“Logan glanced at the clock on the cooker: nearly five minutes fast. The room was bathed in the pale orange glow of the overcast sky, the back garden a jungle of silhouettes and shadows through the window. He filled the kettle, then poured half of it out, before sticking it on to boil. The growing rumble drowned out the babble on his Airwave handset as DI Bell got his firearms team into place.”

“The night breathed through the apartment like a dark animal. The ticking of a clock. The groan of a floorboard as he slipped out of his room. All was drowned by its silence. But Jacob loved the night. He felt it on his skin like a promise. Like a cloak woven from freedom and danger.”

“The blast of hot air lifted Tazeem from his feet and threw him onto his back in the road. He blinked up into the night sky; raindrops glowed orange as they fell towards the earth.”

“As I read out the text, through a half-opened window near me, two large withered oak-leaves silently floated into the little church in the view of all the congregation. I could not but pause for a minute till they should preach their sermon before I began mine.”

“Glancing in through the open door to Xav’s room, I saw Zed stretched out on the queen mattress, his arm hugging a pillow as if he felt Sky’s absence at his side.”

“Thin clouds form, and the shadows lengthen out. They have no breadth, as summer shadows have; there are no leaves on the trees or fat clouds in the sky to make them thick. They are gaunt, mean shadows that bite the ground like teeth. As the sun nears the horizon, its benevolent yellow begins to deepen, to become infected, until it glares an angry inflamed orange. It throws a variegated glow over the horizon.”