Oxford, 1877:

Sam was determined that, no matter how many people in Oxford seemed to like Jack Cade – no matter how easy he was to like – no matter how much time he spent cheerfully drinking himself into oblivion – he was not going to forget how dangerous the man was.

He called at the Faculty of Demonic Speculation every day, half-hoping to hear stories of violent conduct just so he could be proved right. But Alice Darwin and Dr Petrescu had already started treating the General with all the fond contempt that doctors reserve for their regular patients. 

When Sam called that morning, Dr Petrescu was in the operating theatre – a horrible wooden room laid out like a stadium, with tiers of seats rising around a central platform. It was in the cellar, because it had been used for dissections back in the days when dissections were still illegal. And its walls were padded for soundproofing, because the person on the dissecting table hadn't always been dead.

Nowadays, it was just a laboratory, or a room for conducting medical exams. Jack was usually to be found sitting on the edge of the dissecting table, swinging his legs over the side, and cheerfully enduring some kind of test – whether it was Dr Petrescu tapping his knees with a hammer, or Mrs Darwin taking his pulse in her stern but seductive way. Sam wasn't sure what any of these tests were supposed to prove, but then he treasured his ignorance of what went on in this room.

Jack was not perched merrily on the dissecting table today, however. Today, it was just Dr Petrescu, mixing up a beaker of some caustic-smelling chemical. He ruffled his moustache in greeting when he saw Sam coming down the steps.

"You have come for another report on the innocuous Mr Cade? This morning, his blood pressure was 120 over 80, with a pulse of seventy beats per minute. He rated his desire to kill as 'average', but 'average' for him is not average, so we've seen a marked improvement in the past few weeks."

Sam waved aside all this alarmingly scientific information. He always felt panicky down here, looking at the leather straps on the side of the dissecting table.

And he hadn't felt comfortable in Dr Petrescu's presence ever since that first interview with Jack Cade in the Senior Common Room. He kept staring at him and thinking: Ten thousand. Ten thousand dead new-breeds. He wasn't even sure he could visualize that many people. Ten thousand. 

How many people would fit in this room, he wondered? A hundred? And this cheerful doctor with the large moustache had been responsible for killing a hundred times that number. A hundred versions of this room, packed solid with conscious, feeling life-forms. How were you even supposed to come to terms with it, let alone atone for it?

"Has he been behaving himself?" said Sam, in an effort to cut short his inner monologue.

"Extremely," said Dr Petrescu.

Sam didn't like the sound of that. Perhaps it was just Dr Petrescu's strange way with the English language, but he made it sound as though Jack was straining every fibre of his being to behave himself, and that it wouldn't be long before he snapped.

"And is he--" Sam waved a hand vaguely, "co-operating with your experiments?"

"Oh yes," said Dr Petrescu. "And, I'm bound to say, my compound is a lot gentler than some of the chemicals he freely chooses to imbibe on a daily basis."

Sam gave him a sharp look. "Are you sure it's a good idea to let him have alcohol? And – whatever else he has? It can't be good for him, can it?"

"As a doctor, I would say not," said Dr Petrescu. "As a practical man, however, I would never underestimate the value of distractions. We do not know what other poisons he may be struggling under."

"And what does he do with his time? Apart from imbibing chemicals?"

"He talks to people," said Dr Petrescu, taking a pinch of yellowish powder from a jar and sprinkling it into his beaker, where it began to fizz enthusiastically.

"What people?"

"All kinds of people," said the doctor. "Publicans, drovers, gypsies, college scouts, policemen – anyone he comes across."

"What does he talk to them about?"

Dr Petrescu was now leaning so close over his beaker that the bristles of his moustache were in danger of getting wet. "Nothing of consequence. He asks them about their routines – when they make their patrols, when they lock up, the kinds of people that come into their bars. He wants to know how the city works."

Sam half-closed his eyes, torn between fury and resignation. "Why? What does he want?"

Dr Petrescu's moustache broadened into a smile. "I don't believe we have anything he wants. I think he just does it to keep his hand in."

"Has he ever been violent?"

The doctor straightened up and gave Sam a thoughtful look. "Once, perhaps," he said, with a one-shouldered shrug. "I was reading the paper in the Faculty Lounge a few nights ago, and I happened to remark about the story I was reading."

