Despite her defiance, her voice trembled. She was pliable, he sensed; despairing even. Fearing insanity might claim her again.

'I've missed your company.' he said, attempting to look steadily at her face. 'We worked well together.' 'You've got new allies now.' she replied. 'You heard?'

'My sisters have been with you now and then.' The thought did not comfort him. 'Do you trust Hobart?' 'He serves his purpose.' 'Which is?' 'To find the carpet.' 'Which he hasn't done.'

'No. Not yet.' He tried to stare straight at her; tried to give her a loving look. 'I miss you.' he said. 'I need your help.' Her palate made a soft hissing sound, but she didn't reply. 'Isn't that why you brought me here?' he said, 'so that we could begin again?'

'No.' she replied. 'I'm too weary for that.' Hungry as he was to walk in the Fugue once again, the thought of picking up the chase where they'd left it - moving from city to city whenever the wind carried a rumour of the Weave - did not enthrall him either. 'Besides .. .' she said, '... you've changed.'

'No.' he protested. 'I still want the Weave.'

'But not to sell it.' she said. 'To rule it.'

'Where did you get that notion from?' he protested, offering an ingenuous smile. He could not read the ruin before him well enough to know whether his pretence worked. 'We had a pact, Goddess.' he said. 'We were going to bring them into the dust.'

'And you want that still?'

He hesitated, knowing that he risked everything with a lie. She knew him well - she could probably see into his skull if she chose to; he might lose more than her company if she sensed deceit in him. But then, she was changed, wasn't she? She came before him as spoiled goods. Her beauty, the one ungovernable power she had always had over him, was gone. She was the supplicant here, though she was trying to pretend otherwise. He risked the lie.

'What I want is what I've always wanted.' he said. 'Your enemies are my enemies.'

Then we'll lay them low.' she said. 'Once and for all.'

Somewhere in the maze of her face a light ignited, and the human dust on the shelves at his side began to dance.

VI.

THE BRITTLE MACHINE.

1.

On the morning of the second of February, Cal found Brendan dead in bed. He had died, the doctor reported, an hour before dawn; simply given up and slipped away in his sleep. His mental processes had begun to deteriorate rapidly, about a week before Christmas.

On some days he'd call Geraldine by his wife's name, and take Cal for his brother. The prognosis had not been good, but nobody had expected this sudden exit. No opportunity for explanations or fond farewells. One day he was here, the next he could only be mourned.

Much as Cal had loved Brendan, he found grief difficult. It was Geraldine who wept; Geraldine who had all the proper sentiments to hand out when the neighbours came to offer their condolences. Cal could only play the part of the grieving child, not feel it. All he felt was ill at ease.

That feeling grew stronger as the cremation approached. He was increasingly detached from himself, viewing his absence of emotion with a disbelieving eye. It seemed suddenly there were two Cals. One, the public mourner, dealing with the business of death as propriety demanded, the other a coruscating critic of the first, calling the bluff of every cliche and empty gesture. It was Mad Mooney's voice, this second: the scourge of liars and hypocrites. 'You're not real at all,' the poet would whisper. 'Look at you! Sham that you are!'

This dislocation brought strange side-effects; most significantly, the dreams that now returned to him. He dreamt himself floating in air as clear as love's eyes; dreamt trees heavy with golden fruit; dreamt animals that spoke like people, and people who roared. He dreamt of the pigeons too, several times a night, and on more than one occasion he woke certain that 33 and his mate had spoken to him, in their bird way, though he could make no sense of their advice.

The idea was still with him by day, and - though he knew the notion was laughable - he found himself quizzing the birds as he fed them their daily bread, asking them, half in jest, to give up what they knew. They just winked their eyes, and grew fat.

The funeral came and went. Eileen's relatives came across from Tyneside, and Brendan's from Belfast. There was whisky, and Guinness for Brendan's brothers, and ham sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and when the glasses and the plates were empty they all went home.

