'Nine o'clock on Monday, at the very latest,' said Mr Speedy. 'That's when Suburbia World Plc will open to the public.'

Sunday came and Sunday went.

It really shouldn't have gone quite so quickly, but it did. Derek spent it attending to company business. And wandering the streets shouting, 'Kelly, Kelly, where are you?'

Many upstairs windows raised to Derek's shoutings.

And many chamber pots were hurled down on his head.

But Sunday came and Sunday went and Derek, now in a state of high anxiety, raved about the streets and raved into pubs and was thrown out of pubs and raved about the streets some more. On any normal day he would no doubt have been arrested. But there was nothing normal whatsoever about this particular Sunday. There were no policemen to be seen, only whistling workers. And there seemed to be fewer and fewer Brentonians about. The streets were virtually deserted.

Derek saw Mad John, but he didn't bid him hello.

Mad John was in the doorway of the charity shop, rooting out shoes from the black bin liners. He looked up briefly as Derek raved by, but feeling assured that this wasn't some upstart out to get his job, continued with his rooting and his shouting at shoes.

Eventually Derek went home.

He had no other choice. He was all raved out. And he had done all that he could for the Company. Leo had told him that everything was under control and that he should go and rave somewhere else or he really would have the dogs set on him. So Derek finally went home. There was really nothing else he could do.

And Derek, now with three days' stubble on his face, threw himself onto his bed and wept. She had gone. She had vanished. Raptured away. Suddenly it seemed all so possible. He could no longer ignore all the vanishing Brentonians. Pretend it wasn't happening. It was. It really was. Never a religious man, nor even a religious boy, Derek now questioned his faith. It didn't stand a lot of questioning. He didn't have one. It wasn't that he didn't believe in God. It was just that, well, he was young, and God was for old people. Old people coming close to death and beginning to worry. What if there was a God? Perhaps he should believe. He didn't want to end up in hellfire and damnation for eternity. Perhaps now would be the time to do a bit of praying. Best to stay on the safe side. And things of that nature.

But that was for old people. Yes, sure there were young Christians and young Runies, plenty of them. Runeianity was the fastest-growing religion of the day. The Prime Minister, Mr Doveston, was passing a bill to declare Runeianity the official religion of Great Britain.

And Runeianity did have the edge on Christianity when it came to having a good time. Hugo Rune had declared in his autohagiography, The Gospel according to Hugo Rune, that the only way to conquer the sins of the flesh was to try them out first. 'You have to know your enemy' Rune explained, and who was there alive to argue with such wisdom?

But Derek wasn't a Runie, nor was he a Christian. Nor was he anything else. But now, in his hour of need and his hour of loss, he really truly wished that he was.

Derek rose from his bed and locked his bedroom door, then he cleared a space on the carpet and knelt down in that space.

'Dear God,' prayed Derek. 'I expect you're a bit surprised to hear from me. Although if you know everything, then I suppose you're not. But I do want to ask you a favour. I know that people only pray to you when they want something. So that's why I'm praying to you. But you know that anyway. And it's not for me. Well, it is, sort of. But mostly it's for someone else. It's for Kelly. Kelly Anna Sirjan. One of your flock. I love her, God, and I miss her so much. Being away from her breaks my heart and I'm so afraid that something terrible has happened to her. And you'd know if it has. And if it has, will you please do something about it? Will you please bring her back to me, God? If you do, I promise that I'll try not to be such a prat in future. And not greedy. In fact I've got ten thousand pounds here and I'll give it all to charity. To the society for small and shoeless boys in need of a good hiding, or something. Anything you want, just you name it. I know it's not really my money, but you can have it. Please bring Kelly back to me unharmed. Please God, I beg you. Please. Amen. Love, Derek.'

And having prayed, Derek felt a lot better. No less fretful and no less worried, but a lot better in himself that he had prayed and so was, beneath all the greed and prattishness, ultimately a good person.

And, he noticed now, he was also a very hungry person, having not eaten a single thing all day. And a very thirsty person too.

So Derek went out again. Finally found a pub that he hadn't been thrown out of for raving, and as it was now too late in the evening to order a surf and turf, ordered ten packets of crisps instead and drank a great deal of Scotch.

And finally, crisp-filled and drunken, Derek staggered home, set his alarm clock, with inebriated care, for seven o'clock the following morning and dropped down, fully clothed and smelling bad and very stubbly now indeed, upon his single bed.

He did not sleep the sleep of the blessedly drunk. Derek slept the tossing terrible sleep of the sweating tossing troubled. Horrible dreams tormented him.

Kelly under attack from something monstrous. Something that was all-consuming, everywhere. A black spiralling, tangling network of worms and snakes and evil curly things. And Derek was powerless to help her. He was on the outside of something and she was deep within. It was all too terribly terrible. And rather awful as well.

Alarm bells rang and rang and rang.

And Derek awoke to find his alarm clock ringing.

It was Monday morning.

Seven of the clock.

And Derek knew, just knew, that this was going to be the worst day of his life.

'Kelly,' he whispered. 'Kelly, where are you? Please come back to me, Kelly. Please God, send her back to me. Kelly, oh Kelly, where are you?'

Kelly was no longer anywhere in particular.

When she performed the foolish, but purposeful, dance that Shibboleth had bobbed and bounced before her and vanished into wherever he vanished into, her first thoughts had been that she would very likely not be dancing out again.

She had put her trust in Shibboleth, and Kelly felt that this was probably a mistake. Normally she trusted but one person in the world. And this one person was Kelly Anna Sirjan.

Bright light opened up before her. A sky of blue with a big fat smiley sun. And chorusing sparrows on treetop perches. And snoozing tomcats and all. She was standing in the Butt's Estate, upon the area of grass before the Seamen's Mission.

'Brentford,' she said. 'I am back in Brentford.'

Kelly was not back in Brentford.

'I'm not back in Brentford,' she continued. 'This isn't Brentford. It's wrong.'

'Which bit is wrong?' The old man sat upon a bench. He smiled a toothless smile at Kelly. 'Which bit don't you like, my little dear?'

'Little dear?' Kelly viewed the ancient. He had the look of a man who had once been someone. Even though his frame was sunken under the weight of many years, there was still an alertness in that face. A fearsome intelligence. A vitality.

He was dressed in what had once been an expensive suit of Boleskine green tweed mix. It hung from his shoulders and its trouser cuffs draggled in the dirt.

'What immediately strikes you as wrong?' the ancient asked.

'All,' said Kelly. 'It isn't real. It's a simulation.'