Richard Emberton bent down and picked up the card that fluttered to his feet. He had been tube hopping all day, Covent Garden back to Kings Cross, to Waterloo and Victoria and finally Holborn and now he was walking back to Kings Cross St Pancras to stretch his legs and relax before taking yet another train home. The Knight of Cups. It seemed an extraordinary coincidence to come across the tarot twice in one day. That young woman at the station had read the tarot. He looked up and saw four young people walking ahead of him, a girl with black curls tumbling over a colourful printed scarf between three young men. More extraordinarily, she was carrying his lost umbrella. "Katerina!" he called.
     "Richard!" There was surprise and something else in the answering cry. It was too intense, too surprised, too relieved. Oddly, the party did not stop. "Katerina," he called again. "You've dropped a card and you have my umbrella." A curious tremor went through the party ahead of him and the four stopped and turned to face him but it seemed to him that the three men all stood too close to the girl between them. The men were all big and though they smiled they all had a feral look about them. But maybe he shouldn't be surprised. The girl was pretty feral herself. The largest of the three guys took the umbrella from Katerina's grasp and tossed it to him. "There y'are mate," he said. Richard caught the umbrella and smiled, he hoped, disarmingly. "Thanks," he said.
     "No problem." The three men turned away from him and Katerina turned too but there was something unmistakeably odd about the whole thing.
     "Katerina," called Richard for the third time.
     "What's the matter? Can't you see she's with friends?" said a second of her companions and this time there was no smile, only menace.
     "Sure, sure," said Richard placatingly. "But I think she has something else of mine." Hyena-man looked at her sardonically. "You're a real little thief, aren't ya." he remarked.
     "She's not a thief," said Richard, sure now that the girl from the station was in trouble. "And I don't think you're her friends."
     "So what's it to you?" said hyena-man.
     "She's my friend," said Richard. "And I fully intend to call the police if you don't let her come to me this minute." He brandished his mobile phone and dialled as he spoke. The blip, blip of the dial tone cut through the silence under the trees like the sound of unbending composure. One of the three turned to the man holding Katerina in his embrace and said softly. "We don't want trouble. She's not worth it."