“It was as if Jed had moved from one dimension to another. His original dimension hadn't reported him missing, and his new dimension didn't acknowledge his presence. Maybe what he'd really done was end up somewhere between the two. Some days he almost felt invisible.”

“While still practising law, he'd run a hearse-rental agency. Then, later, he'd bought into a handkerchief factory in Baker Park. Their most famous innovation was the funeral hankerchief, a plain white cotton handkerchief with a black border. Not long afterwards he patented the first black-edged tissue. He'd made millions, apparently, though nobody knew what he'd done with the money. His only extravagance had been to install an elevator in the house, so he could move between floors without getting out of his wheelchair. 'So what did he mean about hearing money?' Jed asked. 'It's his factory across the river. He claims he can hear the money being made.”

“He thought of his old tapes, the ones he'd had for years, the ones he'd used over and over again. Their silence was always different to the silence of a new tape: it was loaded, prickly with things recorded and erased; a silence that was like ghosts. That house was an old tape masquerading as a new one. It had recorded and erased, but it was pretending it had just come out of the cellophane. It had ghosts, but it wasn't owning up to them.”

“Jed was used to isolation. His face was like some kind of cul-de-sac. It said NO THROUGH ROAD to most people. Confronted with him, they always turned around, backed away.”

“It was six hours to Hosannah Beach and he didn't glance at the silver coin that Dad had given him, not even once. All the way he clutched it tight in the palm of his hand and fel the bevelled edge bite into his skin. [...] Waiting in the car while Yvonne unlocked the house, he brought his hand up to his face and opened it. His sweat had the bitter smell of hot metal, hot and bitter, this was what leaving home would always smell like.”

“Did I tell you about Anton?" Loots said.Anton?" I shook my head.It was a week ago, Loots said. There had been a knock on the door of his apartment and when he opened it his old friend Anton was standing there. Anton was a clown. He belonged to a circus that toured the provinces, playing to small towns and villages. They talked about the old days for a while, but Anton became increasingly restless and distracted. In the end Loots had to ask him if there was something wrong.This is going to sound strange." The clown coughed nervously into his fist. "It's The Invisible Man. He's disappeared."Loots stared at his friend.He just vanished," Anton said, "into thin air."The Invisible Man?" Loots said.Yes."He's disappeared?"I told you it would sound strange," Anton said.”

“Jed thought he understood. It was like when his radios were thrown away. You could shrug your shoulders, put on a face that said you didn't care, but you did and nothing could ever be secure again. The next time security appeared as a possibility, you smashed it yourself. And went on smashing it. That, he was sure, was how Creed felt.”