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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.
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