“So they can’t both be society, the soup and the vegetables.”

“They’re aspects.”

“You said the cook was aspects.”

“He is.”

“But he put the soup together, so he can’t be society too.”

“Perhaps it’s the castle,” said Russell.

“What do you mean, perhaps? I thought you knew.”

“I do know.”

“What’s the wasteland, then?”

“Time,” said Russell.

“The traveller is time, you said.”

“The traveller came out of the wasteland. The wasteland is an aspect of time. Endless you see, like an endless wasteland.”

“The stone came out of the wasteland. So the stone must be an aspect of an aspect of time.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What a load of old rubbish.”

“It is not.”

“What’s the kitchen, then?”

“Stop it,” said Russell. “You’re giving me a headache.”

By now they had reached the Schauberger Memorial Mall.

“Right,” said Russell. “So this is the plan.”

“You have a plan?”

“Of course. Now what I want you to do is this: go into one of the gift shops and buy a box to put the programmer in. Write out a note to go with it telling me to take the programmer to Hangar 18. Oh, and I’ll be in The Bricklayer’s Arms eating a stale ham sandwich when I read the note, so mention that, I recall it giving me a shock.”

“And while the little woman is attending to her chores what will her big bold man be doing?”

“There’s no need for that,” said Russell. “I have to acquire the means for us to travel back in time. Meet me in an hour outside the electrical shop.”

“Oh, you’ll have got that sorted in an hour, will you?”

“I very much doubt it, but if it takes me a month to get it sorted, and I will get it sorted, I’ll set the controls on the time device to an hour from now and I’ll meet you outside the electrical shop.”

“That’s very clever, Russell.”

“Thank you. Do I get a kiss?”

“I’ll give you one in an hour.”

Julie gave Russell a wonderful smile, then turned and walked off into the mall.

Russell watched until she was out of sight and then he returned to The Flying Swan.

Pooley and Omally still sat at the window seat, each with a pint glass in hand. A third pint, freshly pulled, stood upon the table.

Russell sat down, raised it to his lips and said, “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” agreed Pooley and Omally.

Russell drained off half a perfect pint, then placed his glass upon the table.

“You knew I’d come back,” he said.

“Hoped,” said Omally.

“So you know that I’ve reasoned it out.”

“About the metaphor?”

Russell nodded. “Julie was the traveller and I was the cook. She’s working for them, isn’t she? For the bad guys. I’ve been had.”

“Very good,” said Omally. “But how did you reason it out.”

“She fits the part too well. I had my suspicions the moment she took the controls of the Flügelrad. Then she spun me the intricate story and I wasn’t sure. But she knew too much. In her eagerness to prove she was on my side she told me too much. And she wasn’t really surprised when we saw Bobby Boy in the mall and she wasn’t really surprised when we met you. And the one thing that she must know, she won’t tell me. And that’s the end of the movie. But what clinched it, was when I told her just now to buy a box to put the programmer in and write out the note. She didn’t even flinch at the thought or try to convince me otherwise, it’s what she intended, it’s why she landed the craft at the exact time she did. So that I would pick up the programmer Bobby Boy forgot to take.”

“You really have reasoned it out,” Omally raised his glass in salute. “Any more?”

“Yes. I don’t think she’s Fudgepacker’s stepdaughter at all.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I think she’s his wife.”

“Give the man a big cigar,” said Jim Pooley. “How did you work that one out?”

“Something she said about Hitler being a friend of the family. It wouldn’t have been her family then, she hadn’t even been born. And the fact that she was sheltering Hitler at the Bricklayer’s. No young woman of the nineteen nineties would do a thing like that.”

“So why is she still so young?” asked Omally.

“Ah, I’ve reasoned that out too. She’s still the same age she was in 1945. Because she came with Hitler on the Flügelrad, that’s how she knew how to fly it, you see.”

“But if she was Fudgepacker’s wife, why would she be on the Flügelrad with Hitler?”

“Think about it,” said Russell. “The war’s almost lost. Hitler has the opportunity to go into the future and step out as some kind of new Messiah. He may only have one ball, but would he have passed up the opportunity to nick his chief engineer’s beautiful wife and offer her a voyage into the future to be Mrs Messiah? I think it was the offer she couldn’t refuse. She fits the bill, doesn’t she? The Aryan type, tall, blond, blue-eyed. Hitler’s ideal woman.”

“Has he only got one ball?” Jim Pooley asked.

“I’ll ask him the next time I see him.” Russell finished his third perfect pint of the day. “So am I right, or am I right?”

“Right as the now-legendary ninepence,” said Omally. “In old money, of course.”

“But of course.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“You know what I’m going to do now.”

“And that is?”

“He’s going to the Emporium,” said Jim Pooley.

“Thank you, Jim,” said Russell. “That’s just what I’m going to do.”

The Kew Road was little more than a track. No grey cars moved along it now. Cars that fly have little need for roads[33]. The Emporium stood all alone in a scrubby field, a bit like a castle, rising from the waste. Russell paused before the Gothic door. He didn’t have a magic stone about his person, but then he wasn’t the traveller, was he? No, he was certain that he wasn’t.

But did he have a plan?

Yes, he was certain that he did.

He knew what was going to happen. He’d seen it on the video cassette, with Bobby Boy playing him and being led through the secret door down into the boiler room to meet the thing. He was asking for more time. Could that be the means to travel back in time? Russell couldn’t remember precisely how the words went, but if he mucked up the script a bit and got a few words wrong, would it actually matter?

“This calls for a bit of method acting,” said Russell to himself and he knocked upon the door.

After what seemed an age, but was probably less than a minute, the door creaked open a crack and Viktor Schauberger, alias Ernest Fudgepacker, looked out at Russell.

He hadn’t changed a bit. He was still the same old clapped-out wizened wreck of a man he’d been back in the nineties. But just a little bit more so.

As he swung wide the door and waved Russell in, Russell noticed the way that he moved, stiffly, like an automaton. Russell smiled and said, “Hello.”

The ancient man inclined his turtle neck. “So it’s that day already, is it?” he asked, his voice a death-rattle cough. “I did look at the calendar, but one day is much like another and this year like the last.”

“Are you well?” Russell asked.

The magnified eyes stared at Russell. They were the eyes of a corpse.

“The old place looks the same,” Russell said and he glanced about the vestibule. But the old place didn’t look the same, the walls were charred, the glossy floor tiles dull and cracked. Above, blackened roof timbers gave access to the sky.

“No customers now,” coughed Mr Fudgepacker. “No-one. Just me and Him.”

“You know that I’ve come to see Him?”

“I don’t allow Him visitors. I’ve never allowed Him visitors. But you are special, Russell, you gave Him to me.”

I’m losing this, thought Russell. But just play along.

“Is He well?” Russell asked.