royston, then flashing through the sprawling dormitory towns — Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City, Hatfield, Potters Bar — and finally emerging from the long series of tunnels that bring us into the metropolis itself. For a short time I’m a seven year old boy again, breathless with excitement at the thought of experiencing the sights and sounds of one of the world’s most famous cities. The first Underground sign. The first bright red Routemaster bus. Alexandra Palace. Arsenal’s football ground. Finsbury Park, the last station before Kings Cross. That special moment when people start rising from their seats and reaching for their suitcases…

Maybe I haven’t changed that much after all.

We wait for the carriage to empty before stepping onto the platform, then pause for a few more seconds to allow our ears to adjust to the clamour of man and machine echoing beneath the massive vaulted roof. Kerrie shifts her bag onto her left shoulder so I can slip my arm through hers and thus minimise the chances of us becoming separated when we join the throng milling in front of the ticket barrier. It also prompts me to remember that I’m not down here on holiday.

Escalators. Ticket machines. Buskers. Colour-coded direction signs. Posters advertising books, films, plays and musicals you’d be familiar with if only you lived here. The blast of warm air signalling the arrival of the Underground train. Everywhere you look, that distinctive map.

Ten minutes in London and you’re fully assimilated. You want to stay. You’d move here if you could afford to.

Of course it’s an illusion. Of course there’s loneliness and deprivation. Of course there’s violence and crime.

But it’s not hard to understand why those who already have roots in this city very rarely want to set them down anywhere else.

We take the Piccadilly line, jammed into a carriage populated by mute, unsmiling automatons. The lurching, unsteady motion tempts me to cling all the more tightly to Kerrie’s arm. Instead I relax my grip, aware of the tension hardening the set of her mouth.

At Leicester Square she decides we should make the rest of the journey to Waterloo on foot.

“There’s not much point in catching anything going out of London before seven — unless you don’t mind standing for an hour and twenty minutes. Anyway, I’d like to powder my nose and grab another cup of coffee. If I have to deal with that pair I want to be wide awake.”

The staircase disgorges us into dazzling sunshine and the worst excesses of unrestrained commercialism. Barrow boys hawk key rings, mugs, plates, T-shirts, silly hats and other assorted junk splashed with red, white and blue, or crudely processed prints of Tower Bridge, Beefeaters and the Houses of Parliament. Restaurants whose frontages promise exclusivity but in truth are no more than jumped-up eating houses compete just as avidly for the undiscerning tourist’s wallet. Hoardings pour glamour and glitz down upon a multitude infused with vim and vibrancy. Here you’re encouraged to feel you can remain one step ahead of the rest of the country simply by breathing in.

Kerrie guides me along the polyglot Charing Cross Road to St Martin’s Place, where I’m granted my first glimpse of Trafalgar Square in getting on for two years. But she has no desire to take in the sights, ducking left along a narrow side street and into a cafe with a fancy Italian name and a price list that would render Norah unable to speak for months. Once the young waitress who’s trying a bit too hard to be Audrey Hepburn has brought over our coffee and biscuits, we sit and chat about nothing in particular until my companion’s face unexpectedly turns serious.

“How are you off for cash, sweetheart?” she asks me.

“Okay, I suppose.”

“I want you to go out and flag down a taxi. Tell the driver to take you to Victoria, but when you get there act all scatterbrained and say you meant Waterloo instead. I’ll–“

“We’re being followed, aren’t we?”

“I’m not sure. If we are there’s only one of him, and he can’t be in two places at the same time. I’ll ride round on the Underground for a while, then meet you outside a pub on Waterloo Road called The Hole In The Wall.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Better you don’t know. You’ll be less likely to give yourself away.”

It’s comforting to realise she’s got so much faith in me.

“All right,” I sigh, patting her hand. “The Hole In The Wall it is. But you’re buying the drinks.”

Walking back to St Martin’s Place, I risk a quick look behind me to see if anyone’s behaving suspiciously. The coast seems clear, so I shorten my stride and do my best to stay calm. I may be alone in a strange city, but I’m no teenage ingénue.

He’s waiting at the corner. I search for a shop doorway or an alley I can dash into, but it’s too late. He’s seen me.

And he doesn’t appear very pleased about it.

