

Sam Quarrel has embraced many interesting and diverse careers prior to becoming an author.

Grammar school educated, he has earned plaudits in many fields of commerce including the high-octane worlds of executive property, big-money finance and car boot sales.

Sam lives on the east coast of England.

TIME CRISIS is Sam Quarrel's third novel.

Also by Sam Quarrel

The Darwin Error

The Lucifer Strain

Windmills of the Mind

Crossed Wires & Other Stuff (Short Stories)

TIME CRISIS

'Some novels are iconic and define a generation. Some are unsung never receiving the acclaim they deserve. Some are the movie equivalent of Straight to DVD. There is no doubt where 'TIME CRISIS' sits within the sphere of modern literature . . .' Sunday Literary Supplement

'An essential read for all fans of counterfactual history. Would this world be a better place today if this book had never been written? Who's to say, it's done now.' Ernest Wiseman – Professor of Philosophy, Essex University

TIME CRISIS

SAM QUARREL

This Edition 2019

Copyright© Sam Quarrel 2019. Sam Quarrel asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work – TIME CRISIS. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is purely coincidental.

All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Acknowledgement

My appreciation and thanks goes out to Stephen Bunnell for his time, patience and editorial advice.

1

A shot rang out.

Not that Jimmy heard it. His hearing was pretty sharp, but the bullet travelling faster than the speed of sound had already drilled a deep and deadly hole in his body before any warning of danger reached his ears.

In smashing through the thick window pane the soft slug of lead was deformed into a wicked, tumbling dumdum that mercilessly ripped into his body, gouging a golf ball-sized hole in his lung and scything his heart almost in two.

James Anthony Delahoy, age twenty-five, son of Patrick Delahoy and brother to Derek 'Delboy' Delahoy––throughout his life known as Jimmy––the unassuming lad with a passion for history and fixing computers had become just another footnote in the sad chronicle of human infamy.

Only moments before, Jimmy had drained his third can of beer and relaxed back with a contented sigh. Undoubtedly he wouldn't have been so chilled out if he knew the remainder of his life was to be counted in seconds.

Until then, that evening it had been just a solitary couch-fest in front of the TV. He could never have reckoned on a gunman waiting in the shadows outside the house ready to loose off a cowardly snapshot should his intended victim stray into the crosshairs.

If only Jimmy had sat tight for a short while longer he would have avoided his fate, as the assassin was about to give up, conceding his murderous mission a failure and slip away into the night.

With his back to the window and slumped deep in the armchair, Jimmy was out of sight and harm's way, but chilling nicely in the fridge was the last of the four pack – its lure signed his death warrant.

Oblivious to any peril, he sprung to his feet. Now perfectly framed in the window, Jimmy presented an easy target. The bullet hit him like a wicked punch in the back. Mortally wounded, Jimmy gasped and collapsed to the floor. As he hit the ground, some bodily functions had already ceased while others were fast calling time on his young life. If the bullet hadn't struck the most vital of organs there might have been a fleeting period in which he would have known that not only his earthly race was run––thereby be rightly gutted that he had been cheated out of much of his three-score and ten––but also long enough to work out whose hand was upon the trigger. With that knowledge Jimmy would have known that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and Delboy, his wheeler-dealer brother had dodged the bullet with his name on it.

Although there was a tiny flicker of life deep inside, it consisted of no more than a great rushing noise like an immense surf breaking against the shore. That all pervading sound displaced all thought, pain and desire as the last ember of Jimmy's being fizzled out.

Yet that soothing lullaby of death had an imperfection. There was a faint trill marring his blissful descent into non-existence.

There was a new sensation – a great mass pressing down upon him, suffocating and holding him rigidly as though he was encased in stone. He choked on acrid smoke and dust. The trill ring sounded again – short and sharp like a warning bell.

