“That’s the theory.”

“Well, it’s a duff theory. If it were true, then I’d know, wouldn’t I? The ‘I’ that is pulling the invisible strings, I’d be aware that I was doing it. I’d know where I really was.”

“The theory is just a theory, so far. That something that is nonhuman is experiencing life on Earth through us. How can you actually prove that the thinking you do really goes on in your head and not somewhere else?”

“Oh, don’t talk daft. Hit yourself on the head with a hammer, you’ll feel the pain.”

“The sensory apparatus housed in my body will feel the pain. Look, Ralph, you can’t actually feel with your brain, can you? You see through your eyes, but where is the actual image you’re seeing? The image is being projected through the lenses of your eyes into your head and processed in your brain somehow. And it’s somewhere in your head. Is it? Can you be sure? How would you know if it wasn’t? And the sounds you hear through your ears, where are those sounds? Inside your head somewhere? They could be in your armpit – you wouldn’t know any different, you’d just register that you’re ‘hearing’ sounds. If in fact what you’re hearing is actually what’s really there to be heard. Human ears have a somewhat limited range. There’s a lot more noise going around us than we can actually hear.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ralph. “Actually! And I don’t think you know either. My thoughts are my thoughts. They’re inside my head. They’re not somewhere else in the universe being beamed to me. I can feel myself.”

“Please don’t do it in front of me!”

“You know what I mean. I’m me. I don’t believe all this stuff. It’s mad. And if my thoughts are coming from elsewhere, and your thoughts are coming from elsewhere, then the thoughts of the expert who came up with this theory are coming from elsewhere too. So, if whatever it is that’s pulling these invisible strings is really pulling these invisible strings, it wouldn’t let him have those thoughts. If it didn’t want to be found out, it wouldn’t, would it?”

“Perhaps it does want to be found out. Or perhaps it thinks that it can’t be found out. We don’t know, do we? What is the point of the communications project? To find out. And if it’s there, to find out what it is, why it’s doing what it’s doing, what it intends for the future. Everything.”

“The theory’s full of holes,” said Ralph.

“Ralph, you and I only know a bit of the theory. A hint. What we’ve overheard when we shouldn’t have been listening. What we’ve been told, which is bound to be not all of the truth. What we’d like to believe; what we don’t want to believe. If it’s true and the communications project works, then we’ll be on the inside of something really incredible. Something that will change everything on Earth. Certainly the way we ‘think’ about everything. You joined the team because you wanted action and adventure. You wanted to get out of the office.”

“I thought it would be like spying. Or undercover work.”

“It is undercover work. It doesn’t come much more undercover than this.”

“I thought it would be like, you know, like him.”

“Like Lazlo Woodbine? You fancied yourself as a private eye?”

“Who doesn’t?” said Ralph.

“Help me find the book,” said Nigel. “Let’s find the book and get out of here and then we’ll go down the pub.”

“I didn’t think it would be stealing, either.”

“The book will be returned. The books are always returned.”

“Yes,” said Ralph. “But what I don’t understand is this, the department is a branch of the Government, right? A secret branch that even the Prime Minister doesn’t know about, but it’s really big and powerful. So how come, if the department has so much clout, it doesn’t have its own copies of these books? Why do we have to keep creeping into public libraries to borrow them?”

Nigel sighed. “How many books do you think there are down here?” he asked.

“Thousands,” said Ralph, looking all around and about.

“Thousands. And there’s further thousands in every other library. And that adds up to millions. They’re safer here in these little suburban libraries, where no one would ever think of looking for them, than all together in some top-secret library at the Ministry, where some Russian spy would be bound to find them.”

“How could he find them if the library was top-secret?”

“Because it would be such a huge top-secret library that it would take up half of London. You are such a twonk, Ralph. Perhaps you should just go back to the drawing office.”

“It’s dull in the drawing office.”

“Then just help me find the book.”

“What’s this book about, then?”

“How should I know? Help me find it and we’ll have a look inside.”

Ralph shrugged and scuffed his heels a bit more. And then he helped Nigel to search for the book. And after a while, which seemed a long time to me, as I cowered in the shadows under the stairs, they found it.

“There,” said Nigel. “We have it.”

“So go on, open it up.”

I ducked my head. I had learned from the occasional bitter experience that certain of these books were better opened with care.

Nigel apparently hadn’t, so Nigel swung open the book with a flourish.

I couldn’t quite see what happened from where I was cowering, but I registered a sort of bang and a flash and there was a very bad smell, far worse than the one there already was. And Nigel took to coughing and Ralph took to gagging into his hands. And Nigel dropped the book and there was another sort of bang. And then Nigel gathered up the book and tucked it under his arm and the two of them scuttled up the stairs and hurried away on their toes.

I crept out from my hiding place and stretched and clicked my shoulders. I knew that I had just heard and seen something that I wasn’t supposed to have heard and seen. Something secret.

Something big.

Bigger than the something big I was up to.

Something really big.

I didn’t quite understand what I’d heard. But then it was clear that Ralph and Nigel didn’t quite understand it either. But looking back on it now, from where I am now and after all that happened to me, I suppose that I am quite impressed by myself. By the myself that was me back then. Because I seemed to know instinctively that what I had heard was in some way going to shape my future. I had a sort of a future already planned for myself – I hoped to enter the undertaking trade – but I knew that the conversation between Nigel and Ralph meant something to me personally. It was almost as if it was meant for my ears. As if it had been no coincidence that I was there to hear it.

And now, all these years later, knowing what I know and having done all the things I have done, I know that it wasn’t.

So, with my purloined book in my pocket, I climbed the stairs, switched off the light and left the restricted section, locking it behind me. Then I left the library, locking that behind me, returned the keys to Captain Runstone’s lodge and headed home for my tea.