"Hello?" L answered the phone.

"It's the police!" Eve mouthed while pointing at the number.

"Hello, am I speaking to a…" Rustle rustle pause. "A Mr Elliot Byrd?" L paused, silently chuckling at the irony.

"Speaking," he attempted to pass off a Brooklyn accent. He observed that Eve's pleasantly surprised face was popping up a lot recently.

"I'm sorry to be the one to impart such bad news, sir, but your younger brother Byron was arrested for loitering in a police-protected area and for afterward assaulting a police officer. We'd like if possible to ask you a few questions, after which you can see him, so would it be possible for you to come down to the station as soon as you can?"

L paused as Eve motioned A, staring curiously at the phone and the apparent charades game going on.

"I'm, ah, very sorry to hear that Officer," Something with this guy's voice was odd. "May I ask how badly you were hurt?" he feigned concern, stalling for time as Eve wrote '7 O'CLOCK' on Nate's old notice.

"I have a broken dose," the officer deflated.

"My brother is such a nuisance, I'm so sorry," L said waspishly, becoming more and more sure that social niceties were a waste of time. "Is it alright if I come this evening, at … 7 o'clock, and that a few other people come with me as well?"

"Well, strictly speaking, only relatives are…"

"I have a very bereaved girlfriend and cousin over here. I trust that will be okay? Officer?" A's face flicked up, with a comically disturbed expression on her face. Eve stifled a giggle.

"Well, yeah, yes, of course…Thank you, sir,"

"And thank you," L hurriedly hung the phone up.

"I never knew you had a hidden charisma there, L," Eve playfully remarked.

"I'm his brother…?" L weakly asked to himself.

"I'm his girlfriend?" A said, aghast.


B was annoyed. Very annoyed.

He really didn't want to think about the shitty situation he had probably just brought the whole team to, and instead concentrated on how hard the tiled wall was, and inventing different scenarios that explained the yellow-green gunge that gathered near the door.

As he imagined, the door suddenly shot open, and he jerked involuntarily.

"Visitor, Byrd." The guard dragged him up as B slapped the arm away and walked on his own, following him.

Evey? L? …A?

A tall man waited behind the visitor screen, casually leaning into the telephone.

Neither. He fumed.

B nonchalantly reached for the phone to the other side of the glass screen. The other guy started to inspect him.

"Before I introduce myself, I must apologise," B's breath caught in his throat as he read the name displayed above the man's head. "You were apprehended in my place. Although if you had received my note, then you wouldn't have come," he said, not without a hint of accusation.

"I haven't been back since yesterday evening." He sullenly said.

"That explains quite a few things. My name is Eraldo Coil. What's yours?" B gulped.

"I'm B," Coil smiled belligerently at him.

"That's not a name," B still looked hesitant. "Don't be that worried. I had a name like that too. I had an alias - L,"

B's heart skipped a beat.

"No one really called me that though. Some smartass surmised that if you put my initials together, you got 'EC'. And if you reverse them, and put them together with the last one, you get 'ecce', Latin for 'look'," he shrugged. "He wasn't very bright," he concluded as B let out an involuntary smirk.

"Why are you visiting me?" B asked warily, eyes still fixed on the name teetering above his head.

"I wanted to contact someone within your group. Not Wammy, though." He flippantly waved a hand.

"See, I've always wanted to ask you something, since you hacked into Wammy's system." Coil curiously looked on. "What the hell was up with the Montefiori case?"

Coil stiffened.

"If you really wanted to soften me up to get information, that's not the best place to start, you know," he said, shaking his head. "My turn," he tapped a finger on the glass, pointing at B. "Do you know what on earth you're doing?"

B was taken aback. "What?"

"I had a working partner just like you. Much more intelligent. She would have never gotten caught, and in her time she was the best detective in the world. Briefly. Her name was Nadia. Nadia Deneuve," he said wistfully.

"What happened to her?" Coil gave a little half-shrug.

"She didn't take to the 'let's-cultivate-detectives-for-fun' environment. That a certain geezer set up. There is a reason why I left, you know," B noticed a slightly gaunt side to his face that he hadn't noticed before.

"Think about it – tell me, B," he said reluctantly. "Do you believe in God?" a hopeful gleam entered his eyes.

"What? No," B bluntly said. A sad smile met him.

"You miss out on the joys of the world," Coil nodded curtly and left the station.


"Take a shower," Eve commanded.

"Why?" L reproachfully said.

"A – you stink and B – if you're gonna seem anything like B, or his older brother, you're gonna have to change what you wear," she authoritatively concluded as L slinked off to the bathroom.

