'Nothing much.' The man who had his hand pressed firmly on his head laughed. 'Just. . . your soul.'

'Looks like a good one, too,' said the third man, who was holding some sort of humming meter and pointing it in my direction, 'lots of life in this one. The old man has only six days to run – we won't get a lot for that.'

I didn't like the sound of this, not one little bit.

'Move,' said the first man, indicating the doors.

'Where to?'

'Northside.'

'Over my dead body.'

'That's the po—'

The third man didn't finish his sentence. His upper torso exploded into a thousand dried fragments that smelled of mouldy vegetables. The first man whirled round and fired in the direction of the cafeteria but I seized the opportunity and ran back into the car park to take cover behind a parked car. After a few moments I peered cautiously round. Spike was inside, trading shots with the first man, who was pinned behind the presidential Bentley, still with his hand on his head. I cursed myself for giving up my weapon, but as I stared at the scene, the night-time, the motorway services, a sense of déjà vu welled up inside me. No, it was stronger than that – I had been here before, during a leap through time nearly three years ago. I witnessed the jeopardy I was in and left a gun for myself. I looked around. Behind me a man and a woman – Bowden and myself, in point of fact – were jumping into a Speedster – my Speedster. I smiled and dropped to my knees, feeling under the car tyre for the weapon. My hands closed around the automatic and I flicked off the safety catch and moved from the car, firing as I went. The first man saw me and ran for cover among the milling crowds, who scattered, terrified. I cautiously entered the now seemingly deserted services and rejoined Spike just inside the doorway of the shop. We had a commanding view of the stairs to the connecting bridge; no one was going northside without passing us. I dropped the magazine out of my automatic and reloaded.

'The tall guy is Chesney, my ex-partner from SO-17,' announced Spike as he reloaded his shotgun. 'The necktie covers the decapitation wound I gave him. He has to hold his head to stop it falling off

'Ah. I wondered why he was doing that. But losing his head – that makes him dead, right?'

'Usually. He must be bribing the gateway guardians or something. It's my guess he's running some sort of soul reclamation scam.'

'Wait, wait,' I said, 'slow down. Your ex-partner Chesney – who is dead – is now running a service pulling souls out of the netherworld?'

'Looks like it. Death doesn't care about personalities – he's more interested in meeting quotas. After all, one departed soul is very like another.'

'So—'