‘ ‘Pon my word, it’s the Havisham girlie!’ he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘Estella, you’re looking younger every time I see you!’

Miss Havisham thanked him and introduced me. Bradshaw shook me by the hand and welcomed me to Jurisfiction.

‘What are you up to, Trafford?’ asked Havisham.

‘Archaeology for the Charles Dickens Foundation, m’girl. A few of their scholars are of the belief that Great Expectations began not in this churchyard but in Pip’s house when his parents were still about. There is no manuscriptual evidence so we thought we’d have a little dig around the environs and see if we could pick up any evidence of previously overwritten scenes.’

‘Any luck?’

‘We’ve struck a reworked idea that ended up in Our Mutual Friend, a few dirty limericks and an unintelligible margin squiggle—but nothing much.’

Havisham wished him well; we said our goodbyes and left them to their dig.

‘Is that unusual?’

‘You’ll find around here that there is not much that is usual,’ replied Havisham. ‘It’s what makes this job such fun. Where did we get to?’

‘We were going to jump into the pre-book back-story.’

‘I remember. To jump forward we have only to concentrate on the page numbers, or, if you prefer, a specific event. To go backward before the first page we have to think of negative page numbers or an event that we assume happened before the book began.’

‘How do I picture a negative page number?’

‘Visualise something—an albatross, say.’

‘Yes?’

‘Okay, now take the albatross away.’

‘Yes?’

‘Now take another albatross away.’

‘How can I? There are no albatrosses left!’

‘Okay; imagine I have lent you an albatross to make up your seabird deficit. How many albatrosses have you now?’

‘None.’

‘Good. Now relax while I take my albatross back.’

I shivered as a coldness swept through me and for a fleeting moment an empty, vaguely albatross-shaped void opened and closed in front of me. But the strange thing was, for that briefest moment I understood the principle involved—but then it was gone like a dream upon waking. I blinked and stared at Havisham.

‘That,’ she announced, ‘was a negative albatross. Now you try it—only use page numbers instead of albatrosses.’

I tried hard to picture a negative page number but it didn’t work and I found myself in the garden of Satis House, watching two boys square up for a fight. Miss Havisham was soon beside me.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m trying—’

‘You are not, my girl There are two sorts of people in this world, doers and tryers. You are the latter and I am trying to make you the former. Now concentrate, girl!’

So I had another attempt and this time found myself in a curious tableau resembling the graveyard in Chapter 1 but with the graves, wall and church little more than cardboard cut-outs. The two featured characters, Magwitch and Pip, were also very two-dimensional and as still as statues—except that their eyes swivelled to look at me as I jumped in.

‘Oi,’ hissed Magwitch between clenched teeth, not moving a muscle, ‘piss off.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Piss off!’ repeated Magwitch, this time more angrily.

I was just pondering all this when Havisham caught up with me, grabbed my hand and jumped to where we were meant to be.

‘What was that?’ I asked.

‘The frontispiece. You’re not a natural at this, are you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Never mind,’ said Miss Havisham in a kindlier tone, ‘we’ll make a Prose Resource Operative out of you yet.’

We walked down a jetty to where Havisham’s boat was moored. But it wasn’t any old boat. It was a polished-wood-and-gleaming-chrome Riva. I stepped aboard the motor launch and stowed the gear.

‘Cast off!’ yelled Havisham, who seemed to take on a new lease of life when confronted by anything with a powerful engine. I did as I was told. Miss Havisham started the twin Chevrolet petrol engines and to a throaty growl from the exhausts we made our way into the darkness of the Thames. I pulled two cloaks from the bag, donned one and took the other to Miss Havisham, who was standing at the helm, the wind blowing through her grey hair and tugging at her tattered veil.

‘Isn’t this a bit anachronistic?’ I asked.

‘Officially yes,’ replied Havisham, weaving to avoid a small jollyboat, ‘but we’re actually in the back-story minus one day, so I could have brought in a squadron of hurricanes and the entire Ringling Brothers circus and no one would be any the wiser. If we had to do this anytime during the book then we’d be stuck with whatever was available—which can be a nuisance.’

We were moving upriver against a quickening tide. It was gone midnight, and I was glad of the cloak. Billows of fog blew in from the sea and gathered in great banks that caused Miss Havisham to slow down, within twenty minutes the fog had closed in and we were alone in the cold and clammy darkness. Miss Havisham shut down the engines, doused the navigation lights and we gently drifted in with the tide.

‘Sandwich and soup?’ she asked, peering in the picnic basket.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘Do you want my Wagon Wheel?’

‘I was about to offer you mine.’

We heard the prison ships before we saw them—the sound of men coughing, cursing and the occasional shout of fear. Miss Havisham started the engines and idled slowly in the direction of the sounds. Then the mist parted and we could see the prison hulk appear in front of us as a large black shape that rose from the water, the only light visible the oil lamps that flickered through the gunports. The old man-of-war was secured fore and aft by heavily rusted anchor chains against which flotsam had collected in a tangle. After checking the name of the ship, Miss Havisham slowed down and stopped the engines. We drifted down the flanks of the prison hulk, and I used the boathook to fend us off. The gunports were above us and out of reach, but as we moved silently down the ship we came across a home-made rope draped from a window on the upper gun deck. I quickly fastened the boat to a projecting ring and the motor launch swung around and settled facing the current.

‘Now what?’ I hissed.

Miss Havisham pointed to the life preserver and I quickly tied it on to the end of the home-made rope.

‘That’s it?’ I asked.

‘That’s it,’ replied Miss Havisham ‘Not much to it, is there? Wait! Look there!’

She pointed to the side of the prison hulk where a strange creature had attached itself to one of the gunports It had large bat-like wings folded untidily across the back of its body, which was covered by patchy tufts of matted fur. It had a face like a fox, sad brown eyes and a long, thin beak that was inserted deep into the wood of the gunport. It was oblivious to us both and made quiet sucky noises as it fed.

There was a loud explosion and a bullet struck close to the strange creature. It immediately unfolded its large wings in alarm and flew off into the night.

‘Blast!’ said Miss Havisham, lowering her pistol and pushing the safety back on. ‘Missed!’

The noise had alerted the guards on the deck.

‘Who’s there?’ yelled one. ‘You had better be on the King’s business or by St George you’ll feel the lead from my musket!’

‘It’s Miss Havisham,’ replied Havisham in a vexed tone, ‘on Jurisfiction business, Sergeant Wade.’

‘Begging your pardon, Miss Havisham,’ replied the guard apologetically, ‘but we heard a gunshot!’

‘That was me,’ yelled Havisham. ‘You have grammasites on your ship!’

‘Really?’ replied the guard, leaning out and looking around. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘It’s gone now, you dozy idiot,’ said Havisham to herself, quickly adding. ‘Well, keep a good look out in future—if you see any more I want to know about them immediately!’