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The Super left Griffin in the park, overseeing vital work Bins and bushes had to be gone through Few killers were considerate enough to discard engraved calling cards or one-of-a-kind signet rings at the scene of the criht turn up a the used Durexes and Sky Ray wrappers

Carol Thatcher&039;s body was collected by an ambulance and sent for autopsy Bellaver found Kate space in one of B Division&039;s battered blue Austins She left her four-year-old red Mini Cooper in the Charlton car park

&039;We&039;ve invaded the local nick,&039; the Super told her &039;Dixon has set up an incident room The Shooter&039;s Hill woodentops aren&039;t happy about us getting co in Carol&039;s gentleman protector, one Timothy Lea From the state of Ti-up job of protecting her lately We can hold "living off i he knows Strehat&039;s this&039;

The car stopped

&039;Bloody students,&039; said Peter Steiger, the driver

&039;Not another demo!&039; Bellaver said &039;What is it this time? Ban the bomb? Stop the War? Free the pit-ponies?&039;

A solemn, fancy-dress funeral procession blocked the road Whitefaced youths in black robes and cowls carted a twelve-foot cardboard coffin with &039;Old Britannia&039; scrawled in its side in red paint A mime brass band waved silent instruments Some wore distinctive black-and-white striped scarves

&039;It&039;s Rag Week,&039; said Steiger

&039;Stone the crows and plough on through You have a horn, , sir,&039; the driver protested

Bellaver leant over and punched the horn Students turned and leered, snarling through kabuki s over real ones Most were vae than their dress-up costu elders There&039;d been atroyds of the &039;80s What happened to the that would happen to these sharp kids They&039;d die off or grow up

As a last resort, the Super turned on the nee-naw-nee-naw When a passing police siren ht howthe two-tone was if you were inside the cop car She felt the noise in her teeth At least the siren startled the students intoway

Bellaver wound down theand shouted, &039;Turn out your pockets, get your hair cut&039;

The coffin fell, disclosing a giant white papier mache skeleton Packets of pills hit the street

The crowd hter&039;s at the University of Watermouth,&039; Bellaver said &039;She tells her &039;s better than being a copper&039;

The students were froe well away from the city centre It didn&039;t have the firebrand rep of the LSE but was a minor hub of suburban student unrest Vice-Chancellor Walter Goodrich was one of those Establishment worthies constitutionally unable to open histhe sale of Socialist Vampire outside lecture halls had led to scuffles between staff and bussed-in radicals A the first institutions to boast a School of Vampirism, St Bartolph&039;s had made controversial appointments Kate was appalled that Caleb Croft, her least-favourite vay Croft, Dracula&039;s Chief of Secret Police during the Terror, had lodged in the security services for the best part of sixty years before retiring to teach

The Mail indicted St Bartolph&039;s as a hotbed of Maoist revolution The News of the Screws alleged kinky nude blood frolics in the Halls of Residence Bikini Girl ran a lay-out of topless student vairls in draest stories came out of the formerly obscure School of Botany After years of tedious, unfruitful research into fungus parasites on wheat, Professor Bowles-Ottery happened on a powerful, naturally-occurring hallucinogen His ergot derivative was a hit with astral voyagers and hippies who dreaded end EB Fern chewed Bowles-Ottery Pellets, known as BOP, like winegums Fern came to London to take personal receipt of an unprecedented New Worlds advance, but got distracted by BOP Moorcock had yet to see a word of Fern&039;s serial Dr Shah Fern had sent in seven rice paper Rorschach blots and said that was the first instal va themaster or conjurer, head-to-foot in black but for crilasses The new-born looked like a cock: livid and healthy, sculpted raven hair, Kirk Douglas chin All his teeth were fangs Such a handso warh

&039;Want a suspect?&039; she asked Bellaver

The policeracious vampire He wasn&039;t iit think he&039;s playing at?&039;

&039;He doesn&039;t think he&039;s playing,&039; she said

Steiger drove the procession The new-born buck swivelled, eyes on her He all but licked his lips

&039;Bring back National Service, I say,&039; muttered Bellaver

That face - red, red mouth, as if stained - would stick in her mind Who was the student leader? Greenwich&039;s answer to Dany le Rouge?

The cop shop on the corner of Well Hall Road was a redbrick castle, built on the site of yet another London gallows At least the conde the drop Shooter&039;s Hill was one of the highest points in London You could see for ht property here, following a fourteenth century instinct to put fortresses on top of er pulled up outside the police station in time for Kate to observe a textbook Good Cop/Bad Cop procedure A growling, red-faced detective in a stained, wide-collared suit dragged a longhaired, corandfatherly uniforeant offered the lad a cup of tea and his choice of biscuits

&039;Get inside, you horrible hairy,&039; shouted the detective, Jack Regan &039;Or we&039;ll have your lungs out for carrier bags&039;

&039;Mind how you go on the steps, son,&039; said the unifore Dixon &039;You don&039;t want to have a nasty accident&039;

Kate guessed the youth was the aforementioned Timothy Lea His muslin shirt was bunched up under his arrip on most of it Lea&039;s unbelted, bell-botto milk-chocolate-hite-tri the pave plasters for his footsies and shove him in an interview roo,&039; whined Lea

&039;That&039;s a double negative, son,&039; said Bellaver &039;You&039;d better sharpen up now you&039;re assisting the police with our enquiries If you never done nuffing, you hly yanked an arm Dixon politely helped with the other They could easily tear the poor kid in two Regan&039;s scowl and Dixon&039;s sry The terrified Lea hiter than a sheet fresh-washed in Omo Bellaver and Kate followed them into the station The local fuzz - all warm - kept out of B Division&039;s way, not wanting to appear ticked off by an undead invasion She spotted empty patches on a noticeboard and scrunched-up pro-Enoch posters in a wastepaper basket Even before running into Desk Sergeant Toenerally well-disposed towards &039;the vampire community&039; She&039;d lay odds that, around here, Drakky Bashing was considered high spirits rather than criminal assault

Choley had to let vaainst her The desk sergeant&039;s non-regulation hair crept over his collar His shted by a beauty mark on his cheek He had no crucifix to hand so he barred her ith a lengthy for and Dixon a born beat-walker; different - the sort of police who&039;d done hen Caleb Croft was in charge A self-satisfied sadist, his position gave hih power to be exactly as uts to wade into a dee, and get sick jollies, from behind a desk He behaved as if stripes made him untouchable For all she knew, they did

&039;What&039;s the hold-up, Skip?&039; Bellaver asked

Kate handed over her filled-in form Choley picked up the paper by a corner, as if it were contae to her shirt, effecting an accidental nipple-knuckling in the process He s pulse

Being a vaun on your hip Every irritation was a reminder you were lethal It&039;d be so easy to let the teeth slide out

She kept her h tiet settled in an interview rooh a one-way eants, Lea had reverted to a sullen composure He wasn&039;t under arrest, so his pockets hadn&039;t been emptied With a pencil-stub, he drew a naked, headless, limbless woman on the table top Not the first art on this classic theme scratched into the surface