The notification ping arrived at nine fourteen on a wet Thursday and described the item as a Domestic Object of Accumulated Significance. What on Earth does that mean? Gareth read the classification again, sitting at his desk, then opened the attached case note. There were three lines of useful information at the top. They were learning. Then two pages of accumulated gumph including standard warnings and a photograph where the object had been cropped out. Brilliant, maybe not.

At least they couldn’t mess up the address. It was a third-floor flat off Llanbadarn Road. The tenant, Alun Meredith, had occupied it for thirty-one years and was surrendering the tenancy on Friday. Housing already had the key handover booked. Repairs had the void inspection pencilled in. His eyes flicked to the date. Right, inspection on Monday. The Morrigan Department had inserted itself between two perfectly ordinary processes because a domestic possession had accumulated significance.

Once he’d made sure the printer was clear, Gareth sent the case sheet to it. When he picked it up his body tensed as he saw the text was half a degree crooked. He counted to ten and held it upside down on the way back to his desk. He put it into his folder without looking at it and left. Another minute beside that and he might start an argument with a piece of paper that there was no possibility of winning. Siân would have his guts for garters if he got put on gardening leave again.

Rain followed him across Aberystwyth to the building. It had the usual determination of rain that had cleared its diary for the day and had nothing else to do.

At the communal entrance, Gareth stepped round a clump of bicycles chained to the stairs. He noticed a recycling leaflet had curled away from the noticeboard beside a broken doorbell. Both could wait. The fire door had been wedged open with a perfectly good trainer. And that was in his remit.

He bent down and removed the trainer, groaning at his back as he let the door close with a slam. Public safety protected. He should probably get a medal from the Fire Service for services to unwanted trainers pertaining to fire exits. That should really be a thing.

The flat was on the third floor, and the building had no lift. Because that’s how his day was going.

Gareth stopped on the first landing and thought back to the case sheet again. A domestic object. The Department had declined to say what domestic object. ‘Cos that would be far too useful. Have to give the hound something to do. Go fetch, Fido. Wait, it had said it would weigh quarter to half a tonne, and it needed specialist removal. How would they get something like that up there? Had they nicked an elephant from a zoo? That much mass on the third floor should probably concern Building Control. Maybe a clock? One of those big grandfather ones, made of marble? He carried on up the stairs.

Alun Meredith answered on the second knock. He was approaching sixty and wore an old rugby shirt and work trousers. Reading glasses hung from his collar. Half the flat had already disappeared into cardboard boxes, and pale rectangles on the carpet marked the places where cabinets had stood for years.

“You’re Gareth?”

“Yeah. Housing.” Gareth produced his identification. “I’m here about the object.”

Alun’s eyebrows went up. “They sent someone to help, then.”

“That was the arrangement.”

“Well. Come in.”

Alun led him through the hall. “I did tell the woman on the phone it was probably nonsense.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“She said you’d assess it.”

“I will.”

“It’s in here.”

The living-room door was open and Gareth took two steps inside before he saw it. Crikey. Near the fireplace was a huge block of grey granite.

It was cube-ish. The top had been smoothed flat, the sides were rougher, and it had a pale vein of quartz through one corner. It occupied most of the hearth. Getting it into a third-floor flat was a decision Gareth was struggling to respect.

Gareth studied it for several seconds, then turned to Alun.

“That?”

“That.”

The granite block was ginormous. “Sorry, that’s the domestic object?”

“Yup.” The man was clearly enjoying himself.

“Right.”

There were situations in public service where a person could ask why and get useful information. There were others where asking why simply opened a door onto the minds of strangers. Gareth had developed a fair instinct for the difference.

He asked anyway.

“Why have you got a lump of granite in your living room?”

Alun folded his arms. “It was a talking point.”

“At parties?”

“Yes.”

“And it worked?”

“Oh, yes.”

Fair play. Gareth had several questions filing an orderly queue. He crouched beside the stone and took the grey assessment card from his folder. The Department issued them in packets of twenty, each one carrying a case number and four boxes under a heading that made ownership sound vaguely terminal. He matched the number to the one on his sheet, then placed the card flat on the granite.

