‘Where are Ying Yue and Wang Shu?’

‘I came to fetch you because I didn’t feel comfortable showing them around on my own,’ Charles says limply.

Charles is illumined. But he’s still Charles.

Alas.

‘Do you feel different?’ Avigail wonders, inspecting Charles’s illumined face.

‘Sorry?’

‘Like soft water. You know how it is when water is hard – it’s been heavily processed, is full of chemicals – but then it’s filtered and it becomes kind of … softer … chalky?’

Charles gazes at Avigail for a few seconds and then says slowly, ‘I’m not sure if I’m really capable of answering that question, Avigail.’

‘Not to worry.’ Avigail shrugs. ‘I just wondered.’

‘I didn’t want to leave the door on the latch,’ Charles explains. ‘You have some … uh … soil on your skirt.’

Charles doesn’t want to admit that he has suddenly become nervous around Ying Yue. There’s a kind of …

What is it?

Impossible to say.

Something new.

Something distinctly alien.

‘It’s twelve years since the attempted burglary.’ Avigail dusts the mud off as she walks. ‘Last year there were six burglaries in Llandudno, which totals at 2.6 per cent of all crime in the town. Burglary is not a serious problem in Llandudno. It’s only a problem in Llandudno if you choose to make it a problem.’

‘There’s a small issue with the bailiff,’ Charles explains, ignoring this.

As they walk up the road and approach Charles’s house they stroll past a tiny, elderly man who is wearing a giant pair of dark glasses and holding a white cane. He is standing next to a large, blue, waste disposal bin. He is perfectly still.

The blind old man is illumined.

‘I see. Yes. Isn’t that your cat?’ Avigail points.

A hairless Sphynx cat is mooching down the road.

It is Morpheus. Charles curses and trots after Morpheus.

Morpheus is illumined.

Morpheus makes no attempt to avoid Charles on his approach. He is passive. Charles picks him up.

Illumined man. Illumined cat.

‘I pulled the door shut behind me,’ he grumbles.

‘I’ve no idea how he got out.’

‘Let’s get inside,’ Avigail suggests (determined to snap out of her stupid, trippy head-space), ‘and try to salvage what remains of this viewing, shall we?’

Charles follows Avigail back into the house. He senses that Avigail thinks he is the problem when in actual fact she is the problem. Yes. Avigail seems to be exhibiting a mode of behaviour which Grannon may well call ‘blame shifting’.

Avigail’s ‘Reality Filter’ is all fucked up, Charles thinks.

Seriously.

She’s nuts.

Crouching behind the wall like that?!

He puts Morpheus down and shuts the door.

Hmm. He shoots a bolt, thoughtfully.

The ‘somatic’ body? What is ‘the somatic body’? What did Grannon mean by ‘the somatic body’?

Must Google.

They find Wang Shu and Ying Yue in the kitchen. Wang Shu is on the phone talking in Chinese. Ying Yue is poking an inquisitive finger through a small hole in a pair of Charles’s Y-fronts which are hung on a large, rectangular drying rack.