Geraldine was still at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at him. She had successfully fought off tears.

‘And what am I supposed to tell them,' she demanded, ‘if they come looking for you?'

‘Say I came and went. Tell them the truth.'

‘Maybe I won't be here,' she said. Then, warming to the idea. ‘Yes. I don't think I'll be here.'

He had neither the time nor the words to offer any genuine solace.

‘Please trust me,' was all he could find to say. ‘I don't know what's happening any more than you do.'

‘Maybe you should see a doctor, Cal,' she said as he came downstairs. ‘Maybe ...' - her voice softened - ‘.... you're ill.'

He stopped his descent.

‘Brendan told me things -' she went on.

‘Don't bring Dad into this.'

‘No, listen to me,' she insisted. ‘He used to talk to me, Cal. Told me things in confidence. Things he thought he'd seen.'

‘I don't want to hear.'

‘He said he'd seen some woman killed in the back garden. And some monster on the railway track.' She smiled gently at the lunacy of this.

Cal stared down at her, suddenly sick to his stomach. Again, he thought: ,' know this.

‘Maybe you're having hallucinations too.'

‘He was telling stories to keep you amused,' said Cal. ‘He used to like to make stuff up. It was the Irish in him.'

‘Is that what you're doing, Cal?' she said, pleading for some reassurance. ‘Tell me it's a joke.'

‘I wish to God I could.'

‘Oh, Cal -'

He went to the bottom of the stairs and softly stroked her face.

‘If anyone comes asking -'

Til tell them the truth,' she said. ‘I don't know anything,'

Thank you,'

As he crossed to the front door she said:

‘Cal?'

‘Yes?'

‘You're not in love with this woman are you? Only I'd prefer you to tell me if you are,'

He opened the door. The rain slapped the doorstep.

‘I can't remember,' he said, and made a dash to the car.

3

After half an hour on the motorway the effects of a night without sleep, and all that the subsequent day had brought, began to catch up with Suzanna. The road in front of her blurred. She knew it was only a matter of time before she fell asleep at the wheel. She turned off the motorway at the first service stop, parked the car and went in search of a caffeine fix.

The cafeteria and amenities were thronged with customers, which she was thankful for. Amongst so many people, she was insignificant. Anxious about leaving the Weave a moment longer than she needed to, she purchased coffee from the vending machine rather than wait in a serpentine queue, then bought chocolate and biscuits from the shop and went back to the car.

Switching on the radio, she settled down to her stopgap meal. As she unwrapped the chocolate her thoughts went

again to Jerichau, the thief-magician, producing stolen goods from every pocket. Where was he now? She toasted him with her coffee, and told him to be safe.

At eight, the news came on. She waited for some mention of herself, but there was none. After the bulletin there was music; she let it play. Coffee drunk, chocolate and biscuits devoured, she slid down in the seat and her eyes closed to a jazz lullaby.

She was woken, mere seconds later, by a knocking on the window. There was a period of confusion while she worked out where she was, then she was wide awake, and staring with sinking heart at the uniform on the other side of the rain-streaked glass.

‘Please open the door,' the policeman said. He seemed to be alone. Should she just turn on the engine and drive away? Before she could reach any decision the door was wrenched open from the outside.

‘Get out,' the man said.

She complied. Even as she stepped from the car she heard the sound of soles on gravel on all sides of her.

Against the glare of the neon, a man stood silhouetted.

‘Yes,' was all he said, and suddenly there were men coming at her from all sides. She was about to dig for the menstruum, but the silhouette was approaching her, with something in its hand. Somebody tore the sleeve from her arm, she felt the needle slide into her exposed skin. The subtle body rose, but not quickly enough. Her will grew sluggish, her sight narrowed to a well-shaft. At the end of it, Hobart's mouth. She tumbled towards the man, her fingers gouging the slime on the walls, while the beast at the bottom roared its hosannas.

VIII

NEW EYES FOR OLD

The Mersey was high tonight, and fast; its waters a filthy brown, its spume grey. Cal leaned on the promenade railing and stared across the churning river to the deserted shipyards on the far bank. Once this waterway had been busy with ships, arriving weighed down with their cargo and riding high as they headed for faraway. Now, it was empty. The docks silted up, the wharfs and warehouses idle. Spook City; fit only for ghosts.

He felt like one himself. An insubstantial wanderer. And cold too, the way the dead must be cold. He put his hands in his jacket pocket to warm them, and his fingers found there half a dozen soft objects, which he took out and examined by the light of a nearby lamp.

They looked like withered plums, except that the skin was much tougher, like old shoe-leather. Clearly they were fruit, but no variety he could name. Where and how had he come by them? He sniffed at one. It smelt slightly fermented, like a heady wine. And appetizing; tempting even. Its scent reminded him that he'd not eaten since lunchtime.

He put the fruit to his lips, his teeth breaking through the corrugated skin with ease. The scent had not deceived; the meat inside did indeed have an alcoholic flavour, the juice burning his throat like cognac. He chewed, and had the fruit to his lips for a second bite before he'd swallowed the first, finishing it off, seeds and all, with a fierce appetite. Immediately, he began to devour another of them. He was suddenly ravenous. He lingered beneath the wind-buffeted lamp, the pool of light he stood in dancing, and fed his face as though he'd not eaten in a week.

He was biting into the penultimate fruit when it dawned on him that the rocking of the lamp above couldn't entirely account for the motion of the light around him. He looked down at the fruit in his hand, but he couldn't quite focus on it. God alive! Had he poisoned himself? The remaining fruit dropped from his hand and he was about to put his fingers down his throat to make himself vomit up the rest when the most extraordinary sensation overtook him.

He rose up; or at least some part of him did.

His feet were still on the concrete, he could feel it solid beneath his soles, but he was still floating up, the lamp shining beneath him now, the promenade stretching out to right and left of him, the river surging against the banks, wild and dark.

The rational fool in him said: you ‘re intoxicated; the fruits have made you drunk.

But he felt neither sick nor out of control; his sight (sights) were clear. He could still see from the eyes in his head, but also from a vantage point high above him. Nor was that all he could see. Part of him was with the litter too, gusting along the promenade; another part was out in the Mersey, gazing back towards the bank.

This proliferation of viewpoints didn't confuse him: the sights mingled and married in his head, a pattern of risings and fallings; of looking out and back and far and near.

He was not one but many.

He Cal; he his father's son; he his mother's son; he a child buried in a man, and a man dreaming of being a bird.

A bird!

And all at once it all came back to him; all the wonders he'd forgotten surged back with exquisite particularity. A thousand moments and glimpses and words.

A bird, a chase, a house, a yard, a carpet, a flight (and he the bird; yes! yes!); then enemies and friends; Shadwell, Immacolata; the monsters; and Suzanna, his beautiful