It seemed scarcely a moment since she had closed her eyes, yet already the morning sun was waking her as it crept around the curtain and began to shine on her pillow. She turned over irritably, resenting the unwanted intrusion. The past few weeks had been hard, with days of poorly digested snacks washed down by nights of too little sleep, and her body ached from being stretched too tightly between her editor's deadlines.
She pulled the duvet more closely around her, for even in the glare of the early summer sun she felt a chill. It had been like that ever since she had left Yorkshire almost a year before. She had hoped she could leave the pain behind her but it cast a long, cold shadow which seemed to follow her everywhere, particularly into her bed. She shivered, and buried her face in the lumpy pillow.
She tried to be philosophical. After all, she no longer had any emotional distractions to delay or divert her, just the challenge of discovering whether she really did have what it took to become the best political correspondent in a fiercely masculine world But it was bloody difficult to be philosophical when your feet were freezing.
Still, she reflected, sex as a single girl had proved to be excellent basic training for politics - the constant danger of being seduced by a smile or a whispered confidence, the unending protestations of loyalty and devotion which covered, just for a while, the bravado, the exaggeration, the tiny deceits which grew and left behind only reproach and eventually bitterness.
And in the last few weeks she had heard more outrageous and empty promises than at any time since - well, since Yorkshire. The painful memories came flooding back and the chill in her bed closed unbearably around her.
With a sigh Mattie Storin threw back the duvet and clambered out of bed.
As the first suggestion of dusk settled across the June skies, four sets of HMI mercury oxide lamps clicked on with a dull thud, illuminating the entire building with 10,000 watts of high intensity power. The brilliant beams of light pierced deep behind the mock Georgian facade, seeking out and attacking those inside. A curtain fluttered at a third floor window as someone took a quick glance at the scene outside before retreating quickly.
The moth also saw the lamps. It was resting in a crevice in the mortar of the building, waiting for the approaching dusk. As the shafts of light began to pierce through its drowsiness, the moth began to tingle with excitement.
The lamps glowed deep and inviting, like nothing it had ever known. It stretched its wings as the light began to warm the early evening air, sending a tremor throughout its entire body. The moth was drawn as if by a magnet and, as it approached, the glow of the lamps became more intense and hypnotic. The moth had never felt like this before. The light was as brilliant as the sun yet much, much more approachable.
Its wings strained still harder in the early evening air, forcing its body along the golden river of light. It was a source of unimaginable power which seemed to be dragging the willing moth ever deeper into its grasp. Nearer and nearer it flew - until, with one final triumphant thrust, it was there!
There was a bright flash and crackle as the moth's body hit the lens a millisecond before its wings wrapped around the searing glass and vaporised. A charred and blackened carcass fell back from the lamp towards the ground. The night had gained the first of its victims.
A police sergeant cursed as she tripped over one of the heavy cables. The electrician looked the other way. After all, where the hell was he supposed to hide the miles of wiring which now ran around the square. The graceful Wren church of St John peered down darkly in disapproval. You could almost feel it wanting to shake itself free of the growing crowds of technicians and watchers who now clung tenaciously around its footings. The ancient steeple clock had long since stopped at twelve, as if the church was willing time to stand still and trying to hold back the encroachment and pressures of the modern age. But like looting heathens they swarmed over and around it more vigorously with every passing minute.
Above the church's four soaring limestone towers, the dusk was slowly spreading red streaks through the skies over Westminster. Yet the day was far from over, and it would be many hours before the normal gentility of Smith Square crept back over the piles of discarded rubbish and empty bottles.
The few local residents who had remained in the square throughout the devastation of the campaign gave up a silent prayer to St John and his Creator that at last it was almost over. Thank God elections only happen every three or four years.
High above the square, in a portable cabin perched temporarily on the flat roof of party headquarters, the Special Branch detectives in their election base were taking advantage of the relative lull while the senior politicians were out of London making one last effort in their constituencies. A poker school was in full session in one comer, but the detective inspector had declined to join in. He had better ways of losing his money. All afternoon he had been thinking of the WPC who worked on traffic control at Scotland Yard, all starched efficiency on duty and unrestrained passion off. He hadn't seen his wife since the start of the campaign nearly a month before, but he hadn't seen the WPC either. Now his first free weekend beckoned, and he would have to choose between the open pleasures of his mistress and the increasing suspicions of his wife. He knew that his wife would not believe him if he told her he was on protection duty again this weekend, and he had spent all afternoon trying to decide whether he cared.
He cursed silently to himself as he listened once more to the raised voices inside him, tearing him in different directions as they argued between themselves. It was no damned good; the decisiveness which he had displayed to all of his police promotion boards had simply deserted him. He would have to do what he always did in such situations - let the cards decide.
Ignoring the jibes of the poker school, he took out a pack of cards and slowly began building the base of a house of cards. He had never got above six levels before; if he got up to seven now, he would spend the weekend with the WPC and to hell with the consequences.
He decided to give Fate a helping hand and reinforced the base with a double layer of cards. It was cheating, of course, but wasn't that what it was all about? He lit a cigarette to calm his nerves, but the smoke only got in his eyes, so he decided on a cup of coffee instead. It was a mistake. As the strong dose of caffeine hit his stomach, he felt the little knot give an extra twist of tension and the cards began to tremble in his hand.
Slowly, carefully so as not to disturb the rising construction of cards, he got up from the table and walked to the cabin door, taking in the view as he gulped down the fresh evening air. The roof tops of London were bathed in the red glow of the setting sun, and he imagined himself on some Pacific island, stranded alone with the incandescent WPC and a magical supply of ice cold lager. He felt better now, and with fresh determination returned to the cards.
The cards seemed to rise effortlessly in front of him. He had now reached the sixth level, as high as his card houses had ever gone before, and he started quickly on the seventh level so as not to destroy his rhythm. Two more cards to go - he was nearly there! But as the penultimate card got to within half an inch of the top of the tower, his hand began to shake again. Damn the caffeine!
He cracked his knuckles to relax his fingers, and picked up the card once more. With his left hand clamped firmly around his right wrist for extra support, he guided the card slowly upwards and sighed in relief as he watched it come to rest gently on top of the others. One more to go, but try as hard as he could he was unable to stop the tremble. The tower had become a great phallic symbol, his mind could see nothing but her body, and the harder he tried to control it the more his hand shook. He could no longer feel the card, his fingers had gone numb. He cursed Fate and implored it for just one last favour. He sucked in another lungful of breath, positioned the shaking card a half inch above the tower and, scarcely daring to look, let the card fall. It dropped precisely into its appointed place.
Fate, however, had other ideas. Just as the inspector watched the final card complete his masterpiece, the first cool breeze of evening passed across the top of Smith Square, lightly kissed the tall towers of St John's, and wafted through the door of the cabin which the inspector had left open. It nudged gently into the house of cards, which first trembled, then twisted, and finally crashed to the table top with a roar which cut dead the inspector's inner cry of triumph and echoed inside his head as loudly as if the house had been built of brick and steel.