A gold line appeared across the first box beside the words Accumulated social significance. Another line formed beneath Repeated associated attention exceeding ordinary domestic threshold.

Gareth shut his eyes for a moment.

“Is that bad?” Alun asked.

“No.” He picked up the card. “It means people have spent years treating the rock as important.”

“It isn’t important.”

“The rock disagrees.”

Alun gave him a long stare. “You’re serious.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“It’s a rock.”

“Yes.”

“I got it from a quarry.”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t do anything.”

“That part is the only thing keeping me sane today.”

Alun rubbed a hand over his mouth, then gestured towards the granite. “People used to come round all the time. Back in the nineties. There’d be ten, fifteen people in here on a Saturday. Music on, drinks everywhere. People would ask about it.”

“I can see why.”

“One Christmas we put tinsel round it.”

Gareth wrote that down.

“You don’t need to write that down.”

“It establishes repeated ceremonial treatment.”

“It was tinsel.”

“I don’t make the categories.”

Alun gave a short laugh. “Julie hated the thing. She used to throw a cushion over it when her mother came round.”

“Julie?”

“Ex-girlfriend.”

Gareth wrote associated household conflict, then crossed it out. That was probably excessive even for the Department.

“Glyn used to put his pint on it,” Alun continued. “Said it was the best table I owned. He’s coming round in a minute, actually. He helped me get it up here.”

Gareth’s pen stopped.

“You carried it up three floors?”

“Years ago.”

“How?”

Alun considered the question. “We were younger.”

Not particularly helpful in the circumstances. Gareth rose and paced around the block, keeping clear of the boxed books stacked beside the wall. “How large is it?”

“Two foot square.”

“It bloody isn’t.”

“Near two foot, then.”

Gareth took the tape measure from his coat pocket. Siân had laughed when he started carrying one. She had stopped laughing after he used it to prove their new bookcase had been assembled three millimetres out across the top. He wasn’t sure if that was because he was right, or she was considering getting him an appointment with the GP.

The granite measured eighteen inches across and just under nineteen deep. “Eighteen inches.”

“That’s near two foot.”

“It’s a quarter short of two foot.”

“Do you want tea?”

“Yes, please.”

While Alun disappeared into the kitchen, Gareth studied the assessment card again. The sections for curses, sentience and threshold attachment were blank. The stone had acquired the supernatural equivalent of a filing flag through thirty years of parties, arguments, Christmas decorations, drinks, photographs and visitors asking why there was a quarry block by the fire.

People had noticed it too much, and the Department had a category for that.

He found the discharge form behind the assessment sheet. He needed three signatures, one witness declaration and a verbal relinquishment. It would take five minutes, maybe ten if Alun wanted to argue over wording. Then the granite would return to ordinary-object status and Gareth could hand the rest back to Housing. Excellent. Except he was housing. This was never going to be easy.

A knock sounded from the hall.

Alun called, “It’s open, Glyn.”

A broad man in a faded fleece came through carrying a canvas tool bag. His hair had retreated across most of his scalp, and his grin arrived when he turned towards Gareth beside the granite.

“You got the rock police in, then?”

“Housing,” Gareth said.

“Worse.”

Alun came back with three mugs. “Gareth, this is Glyn. Glyn, Gareth.”

Glyn put the tool bag beside the fireplace and offered his hand. His palm was rough and his grip suggested he’d spent a lifetime moving objects that should have been somebody else’s problem.

“You really brought this upstairs?” Gareth asked.

“Me, him and Martin the Van.” Glyn accepted his tea. “Martin had a van.”

“That still doesn’t explain the stairs.”

Glyn sipped. “There was beer.”

“Don’t forget the whisky!” Alun raised his tea to the air.

“Good times.” They clinked mugs.

