Derek had hauled his sorry ass back home in a painful huff.
Derek yawned and stretched and flinched from the pain of numerous bruisings. Somehow, he felt absolutely certain, this was all Kelly's fault. It just had to be. That woman was trouble. Trouble travelled with her like an alligator handbag. Or a cold sore that you couldn't quite shake off.
'But I hope she didn't get injured,' said Derek to himself. 'No, sod it. I hope someone punched her in the face. No, I don't really. Yes, I do. Well I don't, but I do.'
So to speak.
Others might have been rising early with Derek. But most weren't. Most involved in the affray were still locked up in the police cells. One called Trevor Alvy was learning the duties of 'my bitch'. But those who had managed to creep or crawl away home, were not, most definitely not, getting up for work. They would be calling in sick. And those of a religious bent would be doing so content in the knowledge that they would soon be Raptured, so what did work matter anyway?
Among this potentially joyous throng was the wandering bishop. Not that he was cashing in as yet upon his joy potential. The wandering bishop had wandered further than he might have hoped for. He had awakened high in the branches of an ornamental pine on the south bank of the Thames in the Royal Botanical gardens of Kew, where his elevated wanderings had carried him.
Kelly awoke in her rented bed at Mrs Gormenghast's. The pillowcases were still puce, as were the duvet and the curtains and the carpet. Steerpike the cat, Mrs Gormenghast's darling, was also puce, but it was a cat thing. Steerpike hailed from the Isle of Fizakery, where every cat is puce.
Kelly yawned and stretched and climbed out of her bed and stood upon Steerpike the cat. Steerpike the cat swore briefly in feline and took to his furry heels.
Kelly was not this morn pleasingly naked. She had slept in her polyvinylsynthacottonlatexsuedosilk mix dress, which was badly ripped and shredded. And slept very badly too. Her hair was tangled and she had bags of darkness under her eyes. She did not look the very picture of rude good health. She looked deathly pale.
Kelly took herself over to the cheval glass and examined her reflection therein. She did not find it pleasing to behold. The events of the previous evening had sorely troubled her. A feeling of overwhelming gloom smothered her like a damp shroud.
Kelly's fingers teased at the tangled hair. She stared at herself in the mirror's glass. A great deal of cosmetic restoration work was going to be necessary, if she was to look anything approaching her natural best for her first day at Mute Corp.
Kelly chewed upon her Cupid's bow and as she stared into the mirror it seemed for just a moment, just as a little subliminal flash, that the face of Big Bob Charker stared right back at her.
Kelly shuddered, she felt tears pushing forward into her blue blue eyes. But she forced them back. Big girls did not cry. She had to remain in control.
She had to take control.
At a little after seven thirty of the sunny morning clock, Kelly Anna Sirjan descended the stairs and entered the breakfasting area. She wore a lime green dress of chromecolorpolysynthasuedodickydido and looked as ever radiant as ever she had looked.
Upon her feet she wore a pair of bright red Doveston holistic ankle boots with tieback super-trooper fudge-tunnels, multi-socket implants and wide-trammel cross-modulating flux imploders. They were the very latest thing. And didn't they look it too.
The fire blazed brightly in the hearth and Mrs Gormenghast, wearing a puce nun's habit with matching wimple, greeted her with an Ave Maria and set to cooking hot crossed buns.
'Did you hear what happened at the Brentford Poets last night?' she called over the bubbling cauldron on the stove. 'The coming of the Antichrist, by all accounts. They say that dozens were carried off to glory, but many more have taken the mark of the Beast.'
'Do you have any coffee?' Kelly asked.
'Only tea, dear. Coffee is the Devil's drink.'
'I'll just have a glass of water then.'
'I've plenty of that, dear. I've had the tap blessed by Father O'Blivion, all the water that comes out of it now will be holy.'
'Do you have a home computer here?' Kelly asked.
'Bless me no,' said Mrs Gormenghast, ladling lard into the cauldron and wondering how it was that hot crossed buns were supposed to be made. 'My husband used to have one. A Mute Corp 3000 series, big bugeroo with side-flange demi-speakers and deep-throat hard blast modulator drive. I believe it worked on some system involving the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic antimatter, but I couldn't say for sure, because I never used it. I have hay fever you see.'
Kelly nodded in the way that said she really did. 'What was it you said happened to your husband?' she asked.
Mrs Gormenghast scratched at her puce perm with a wooden spoon. 'I don't rightly recall,' she said. 'Did I say that he was run over by a juggernaut? Or was he carried away by the fairies? It's so hard to keep up with current events nowadays and a week is a long time in politics. Do you want grated cheese on your hot crossed buns?'
'Parmesan?'
'No, I'll use a fork.'
At a little after eight of the gone-without-any-breakfast clock, Kelly left the house of Mrs Gormenghast. She did not leave by the front door but by the old back entrance, that used to be reserved for hawkers, tradespersons, mandolin players by moonlight and Tom the butcher's boy. She walked hurriedly up the garden path, between the blooming puce rhododendrons, flowering puce gladioli, glorious puce sunflowers and spreading puce spruce trees and looking left and right and up and down as well, slipped behind the trellis work that hid the two puce dustbins and the garden shed, all painted puce. Kelly lifted the latch and entered the shed.
She stepped over the half a bag of solid cement and peered down through the semidarkness towards a mound of coal sacks. A low murmur came from beneath them.
Kelly stooped and carefully lifted a sack. And then she stepped back briskly, careful not to scrape her expensive footwear on the aforementioned half a bag of solid cement.
On the floor lay Big Bob Charker. He lay face down. His hands were tightly bound behind his back with strips torn from Kelly's polyvinylsynthacottonlatexsuedosilk mix dress. His ankles were similarly secured and drawn up to his wrists. Another strip of dress served as a gag and this was knotted at the nape of the big man's neck.
'It's me, Kelly,' said Kelly. 'I'm sorry that I had to knock you out and drag you here and I'm sorry I had to tie you up like this. But it was for your own sake. You would have killed yourself. Or something would have killed you. I didn't touch your skin. I'm sure I'm not infected by whatever it is you're suffering from. But you'll have to stay here until I can find out what to do to help you. I'll come back later and bring you food. I'm going to Mute Corp. I know the answer to all this lies there.'