There was vibration above. Falling dust stung his eyes which must have been open and staring sightlessly into the perfect darkness. Again there was movement that released the crushing weight upon him. Something heavy shifted close by startling him. A crash was followed by heavy shaking all around easing yet more pressure from his body. There were voices, muffled, but urgent. A sudden shift above caused more dust to fall into his eyes. The voice was clearer, but it still barked indecipherable orders. With a great heaving crash, cool air and a red glow suddenly filled the gaping hole that had opened up above him.

The face peering down at him reared back in surprise.

'Struth!' The uniformed rescuer gathered himself and said calmly, 'Don't worry, my love, we'll soon have you out.'

Jimmy gazed up in confusion as the man called out, 'Alf, quick, gi's a hand. It's a bloomin' miracle. She 'ain't dead.'

'She?'

Admittedly it was dark and he needed a haircut, but surely two days-worth of stubble should have been a bit of a heads-up that he was a bloke.

Both men reached into the hole. Jimmy worked his arms free of the rubble and guided them weakly towards the outstretched hands. Each of his rescuers took a wrist and with seemingly little effort they hauled him clear. Jimmy howled in pain as a protruding nail gouged deeply into his thigh.

'Jesus – that hurt,' cried Jimmy in a strangely light voice.

'Sorry, love, but there's one that ain't gone off in Durban Avenue. Can't hang about.'

'You should be more careful, you moron.'

The older of the two men scowled. 'And there's no need for language like that, missus.'

'Alf, leave it. Reckon she ain't right in herself.'

Jimmy allowed the two men to extract him from his tomb. They got Jimmy under each arm and carefully steered him across the remains of the demolished house.

They set him down on his feet in what should have been a road, but the pile upon pile of rubble and debris had made it unrecognisable as the place he once called home. All around him the whole world was alight with a hellish red fire dancing into the black sky. Infernos raged in broken buildings of which only skeletal walls remained. Men, like fleeting shadows, were darting everywhere, some aiming giant hoses at the roaring fires, some picked at the remains of what were once family houses, while others hurriedly attended to the injured on the ground. Fire bells sounded all around.

Jimmy wobbled taking in the alien sight before him: What had happened? A gas explosion? A massive 9/11-type terrorist attack? The devastation was too vast to comprehend.

He also felt most peculiar, probably because he had been pinned under all the heavy rubble, but he had the unpleasant sensation of being giddily disconnected from his body. His balance was all out of kilter, as was the coordinated control of his limbs. He made odd jumpy movements that were out of sync with his intentions. It was as though he was falling over drunk, but without the heady buzz.

'Listen my love, was anyone else in the house with you?' asked Bill.

'Nah, I was on my own watching telly.'

The two rescuers exchanged puzzled glances.

'Look here, missus, take my coat. It's perishing and a shock like that can do strange things to people.'

Jimmy slipped on the heavy overcoat with a grudging: 'Cheers.'

'Well you best get yourself down to the First Aid Station in Ladysmith Avenue now. They'll take a look at that cut. You don't want it turning septic.'

Jimmy had never heard of Ladysmith Avenue, but steadied himself and was on top of the situation immediately. He might not always be looking for the angles like his brother, but this could be his big chance. He only lived in a council house, but getting it blown-up around your ears had industrial-sized compensation written all over it.

Physically, he had only suffered a minor cut, but one of the ambulance-chasing, Slipped, Tripped or Fallen brigade would soon nail whoever was responsible. He knew how they worked. The injury to his leg would be nothing compared to the debilitating post-traumatic stress the solicitors would claim he had suffered as a result of the horrific incident. It would be like winning the lottery. He wasn't good at play-acting, and he wasn't comfortable with conning people, but it was a tough world out there and this opportunity represented the way out to a decent life.

There would be no more claiming unemployment benefit for him. No longer would he have to sort out computers cash-in-hand to supplement the meagre state hand-out or attend endless interviews for jobs he had no hope of getting. He needed to lay down a marker to let them know he meant business.

'You two, before I go, I want your names. My lawyer will need them when my damages claim goes to court. This leg could be scarred for life,' said Jimmy, still in the thin reedy voice he wasn't able to shake off even after hawking-up the dust in his lungs.

