The kitchen smelled wonderful - its own bright, warm, fragrant little world. While George finished up the chops and braised the peas, I tidied up and set the table.

Picking up the paperback I had abandoned after breakfast, I glanced idly at the cover. It was a country house mystery set in Kent but the novel described an England I only dimly recognized. Decades before the Problem, the characters were accustomed to lazy summer evenings on the lawns and in the gardens, clandestine meetings at midnight on the manor grounds. Impossible to imagine adults behaving so today.

Our England was hemmed in by the Problem, children continually sacrificed to the Night Watch and the iron tombs, even our technology held back by interference from the scourge of Visitors.

I wondered if the world had seemed bigger to them, then - the future a promise and not a threat.

Of course eighty years ago I would almost certainly have been polishing banisters and scrubbing floors. As I'd rather take my chances with a dozen Type Twos every night than be anyone's servant, today suited me just fine.

I unboxed the cake and set it on the table along with our package, signing the card and forging George's scrawl, as he was somehow still covered in butter and garlic and flecks of mint.

Just as I finished laying the paper serviettes printed with cakes and balloons and emblazoned with "Happy Birthday," Lockwood appeared. He had stowed his rapier, freshened up, put on a pressed shirt and brushed - combed? - fixed - his hair.

He could have stepped out of the pages of my book, and not from below stairs.

"Ay, guv'nor, ooze birfday?" he asked, affecting the worst Cockney accent I had ever heard.

"Oh my poor ears! No wonder you nearly got yourself killed going door-to-door in Combe Carey, and the Winkmans sussed you out right away," scoffed George, struggling awkwardly out of his apron. "Face it, Lockwood: you are what you are - no use pretending to be anything else."

"And you can do better, I suppose?" riposted Lockwood, returning to his normal tones. "I'd like to hear you try!"

"I can't, and you never will. Unlike some people living in this house, I think I know my limits," George replied.

"Limits are for losers," observed Lockwood brightly, seating himself. "Limits are for other agencies."

George rolled his eyes, hitched up his pants and took his seat, pulling up to the table. "Limits prevent curiosity from turning into obsession. Limits stop brilliant young researchers from turning into sociopathic archivists. Limits make us who we are." He pushed his glasses up on his nose and his glance met mine: "Rocket ships and all."

He speared a great number of peas, and fell to eating. We all did, and silence reigned, punctuated by requests for seconds...and also, for me, by the merest whisper of a buzz, the barest trace of vibration inside the bones of my ears. Suddenly I felt the absence of the skull, and not just because the conversation had lagged - I needed someone else to confirm the teasing presence of that almost-noise. And, as a bonus, to take a few potshots at my companions, especially the suddenly sanctimonious George Cubbins.

Whatever else he might be, George was a good cook. And Lockwood was oddly expansive that night.

"George, you've outdone yourself," Lockwood's smile was relaxed and open. I warmed, although the praise wasn't directed at me. "Mother Cubbins must be so proud."

"Not a bit of it. My mother doesn't cook. Works a lot of extra hours at a textile factory in Merton, always rushing home just before curfew and rooting around for frozen packets and tins," George replied, pushing his plate away.

"Where did you learn to cook, then?" I asked.

"From my uncles. My mum's a bookkeeper but her three brothers own a farm near Swindon," answered George. "Used to be sent there for holiday each summer. A little like heaven. Good food, no rules, all the chores already taken."

"Lucky you - lucky us," returned Lockwood, once again including me in his mellow grin.

I surprised myself by chipping in. "Someone could have hidden a cure for Ghost Touch in our kitchen and Mam would never have found it. She could barely bring herself to boil water for tea." I paused. Talking about my childhood was a little like opening a rusty tap - it stuck at first, but then the memories flowed more easily.

"After my father died the station master used to send us the trolley leftovers, tongue or salmon on buttered rolls and gristly little meat pies," I continued. "I think that kept us from starving until I went to work and a few of my older sisters moved out or married off."

"Pretty rough, was it? Your dad a railroad man?" That from Lockwood, who had always avoided any discussions of family, his or anyone else's. Perhaps showing us Jessica's room had loosened him up.

"Just a porter - he died when I was five. Mam did laundry for the hotels in town. I was earning more than she was by the time I was eleven, and I swore I'd never clean up after someone else for a living. If you could call what Mam does living. Just sits in front of the television she bought with my paycheck..." I trailed off, aware that both Lockwood and George were staring at me. "I suppose I should be more grateful, I know," I finished lamely.

"Not at all," put in George. "I was just wondering if that's why you hate doing laundry so much, and why you never seem to enjoy my salmon sandwiches."

Lockwood seemed to take my self-reproach more seriously. "What good would gratitude do your mother, or you? You send a good bit of your pay home - I've seen you put it in the post. What did she ever do to deserve your affection, or earn your loyalty?" He paused for effect, but apparently it was a question and not a rhetorical device. "Well?" he pressed, waiting for an answer.

"My affect...my affection?" I stammered. Discussing this with Lockwood made feel faintly queasy, like the onset of miasma.

"Nothing, that's what I'd say." He pushed his chair back from the table and took his plate to the sink. "We don't owe them anything," he said, turning back to me.

He met my eyes. "We're on our own, and that's the way we like it, isn't it, Lucy?"

His smile lit up the room.