Right. Alcohol-assisted granite relocation. Gareth opened the discharge form on the mantelpiece. “We’ll deal with its Department status first. Once that’s done, it’s an ordinary item and disposal comes under the council arrangements you’ve already made.”

Alun leaned against the arm of the sofa. “And this is going to stop it being magical?”

“It barely qualifies now.”

Glyn peered at the granite. “Can it grant wishes?”

“No.”

“Shame.”

“It can trigger paperwork.”

“That’s less useful.”

“Depends where you work.”

The discharge procedure covered one side of A4. Gareth had read it at the office and again in the car. The Department’s overly broad phrasing around identity claims made him suspicious. He passed Alun the declaration.

“I need you to confirm you’re the primary associated person.”

“I bought it.”

“Acquired it,” Glyn said.

“Stole it, technically.”

Gareth lifted his head.

Alun grinned. “Quarry owner said I could have it.”

“Then don’t say stole when I’m completing a disposal record.”

Glyn coughed into his mug.

Gareth continued. “Do you understand that surrendering the object means relinquishing any claim of spiritual, folkloric, symbolic or commemorative significance?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe the object contains any part of your identity?”

“No.”

“Do you believe possession of the object affects your luck, health, relationships, household protection or standing among the dead?”

Alun stared at him. “Standing among the dead?”

“It’s a standard question.”

“No.”

“Would the destruction of the object cause you distress?”

“No.”

The pause continued. Gareth raised his eyes from the form.

Alun rubbed his thumb along the mug handle. “Mild annoyance.”

“Mild annoyance is fine.”

“You sure?”

“There’s no box for it.”

Glyn leaned towards the form. “What have they got boxes for?”

“Bereavement response, identity fracture, retaliatory haunting and disputed ancestral possession.”

Glyn nodded. “Mild annoyance, then.”

Gareth made the final mark and passed Alun the pen. “Sign there.”

Alun signed, then Glyn and finally Gareth added his own scrawl masquerading as a signature. The gold line across the assessment card faded. The granite glowed a faint sheen under the room light. Then that vanished as well.

Gareth put two fingers against the top. The stone was cool under them and entirely ordinary. The Department had no claim on it now. That at least, was done.

He returned the papers to his folder. “That’s it.”

Alun blinked. “That’s the ritual?”

“That’s the procedure.”

“I expected candles.”

“We’re a public body.”

Glyn nodded towards the fireplace. “So can we blow it up now?”

Gareth rounded on him. “What?”

Glyn’s face was entirely too innocent. “Granite gets blasted in quarries.”

“This is a third-floor flat.”

“Fireplace is brick.”

“That isn’t the bit I’m concerned about.”

“Solid wall behind it, mind.”

“There are flats below you.”

“Two.”

“I know how floors work.”

Alun laughed into his tea. “He’s winding you up.”

Gareth studied Glyn while Glyn drank his tea. He was probably winding him up.

“Anyway,” Alun said, “the real problem is getting the bugger downstairs.”

Gareth glanced from the granite to the door, then thought of the stairwell. The landings turned back on one another, around painted banisters and a fire door. Three flights of stairs separated them from ground level.

Housing had arranged bulky collection from the rear service yard at four. He checked his watch. One twenty-six.

“How were you planning to move it?”

Alun pointed at Glyn. Glyn pointed at the tool bag. Gareth’s stomach plummeted.

As he watched, Glyn began emptying the bag. Two lifting straps were dumped on the floor followed by a short pry bar, a rubber mallet, several wedges, a coil of rope and an object wrapped in an old tea towel.

Gareth crouched beside it. “You’ve got proper straps.”

“Bought them yesterday.”

“Rated?”

“Two hundred and fifty kilos each.”

“That’s something.”

“See?” Glyn said to Alun. “Professional like.”

Then he unwrapped six red cylinders taped together around a central cardboard tube.

Alun burst out laughing. Gareth’s eyes widened. Glyn’s mouth twitched.

“They’re fake.” Gareth picked up one cylinder. It didn’t smell like explosives. It looked like fibreglass insulation wrapped in foil, red paper and electrical tape. “Very convincing from three metres away. Less convincing when you’re holding one.”