J G Egerton, dressed in a light brown jacket, an open-necked shirt and jeans, steps forward.

“Trust you to stick your oar in,” he says. “Here, let me carry your bag while we find somewhere we can talk.”

“You must be joking. Now piss off or I’ll scream blue murder.”

“You could do that. But then I wouldn’t be able to tell you what really happened on the breakwater the night Bob Hodgson died — or why Ruth Hansford-Jones had to take your body.”

From Waterloo Bridge I look out across the broad sweep of the Thames as it curves east towards St Paul’s and the City. Behind me stands the opulent finery of the Palace of Westminster.

All that power.

Or so I used to believe…

Egerton is standing beside me, flicking cigarette ash over the parapet. He has said little since he confronted me, whilst I’ve managed to control my eagerness to pummel his ears with the questions I so fervently wish to be answered.

“You’ve adapted well,” he remarks at length. “Better than I would’ve done.”

“Do I get a gold star for that?”

“I’d have thought helping to save the world was its own reward.”

“I think we know how that turned out for Helen Sutton, what her reward was.”

He takes another drag, then lets the butt fall into the restless water.

“Helen was infected with something. A sort of virus that takes over the mind. But you can’t study it under a microscope. If you think of the brain as a computer, this — for want of a better word I’ll call it a disease — is a new program that replaces the original one. Memes, they’re called, self-replicating units of information that jump from person to person. Most of them are pretty harmless, like the current craze for ‘50s fashions. Not the one Helen caught, though.”

“Sounds like pseudo-scientific bullshit to me.”

“Plenty of the world’s leading academics would disagree with you.”

“Get to the point. Who’s Yvette de Monnier? And how did you both find out about Ruth stealing my body?”

“Yvette was once very close to Helen. They were lovers, in fact.”

I turn and stare at him.

“It sounds like you’re talking about Mademoiselle Malraux…”

“Yes, Solange Malraux was the name she went by when she was living in Northcroft.”

“But Yvette doesn’t look anything like–“

“Appearances can be deceptive. You of all people should know that.”

I feel my mouth open and close. My eyes are as wide as those of a city child watching a new-born foal struggle to its feet.

Yvette de Monnier and Mademoiselle Malraux are one and the same. And the only way she could have disguised herself so effectively was if she’d used the transfer device.

Somehow I absorb this latest revelation without crumpling in a heap.

“So go on then,” I grunt. “Who is she?”

“Yvette is, or should I say was, a government agent, one of the very few with a sufficiently high clearance to gain entry to the facility where the mind transfer technology was being developed. She thought — and here I have to confess that I’m a bit out of my depth — that it could be used to cure Helen’s condition. There was one problem: Yvette knew that Helen would flatly refuse to speak to her if she was wearing her original body. Her solution was to pose as one of Helen’s former pupils, and it just so happened that Ruth Pattison had the qualifications necessary for her to be recruited onto the team.”

And there we have it.

The one piece of the puzzle that’s eluded me.

“But it didn’t work, did it?” I scoff. “She swapped with Ruth and found that Helen still wouldn’t listen to her. Richard Brookbank, on the other hand…”

“That’s about the size of it.”

I light up, pouring all my concentration into keeping my hands steady.

“What happened to Ruth?”

“She was taken in by the MoD. What they did with her I dread to think.”

The cigarette falls to the pavement. I close my eyes, fighting to hold back the wetness that threatens to pour down my cheeks.

It’s one surprise too many. I’ve dealt with an array of disagreeable emotions since I became female, but guilt hasn’t been amongst them.

You don’t sound very Japanese.

You don’t sound very male.

Suki Tatsukichi.

Who I briefly mistook for Mademoiselle Malraux.

No wonder she was so abrupt with me. Fifteen years of her life — the best years — gone in a few moments.

And to spend weeks with a living reminder of everything she’d lost…

What can possibly excuse such a crime, Yvette? How do you sleep?

“And it all went hopelessly tits up,” I sniff. “Three people died that night. You ought to be in jail for manslaughter, not cavorting around in a fucking Rolls-Royce.”

“I had nothing to do with the incident. Yvette only hired me a month ago.”

“Rubbish. You’ve been working for her in the full knowledge that she caused those deaths. That makes you an accessory after the fact.”

