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because it wasn’t true.
    “Of course you are, love,” Mum said, with as much sincerity as she could muster.
    Kirsten wasn’t quite as vapid, when she eventually turned up. Sisters don’t labor under the relentless pressure of parental responsibility. They can even be spiteful if they want to be. Mercifully, my darling Kirsty didn’t. She wasn’t a teenager any more, and even when she had been, she’d been a full paid-up member of Greenpeace.
    “We’ve already had threats, you know,” she said, when we’d managed to persuade Mum and Dad to go home.
    “What threats?” I said. “Who from.”
    “They’re not that specific,” she said, “and they’re not signed. The policewoman we called said that the black spot is from the ED—adapted from Treasure Island , apparently. It’s a death-threat, but she said not to take it too seriously. England’s Defenders apparently haven’t got the manpower or the time to follow through on everyday threats of that sort. They have to be selective in planning their publicity stunts.”
    Kirsty was right, even if it was a trifle undiplomatic to say so. I’d been killed by a publicity stunt. I hadn’t even been an innocent bystander at a purposive murder. I was collateral damage to a headline, and not much of one at that. Making a bang in the Oracle wasn’t exactly blowing the dome off St. Paul’s Cathedral, or flying a jumbo jet into Canary Wharf. It was a run-of-the mill firework in a run-of-the-mill shopping mall, which had killed seven run-of-the-mill passers-by. England’s so-called Defenders didn’t even have the manpower or the guts to keep up with the jihadists on a strict tit-for-tat basis.
    “The bastards should have sent you flowers and an apology, never mind a black spot,” I observed, with a sigh. “After all, they weren’t targeting us , were they? If you and me and Mum and Dad aren’t numbered among the True Britons they’re supposed to be defending, who is? Our name’s Rosewell, for God’s sake.”
    “I’m in Greenpeace,” she pointed out. “The ED don’t like Greenpeace.” And you’re a zombie , she didn’t add, though not because it wasn’t true.
    “Even so,” I said, “given that they’ve already killed me, it seems a trifle churlish of them to threaten my afterlife. Who were the other threats from, do you think?”
    “The rest are probably from religious nuts, but the policewoman who collected them says that people of that sort are far more likely to confine themselves to writing anonymous letters, saying ostentatious prayers and ranting in the street than to attempt physical violence—even the rabid jihadists are more urgently concerned with fighting manifest infidels than supposed demons.”
    “You’d think they might lay off too,” I remarked, “given that it was their sworn enemies who killed me. If I’d been a Muslim, I’d have been a martyr, wouldn’t I?”
    “Not once you were reborn. When it comes to the crunch, some westernized Muslims do sign the consent form, but a lot refuse. You’re right about that being a reason why the ED shouldn’t be so down on zombies—I mean the afterliving . It’s not just you—ninety per cent of the afterliving in Reading must have started off as so-called True Britons.”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “You can call me a zombie. Sisterly privilege. And don’t worry about the threats—even if an ED hitman does get through to me, I’ll be back again in no time.”
    “Second resurrections rarely work,” she told me. “I looked it up.”
    So had I. “But I died young,” I told her. “Resilience to spare. There’s some guy in New Zealand who’s already been resurrected three times—he was about the same age as me when he shuffled off his original mortal coil.”
    “I’d rather you didn’t go for any world records,” she said.
    “I’m glad you care,” I told her, sincerely.
    She burst into tears, perhaps because she was mortally afraid that there might come a time