2.

'We should have a holiday,' Geraldine suggested a week after the funeral. 'You haven't been sleeping well.'

He was sitting at the dining-room window, watching the garden.

'We need to do some work on the house,' he said. 'It's depressing me.'

'We can always sell it,' she replied.

It was a simple solution, and one his torpid mind hadn't conceived of. That's a bloody good idea,' he said. 'Find somewhere without a railway at the bottom of the garden.'

They started searching for another house immediately, before the better weather inflated prices. Geraldine was in her element, leading him round the properties with a seamless outpouring of observations and ideas. They found a modest terraced house in Wavertree which they both liked, and put an offer in for it, which was accepted. But the Chariot Street house proved more difficult to move. Two purchasers came to the brink of signing contracts, then withdrew. Even Geral-dine's high spirits lost buoyancy as the weeks drew on.

They lost the Wavertree house at the beginning of March, and were obliged to begin the search over again. But their enthusiasm was much depleted, and they found nothing they liked. And still, in dreams, the birds spoke. And still he couldn't interpret their wisdom.

VII.

TALES OF SPOOK CITY.

1.

Five weeks after Brendan's remains had been scattered on the Lawn of Remembrance, Cal opened the door to a man with a wry, ruddy face, sparse hair brushed ear to ear to shelter his pate, and the stub of a hefty cigar between his fingers.

'Mr Mooney?' he said, and without waiting for confirmation, went on: 'You don't know me. My name's Gluck.' Transferring his cigar from right to left he gripped Cal's hand and shook it vigorously. 'Anthony Gluck,' he said. The man's face was vaguely familiar; from where, Cal wracked his brain to remember.

'I wonder,' Gluck said, 'if I may have a word with you?'

'I vote Labour,' said Cal.

'I'm not canvassing. I'm interested in the house.' 'Oh,' said Cal, beaming. 'Then come on in,' and he led Gluck through into the dining-room. The man was at the window in an instant, peering into the garden. 'Ah!' he said. 'So this is it.'

'It's chaos at the moment,' said Cal with faint apology. 'You left it untouched?' said Gluck. 'Untouched?'

'Since the events in Chariot Street.' 'Do you really want to buy the house?' said Cal. 'Buy?' said Gluck. 'Oh no, I'm sorry. I didn't even realize it was for sale.' 'You said you were interested -'

'So I am. But not to buy. No, I'm interested in the place because it was the centre of the disturbances last August. Am I right?'

Cal had only a patchwork memory of the events of that day. Certainly he remembered the freak whirlwind that had done so much damage in Chariot Street. He remembered the interview with Hobart quite clearly too; and how it had prevented his meeting with Suzanna. But there was much else - the Rake, the death of Lilia, indeed everything that sprang from the matter of the Fugue - that his mind had eclipsed. Gluck's enthusiasm intrigued him however. 'That was no natural event.' he said. 'Not by a long chalk. It was a perfect example of what we in the business call anomalous phenomena.' 'Business?'

'You know what some people are calling Liverpool these days?' 'No.'

'Spook City.' 'Spook City?'

'And with good reason, believe me.' 'What did you mean when you said business?' 'In essence it's very simple. I document events that defy explanation; events that fall outside the comprehension of the scientific community, which people therefore choose not to see. Anomalous phenomena.'

'This has always been a windy city,' Cal pointed out. 'Believe me,' said Gluck, 'there was more to what happened here last summer than a high wind. There was a house on the other side of the river simply reduced to rubble overnight. There were mass hallucinations that took place in broad daylight. There were lights in the sky - brilliant lights - witnessed by hundreds of people. All that and more happened in the vicinity of this city, over a two or three day time period. Does that sound like coincidence to you?' 'No. If you're sure it all -'

'All happened? Oh, it happened Mr Mooney. I've been collecting this kind of material for twenty years and more, collecting and collating it, and there are patterns in these phenomena.'