"Is this going to work?" A sceptically questioned.

"Best chance we have," Eve rummaged through a bag. "A, do you have any scissors? Or is that a silly question?"

A blinked. "Why would you need scissors...unless..." she looked slightly incredulous, gesturing to the bathroom.

Eve gave a weary smile. "Please don't tell him yet," A folded her arms. "Basically...when we get there, I knock the supervising officer out or distract him. L and B switch, and L's taller, so he'll put this marker in the prison window. And I'll bust him out," she concluded, holding up a piece of orange paper. "L can also fight if he needs to, whereas B improvises,"

"You seem to be leaving a lot of this to chance," A said nervously, fiddling with her plait.

"Chance? Of course not," Eve said innocently, discovering at last a pair of scissors. "Oh, by the way, where did Nate go?"

"Near. I believe one of yours' is visiting him," she answered, "Shall I return at 6?"

Eve stared at her faintly, with a sympathetic side to it. "The police station's 4 blocks away. Make it 6.30,"

"I..." A faltered. "I might have underestimated you," Eve cocked her head, thereby irritating A more in the process. Her messy bun was in danger of falling apart.

"Whatever. Nate's waiting for you,"

A smiled thinly as she left.


"These are B's bigger hoodies, and some tops," Eve shouted from in front of the closed bathroom door. "Your jeans should be fine – but wear some sneakers or something,"

"I don't have any," L wheedled.

Eve sighed. "Just wear your tennis shoes then. Typical of you to get good at something the moment I leave. Passing hoodies through," she did as she said, throwing them through the narrow space.

While L chose a hoodie, he made conversation. "You know your leader had a companion?"

"You mean of Jacks'? Of course, they stuck together all the time," she replied dryly. "Why do you ask?"

"Apparently the girl tried to get a gun off the police, but she didn't in the end, and they were about to shoot her when the leader got in the way and died. The girl ran out in front of a car in her grief," L related, almost clinically.

"Stupidly typical," Eve concluded, folding her arms.

"How so?" More rustling from the bathroom.

"Well, people usually become stupid when they get a love life. They do things that normally they wouldn't do. Even when you could live a much more fulfilling life without it,"

She heard a slight chuckle, but it could have been her imagination. "Go on,"

"Well..." she mentally floundered. "It's useless, impairs your thinking and is extremely irritating? Do you want more adjectives, or can I come in to cut your hair?" She this time heard a shocked stumble which was definitely not her imagination. "Are you decent?"

"Yes," he said, with a more forlorn tone to his voice. Eve, when she had entered, laughed gleefully at L's droopy hair that went down all the way to his nose. She was reminded of a disgruntled, wet, cat.

"Now, I'm sorry, but you have to look like B, because you two are going to switch, right? Get a few towels or something around your neck so my attempts don't go everywhere,"

He did as she asked, more slowly than before. "Are you okay?"

"I'm...tired," L confessed, rubbing his eyes. "And I've been thinking as well," Eve began cutting, starting from the fringe, and became more and more interested when his fringe receded to reveal two very tired, half-lidded grey eyes.

"Is that the reason why you're staring at me?" Eve hesitantly inquired.

"Yes. You wouldn't say that love was such an irritating thing unless you had experienced it beforehand," Eve faltered slightly, but it was enough for L to notice.

"Right, and...?"

"Have you?" she stopped at that, and sat back down on her stool to stare at L completely – a relatively new experience as she now had to stare at his eyes rather than stare at a mop of hair.

"You think that I'm that innocent and fresh-faced?"

"No – but it's the right time for certain hormones to make you have a perfectly normal experience," L replied, slightly more harshly than he had meant to.

"You seem to be more worried and defensive about this than I am – now stay still," Eve coldly wrenched his head downward to cut the hair at the back of his head, provoking a sharp stab of pain. L growled inwardly.

"Are you contemplating revenge yet?" she tauntingly said.

He sighed – after all, he was. And he was arguing inside his head as to whether his revenge was harsh enough or not. A worrying sign of mental instability. L scowled.

"Not quite. I'm thinking again,"

"Do I want to know?"

"Probably not,"

"Wrong answer," Eve leaned her head closer to L's as she reached for the right side.

"I'm wondering about certain acts that people carry out when they're in love. And how discomforting they must be when they're not."

"Right,"

"Including kissing,"

"With you so far," a slightly suspicious tone crept into her voice.

"I really must have revenge, even if at the cost of my physical pleasure," L concluded before reaching out.

"L, what..." she dropped her scissors as she felt a fumbling pair of hands on her face.