“Made them for a quarry open day years back.”

Alun wiped his eyes. “You daft sod.”

Gareth put the bundle down. “Fine. Joke completed. We should get on and start moving that rock.”

Glyn reached into the bag again, but this time he brought out a coil of black fuse.

Gareth straightened. “Where did you get that?”

“Dai Jenkins.”

“Who the blazes is Dai Jenkins?”

“Works at the quarry.”

“That doesn’t make the answer any better.”

“It’s only a fuse.”

Gareth took it from him. He’d never received explosives training, and he had no intention of pretending otherwise. Council work had taught him that when an object from a quarry turned up in somebody’s living room and Gareth had to ask whether it might burn, explode or summon a specialist unit, the afternoon had already gone sideways.

“Is there any explosive material in this flat?”

“No,” Glyn said.

Gareth turned to Alun.

“No,” Alun said. “And if there is, he can take it home.”

Gareth returned to Glyn. “Any detonators?”

“No.”

“Powder?”

“No.”

“Anything from the quarry apart from this?”

“The rock.”

Gareth rubbed his forehead.

Glyn’s mouth twitched. “And the fuse.”

“Why have you brought it?”

Glyn nodded towards Alun. “Thought we’d give him a send-off.”

“My rock?” Alun asked.

“Thirty-one years, Al. You can’t just take it to bulky waste.”

“It’s already been spiritually divorced from me by paperwork.”

“That was lovely, that was.”

Gareth folded his arms. “You are not lighting quarry fuse in this flat.”

Glyn accepted that with a nod which put Gareth on edge straight away. “Fair play.”

“Good.”

“Could do it in the fireplace.”

“No.”

“Brick all round.”

“No.”

“Nothing attached to it.”

“You have brought genuine quarry fuse into a third-floor flat for a joke.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you hear the problem when I say it back?”

Glyn considered this. “Sounds worse in your voice.”

Alun laughed. “Go on, Gar. He’s been planning this all week.”

“That is not helping.”

“It’s fake dynamite.” Alun nudged one of the red cylinders with his shoe. “I know it’s fake.”

His watch showed one thirty-two. He could refuse, take the fuse away and spend the next hour wondering whether Glyn had another piece in the tool bag. He could also supervise this foolishness and retain control over where the flame went.

“If this happens,” he said, “the fuse stays in the hearth, the cardboard boxes move away from the fireplace, the window opens and there is water beside us. The instant I say stop, you stop.”

Glyn grinned. “Knew you’d come round.”

“I have not come round. I have contained the problem.”

Alun pointed at him. “That should be on your business cards.”

They moved the nearest boxes into the hall. Gareth opened the window and put Alun’s washing-up bowl on the hearth after filling it in the kitchen. The precautions were sensible. But the open window and bowl of water beside fake dynamite were definitely making Alun unsure, judging by his face. Would he put a stop to it?

“You said those are fake,” he said to Glyn.

“They are.”

“Then why’s he brought water in?”

“Fuse burns.”

“You said there’s nothing in them.”

“There isn’t.”

Gareth pointed at the red bundle. “I checked one.”

“One?”

Gareth turned to Glyn.

Glyn raised both hands. “They’re all the same.”

“That answer has somehow made this worse,” Alun said.

Good. At least somebody else was developing some sort of judgement.

Glyn arranged the red cylinders around the granite and fed the end of the fuse into the central tube. It was a ridiculous prop. Foil wrapped fibreglass, black tape, a lump of quarry stone and three grown men giving it their full attention.

Alun took out his phone. “Photo first.”

“Photo first,” Gareth agreed.

Glyn crouched beside the granite and raised a thumb. Alun took two pictures, looked through them and frowned.

“Move that box behind him.”

Gareth folded his arms. “We are not staging this.”

“It ruins the picture.”

“You are photographing fake explosives around a supernatural rock which has just been discharged through a government form. The cardboard box is not your problem.”

