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track the escapee, however futile.
    At the bottom of the street he lost sight of his quarry behind the rooftops, and so made a detour to the foot bridge that crossed the Woolton Road, mounting the steps three and four at a time. From the top he was rewarded with a good view of the city. North towards Woolton Hill, and off East, and South-East, over Allerton towards Hunt’s Cross. Row upon row of council house roofs presented themselves, shimmering in the fierce heat of the afternoon, the herringbone rhythm of the close-packed streets rapidly giving way to the industrial wastelands of Speke.
    Cal could see the pigeon too, though he was a rapidly diminishing dot.
    It mattered little, for from this elevation 33’s destination was perfectly apparent. Less than two miles from the bridge the air was full of wheeling birds, drawn to the spot no doubt by some concentration of food in the area. Every year brought at least one such day, when the ant or gnat population suddenly boomed, and the bird life of the city was united in itsgluttony. Gulls up from the mud banks of the Mersey, flying tip to tip with thrush and jackdaw and starling, all content to join the jamboree while the summer still warmed their backs.
    This, no doubt, was the call 33 had heard. Bored with his balanced diet of maize and maple peas, tired of the pecking order of the loft and the predictability of each day – the bird had wanted out; wanted up and away. A day of high life; of food that had to be chased a little, and tasted all the better for that; of the companionship of wild things. All this went through Cal’s head, in a vague sort of way, while he watched the circling flocks.
    It would be perfectly impossible, he knew, to locate an individual bird amongst these riotous thousands. He would have to trust that 33 would be content with his feast on the wing, and when he was sated do as he was trained to do, and come home. Nevertheless, the sheer spectacle of so many birds exercised a peculiar fascination, and crossing the bridge, Cal began to make his way towards the epicentre of this feathered cyclone.

II

    THE PURSUERS
    he woman at the window of the Hanover Hotel drew back the grey curtain and looked down at the street below.
    ‘Is it possible …?’ she murmured to the shadows that held court in the corner of the room. There was no answer to her question forthcoming, nor did there need to be. Unlikely as it seemed the trail had incontestably led here, to this dog-tired city, lying bruised and neglected beside a river that had once borne slave ships and cotton ships and could now barely carry its own weight out to sea. To Liverpool.
    ‘Such a place,’ she said. A minor dust-dervish had whipped itself up in the street outside, lifting antediluvian litter into the air.
    ‘Why are you so surprised?’ said the man who half lay and half sat on the bed, pillows supporting his impressive frame, hands linked behind his heavy head. The face was wide, the features upon it almost too expressive, like those of an actor who’d made a career of crowd-pleasers, and grown expert in cheap effects. His mouth, which knew a thousand variations of the smile, found one that suited his leisurely mood, and said:
    ‘They’ve led us quite a dance. But we’re almost there. Don’t you feel it? I do.’
    The woman glanced back at this man. He had taken off the jacket that had been her most loving gift to him, and thrown it over the back of the chair. The shirt beneath was sweat-soddenat the armpits, and the flesh of his face looked waxen in the afternoon light. Despite all she felt for him – and that was enough to make her fearful of computation – he was only human, and today, after so much heat and travel, he wore every one of his fifty-two years plainly. In the time they had been together, pursuing the Fugue, she had lent him what strength she could, as he in his turn had lent her his wit, and his expertise in surviving this realm. The Kingdom of the Cuckoo, the