“Oh dear,” said Russell, “it’s not very convincing, is it? But fair dos, I can see how difficult it is. They’ve certainly been working hard.”

Russell fast-forwarded once more. After many unsuccessful attempts, Mr Curtis finally managed to hang the fairy on the top of a Christmas tree. And then the tape ran out.

“That would be about ten seconds in the can,” said Russell, who had picked up all kinds of movie-speak. “Not much for a full day’s shooting. Perhaps I’ll go straight on to tape number five.”

Russell went straight on to tape number five and now it was party time in the pub. And quite a Cyberstar-studded occasion it was.

Humphrey Bogart was there and Lauren Bacall and Orson Welles and Ramon Navarro, and even Rondo Hatton, who was one of Russell’s very favourites. But they weren’t doing very much. In fact, they weren’t doing anything at all. They were just standing there like statues, with dangling glasses going in and out of their hands.

“Ah,” said Russell. “I see the problem here. The machine can project their images, but there’s only one programmer, so you can only work one at a time. Pity.”

Bobby Boy made his first on-screen appearance. Dressed in his usual black, he walked carefully and awkwardly between the holograms. “A pint of Large please, Neville,” he told Tony Curtis and then, “You’ll have to work him, Ernie. Waggle the joy stick.”

“You can’t talk to me while you’re acting, you bloody fool. Cut!”

Russell did further head shaking. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he sighed. And then he said, “Hang about,” and he fast-forwarded the tape.

“I’m the Johnny G Band, sir,” said Elvis Presley.

“What?” went Russell, as tape number five ran out.

Russell rushed back to the safe and returned with an armful of video cassettes. Out of the monitor came number five and in went number ten.

“It’s the Ark of the Covenant,” said Norman Wisdom. “I dug it up the other week on my allotment.”

“What?” Russell put on the freeze-frame. Norman’s now legendary grin lit up the screen. It didn’t light up Russell.

“That’s the story Morgan told me,” he mumbled. “About Pooley and Omally and The Flying Swan. The story that started all this off. But they can’t film that. Surely that came out of a book. We don’t hold the copyright; we’ll get sued for it. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Russell ejected tape number ten and slotted in tape number fifteen. An outside shot this time. A little yard.

“Location footage,” said Russell. “I thought they were going to shoot it all here in the hangar.”

Someone crept across the little yard. It was Bobby Boy and it had to be said, Bobby Boy could not act. He moved like something out of a Hal Roach silent comedy, knees going high, shoulders hunched. He turned to face the camera and put his finger to his lips.

“Cut,” said Russell, but Mr Fudgepacker didn’t.

Bobby Boy crept across the little yard to a clap-board shed with an open window and ducked down beneath it. Russell looked on, that shed and that window seemed rather familiar.

The camera tracked forward, passed the croaching ham actor and panned up towards the open window. Sounds of ranting came from that window. Ranting in German.

“Oh no!” gasped Russell. But it was “Oh yes!” Through the window moved the camera, like that really clever bit in Citizen Kane and there, seated at a table, with two SS types standing before him was –

“Alec bloody Guinness,” whispered Russell. “And he’s playing –”

“Herr Führer,” went Anton Diffring[23], one of the SS types.

“Bloody Hell!” Russell thumbed the fast-forward and sent Bobby Boy scurrying through The Bricklayer’s Arms and off up the Ealing Road “What’s going on here? He’s playing me. Why is he playing me? Morgan! Morgan must have told them what I told him. But why put it in a movie? This doesn’t make any sense.”

Russell ejected the tape and put it carefully to one side. He would be having stern words to say about this. No-one had asked his permission to do this. It was invasion of privacy, or something. He could sue over this. Sue the producer of the picture.

“Hm,” went Russell, who could see a bit of a flaw in that.

“Right then.” Russell rooted through further cassettes. Two were in black boxes. 23A and 23B. Russell slotted 23A into the monitor.

Black and white this time. A street scene set in the nineteen fifties. It looked very authentic.

“Old stock footage?” Russell asked. “Oh no, here he comes again.”

This time Bobby Boy was dressed as a policeman. He was camping it up with exaggerated knee bends and thumbs in top pockets.

“Well, at least he’s not playing me this time. So what’s all this about?” Russell fast-forwarded, stopping here and there to see what was on the go. Sid James was in this one, and Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams. But this wasn’t a remake of Carry on Constable, anything but.

Russell viewed a final scene. It was set in a police station. A man was being held down on a table by a number of soldiers. The cast of Cockleshell Heroes, the great David Lodge amongst them.

But what were they doing? They were tearing at the man. They were pulling him to pieces.

Russell slammed the off button and rammed a knuckle into his mouth. “A snuff movie,” he gagged. “They’ve made a snuff movie. Oh dear God, no.”

Russell tore tape 23A from the monitor, held it a moment in his hand and then threw it down in horror and disgust. This was bad. This was very bad. What did they think they were up to? What else had they done? Russell steeled himself with further Scotch and took to pacing up and down. There were loads more tapes. He’d have to view them all. He didn’t want to, but he knew he’d have to.

Russell made fists. “Right,” he said.

In went a tape at random. Russell settled back nervously in Mr Fudgepacker’s chair.

Colour again and more location stuff, filmed this time in one of those super-duper shopping malls. Very flash and ultra modern. Russell didn’t recognize the place, or the extras - handsome young men with blond hair, wearing black uniforms and fabulous women in gold-scaled dresses. They walked about, looking in the windows and talking amongst themselves. They were not Cyberstars. But there was something odd about them. The way they moved, very stiff and straight-backed, almost as if they wore suits of armour under their clothes. Strange that.

Russell shrugged and looked on.

Out of a shop doorway came Bobby Boy. And Julie was with him. And she was wearing that dress, that golden dress. The one she’d worn when she appeared to Russell in The Ape of Thoth.

Russell sat up and took notice.

“They’ll kill you,” said Julie. “If you stay here in the future, you’ll die.”

“I can’t leave yet,” said Bobby Boy. “Not with Him here. Not if there’s a chance to destroy Him.”

“I won’t go back alone. I won’t.”

“You must. Take the programmer. Go back to the date I told you and the time. I’ll be in the pub with Morgan. Give me the programmer there. Leave the rest to me.”

“But the you-back-then won’t know what’s going to happen. The you-back-then won’t know how to stop it.”

“I’m not an idiot,” said Bobby Boy. “I’ll figure it out. I’ll make them do the right thing and stop all this from ever happening. Trust me, I can do it.”

“Bloody hell,” said Russell.

“I love you,” said Julie, taking the thin man in her arms and kissing him passionately.

“Tell that to the me-back-then. Now hurry, go on, we don’t have time. There is no time.”

Julie kissed him again and then she touched something on her belt and vanished. Terrible clanking sounds echoed in the shopping mall, Bobby Boy turned and stared and then he ran. And then the picture on the screen slewed to one side as the tape got snarled up in the monitor.