'Lawyer? What's she on about?'

The older man, Alf, bristled at Jimmy's attitude. 'You were lucky, my love, like I was in the first one, surviving in the trenches for three years. In Mafeking Street there was a family of five, who weren't so lucky. All killed – a mine. Poor beggars.'

'A mine?' thought Jimmy. He didn't know there were any mines in Essex. And what idiot takes his family down a coalmine anyway?

'Yeah whatever, that's obviously very sad, but it's in here where the damage is, long term and probably irreparable,' Jimmy said tapping the side of his head.

'I told you she'd taken one on the nut,' said Bill.

'She definitely ain't right.' Alf then turned to Jimmy, and with a stab at compassion that would have been more appropriate if he was addressing a small child, he said, 'Look, love, you go with Bill here and he'll take you to get help. Now off you go.'

'Yeah, I need counselling,' declared Jimmy, adding quickly, 'It won't do any good mind.'

'The council?' snorted Bill. 'You won't get no one from the council down 'ere, love. They're too important, they tell us, not like us.'

Okay, counselling could wait, but at least he had two witnesses who would testify that Jimmy had requested it. On balance, Jimmy reckoned it was probably better if some well-meaning weirdy-beardy wasn't raced to the scene with tea and sympathy to rake-over his mental torment.

As Jimmy mused over his compensation strategy, he noted the rescuer's black uniform and military-style helmets. He wanted to make sure he got all his facts right when the case went to court.

'Anyway, you guys, what are you, firemen?'

Both men frowned as Alf pointed to the badge on the chest of his tunic.

'See that, what's it say?'

'A – R – P?' Jimmy said then shrugged. 'It was those blokes in the war weren't it?'

Alf let out an irritated sigh. He spun round and marched off towards another fire tender that had just arrived. He called back, 'Take her to First Aid, she can be their problem. There's poor sods dying out here.'

Bill took Jimmy by the arm and led him away. 'Come on, my love.'

Jimmy shook him off, but remembered his injured leg. 'Careful!' It didn't carry the authority he intended with his new lightweight voice. 'I've got a bad leg.'

'So have I, love, but I ain't making a song and dance about it. Now come along.'

'Bill is it? Now listen, Bill, if you call me love one more time.'

'Sorry, missus.'

'Or missus!'

'Miss?'

'MISTER!'

'Gaud help us,' said Bill tipping his helmet back in exasperation.

He hurried Jimmy towards the First Aid Station. It had been set up in a church hall that had escaped the worst of the devastation.

The entrance was heavily defended by a thick rampart of sandbags. Just inside the door, Bill presented Jimmy to two army medics seated at a makeshift table.

'Name?' demanded the female sergeant.

Jimmy didn't respond immediately. As much as he had initially seized upon the chance to make a serious amount of cash out of the situation, now he wasn't so sure of himself. He took a quick glance over his shoulder. Through the thick fug of cigarette smoke he saw a crowd of people milling around the church hall, all of whom appeared to be in 1940's-style fancy dress. It confirmed, if needed, that something very random was occurring.

'Excuse me, miss,' said the male lieutenant.

'Pulled her out of thirty-four. She's got a deep cut to her leg and I reckon she's taken one on the nut,' said Bill pointing towards his head to ensure his Cockney slang wasn't misunderstood by the upper class officer. He then smiled apologetically. 'I've gotta get back.'

With that Bill darted out of the door leaving Jimmy standing alone and in the care of the military.

'What's your name?' the female medic asked again. 'We haven't got all night.'

'Do you know who blew-up our house?' demanded Jimmy.

An octogenarian in a flat cap and smoking a pipe overheard him.

'Probably the same Boche bastard who blew-up mine,' muttered the old boy as he hobbled by on his stick.

'Your name, can – you – remember – it?' the lieutenant asked patiently.

Jimmy cleared his throat before answering. It didn't do any good as his reply still came out as though his voice hadn't broken.

'Course. It's Jimmy.'

