It had taken them about an hour to load what they needed back at Promithios. As much as they could carry, the Warehouse Queen had said. She’d also allowed them to take three trolleys to carry it on. The new trolleys were much better than the ones they’d lugged all the way from the museum and left here at the church. They had better steering and bigger wheels with solid rubber tyres on them so were much easier to manoeuvre.

Before they’d left, the warehouse kids had all come to see them off. The Pink Surfer, with his giant elongated foot, Betty Bubble, Flubberguts, Legs, Spider Boy and the Queen, whom Monstar had carried down from the platform as easily as if she’d been a little baby, before fetching her wheelchair throne. And TV Boy, chatting away still, puffed up from the show he’d put on the night before.

When Blue had asked which of them was coming and who was staying behind, it was Skinner who’d been the first to step forward. He was excited, nervous, jittery. Then Fish-Face, with her wide mouth and eyes round the sides of her skull. Like the Queen, she didn’t seem to say a lot. In fact Ollie wondered whether she could speak at all. And finally Trinity. Ollie didn’t know whether Trinity was technically a he or a she, or something plural. He didn’t like to think about that third shrivelled little body sticking out of their backs. It couldn’t be dead. Ollie knew that much. If a part of you died, unless it was cut out, the rest of you followed.

They’d made a peculiar procession, tramping along the road, with the trolleys piled high with boxes. Skinner couldn’t walk very fast and in the end they’d sat him on one of the trolleys with his cat in a box. Fish-Face was fine but quiet, and Trinity could move surprisingly quickly. Skinner was like a little kid, pointing things out, laughing and chatting away to Achilleus and Paddy, who were pulling his trolley.

Like a mad school trip. No sign of any grown-ups. Clear skies. An empty city.

And now this …

Two steps forward and three steps back.

They reached the edge of the treeline and halted. Ollie’s eyes hadn’t stopped darting about, scanning the whole area, alert for any signs of movement. Apart from the odd bird, though, there was nothing. And with every step they got closer to the thing lying on the grass among the gravestones. He prayed it was a grown-up. The body appeared to be wrapped in something that was a dirty white. He could see bloodstains.

‘What do you reckon?’ he asked Ebenezer.

‘I reckon it’s that girl who got killed on the way here.’

‘Maybe they brought the body out because it was smelling too much or something.’

‘So why did they not shut the doors?’