Alun took another picture. “Disappointing.”

Glyn picked up a lighter.

Alun lowered his phone. His grin weakened. “You’re actually doing it?”

“You wanted a send-off.”

“I thought the photo was the send-off.”

Glyn turned to Gareth. Gareth took in the hearth, the open window and the bowl of water. This was stupid. It was also, according to every known fact, a burning fuse connected to fibreglass and paper. There would be smoke, perhaps a singed prop, and several men embarrassed by how seriously they’d treated it.

“Go on, then,” he said. “And keep your hand clear.”

Glyn lit the fuse. It spat and fizzed across the brick hearth. Brief sparks marked the burning point as it travelled towards the red bundle. Smoke curled upwards and dispersed near the open window.

Alun stopped smiling.

“That’s lively,” he said.

Glyn took one step back.

Gareth watched him move. “Why are you moving?”

“Smoke.”

“You’re three feet from an open window.”

“Still.”

Alun’s eyes went from Glyn to Gareth. “You said there wasn’t anything in those.”

“There isn’t.”

The burning point advanced along the wire. Glyn took another step back.

Alun pointed at Glyn. “Then why are you still moving?”

Glyn moved back another step. Every supernatural sense he possessed told Gareth that the red cylinders were fibreglass. He’d examined them. There was no explosive material in the room. Nothing could detonate.

But the fuse was burning. He hadn’t checked all of them. He should probably have checked all of them. Alun moved behind the armchair. Glyn retreated behind the doorway.

Gareth stayed where he was for another second, mostly from principle. Then he dived behind the sofa. There were limits to professionalism.

Alun called across the room. “What are you doing?”

“Controlling access.”

“From behind the sofa?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a load of bollocks.”

“Probably.”

The burning point reached the bundle. A final spit of sparks vanished into the cardboard tube.

Silence filled the living room. Nobody moved. Another second passed, and then another followed.

The granite was still a solid block. The dynamite was fake. The building had all three floors.

Alun rose from behind the armchair. “You bastards.”

Glyn came back through the doorway laughing.

“You knew,” Alun said, pointing at Gareth.

“I knew there weren’t any explosives.”

“You hid behind the sofa.”

“I made a proportionate risk assessment.”

“You were literally hiding behind the sofa.”

Gareth straightened his coat. “We have established that.”

Glyn wasn’t even trying not to laugh. Alun’s mouth twitched, and Gareth gave in despite himself.

Eventually Alun wiped his face and pointed at the granite.

All that performance had achieved absolutely nothing. The rock was still filling the hearth and was inconveniently solid and in one very heavy piece.

“Right,” Alun said. “We’d better carry the bastard.”

They cleared the fake bundle and began the actual job. Glyn worked the pry bar under one side of the granite and lifted until a gap opened. He fed a timber strip underneath. Gareth knelt on the opposite side and guided the lifting strap through, keeping his fingers clear as the stone settled back onto the wood.

Even with the strap, the mass strained his shoulders when they tested the first lift. This was not going to work.

“No,” Gareth said, lowering his side. “We’re not carrying this freehand.”

“Could do between the three of us,” Glyn said.

“We could also spend the afternoon in A and E.”

Alun rubbed his lower back. “I’ve got a sack truck in the hall cupboard.”

Gareth put both hands on his hips. “You’ve got a sack truck?”

“Old one.”

“You might have mentioned that earlier.”

“You were doing the magic.”

The truck had solid wheels, a steel frame and a plate that barely reached halfway beneath the granite. It was older than Gareth’s career and carried dried blue paint from some previous use. The rating label had vanished years ago.

“No.”

Glyn put a hand on the handle. “It’ll take it.”

“What’s it rated for?”

“Plenty.”

“That is not a number.”

“It moved a washing machine.”

“This is several washing machines occupying one very inconvenient shape.”

They ended up using the truck as support, the straps as control, and the timber strips as skids. Gareth phoned the bulky-waste driver, admitted the object had become complicated and asked whether he had a stair-climbing trolley on the vehicle.