He takes another cigarette from the silver case in his left pocket.

“’Death by misadventure’. That was the verdict the coroner gave at the end of Bob Hodgson’s inquest, and it was the right one. Helen ran down to the breakwater to escape from Yvette. Carol Hodgson saw what she thought was a murder in progress and tried to save her friend. Bob went after his wife, as you’d expect him to. There was a scuffle. Yvette managed to exchange bodies with Carol before the wave hit. They would both have drowned if she hadn’t. Later, in hospital, she swapped with one of the nursing staff. That’s the body she currently inhabits.”

Oh, and the sister in charge of the ward mam was admitted to has disappeared as well. Left her job for no reason at all.

“The sweetener being the quarter of a million Carol was due to inherit from Helen’s will, I suppose. But tell me this: where does Kerrie Latimer’s father fit in?”

“That’s one of the things we’ve been trying to find out.”

“And the casket?”

“We don’t want her to have it. That goes for the photographs as well. You might consider getting them back for us.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yvette would like you on her side.”

“After what she did to me? All those swaps must have unhinged her.”

“Think about it. What are you going to do once Kerrie decides she doesn’t need you to hold her hand any more? Spend your time slaving away in the Gladstone while you wait for the government to phone you up? They’ve left you to vegetate in that dump. And don’t kid on that you’re happy there, because you’re not.”

“Better than teaming up with a renegade. Sooner or later she’ll make a mistake, then you’ll both be behind bars.”

“Don’t underestimate her. She has friends in the highest of high places.”

“I’m sure she has. I bet she’s in Buck House sipping Darjeeling with Liz and Phil as we speak.”

I start to walk away, but Egerton grasps my wrist.

“The casket was sent to Helen as a trigger,” he says in a low voice. “It was an instruction to turn herself into a kuzkardesh gara and begin spreading the infection around. If Yvette hadn’t intervened when she did–“

Unbidden, an image of New Stranton shopping precinct crystallises in my mind. The women are all cloaked and hooded; the men gaze at them with hollow, unfocused expressions.

“Who are those women?” I demand to know. “Where are they from? What do they want?”

Egerton slowly relaxes his grip.

“The name translates literally as ‘black sister’. But that doesn’t do the bond between them justice at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Their minds are all programmed to work in exactly the same way. A single appearance, a single set of opinions, a single purpose. They’re a totalitarian regime, a religious cult and a zombie plague all rolled into one.”

“But that’s ridiculous.”

“And swapping bodies isn’t? Look, I’ll be blunt with you. If this menace gains control then that’s it. Full stop. Period. Punkt. Bye-bye progress, bye-bye creativity, bye-bye all the things that make us human. For ever.”

He sounds sincere enough, but I no longer care. I have a duty, both to myself and Suki Tatsukichi, to become the woman Ruth Hansford-Jones should have been.

Nothing can stand in the way of that.

I pick up my bag and hoist the strap onto my shoulder. Egerton begins to speak; I shake my head, making it clear that the conversation is at an end.

But as I adjust my pace to that of the commuters crossing the bridge, one sentence in particular keeps coming back to me.

Memes, they’re called, self- replicating units of information that jump from person to person.

As benign as a top ten record, as murderous as National Socialism — or as insidious as an idea planted by a small group of heretic Muslim women, one that can suddenly awaken after nearly fifteen years of slumber.

Adieu, mon amour. Tu es mort pour sauver les femmes du monde entier.

Is that what Yvette de Monnier believes? Does she really think that women the world over are susceptible to this threat?

Maybe she has good reason to.

…then Helen said summat to ‘er, must’ve been in French ‘cause I never understood a word of it, and yer know what, the frog went down like a sack o’ taties.

You were out there with Helen and the others, weren’t you, Yvette? You were infected with the rest of them. And when you and your lover split up, she said something that triggered the virus laying dormant in your mind.

You became a kuzkardesh gara, a black sister. The woman calling herself Suki Tatsukichi has the scars to prove it.

So how did you escape from this cult? Who deprogrammed you? And why aren’t you working with the MoD to develop this cure you claim to have found?

I’ve never told Peter, but some of the words…well, they spoke to me. I wanted to go out and repeat them to every woman I saw. I still do. And it’s not just me, either.

Because I’ve a feeling we might need it.