“You look angry," he said."You put me on hold.""For a very good reason.""You put me," she said very, very slowly, "on hold.”

“It's a very small object to be capable of doing many wonderful things, don't you think?""It does much more that that," Valkyrie said, opening up a game and showing it to him.His eyes widened. "What wonder is this?""It's called Angry Birds. Now do you believe me?”

“Look, this is all very, very weird. Why are you focusing on rumours and urban legends? You haven’t even asked me any normal questions.”“Normal questions? Like what?”“Like, I don’t know, like if Lynch had any enemies.”“Did Lynch have any enemies?”“Well, not that I know of, no.”“Then there really was no point in me asking that, was there? Unless you wanted to distract me. You didn’t want to distract me, did you, Kenny?”“No, that’s not—”“Are you playing a game with me, Kenny?”“I don’t know what you’re—”Inspector Me leaned forward. “Did you kill him?”“No!”“It’d be OK if you did.”Kenny recoiled, horrified. “How would that be OK?”“Well,” Me said, “maybe not”

“Is that it?”“No. That’s a wall.”“It could be disguised.”“You’re not very good at looking for things, are you?”“I’m good at looking for walls. Look, I found another one.”

“Ah...Dectective, this is a very private and personal moment for them both. I'm sure you can understand their need for-"A man stumbled out clutching a sheet round his waist and Valkyrie's eyes widened. "Whoa," she said as he hummed into a table. He was tall and sandy-haired and his physique was jaw-dropping lay amazing. "No way," she said. "Scapegrace?"The man looked at her, and shook his head. The a woman came charging out of the back room, slammed into the man and they both went rolling across the floor."Give it to me!" The woman screamed. "Give it to me!"Nye scuttled over. "Mr Scapegrace, you know the procedure cannot be repeated, your brains are in far too deteriorated a condition.""You! Gave! Me! The! Wrong! Body!”

“This isn't funny. She was almost killed.''I'm aware. You're waiting to see if I will get angry.''I already know you're angry. You're sitting very still and you're talking very quietly. You're getting ready to kill someone.''I just need a name.”

“Don’t kill me,” he sobbed as he lay there. “Oh God, please don’t kill me.”“If you had let me finish,” Skulduggery said, slightly annoyed, “you would have heard me say, ‘Come out, we’re notgoing to hurt you’. Idiot.”“He probably wouldn’t have said idiot,” Valkyrie told the sobbing man. “We’re trying our best to be nice.”The man blinked through his tears, and looked up.“You’re... You’re not going to kill me?”“No, we’re not,” Valkyrie said gently, “so long as you wipe your nose right now.”