The driver laughed for a good half a minute. Then he said yes, he did, but he was forty minutes away and would definitely not be bringing it upstairs because his authority began at the external door. It was way above his pay grade. Like this was normal for a Housing Officer.

Gareth ended the call and faced the granite again.

“We need to get it to ground level.”

Glyn rubbed his hands together. “Right.”
There was a troubling amount of enthusiasm in that one syllable. The first difficulty was the living-room door. The stone cleared the frame with inches to spare, but the loaded truck would not turn through the hall until they moved a bookcase that Alun had left for last. Three decades of dust was revealed along with two outdated pound coins, a television remote and a Christmas card with the wrong names on the envelope.

Alun picked up the remote. “I’ve been blaming the sofa for that since 2008.”

“Apologise later,” Gareth said. “Lift your side.”

It took twenty minutes just to reach the flat’s front door and Gareth’s forearms were already burning.

The landing was worse than he remembered. The truck and granite took up most of the available space. The banister turned back on itself after seven steps, a radiator occupied the section of wall where a person needed to stand, and somebody had left a folded pushchair outside the neighbouring flat.

Gareth moved the pushchair to the owner’s doormat and made a mental note to return it when they were finished. Temporary relocation for safe access wasn’t going to get him in trouble.

“Top first,” he said. “We take it one step at a time. Glyn controls the lower strap. I control the truck. Alun, you’re behind me and you do not push unless I ask.”

Alun nodded.

Glyn said, “You done this before?”

“No.”

“You sound very confident.”

“I’ve attended manual-handling training.”

“Same thing, really.”

“It is very much not.”

The first step proved Gareth right. The truck wheels dropped onto the tread below. Granite transferred force through the frame and into Gareth’s arms. His shoulders jolted. He locked both hands around the handle and bent his knees.

“Stop.”

They stopped.

“Everybody good?”

“Fine,” Alun said.

“Lovely,” Glyn said.

His fingers had started aching properly now. “Again.”

They took the second step and stopped again. The third followed after Gareth reset his grip.

Glyn began issuing advice from his position, which was the least useful location for advice because he could see very little from where he was.

“Bring your left round.”

“My left is against a wall.”

“Your other left.”

“I have one.”

“More towards me.”

“If I come towards you, the granite comes towards you.”

Glyn considered this. “Stay there, then.”

“Excellent contribution.”

They reached the first landing. Turning the cube meant lowering a corner onto timber, rotating the truck, rethreading the lower strap and persuading Alun to stop trying to help from a position where his hands were entering the pinch points.

“Hands out,” Gareth said.

“I’m only guiding it.”

“You’re guiding your fingers towards a very flat future.”

Alun withdrew them. The granite rotated six inches.

Glyn leaned into the strap. “Again.”

They moved another few inches. The nearest corner touched the skirting board. Gareth held his breath. A grey mark appeared on the white paint. Oh hell. It was so obvious. The grey mark stood out against the white paint.

“Gareth,” Glyn said.

“I know.”

“It’ll paint.”

“I know.”

The mark was inside a communal area. On Housing property. Damage, however minor, required recording. He wanted his phone in his hand and a photograph on the case record. The handles dug into his palms, his shoulders took the load and his lower back was wondering when retirement was. He could record it later. For now, he needed to move the bloody rock.

His hand twitched once against the truck handle and settled. “Again.”

They got the cube round. A door opened behind Alun.

An elderly woman in slippers stepped onto the landing, took in the three men, the straps, the truck and the granite occupying most of the available floor.

Everyone became very still.

“Moving?” she asked.

Alun nodded. “Yeah.”

Her eyes went to the granite. “Taking that thing, are you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

She went back in and closed the door. Glyn leaned against the wall and started laughing.

Alun pointed at the closed door. “She gave it a plant one year.”

Gareth turned his head. “A plant?”

“Small cactus. Birthday present.”

“For the rock?”

“She said the corner needed cheering up.”

