I knew it, Billy thought, and had no idea where the thought came from or what it meant. He had expected nothing. There was silence. Billy scanned the surrounds, the silhouettes against bleak skies.

“What does your boss want?” Dane said. “Where is he? Where’s he been for the last God knows how many years?”

“We heard that the Tattoo’s sicced every bounty-hunter between here and Glasgow on your tail, for some tidy money,” Byrne said. “Your church wants you dead. And if that weren’t enough, you’ve got Goss and Subby coming after you.”

“We’re popular blokes,” Dane said. “Where did he go?”

“Look,” she said. “After that business with the Tattoo, it wasn’t as simple as we made it. It’s not that there was no comeback. He had… There were problems. And when we realised that Tattoo was still gunning for him-and that was a mess, we should have just killed him, that’s a lesson, don’t get creative with revenge-Grisamentum needed… some time. Some space. To heal. Look at it, Dane. No one knows he’s alive. Think what an advantage that is.

“You’ve felt all this.” She shrugged at the sky. “You can tell things are going wrong. Have been since your god was taken. Mr. Harrow, you were there. You were in the Centre. It was you who found it. And that’s not nothing.”

Was that grinding glass?

“The Tattoo’s after your god, Dane Parnell. He’s closing in. Listen to me.” For the first time there was urgency in her voice. “Why do you think you haven’t heard about Grisamentum for the last few years? You said it yourself. As far as London knows, he’s dead. That puts us in a good position. So don’t mess it up by telling anyone. You know and I know that whatever it is he wants it for, we can’t let the Tattoo get hold of the kraken.”

“Where is it?” Billy said.

“Yeah,” said Dane, without looking round. “Where is it? Billy thought you might have taken it.”

“Why would we want your god?” Byrne said. “What we want is the Tattoo not to get it. We don’t know who’s got it, Dane. And that makes me nervous. No one should have that kind of power. Certainly no one we don’t know about. You know as much about what’s going on as anyone. You two, I mean, with what’s in Mr. Harrow’s head. But we know things too. We all want the same thing. To find the kraken, and to stop the Tattoo getting anywhere near it.

“We want to work together.”

“OH, MAN,” DANE SAID AT LAST. HE LOOKED AROUND. “SHIT. WE should get out of sight,” he said to Billy. He turned back to her. “Grisamentum asked that once before,” he said. “Right here. I said no.”

“Not so,” Byrne said. “Last time he tried to persuade you to come to work for him. He’s sorry for that. You’re a kraken man-he knows it, I know it, you know it. That’s what this is about. We’re not pretending we don’t need your help. And you need ours. We’re suggesting we become partners.”

Dane stared at her until she spoke again. “Too much is going on, Dane. The angels are walking. We need to know why.”

Dane leaned back, his eyes still on Byrne, to whisper to Billy. “If this isn’t bullshit,” he said, “then it’s something. To work with Grisamentum? We got to think very seriously about this.”

“We don’t even know it is Grisamentum,” Billy said slowly.

Dane nodded. “Look,” he said louder. “This is all very flattering, but I haven’t even seen your boss. We can’t make this sort of decision like that.” We, thought Billy, with satisfaction.

“Are you going to start talking about organ-grinders and monkeys?” Byrne said.

“However you want to put it,” Dane said. “What was it happened? He was really sick.”

“Was he?”

“Where is he then? Why disappear all that time?”

“He’s not going to come here,” she said carefully. “There’s no way he’s going to…”

“Well then we’re done,” said Dane.

“Will you let me finish? That doesn’t mean you can’t talk to him.”

“What, you got some secure line?” Dane said.

“There are ways.” She took out a pen and paper. “Channels. Talk to him, then.”

She put the fountain pen on the paper. Dane stepped closer. He kept the speargun aimed at her. Byrne wrote. She did not take her eyes from Dane’s.

Hello, she wrote. The writing was the same as what had been on the paper plane, small and curled and dark grey. Long time.

“Ask him what you want,” Byrne said.

“Where is he?” Billy said.

“It’s his writing,” Dane said.

“That’s hardly proof,” Billy said.

“Where are you?” Dane said. To the paper.

Near, Byrne wrote, without looking.

Billy blinked at this new thing, this remote-writing knack. “This proves nothing,” he whispered to Dane.

“Heard you were dead,” Dane said. There was no writing. “When we was here last, you were asking me to come work for you. Remember?”

Y.

“When I said I wouldn’t, I said I couldn’t, and I asked you a question. Do you remember? What I said? The last thing I said to you before I went?”

Byrne’s hand hesitated over the paper. Then she wrote.

Said you’d never leave church, she wrote. Said: “I know who made me. Do you know who made you?”

“It’s him,” Dane said quietly to Billy. “No one else knew that.” The city broke the silence, with the coughing of a car, as if uncomfortable.

What broke you from the church? Byrne wrote.

“Different ideas,” Dane said.

You want your kraken.

“Dead, rotten and ruined?” Dane said. “Why d’you think I want it?”

Because you’re not the Tattoo.

“What exactly is your proposition?” Billy said. Dane stared at him.

We can find it, Byrne wrote. She kept looking up. She stared into the litter of stars, strewn like discards. Whoever has it has plans. No one takes a thing like that without plans. Not good.

Harrow you know more than you know, she wrote. She drew an arrow, pointing at him. Wherever he was, Grisamentum was pining for Billy’s opaque vatic insight.

“We have to think about this, Billy,” Dane said.

“Well he’s not the Tattoo,” Billy muttered to him. “I have a rule: I prefer anyone who doesn’t try to kill me to anyone who does. I’m funny that way. But…”

“But what?”

“There’s too much we don’t know.” Dane hesitated. He nodded. “We’re meeting Wati tomorrow. Let’s talk to him about it. He might have news-you know he’s been tracking shit down.” Billy felt, suddenly and vividly, as if he were underwater.

“Grisamentum,” Dane said. “We have to think.”

“Really,” Byrne said. She looked away from the sky and at him as her hand wrote Join us now.

“No disrespect. If it was you you’d do the same. We’re on the same side. We just have to think.”

Byrne’s hand moved over the paper, but no ink came from the pen. She pursed her lips and tried again. Eventually she wrote something and read it. She took out a new pen and wrote, in a different script, a postal box, a pickup spot. She gave it to Dane.

“Send us word,” she said. “But fast, Dane, or we have to assume no. Time’s running out. Look at the bloody moon.” Billy looked at the sliver of it. Its craters and contours made it look wormy. “Something’s coming.”