'Chesney,' I muttered, looking around for a weapon, 'still in the soul reclamation business?'

'And how!'

'Touch me and I'll knock your block off

'Ooooh!' said Chesney. 'Don't flatter yourself, girlie - you've just been called to go northside, haven't you?'

'So?'

'Well, there's only one reason you go over there,' replied Chesney's sidekick with an unkindly laugh.

'You mean—?'

'Right,' said Chesney with a grin, 'you're dead.'

'Dead?'

'Dead. Join the club, sweetheart.'

'How can I be dead?'

'Remember the assassin at the Superhoop?'

I touched the hole in my head again.

'I was shot.'

'In the head. Get out of that one, Miss Next!'

'Landen must be devastated,' I murmured, 'and I have to take Friday for a health check-up on Tuesday.'

'Ain't none of your concern no longer!' sneered Chesney's sidekick, and they walked off, laughing loudly.

I turned to the steps of the pedestrian footbridge that led towards the northside and looked around. Oddly, I didn't feel any great fear about being dead - I just wished I'd had the chance to say goodbye to the boys. I took the first step on the staircase when I heard a screeching of tyres and a loud crash. A car had just pulled up outside the services, jumped the kerb and collided with a rubbish bin. A large man had leaped out and was running through the doors, looking up and down in desperation until he saw me. It was Spike.

'Thursday—!' he gasped. 'Thank heavens I got to you before you went across!'

'You're alive?'

'Of course. It took me two days driving up and down the M4 to get here. Looks like I was just in time.'

'In time? In time for what?'

'I'm taking you home.'

He gave me his car keys.

'That's the ignition but the engine starter is a push button in the middle of the dash.'

'Middle of the dash, okay. What about you?'

'I've got some unfinished business with Chesney so I'll see you on the other side.'

He gave me a hug, and trotted off towards the newsagent's.

I walked outside and got into Spike's car, grateful that I had a friend like him who knew how to deal with things like this. I'd be seeing Friday and Landen again, and everything would be just hunky-dory. I pressed the starter, reversed off the rubbish bin and drove towards the exit. I wondered whether we'd won the Superhoop. I should have asked Spike. SPIKE!!!

I stamped on the brakes and reversed rapidly back to the services, jumped out of the car and ran across the footbridge leading to the northside.

Only it wasn't the northside, of course. It was a large cavern of incalculable age lit by dozens of burning torches. The stalactites and stalagmites had joined, giving the impression of organic Doric columns supporting the high roof, and snaking among the columns and the boulder-strewn floor was an orderly queue of departed souls who had lined up ready to cross the river that guarded the