The granite had received birthday presents. No wonder the Department had flagged it.

“Down,” he said.

The second flight took longer. Sweat dripped from under Gareth’s collar while he lowered the truck another step, and his right forearm had developed a tremor. Glyn had finally stopped offering advice every six seconds.

At the next landing they put the granite down and stood around it without speaking. Gareth flexed his fingers. His palms had red lines from the handles.

Alun leaned both hands against his thighs. “We really brought that up here.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I don’t remember it being this bad.”

“You were thirty years younger.”

“And drunk,” Glyn said.

“That too.”

Alun straightened and studied the block. “Martin lost a shoe on the second landing.”

Gareth turned. “What?”

“Trainer came off. We didn’t stop.”

Gareth glanced down the stairwell towards the fire door below and thought of the trainer he’d removed from under it when he arrived.

Surely that was not the same trainer. He decided the answer could stay a mystery. They carried on.

Halfway down the final flight, the lower strap slipped an inch. Glyn swore. Gareth’s hands gripped the truck. The granite lurched against the frame, forcing the truck sideways until one wheel bumped the stair riser.

“Stop.”

Nobody argued. Gareth placed his foot against the frame and waited until he could breathe properly again. The rock was ordinary. It was free of curse and intention, and spite was impossible. Its entire contribution to the situation was mass. Mass was enough.

“Glyn, reset the strap. Alun, stay where you are.”

“I can take some of it.”

“You can keep it from coming backwards.”

“That’s taking some.”

“Fine. Do that.”

Glyn fed the strap back through and tightened it. “Ready.”

Gareth swallowed. “One step.”

They moved one step, reset their grips and took the next. One more brought the corridor within reach. The ground-floor corridor. Gareth could have kissed the floor, if that had been socially acceptable and the floor had been cleaner. They lowered the truck onto level flooring.

Glyn let go of the strap and flexed both hands. “Easy peasy.”

Gareth’s jaw locked.

Glyn grinned. “All right. Horrible.”

The rear bin store was twenty metres along the corridor and through a heavy fire door. The bulky-waste driver had asked them to leave the granite beside the external service entrance. Gareth had repeated beside the entrance twice to make sure nobody interpreted that as blocking the fire exit, because one day he wanted to retire without being remembered through a case study.

They used the truck for the corridor. After the stairs, level ground felt indecently easy.

The bin-store door opened outwards into the service yard. Inside were four large commercial bins, a recycling cage and a patch of concrete where the driver had agreed to collect the granite. The air carried the unmistakable smell of rubbish that had been warming indoors all day.

Gareth’s nose had become considerably more useful since joining the Cŵn. At moments such as this, it was a mixed blessing.

They manoeuvred the granite off the truck and onto two timber strips beside the wall. This time the job was properly done.

Gareth bent over, hands braced on his knees, and concentrated on the concrete under his shoes. His arms pulsed from shoulder to wrist. Beside him Glyn leaned against one of the bins, chest rising hard.

Alun stood in the doorway and checked the yard.

“Woman coming.”

Gareth raised his head. “So?”

Alun glanced back at the granite, then at Gareth and Glyn. “She lives on the first floor.”

“Yes?”

“She’ll ask what we’re doing.”

“We’re moving a rock.”

“I’ve been avoiding telling her about the move until I had the keys for the new place.”

“Why?”

“It gets complicated.”

Gareth opened his mouth.

Alun pulled the bin-store door closed. The room went dark apart from a narrow strip of daylight beneath the door.

Gareth faced the metal door in front of him. Glyn made a small choking sound which might have been laughter.

“Did he just shut us in the bin store?” Gareth asked.

“Yeah.”

“Because he doesn’t want to explain that he’s moving?”

“Think so.”

Gareth straightened and pain caught across his lower back. “I work for Housing.”

“I know.”

“I am allowed to be here.”

“I know.”

“I have identification.”

“Very nice identification.”

Outside, a woman said, “Evening, Alun.”

Alun answered, “All right, Bethan?”