"What story?" said Sam quickly, thinking of uprisings and revolutions.

"You haven't been reading the papers much yourself, then? There's only really been one story for the past few weeks."

Sam frowned. "Are you talking about the death of Robin Crake?"

The doctor nodded. "A rather underwhelming incident, I gather. Shot in the back over an unpaid bill. Although he had committed so many lurid crimes in the past that the papers still found quite a lot to say about it. Apparently, the street patterers in London were selling broadsides of his dying lament within a few hours of his death. They probably had one ready-penned, in case of emergencies."

"What has this got to do with Jack?"

The doctor sighed, cast one longing look at his beaker, and then set it aside. "I think I said something along the lines of: 'I see somebody's finally killed the Kraken', and he stared at me for a few moments, and then vaulted over the table – as though it would have taken too much time to go around it – and snatched the paper out of my hand."

"What did he say?"

"Well, nothing while he was reading. And then he tossed the paper aside and said that it was useless. He said: 'They don't tell you anything – what time it happened, where he was, who was with him. Have you read about this story before? Why didn't you say anything? And this is the morning edition! Where's the evening edition? What business do you have reading the morning edition at 7pm? All the news in it is already twelve hours old!'"

Dr Petrescu smiled, as though all this shouting had produced a fond impression on him. "As you can imagine, I was very curious to know why any of this was important – but he waved me aside as though I was quite as useless as the paper, and rang the bell for the maid. It made me realize what it must have been like to be in his army during one of his campaigns. He was suddenly all concentrated urgency – despite the fact that he'd consumed half a bottle of whisky already that evening. He kept saying that the important thing was not to panic. He called in John Danvers and told him to buy a copy of every paper that mentioned this story. Then he summoned Sarah and said he wanted every scrap of information that wasn't in the papers – what people were saying in the servant's hall at New College, what they thought about the matter in The Lamb and Flag and The Eagle and Child." Dr Petrescu stopped and then added courteously, "Those are pubs on St Giles's--"

"I know what they are!" Sam snapped. "What did he do then?"

"Then he said he was going out to send a telegram. I said if he was going to be on the streets, I ought to go with him, for his own protection. He didn't actually protest, but I got the definite impression that he was going anyway, with or without me, and that, if I wanted to accompany him, I had better be quick. So I put on my hat and coat, and we walked very briskly to the telegraph office."

"Who did he telegraph?"

"I gather it was one of his old Corporals who now works as a detective at Scotland Yard."

"And what did the telegram say?" said Sam urgently. "Did you see it? Can you remember?"

Dr Petrescu gave him a supercilious look, as though these doubts about his memory were quite offensive to him. Then he cleared his throat and said, "Please confirm – stop – Robin Crake the only casualty? – stop – No other deaths in vicinity?"

The doctor leaned forward and added, "Between you and me, I think he was asking a little much with that last question. Robin Crake was killed in London, after all, where there are a dozen deaths a day in any vicinity you care to name. A telegraph detailing all the other deaths in the vicinity would doubtless be a very expensive one. But I didn't point this out, since he seemed to be in such an agitated frame of mind. We waited in the telegraph office for half an hour – with Jack pacing up and down the whole time, and responding irritably to every question I put to him. And then his friend wired back to confirm that Robin Crake had indeed been the only casualty of the incident, and Jack seemed almost magically to become his old, casual self again – if a little shaken. He seemed much more cheerful after that. He even insisted we go for a nightcap at The Old Tom." Dr Petrescu leaned forwards again. "That's another tavern--" 

But he was frozen into silence by Sam's glare.

"And that's it?" said Sam, after a sufficiently uncomfortable pause. "He didn't tell you why he'd been so upset?"

"It was perhaps none of my business?" the doctor suggested, with an innocent shrug. "In any case, it seemed simple enough. He had expected somebody to be with Robin Crake, and he was concerned about their safety."

"But he's never concerned about anybody's safety!" Sam protested.

"Well," said Dr Petrescu, turning back to his beaker, with the air of a man who had been away from science for much too long. "There's a first time for everything. Isn't that what you Englishmen say?" 

***

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