'Jenny, correct? You are Miss or Mrs Jenny – what?'

'De – La – Hoy. And it's not Jenny, its Jimmy.'

'Ginny?' queried the female medic.

'No, Jim-mee. I'm a bloke.'

Both army medics fell back into their chairs and rapidly looked him up and down.

Jimmy pulled open the flaps of the borrowed overcoat and glanced down too. The light in the church hall gave Jimmy the first chance to see the extent of the damage after his ordeal. His brow creased into a frown. Not only did he have two prominent bulges protruding from his chest that definitely hadn't been there before, but also he appeared to be wearing what remained of a floral print nightdress. If word got out that Jimmy was a cross-dresser he would have never lived it down. His instinctive reaction was to rip it off, but as Jimmy pulled up the hem he realised that without it, except for the donated overcoat, he would have been completely naked.

The two medics turned and held an urgent whispered conference. The lieutenant nodded and broke away.

'You've had concussive injuries which require treatment. Sergeant Harper here will accompany you to an ambulance. We'll dress your wound there.'

Jimmy was hardly listening. He was intrigued to discover the explanation for the strange bumps on his chest. He pulled out the neck band of the nightdress and peered down.

'Jeez . . .!'

Jimmy was staring at a cleavage and pair of breasts. He instinctively cupped them in his hands and jiggled them up and down. To an observer it was an inappropriate display bordering on lewdness, but to Jimmy it was an inevitable reaction to confirm their strange reality.

'Good God!' cried the young lieutenant turning his head away out of propriety.

'Right, pack that in,' barked Sergeant Harper rising from her seat and taking Jimmy by the arm. 'Head injury or not, we'll have none of that around here.'

2

Three Weeks Later

Senior Psychiatrist Doctor Harry Bloom picked a speck of tobacco off his tongue. Then with great deliberation he stubbed out his cigarette in the ash tray. After slicking back his hair into a shiny black mat and repositioning his tie to hide his middle-age spread, he placed the sheaf of notes on the desk. With a flicker of a smile intended to put his patient at ease, but rarely did, he said, 'So, Elizabeth, the latest report is most encouraging.'

Jimmy sat quietly on the other side of the desk in a plain white smock, the standard issue for inmates of a lunatic asylum in the 1940's.

'I prefer Ginny. It's closer . . .' Jimmy said tentatively.

The psychiatrist held up his hand and with a smile that was apologetic, but firm, he said, 'Your name is Elizabeth Bradshaw, is it not? That is your correct name. You need to remember who you are. You can't just be called something else just because the fancy takes you. Good God, where would we be if people did as they pleased? There is a war on you know. Remember, we must do what is right, think straight and not just follow our baser instincts.'

Jimmy nodded mechanically. It was hard, but he was learning to play the game. Not that he actually understood what the game was. At first he assumed it was just a vivid dream, and if he ran with it, he would eventually wake up to discover that the house hadn't been bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940 and everything was properly back to normal in the twenty-first century. Unfortunately that would have also meant no huge compensation pay-out, but he would have readily suffered that loss to escape the nightmare he now found himself in.

Even after he had been being taken to hospital in the back of a very realistic, ancient bone-shaker of an ambulance, he was confident that come the morning he would awake in his own bed.

But if it was only a dream, it was proving a remarkably resilient one. One that had resisted a regime of cold baths, electric shock treatment and the regular punitive diet of bread and water. Not to mention the occasional bombing raid by the Germans. And all that trapped inside the body of a woman.

If it wasn't a dream, drugs or the result of some coma induced fantasy, the only other conclusion Jimmy had come to was that he was experiencing a bizarre Time-Slip and he had been transported back over seventy-years to wartime Britain.

Although from what he understood of those mysterious events, it usually involved people being displaced temporarily into the past, like the two ladies who were transported back to Versailles at the time of Marie Antoinette.

Those women described in great detail seeing the queen and many other period characters casually strolling in the magnificent gardens, but the striking difference was that the two ladies were always themselves, and were also ignored by the historical figures milling around them.