Then they discussed the weather. Gareth stood beside a formerly supernatural granite cube in a communal bin store while two residents conducted a detailed assessment of whether the rain might ease overnight.

He’d been recruited by the Morrigan Department through an accidental bite from a teenage corgi. He’d run with the Hounds of Annwn, entered a supernatural Archive, handled the records of the dead and worked on a breakwater while reality attempted to repeat a shipwreck.

Now, he was hiding from Bethan on the first floor because Alun Meredith had not told her he was moving. There were limits to what a job description could prepare a person for.

Glyn whispered, “You still got that fuse?”

Gareth turned towards him in the dark.

“Don’t.”

“I was only asking.”

“Ask something else.”

“How long do you reckon bins keep a smell?”

Gareth closed his eyes.

Outside, Bethan said, “I’d better get this in, then.”

Footsteps approached the door.

Gareth opened his eyes.

The door swung open and daylight from the yard spread across the concrete.

Bethan stood there carrying a black rubbish sack.

She was perhaps in her fifties. Her head turned from Gareth to Glyn, then towards the granite cube and back to the two men.

Gareth considered his options. Good evening, we have permission to be inside your refuse area with a geological feature came first. Hello, this rock was supernatural until lunchtime didn’t improve anything. Housing was somehow worse.

“Evening,” he went with.

Bethan gave a small nod. “Evening.”

She walked past them, lifted the nearest bin lid and dropped the sack inside.

Gareth moved half a step aside to give her room.

Bethan glanced once at the granite as she turned back towards the door.

“Alun finally getting rid of that, then?”

“Yes,” Gareth said.

“Good.”

She left.

The door closed behind her.

Glyn met Gareth’s eyes.

“Went well.”

Gareth started laughing.

He tried to stop because his ribs hurt. That made it worse.

Glyn joined in and bent forward against the bin. Gareth put one hand over his face, but the laughter kept coming.

The door opened again.

Alun leaned in. “She gone?”

Gareth lowered his hand. “Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She knew about the rock.”

Alun frowned. “Everyone knows about the rock.”

Gareth opened and closed his mouth.

“Yes. That has become very apparent.”

The bulky-waste driver arrived at four seventeen with a stair-climbing trolley they no longer needed. The timing bordered on insult. He inspected the granite, silently evaluated the three men, and chose professional restraint.

“Collection reference?” he asked.

Gareth gave it to him.

The driver checked his handheld unit. “Granite block.”

“Yes.”

“Third floor?”

“Previously.”

The driver’s mouth twitched. “Right.”

Two hydraulic arms lifted the thing in thirty seconds. The granite rose, travelled up the vehicle ramp and came to rest beside an old wardrobe and a broken exercise bike.

Alun stood beside Gareth while the driver secured the stone cube. Then Alun stepped closer to the tail lift and rested his palm on the granite.

“Started some good conversations, that did.”

Gareth rubbed the tender line across one palm. “It started several today.”

Alun laughed under his breath. “Still glad to see the back of it.”

He withdrew his hand and the driver raised the tail lift.

Gareth completed the Morrigan Department disposal record on the bonnet of his car. Former status, Minor Object of Accumulated Significance. Decommissioning basis, voluntary relinquishment by primary associated person. Residual threshold activity, none. Mortal disposal route, council bulky-waste service.

The final field asked for the method of removal. Gareth paused over the empty space. Manual would be technically true and deeply inadequate.

He wrote Manual relocation to authorised collection point, then added three flights of stairs in the incident notes because future staff deserved warning if Alun ever developed an emotional attachment to masonry again.

Glyn came across the yard while Gareth capped his pen. The driver passed him on the way to the cab.

“Gareth.” Glyn drew Gareth’s name out.

Gareth had learnt what followed that. “What?”

Glyn nodded towards the collection vehicle. “Do you reckon I could have that?”

Gareth turned to see the granite resting inside the truck under its securing strap.

He turned back to Glyn.

“Why?”

Glyn studied the rock.

“Talking point.”