“Secrets,” Tim gave his nose a tap. “Too many secrets in the past that the High Echelons don’t want the likes of us to know about.”

“The secret-history business,” Will said.

“Exactly. It was really tricky getting hold of it. This is powerful stuff.”

“It’s not exactly a recreational drug, is it? Like Bawlers or Wind-ghast, or sherbet lemon.”

“It doesn’t blow the snits out of your gab-trammel, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Will sighed and gazed about the crowded bar of the Shrunken Head. It was another Friday night; young folk had come here to enjoy themselves, all dolled up in their finery. Those who had employment had finished with it for the week and were preparing to indulge in whatever excesses the weekend and their financial status allowed them. These were folk, everyday folk. They weren’t being chased by robots from the past. They didn’t have the imminent threat of arrest and probable execution hanging over their brightly-toned heads.

“This is so unfair,” said Will, taking another sup of Little. And then another swig and then another gulp. “My cup runneth empty,” he observed.

“I’ll get another.” Tim rose and took himself off to the bar.

“So unfair,” muttered Will. “I mean, I’ve always been up for taking risks, but this is all frankly ridiculous.”

“Hello, my lovely boy,” came a voice Will knew only too well.

“Gladys,” said Will, as Gladys now filled most of his vision.

“And you told me you couldn’t make it,” Gladys was a vision in scarlet – but a vision from the Book of Revelation.

“Tim persuaded me.” Will smiled warmly up at the acres of womanhood. “He’s at the bar. He’s been hoping you’d come. He’ll want to buy you a drink.”

“Oh goody.” Gladys turned and heaved herself into the swelling crowd.

Will once more considered the phial of capsules. What would happen if he took them? Would he be transported into some hallucinogenic vision of the past? Would his head fill up with a chaos of jumbled memories? Would he have some terrible, terrible revelation? Would he go mad? Or would the capsules turn out to be nothing more than laxatives, sold to Tim by some prankster?

“Too many questions,” whispered Will to himself. “And I really could do with some answers. But of course, it’s all such a terrible risk.”

At length, and at some length too, Tim returned to Will’s table. Tim did not return in the company of Gladys. Neither did Tim return smiling.

“Thanks a lot,” said Tim, placing two cups of Little and a packet of fruitcake-flavoured Soggies on the table. “Tuning up that scarlet harpy and setting her on me; very not funny at all. Call yourself my bestest friend?”

Will said nothing.

And Tim stared down at Will.

The plastic phial lay on the table top.

The plastic phial was empty.

Will sat rigidly, staring into space. His eyes were glazed, the pupils dilated. His face was an eerie grey and his lips an unnatural blue.

Tim reached cautiously forward and touched his hand to Will’s neck, feeling for the pulse of the jugular.

There was no pulse.

Will Starling was dead.

7

It was the day before the day before yesterday and it was raining.

It was raining and the 8.02 morning train to Paddington was thirty seconds late.

Captain Ernest Starling of The Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers sat in the first class waiting room of Brentford Central station, knees together, shoulders back and a look of impatience tightening the corners of a mouth that lurked in the shadow of his resplendent mustachios.

Captain Starling had little patience. He liked things done at the hurry up and by the rule book, which stated unequivocally that all things must be done on time. His wife, the fragrant Mary, always did things on time and by the numbers. Breakfast at 7.30am, dinner at 8.30pm, sex at 10.30pm, brandy and cigar for her husband at 10.32pm.

Not that the Captain didn’t feel the need for patience. He prayed nightly for it at 10.45pm. “God give me patience,” he prayed, “and give it to me now!”

But so far God had failed to heed the Captain’s requests. And so the Captain sat and stewed in the first class waiting room.

He cut a magnificent figure did the Captain. He wore his finest dress uniform, a tightly-fitting tunic of patterned blue velvet, trimmed with gold brocade and decked with the many medals he had won for gallantry. A blue silk cape was slung about his shoulders, and a bearskin helmet with a high cockade was on his head. His pantaloons were of purple damask, his high top boots polished patent leather.

The waiting room was elegantly furnished with quilted Chesterfield sofas, upholstered in rich red fabric embroidered in the style of Sir William Morris. Porcelain jardinieres of oriental design, embossed with dragon motifs, held orchids, which released heady fragrances into an atmosphere already enriched by the smoke of expensive cigars.

Upon the marble flooring lay a throw rug of the Afghani persuasion. The Captain’s highly polished boot heels began to rap briskly upon this rug, tapping to a regimental drumbeat that only he heard, that was quite out of time with the Strauss waltz that issued melodically through the brass speaker system.

The single other occupant of the waiting room was a fellow traveller, a gentleman of considerable girth and more than a little presence. He had entered but minutes before and, much to the Captain’s disgust, had chosen to sit right next to him, rather than to occupy one of the other vacant Chesterfields. This gentleman wore a stylish Amberly topcoat of grey moleskin with matching top hat and gloves. His face was broad, with hooded eyes and heavy jowls, and now he suddenly struck the marble flooring with the tip of his silver skull-topped swordstick.

“Sir,” said he. “Might I humbly beg that you desist from that infernal rapping?”

“You might, sir,” the Captain replied, turning his head to face his inquisitor. “But by God I will not, the train is late.” The Captain took from the breast pocket of his braided tunic a gold hunter which had been the gift of a grateful monarch, nipped open the lid of its case and perused its face. “A minute and five seconds late! I shall fax a letter of complaint to the director of the railway.”

“Chill out,” said the fellow traveller. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

“What, sir? What did you say?”

“Relax,” said the gentleman. “Let yourself be soothed by the sounds of Strauss.”

“Damned foreigner.” the Captain rapped his heels once more. “Give me a good British regimental band any day. I cannot be having with this foreign folderol.”

“It’s technically British,” the traveller replied. “The British Empire now encompasses most of the globe, as well you know.”

“Of course I know, sir. I am an officer in the service of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (God bless her), in one of her most noble regiments. I’ve put the fear up Johnny Foreigner in many distant parts.”

“I too have travelled widely,” said the gentleman. “I have visited the Potala in Tibet and studied beneath the High Lama. I have wandered alone across the Kalahari Desert, where I met with the Bushmen, who made me their tribal chief. I have—”

“All very interesting,” said the Captain. “But the train is late.”

“Delayed a mile up the line,” said the gentleman. “A brewer’s dray broke a wheel upon the crossing. The train will be indefinitely delayed.”

“I’ve heard nothing of this on the tannoy, sir. How do you know of such matters?”

“I know,” said the gentlemen, “I know all.” And, opening his topcoat, he took from a pocket in his triple-breasted waistcoat of golden brocade a star-shaped calling card, which he passed in a gloved hand to the Captain.