There was a bit of a pause and then Will said, “Did I hear you say ‘witches’?”

“You did,” said Tim. “That’s what I said.”

“You are saying that this has something to do with witches?”

Tim nodded.

“But Tim,” said Will, “and please don’t take this the wrong way, there are no such thing as witches.”

“Oh, there are.” Tim’s head nodded and his big hair went every which way. “Those two women who came to the Tate were witches. I recognised them. They have a triple A security clearance. All the higher echelons are in the Craft.”

“Witchcraft? Are you serious, Tim?”

“Why do you think I’m a Pagan, Will?”

Will shrugged. “Because it’s your choice. You can believe in anything you want to believe in. It’s still legal.”

“No,” said Tim. “It’s because I want to get on. By declaring on my employment application that I was a Pagan, I got a head start. I’ve had three promotions this year. How many have you had?”

“None,” said Will. “But how—”

“Websites, Will. Conspiracy theory websites. I’ve grown up on them. I love them. There was this really good one that said that witches are running the world.”

“But it got closed down?” Will said.

“It did. But by that time I had, how shall I put this, digested the intelligence. The website suggested that a cabal of witches run the planet. It all sounded terribly exciting, so I thought I’d put ‘Pagan’ on my application and see if it helped. It did. I hear a word here and a word there, and those two women were witches. I know it.”

“This is all too much,” Will shook his blondy head. “It’s all too much to believe. And if real witches wanted me dead, surely they’d just cast a spell on me, or something.”

“Did you watch the newscast earlier on the home screen?”

“No,” said Will. “Dad tuned it to the relaxation channel. We watched waves breaking on a beach throughout supper.”

“Shame. You’d have been interested in the newscast. It showed the serial killer who had butchered an undisclosed number of William Starlings being led away and later executed.”

“What?” went Will. “But that’s not what happened.”

“Are you telling me that you don’t believe what you see on the newscasts? Are you suggesting that there might be some big conspiracy?”

“Ah,” said Will.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Tim, “or what really went on in Victorian times, but we’re not being told the truth. There is a big conspiracy. It could be something to do with witchcraft, or it couldn’t, but you’re in big trouble, Will. Whoever it is that wants you dead, wants you dead. They want to destroy the painting, which has the evidence of the truth in it and they want to kill you, because you know.”

“Then they’ll want to kill you too,” said Will.

“I’m sure,” said Tim. “Which is why we are talking in a cupboard. I am telling you everything I know, in confidence.”

“So what am I going to do? Run? To where?”

“I don’t know. But I think you should try and find out the truth.”

“And how am I going to do that?”

“Go back into the past.”

“Oh right,” said Will. “Like, find the time machine that this robot came in? Get real, Tim, please.”

“Take the drug,” said Tim. “The Retro. Take all the tablets. If they really work then you’ll get glimpses of the real past. You’ll see what your Victorian ancestors saw, smell what they smelled, feel what they felt. It’s all there inside your head, in your genetic coding, if it’s true and the drug really works.”

“I’m scared,” Will said. “I’m really scared.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Tim said.

“I wish I’d never hidden that painting.”

“You did it because you cared, because you didn’t want to see a thing of beauty being destroyed.”

“But if I take the drug and I do find out the truth, or some of it, where does that get me? If I’m still on some death list, what am I going to do?”

“Don’t know. But perhaps an idea will come to you. Perhaps something will come to you.”

Will let out his breath.

“Pooh,” said Tim. “Garlic”

“I’m sorry. Give me the drug.”

“You’re not going to take it here.”

“Where then?”

“I don’t know, but anywhere other than here.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t want you ODing in my cupboard.”

“What?”

“Well, it might happen. I’m not saying it will. Go home and take it.”

“And what if another robot turns up at my door?”

“Take it on the tram, or something.”

“No,” said Will. “I know just the place to take it, but you’re coming with me. I don’t want to be on my own when I do it.”

The Shrunken Head was still Brentford’s premier rock pub. For more than two hundred and fifty years it had played host to countless up-and-coming rock bands that had later gone on to find fame. In their early days the Beatles had played there, and so had the Stones, and so too had Gandhi’s Hairdryer, Soliloquy, The Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis, and Sonic Energy Authority.

Tonight it was the Apes of Wrath, Foetus Eater and the others, with the Slaughterhouse Five topping the bill.

The Slaughterhouse Five were a “suit band”, which is to say they were a three-piece. There was Dantalion’s Chariot, lead vocals, political awareness and whistling; the Soldier of Misfortune, who impersonated weather, and Musgrave Ritual, whose strummings on the old banjo brought pleasure to literally dozens. The Slaughterhouse Five were in line to be the “Next Big Thing”, but the line was very long and with only fifteen minutes of fame allotted for any Next Big Thing, there was always the chance of being out or asleep when the moment came.

The interior of the Shrunken Head was rough: it was dire, it was ill-kempt and wretched. The management was surly, the bouncers were brutal. The beer, a pallid lager called Little, was overpriced and underpowered. It was everything that a great live-music pub should be.

The clientele was big, fat, young and colourful, and whilst they drank, they dined upon rice muffins and an extensive variety of soft and easily chewable crisps called Soggies.

Will found a vacant table and seated himself. Tim went off to the bar and returned with two cups of Little and a large pack of rice muffins that he tucked into with gusto.

Will turned the phial of capsules on his palm. “Tell me everything you know about this drug,” he said to Tim. “What exactly are its effects?”

“Mind-expanding.” Tim mimed expandings of the mind. A mimester from the Apes of Wrath caught sight of this miming and mimed admiring applause.

“But you’ve never actually taken it, have you?” Will fixed Tim with a very hard stare.

“Not as such.” Tim shook his head sadly, showering Will with rice muffins.

“So you don’t really know what will happen.”

“I know this,” said Tim. “The drug was designed as a memory restorative for patients who’d suffered amnesia due to some accident or trauma situation or whatever, and it enjoyed a very high success rate. But then the doctors began to notice that the patients they were treating with it seemed to be remembering things they shouldn’t be able to remember: very early childhood experiences, their own births, and more. They could remember things their parents had done before they themselves were born. That had the doctors scratching at their skullcaps, I can tell you. But they worked it out, what was happening. The drug was allowing patients not only to access their own lost memories, but other memories, imprinted into the very cells of their brains, memories inherited from their forefathers. Pretty incredible stuff, eh? But you won’t get it on prescription through your healthcare plan. As soon as its properties were confirmed it was put on the restricted list. ‘For High Echelon use only.’ Ask yourself why.”

Will asked himself why.

“Get an answer?” Tim asked.

Will shook his head.