Not only was Jimmy's presence an acknowledged reality, even if it was as someone else, but also he was a very much physically abused victim of it. If it was a Time-Slip someone had got it seriously wrong at the cosmic control level. Whatever the explanation, currently he had no choice but to tough it out.

'I am pleased that you have responded positively to the treatment and your delusional behaviour is under control,' said Bloom. 'Your amnesia appears to be the only stumbling block to a full recovery.'

Jimmy had made the mistake of telling Bloom exactly how it was when he first arrived at the asylum. Jimmy Delahoy, a man from the future, had somehow become trapped in the body of a woman during the war. That Bloom didn't believe him and thought he was mad was perfectly understandable. It was mad. It earned him his first visit to the Electro-Therapy Room. He learned to keep his mouth shut after that and had revealed his secret to no one.

Bloom opened a draw and placed a photograph on the desktop. Jimmy leant forward to study the sepia image. It was a formal family composition: Six people; an elderly man and woman in the centre flanked by two young couples stiffly holding hands.

'Anything?' asked Bloom.

Jimmy scrutinised the faces. He noted that unless they were all being held at the point of a gun, the sour-faced group all looked positively resentful at having their photograph taken.

'Nah,' said Jimmy shaking his head slowly.

'No!' corrected Bloom. 'We mustn't forget our diction now, must we? You are from what is considered a good family. Your parents here,' Bloom said jabbing the picture, 'would have hated to think that you were considered Common.'

'I don't recognise none of them,' Jimmy replied in the deliberately anarchic street-talk of his own time.

'Any! – Any!' corrected Bloom again shaking his head. He then asked encouragingly, 'Do you not even recognise yourself?'

Jimmy took another glance at the picture. Indeed, there was his new face in the mirror, holding hands with a bloke sporting a huge walrus moustache. That he hadn't immediately recognised his new appearance was because Jimmy still had a pretty good idea of what he normally looked like, which essentially was nothing like a slim, curly-haired, thirty-year-old woman. And even though he'd had a few weeks to acquaint himself with his metamorphosis, any time spent staring into a mirror since was taken up with unashamedly ogling his new breasts.

'Not even your husband?' inquired Bloom.

'Definitely not!'

Bloom leant back in his chair and eyed Jimmy with cold calculation. 'I am told he is due home on leave in a few weeks. I am sure rekindling your physical relationship will encourage your memory to return. Your condition in all likelihood is psycho-sexual in nature. It could be an extreme reaction to a lack of intimacy. Hopefully your husband's six months absence will have sharpened his appetite to participate in what I prescribe is the best means to your recovery.'

Jimmy was horrified. Elizabeth, whoever she was, having a husband had been mentioned in passing, but now with the asylum's active encouragement this husband would be encouraged to partake of his nuptials with gusto.

'But it's a head injury!' cried Jimmy.

Bloom smiled condescendingly. 'There is no evidence of physical brain injury. No. As the renowned Professor Freud has demonstrated conclusively, sexual dysfunction is undoubtedly the root cause of all mental illness. I'm positive that a series of intimate liaisons with Mr Bradshaw under my auspices will be the shock to the system you require.'

Shock! He wasn't kidding. More than Bloom could ever imagine.

'I'm sure that's not the answer,' Jimmy declared defiantly.

'I'm not sure I asked for your opinion either, as uninformed as it will naturally be,' said Bloom. He picked up a pen and twirled it through his fingers. 'Your extreme sexual inhibition is glaringly obvious. I will instigate a course of Sexual Reawakening Therapy before your husband returns. I personally run the courses on a one-to-one basis. I am quite adept at inducing paroxysm in my female patients.' Bloom smiled leeringly as he slicked a floppy bit of hair back into place. 'We will start first thing tomorrow.'

