Blue looked up to see Skinner. He still hadn’t got used to how the guy looked, all those folds of skin. Tried to hold his eye. Act cool.

‘Whassup?’

Skinner shuffled about nervously.

‘He’s not here,’ he said after a pause.

‘Who’s not here?’

‘The one you’re looking for.’

‘Paul? How do you know? You seen him leave or something?’

‘No. No. It’s Fish-Face. She told us.’

Blue very much doubted it. In all the time since they’d left the warehouse he hadn’t heard Fish-Face make a sound, let alone speak. Not to him, nor the museum kids, not to her own friends, not to anyone.

‘She says he’s not here,’ Skinner went on, the words coming out in a muffled rush. ‘He was here when we arrived, she could hear him, but soon after that he left. He’s not here.’

‘How can she know?’

‘She knows.’

With a grunt Blue hoisted himself up.

‘Let me talk to her.’

‘Oh no. No, she wouldn’t like that …’

Skinner backed away, even more uneasy now. ‘No, she won’t talk to you. She’s shy. We all are. Being here, with all these boys and girls. We’re not used to it. They look at us, and they don’t look at us, I don’t know which is worse. Fish-Face wished she’d stayed behind, but she had to come, The Warehouse Queen told her to.’

‘If she knows something I want to speak to her.’

Skinner thought about this for a while and eventually he nodded.

‘You can try.’

The warehouse kids had made their own little camp in a room at the end of the minerals gallery. There were no doors or windows in there, just glass cabinets with precious stones in them. There was a large door that used to slide shut like the door of a bank vault. Blue supposed these exhibits must have been pretty valuable and this had been a specially secure area. Well, they weren’t valuable any more, were they? They were just shiny stones. No use to anyone.

Fish-Face was sitting on the floor with Trinity, playing cards. Blue thought that was pretty funny. Trinity was playing as two players, with two hands of cards. Blue wondered how that worked. If they shared any thoughts.

There was a bad smell in the vault. A rotting smell. Blue wondered if it was the Twisted Kids, then told himself not to be a jerk. Why should they smell any worse than anyone else? He hadn’t noticed any kind of stink at the warehouse. He tried to put it out of his mind.

‘Skinner says you want to tell me something,’ he said to Fish-Face and she bowed her head on her long neck, embarrassed, and then looked at him sideways, out of one big eye. Like an emo peeping out from under a curtain of hair.