Will rose from his bath, climbed out and wandered dripping in search of a towel.

“Why were you in the box?” he asked Barry. “Why weren’t you inside Mr Rune’s head?”

“Mr Rune and I had a bit of a falling out. He made rather a lot of demands. A very single-minded fellow, Mr Rune.”

Will said no more, found towels and dried himself.

And then he flung the towels down onto the carpet of William Morris design and his naked self into an armchair.

“Look at me,” he said to Barry. “You’re in there, peering out of my eyes. Look at me and tell me what you see.”

“About your bits, chief?”

“No! Not my bits! About me!”

“Well, chief, I see what you see. A long skinny boy, healthy enough, but a bit sallow-complexioned. Probably from your late-night exertions. But a nice enough lad, if perhaps a bit—”

“A bit what?”

“A bit lost, chief.”

“Yes,” Will sighed. “A bit lost is right. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m caught up in something that I don’t understand. If this were a book or a movie, the critics would tear it to pieces, saying that the hero was two-dimensional and the entire sorry business unconvincing and totally plot-led.”

“That’s a bit harsh, chief. You didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“Exactly, and I should have a choice. I should be doing something. Making something happen. I don’t even think I know who I am any more.”

“Tell me about it,” said Barry.

“Well—” said Will.

“No,” said Barry. “I meant that rhetorically. I know exactly what you mean. It’s just the same for me.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will.

“No, chief, listen. Let me tell you all about myself.”

“It will help, will it?”

“Bound to,” said Barry. “When you’ve got troubles, there’s nothing better than having someone else tell you all about theirs.”

“I don’t believe that,” Will hunched his shoulders. “But go on, say your piece. Tell me what you really are.”

“I’m a sprout,” said Barry.

Will sighed.

“A Holy Guardian sprout.”

“A what?”

“It’s like this, chief. When God created the universe, He did it on what he called the ‘just enough of everything to go around principle’. Personally I think it was more of a theory than a principle, but God knows His own business best. His principle was that there’d be just enough of everything. Enough stars to fill the sky, enough air for people to breathe. Enough water to fill up the sea, that sort of thing.”

“I don’t believe in God,” said Will.

“And just enough doubt in mankind’s mind to always keep them guessing. But God has never really been what you’d call a forward planner. He gets stuff started, then He sort of loses interest and goes off with one foot in the air and one hand behind His back and does something else.”

“Why with one foot in the air and one hand behind His back?”

“He moves in mysterious ways,” said Barry. “I thought everyone knew that.”

Will sighed once more and shook his head.

“So things sort of carry on without Him and they tend to get a tad messed up. Which is one reason that the world is always in such a mess. It started off okay, back in Old Testament times, when He had His finger on the trigger and was on chatting terms with the prophets. You see, in those days everyone had their own personal Holy Guardian Angel to try and keep them on the straight and narrow and it worked for the most part. But the population of the Earth grew and grew until demand outstripped supply and there just weren’t enough Holy Guardian Angels to go around. Which is how come chaps like me got involved.”

Will sighed once more and once more he shook his head.

“God started rooting around for more Holy Guardian Angels, but you can’t just keep creating endless lines of them. So He dug into His garden and began dishing out His vegetables instead. So one person might get a Holy Guardian courgette and another a Holy Guardian turnip.”

“When I do get you out of my head,” said Will, “I’ll have to decide whether I am going to boil or roast you.”

“Chief, I’m trying to tell you all of the truth.”

“Well pardon me,” said Will, “but I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Then you’d prefer a scientific explanation?”

“Yes,” said Will. “I would.”

“Then try this for size. I am a Time Sprout from the planet Phnaargos.”

“You told me that before and I didn’t believe it then.”

Barry now sighed, but he didn’t shake his head. “I come from the future,” he said. “Not the same future as you do. An alternative future. In the future I come from your world pretty much ended in the year two thousand, in what we called the Nuclear Holocaust Event. I was sent back in time to prevent that occurring. You see everything that has ever happened on Earth is watched by folk on another planet, who view it as a reality TV show called The Earthers. It’s always been the most popular show there is, but after the Nuclear Holocaust Event, which got the greatest viewing figures ever, interest fell off, because there weren’t that many Earthers left and what they did in that nuclear bunker was pretty dull. So the folk of Phnaargos, who were all vegetable, let me tell you, bred me in their horticultural laboratories, to go back in time and change the plot. Stop the Nuclear Holocaust Event occurring.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will. “So how did you do that?”

“I was sent to find the one man who was responsible for all the bad stuff in the second half of the twentieth century and persuade him to act differently.”

“Adolf Hitler,” said Will. “I do know something about history.”

“Elvis Presley,” said Barry. “You don’t know as much as you’d like to think. My job was to persuade Elvis not to take the draft. If Elvis hadn’t joined the army, an entire generation of American kids would have also refused to join. There would have been no war in Vietnam and by 1967 Elvis would have been president of the USA.”

“I don’t recall reading about this,” said Will.

“Things didn’t go exactly as planned. Although you will agree, there was no Nuclear Holocaust Event.”

“So you’re a Time Sprout from the planet Phnaargos?”

“Or a Holy Guardian sprout. Elvis Presley’s Holy Guardian sprout. Depends on what you choose to believe, I suppose.”

“I think I’ll remain unconvinced, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine with me, chief.”

“So, would you care to come out of my ear now?”

“All in good time, chief. After I’ve helped you out. Because by helping you out, I’ll also be helping me out. And I’ll be helping everybody out. You see my work here is not yet done. I might have forestalled the Nuclear Holocaust Event, but there’s big trouble in this day and age, which is why I’m here. I was on the job with Mr Rune, but now he’s gone, I’m on the job with you.”

“How very comforting,” said Will. “So with you to help me I can probably expect to end up the same way Rune did.”

“If he’d listened to me, he’d have never come to grief. That man was a law unto himself. He refused to take my advice.”

“Refused to stick you in his ear, you mean.”

“That’s part of it, perhaps.”

“Well I’ve had enough.” Will rose from the armchair and took himself over to the tantalus that stood upon the George III satinwood dresser. He poured scotch whisky into a crystal glass and sipped upon it. “If I can’t get rid of you,” he said, “then understand this. I have had enough of being a pawn in someone else’s game. From now on I’m going to do things my way.”

“Oh dear,” muttered Barry.

“What was that?”

“I said, ‘Oh cheer’. Three cheers for you.”

“Right,” said Will. “I’m going to be running this show from now on. We will be doing things my way. And, when I’m done, you can take me back to my own time, like you promised. And then you go your own way. Are we agreed on this?”

“I want what you want,” said Barry. “More than you know.”