3

Jimmy was taken back to his room which he shared with a sweet little old lady called Ethel. It didn't take years of intense medical training to know she was completely nuts. Whether it was because Ethel had been confined to the Institution for over fifty years and had gone stir crazy, or whether she had always been that way, but she spent an inordinate amount of time conversing with her imaginary friend, Alice. Such was Alice's reality to Ethel that she was most put out when Jimmy had been assigned to the room and given Alice's bed.

At first Jimmy found it creepy listening to Ethel and her strange half-dialogues, like someone gossiping on a non-existent phone. But after a while, and perhaps a bit scarily, he sometimes thought he too heard snippets of Alice's side of the conversation. Ethel had initially been quite frosty towards her new roommate, but then she announced after a few days that she and Alice had been talking. Alice told her that she didn't mind giving-up her bed because she had decided Jimmy was not only a nice girl of good breeding, but also Alice was finding sleeping on the floor uncomfortable. Ethel advised Jimmy that the two women had agreed to squeeze-up and bunk together in the future.

Jimmy thanked Ethel with a wry smile.

'Don't thank me young lady, thank Alice.'

Jimmy had just a moment to decide. Should he play along? Or did he point out that she was completely fucking mental? Was he really in any position to judge? Jimmy – 'All Man' – Delahoy – in a woman's body and perhaps a nightmare of his own making?

'Thank you, Alice,' Jimmy said directing his gratitude to nowhere in particular within the room.

Ethel tutted. 'You need to thank her personally when she gets back. She's gone out for a walk.'

'Anywhere nice?' Jimmy inquired, momentarily forgetting himself.

'Just around the grounds, I suspect,' Ethel said, then added in a low voice, 'No one's allowed out you know, not ever.'

That's what really frightened Jimmy. Was he doomed to be trapped in this asylum forever, either in reality or within a never ending nightmare?

What would happen if his body was in a comatose state in the real world, and it died? Or perhaps he had already died and had gone to Hell? He was pretty sure he couldn't be in Heaven because if he was, God had a sense of humour.

He remembered a TV programme about a copper who, after an accident, was transported back to the world of the nineteen-seventies. He didn't find out until the last episode that if fact he had died, and the world he inhabited was a form of Purgatory for dead policemen. It made sense. All those departed souls reunited to do what they did in life. But what did that possible scenario say about Jimmy – in death he was doomed to spend eternity as a woman, in a lunatic asylum.

Later that afternoon Ethel advised him that Alice had returned. It obviously hadn't struck Ethel as odd that Alice hadn't required the door to be opened before she could enter the room.

'Is Alice a ghost?' asked Jimmy.

'Did you hear that, Alice?' Ethel chuckled. '. . . what's that dear?'

Ethel cocked her ear to listen to a vacant space then said, 'Yes, dear, I know those chain-rattling ghosts don't really exist.'

Jimmy sat heavily on his bed and let Ethel and her invisible friend jabber-on contentedly. It was nearly tea time and his stomach turned over. Not with hunger, but horror. The food they were given in the asylum was not much better than pigs swill. He was starving. He hadn't had a decent meal since he had arrived. He had lost loads of weight and felt tired all the time, but he couldn't bring himself to eat the disgusting slop they dished-up.

The potatoes were always mashed, served without seasoning, milk or butter and had the consistency of watery sick. There was never any proper meat except the rare and largely bread-filled sausage that stank of cheap lard, and the vegetables, which came from the hospital allotment, often had lumps of mud or slugs and the like still attached to it.

Naturally he complained when he arrived. He protested that his human rights were being breached by serving him up that crap and they agreed without too much argument to provide him with an alternative. The bread he received thereafter was unwholesome as it was stale and the water accompanying it tasted faintly metallic; probably heavily laced with lead from the ancient Victorian piping.

Jimmy wasn't normally aggressive, but he would have literally murdered without the slightest hesitation for a burger. In passing, he made a comment along those lines to one of the food orderly's during one slop-out time. The lady, who puffed away at a cigarette over the food trays as she dolloped the gloop onto the plates glared at Jimmy in revulsion from beneath her tightly knotted head scarf. The kitchen orderly, like everyone else in this historic world, looked slightly haggard and much older than her years and spoke with the clipped no nonsense tones of a grand East End matriarch.

