“Funny, Ms. Lane. I took a long lunch yesterday and went to Lisle Street. I tried to take a cab, but the driver insisted there was no such address and refused to go there. I ended up having to walk. Care to hear what I saw?”

“No. But I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me anyway,” I muttered, massaging my temples.

“The warehouse is still there, but the city around it seems to have been . . . forgotten. I mean, completely forgotten. The streets aren’t being cleaned. The trash isn’t being collected. The lamps are out. Sewage has backed up into the gutters. My cell phone couldn’t get a signal there. Right in the middle of the city, I couldn’t get a bloody signal!”

“Not getting what this has to do with me,” I said in my most bored voice.

He didn’t hear me, and I knew he was walking the desolate, debris-filled streets in his mind again. A Dark Zone doesn’t just look abandoned; it oozes death and decay, makes you feel slimy with it. It leaves an indelible mark on you. It will wake you up in the middle of the night, heart in your throat, terrified of the dark. I sleep with all the lights on. I carry flashlights, 24/7.

“I found cars abandoned in the middle of the streets with the doors wide open. Expensive cars. The kind that get stripped for parts before the owner can even return with petrol. Explain that,” he barked.

“Maybe Dublin’s crime rate is decreasing,” I offered, knowing it for the lie it was.

“It’s skyrocketing. Has been for months. Media’s been crucifying us over it.”

They certainly had. And after what I’d seen tonight, the local escalation in violent crime was a fact I was especially interested in. I had an idea germinating.

“There were piles of clothing outside the cars with wallets in the pockets. Some of them were stuffed with cash, just waiting to be stolen. For Christ’s sake, I found two Rolexes on the sidewalk!”

“Did you pick them up?” I asked with interest. I’d always wanted a Rolex.

“But you know what the strangest thing was, Ms. Lane? There were no people. Not a single one. As if everyone had agreed at exactly the same moment to vacate twenty-some city blocks, right in the middle of whatever they were doing, without taking a single thing, not their cars, not even their clothes. Did they all walk out naked?”

“How would I know?”

“It’s happening right here, Ms. Lane. There’s an area missing on these maps right next to your bookstore. Don’t tell me you never look down that way when you leave.”

I shrugged. “I don’t leave much.”

“I follow you. You leave all the time.”