They all went to the kitchen. Peggy went via the bedroom. She put the Tamagotchi phone on the table in front of Dell and sat down. ‘We probably don’t need this anymore.’

‘Don’t we?’ Dell said.

‘Yeah. I don’t think so,’ Greta said. ‘But – thank you.’

‘Yeah,’ Peggy said. ‘Thank you. But you could have been way more helpful.’

Dell shrugged. ‘Could I?’

‘What have you been doing?’ Greta said. She was spreading Dijon mustard on the bread.

‘Nothing much,’ Dell said.

‘You weren’t dead, though,’ Peggy said.

‘No.’

‘Where were you?’ Greta said.

‘Well, I wasn’t dead for very long, at least,’ Dell said. ‘It was the shortest amount of time – like, for the time it takes to walk through a door, I was dead. Then I was here.’

‘When did you get here?’ Greta asked.

‘Just before two o’clock,’ Dell said.

Dell was eating the sandwich now and shaking her head.

‘Yesterday?’

‘Yesterday.’ That was right when there had been three of them.

‘Where did you arrive?’

‘Next to Heidi,’ Dell said.

‘Like this?’ Greta said, pointing between herself and Peggy.

‘No,’ Dell said. She’d finished the sandwich now and was eating the chips.

‘Do you want another sandwich?’ Peggy asked.

‘Yeah,’ Dell said.

‘Did you do this?’ Peggy was waving her hand at Greta and back at herself.

‘I don’t think so,’ Dell said. ‘Maybe.’

‘How did you get the Tamagotchi phone to us?’ Greta asked.

‘I didn’t.’ Dell’s mouth was full, and she pulled out an identical Tamagotchi phone and put it on the table. ‘When I got here, I was holding a bag and that was in it – along with this phone.’ She picked up the smartphone to indicate that this was the phone she meant, and then checked it for messages.

Peggy and Greta looked at the Tamagotchi phones. Dell put down the smartphone. ‘I thought it was like a loot box,’ she said.

‘But what about the Game & Watch?’ Greta said. She had the notebook and was flipping through the pages.

‘Oh,’ Dell said. ‘Yeah. I totally put that in Heidi’s bag. A friend was coming up and I got a lift with them and I broke into her house and I left it there. I thought she’d see it and call me.’

‘And the cheese grater?’ Peggy said.

‘Stole it from work,’ Dell said.

‘And the right change?’

‘Huh?’ She looked up at them now from her sandwich.

‘We always have the right change.’

‘Wow,’ Dell said. ‘Yeah, I had nothing to do with that.’ Her mouth was full.

‘Did you really come on a bus?’ Peggy said, but Dell was looking at her smartphone now and sending a message. ‘Who are you talking to?’ Peggy asked.

‘No one,’ Dell said.

‘You don’t know,’ Peggy said.