"You think they ran off together?" asked the stout man.
"Um, excuse me," said Maeve Livingstone, politely.
"It's possible. There's got to be some kind of simple explanation. The disappearance of Grahame Coats. The disappearance of Maeve Livingstone. At least we've got Nancy in custody."
"We certainly did not run off together," said Maeve, but they ignored her.
The two police officers got into the lift and slammed the doors behind them. Maeve watched them judder up and away, toward the top floor.
She was still holding her cell phone. It vibrated in her hand now and then began to play "Greensleeves." She glanced down at it. Morris's photograph filled the screen. Nervously, she answered the phone. "Yes?"
" 'Ullo love. How's tricks?"
She said, "Fine thank you." Then she said, "Morris?" And then, "No, it's not fine. It's all awful, actually."
"Aye," said Morris. "I thought it might be. Still, nothing that can be done about that now. Time to move on."
"Morris? Where are you calling from?"
"It's a bit complicated," he said. "I mean, I'm not actually on the phone. Just really wanted to help you along."
"Grahame Coats," she said. "He was a crook."
"Yes, love," said Morris. "But it's time to let all that go. Put it behind you."
"He hit me on the back of the head," she told him. "And he's been stealing our money."
"It's only material things, love," said Morris, reassuringly. "Now you're beyond the vale-"
"Morris," said Maeve. "That pestilent little worm attempted to murder your wife. I do think you should try to show a little more concern."
"Don't be like that, love. I'm just trying to explain-"
"I have to tell you, Morris, that if you're going to take that kind of attitude, I'll simply deal with this myself. I'm certainly not going to forget about it. It's all right for you, you're dead. You don't have to worry about these things."
"You're dead, too, love."
"That is quite beside the point," she said. Then, "I'm what?" And then, before he could say anything, Maeve said, "Morris, I said that he attempted to murder me. Not that he succeeded."
"Erm," the late Morris Livingstone sounded lost for words. "Maeve. Love. I know this may come as a bit of a shock to you, but the truth of the matter is that -"
The telephone made a "plibble" noise, and the image of an empty battery appeared on the screen.
"I'm afraid I didn't get that, Morris," she told him. "I think the telephone battery is going."
"You don't have a phone battery," he told her. "You don't have a phone. All is illusion. I keep trying to tell you, you've now transcended the vale of oojamaflip, and now you're becoming, oh heck, it's like worms and butterflies, love. You know."
"Caterpillars," said Maeve. "I think you mean caterpillars and butterflies."
"Er, that sounds right," said Morris's voice over the telephone. "Caterpillars. That was what I meant. So what do worms turn into, then?"
"They don't turn into anything, Morris," said Maeve, a little testily. "They're just worms." The silver phone emitted a small noise, like an electronic burp, showed the picture of an empty battery again, and turned itself off.
Maeve closed it and put it back into her pocket. She walked over to the nearest wall and, experimentally, pushed a finger against it. The wall felt clammy and gelatinous to the touch. She exerted a little more pressure, and her whole hand went into it. Then it went through it.
"Oh dear," she said, and felt herself, not for the first time in her existence, wishing that she had listened to Morris, who after all, she admitted to herself, by now probably knew rather more about being dead than she did. Ah well, she thought. Being dead is probably just like everything else in life: you pick some of it up as you go along, and you just make up the rest.
She walked out the front door, and found herself coming through the wall at the back of the hall, into the building. She tried again, with the same result. Then she walked into the travel agency that occupied the bottom floor of the building, and tried pushing through the wall on the west of the building.
She went through it, and came out in the front hall again, entering from the east. It was like being in a TV set and trying to walk off the screen. Topographically speaking, the office building seemed to have become her universe.
She went back upstairs to see what the detectives were doing. They were staring at the desk, at the debris that Grahame Coats had left when he was packing.
"You know," said Maeve helpfully, "I'm in a room behind the bookcase. I'm in there."
They ignored her.
The woman crouched down and rummaged in the bin. "Bingo," she said, and pulled out a man's white shirt, spattered with dried blood. She placed it into a plastic bag. The stout man pulled out his phone.
"I want Forensic down here," he said.
Fat Charlie now found himself viewing his cell as a refuge rather than as a prison. Cells were deep inside the building, for a start, far from the haunts of even the most adventurous birds. And his brother was nowhere to be seen. He no longer minded that nothing ever happened in cell six. Nothing was infinitely preferable to most of the somethings he found himself coming up with. Even a world populated exclusively with castles and cockroaches and people named K was preferable to a world filled with malignant birds that whispered his name in chorus.
The door opened.
"Don't you knock?" asked Fat Charlie.
"No," said the policeman. "We don't, actually. Your solicitor's finally here."
"Mister Merryman?" said Fat Charlie, and then he stopped. Leonard Merryman was a rotund gentleman with small gold spectacles, and the man behind the cop most definitely wasn't.
"Everything's fine," said the man who wasn't his solicitor. "You can leave us here."
"Buzz when you're done," said the policeman, and he closed the door.
Spider took Fat Charlie by the hand. He said, "I'm busting you out of here."
"But I don't want to be busted out of here. I didn't do anything."
"Good reason for getting out."
"But if I leave then I will have done something. I'll be an escaped prisoner."
"You're not a prisoner," said Spider, cheerfully. "You've not been charged with anything yet. You're just helping them with their inquiries. Look, are you hungry?"