“Oh yes?” said Ms Ferguson. “And is the defendant one of these?”

“Oh no,” said Mr Boothy. “He’s just another puppet. A rather brutal being pulls his strings. Escaped from an off-world prison colony, a psychopathic megalomaniac Valdec Firesword, Archduke of Alpha Centuri.”

I took a step back in my seat. That was the True Name that Eric, the late landlord of the Golden Dawn, had bestowed upon me.

There was a lot of confirmation here.

“You see,” Mr Boothy continued, “your defence of your client is quite justified. Absolutely correct. He is not responsible for his crimes, which are many. The entity that controls him is responsible. But he can’t be brought to book, because he is 52,000,000 light years from here, beyond the Milky Way by a great distance. So Mr Cheese must take the rap. The court must condemn him to death. No doubt Valdec Firesword will find another brain to beam his instructions into as soon as this one is fried. Or at least until the galactic constabulary catch up with him.”

“It’s a fair cop,” said Mr Justice D. “Let’s fry Mr Cheese and take lunch.”

“No, hang on,” I said. “This isn’t fair.”

“Why?” asked the magistrate.

“Because I’m me. I’m Gary Cheese. I know I’m me. I can feel I’m me. But if all the bad things aren’t my fault, they’ve been caused because something out there somewhere in space has been getting into my head and making me do them, then it’s not fair. It’s not my fault, so I shouldn’t fry.”

“Quite so,” said Ms Ferguson.

“Yes,” said Mr Justice Doveston. “I do so agree. It’s terribly unfair. It is terribly unjust. But it is the way things are. There are plenty of us, from elsewhere, running you lot by remote control. But we are outnumbered by those amongst you we cannot control. Some of them even infiltrated their way into the Brentford Telephone Exchange. Into Developmental Services. Some who were wholly human, who our over-talkative operative Eric identified to us, and we dealt with them. But the status quo must be maintained. We enjoy what we are doing. It is a great game, playing with humans. It is the great game. Our race loves the game. We don’t want it to end.”

“You bastards!” I said.

“You bastards!” said Ms Ferguson.

“So you must die, Mr Cheese,” said Mr Justice Doveston. “We must cut off the line of communication from the escaped psychopath Valdec Firesword. We’ll try to catch up with him before he finds another human being to play with.”

“No,” I said. “This isn’t right. It isn’t true. I am me. I know I’m me.”

“And I’m me too,” said Ms Ferguson.

“And me,” I heard Dave shout.

“It’s of no consequence,” said Mr Justice D. “I’ve heard all I need to hear. And as I knew it all anyway, it doesn’t matter. Time is drawing on and all it needs is for me to pronounce you guilty. So, guilty it is. Will someone please pull the switch?”

“Can I do it?” asked the prison officer. “Surely you know me, sir? I’m Caracki Maldama, honorary consul of Vega.”

“I knew your father,” said Mr Justice D. “Go on, then. Pull the switch.”

And, what would you know, but what you know, he did pull the switch.

And he electrocuted me.

And it didn’t half hurt.

And I died.

24

And then I was dead.

And then I remembered.

All those missing pieces from my life. All those times that it had seemed I’d slept through. Those were the times when I was truly me. Not possessed by some alien psychopath orchestrating my movements, beaming thoughts into my brain, making me his puppet, to kill folk as suited his whims.

I knew then that it hadn’t been me who’d done those terrible things. It had been him: Valdec Firesword, Archduke of Alpha Centuri.

It hadn’t been my fault at all. None of it. I was an innocent victim. And, it was quite clear to me, one of many, many, many others before me. Driven to extreme acts by the voices in their heads.

And now that I knew all this, it was too late. I was dead, and the thoughts of Valdec Firesword were no longer in my brain. I was dead and he was gone. Off to torment some other innocent victim of cosmic circumstances.

What an absolute frip shugger.

And oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. How much more of it made sense to me now. How many times in my short life had I meant to do something positive? Something big. But hadn’t. And why hadn’t I? Because Valdec Firesword had altered my mode of thinking. Stopped me from being me.

I could remember it all now. All those missed opportunities. I’d had a hot line to the dead at my disposal. To the dead, who know everything. But had I asked them anything? Anything worthwhile? No, I hadn’t. I’d wasted my opportunities, because he had made me waste them. He didn’t want me to know the truth while I was alive, because I might have been able to fight him, if I’d known. To drive him out of my head and let myself be me.

I’d been used, used, used. I felt soiled, dirty, abused.

And dead.

Dead, me, at my age! Only rock stars died at my age. And accident victims, of course, and murder victims. But it wasn’t fair, for me to die, when I could have had so many happy years of my life still to come. Or could have if he hadn’t been inside my head. But instead, I was dead, leaving behind me only an evil memory.

I could just imagine what the papers would be saying: SERIAL KILLER GETS JUST DESSERTS.

Or in the case of the Brentford Mercury: CHEESE ON TOAST.

And of course there would be no mention of what actually went on and was said at my trial. People would probably be partying in the streets, burning me in effigy.

This was all too much. I was angry, really, really angry.

Angry. And dead!

Dead angry!

Now, what you might be wanting to ask me is a question that I should have asked the dead when I had the chance, but never got around to, the question being: “Just what is it like to be dead?” And, for that matter, “Where is it?”

Both good questions, and pertinent. And I will answer them now.

What is it like to be dead? Well, I’ll tell you.

It’s empty.

That’s what it’s like to be dead. We never realize it when we’re alive, but what we are is full of life. That’s what it is, you see. We’re all filled up with life. It bubbles through our veins and arteries; it jiggles about in our cells; it’s in our hair and up our noses; it’s all over us, inside and out. We’re full of life. But when we’re dead, we’re all drained of life.

We’re empty.

And I was empty. And where was I? Well, I’ll tell you that. I was sitting upon the marble tomb bed of the late Mr Doveston, puffing on a post-life Woodbine and wondering how I would spend the day ahead.

Yes, that’s where I was, or wasn’t, depending on your point of view. I was there, I knew that; I could see it all around me. But I could tell instinctively that it wasn’t the real McDoveston’s marble wonder-bed. It was a kind of approximation, a dream landscape, if you will, made up of memories, but slightly fuzzy at the edges and all just a tad out of focus.

I suppose that we never look at things as closely as we should when we’re alive. But then, we’re not expecting that we’ll have to call upon these memories when we’re dead to establish some kind of environment for ourselves to exist in.

I must have spent so much time at Mr Doveston’s tomb that it seemed a natural place to recall when I died, so I suppose that it was the reason I was here.

Of course I’d spent a great deal more time in the bulb booth at the telephone exchange, but I had no wish to revisit that in the afterlife. And so I was here. And I wasn’t alone.

I could see them, drifting about, wraith-like, pale and pasty. Other dead folk, and a lot of them.