'You should be ashamed of yourself using language like that, young lady, so you should.'

'Like what? Just because I said, I'd love a burger.'

'Good God! The filth of it! Have you no morals? It's hard enough to stop you lot having a bit of 'How's your father' all the time, without you wanting one of them to – to – bugger you as well. I've never heard the like.'

'Bugger me! No – Bur-ger. I'd love a Bur-ger.'

'Filth,' she sniffed. 'It doesn't matter if you make it sound all French and fancy. It might be alright for them over there, but it makes me feel sick to think of it. If you ask me, it's a good thing that they locked you away, so it is.'

And with that she hurled a portion of ash-flecked mash at him. Jimmy wasn't too unhappy when most of it missed the plate and ended up on the floor. He was very unhappy though when he was ordered to clean it up.

With a thoroughly modern attitude to authority, Jimmy had few qualms as he sneered, 'Make me.'

They did and it wasn't pretty.

Three big orderlies used Jimmy's face to wipe-up the mess on the floor and then subsequently cleaned it off again by flushing his head down the toilet. The three gorillas didn't even have the decency to firstly dispose of the large turd that had been left floating in the bowl by the previous occupant.

Since then, Jimmy had learned to be more discreet and his stand against the tyrannical regime was in the form of passive resistance. He also dropped the swaggering Street-Talk, which was an essential survival tool in his time. He carefully kept his true easy-going nature well hidden from his twentieth-century peers who would have readily taken advantage. Furthermore he became very careful with the language he used. Everyday terms like 'Burger', which the average Briton had never heard of until Wimpy came along in the 1950's, were clearly open to some serious misinterpretation.

The bell in the corridor rang.

It was the six o'clock signal for feeding time at the zoo. The inmates from his wing filed from their rooms into the corridor. They were herded along by the orderlies as they wandered haphazardly in their white smocks like a mob of ghostly zombies toward the dining room. Almost immediately a fierce fight broke out between two of the male inmates over the possession of a conker. Jimmy kept walking and didn't even glance back. Squabbles between patients happened so often over the most trivial of matters that the sight of two grown men, or women sometimes, rolling around the floor and trying to pull each other's heads off went almost unnoticed.

In the dining room, the inmates queued to get their food. Ethel was in front of Jimmy in the line, but behind him was a male inmate called Henry. Henry was virtually toothless giving him a rather intimidating gargoylean appearance, but he was harmless enough except for his fondness for openly masturbating whenever he was near a woman.

Jimmy didn't have to actually witness Henry with his dick out and banging away to know what he was doing behind him. As Henry's breathing became heavier, he elbowed him with a quick backward dig in the gut.

Henry cried out and stumbled back into a psychopath called Dixon who was standing immediately behind him. A scuffle ensued which resulted in poor Henry lying on his side with Dixon's boot, whether by accident or design, stood on his erect penis. Henry wasn't the only one to wince with a tear welling in their eye. Jimmy quickly turned away to collect his slop.

He always made a point of trying to avoid his fellow diners as much as was possible. If the overpowering stench of strong disinfectant and shit food wasn't enough to turn your stomach, the sight of the mentally deranged filling their faces with the stuff was.

Jimmy had been accused of slurping and talking with his mouth full on the odd occasion, but his fellow inmates turned gross eating habits into an art form. Gurning happily, often with a dew drop of snot hanging from their nose or drool running down their chin, they appeared to be unable to eat without the accompaniment of a constant barrage of inane chatter. Salvos of part masticated food were traded back and forth across the table like shot in battle. And if they ever did shut up for five seconds the sight of them churning food in their gaping mouths was like watching a battery of industrial washing machines on the go.

The dining hall was just big enough to accommodate the entire wing, so the best Jimmy could do was to find a seat at the end of a table or with no one sat straight opposite. At least it meant he wasn't in the direct line of fire, having only to put up with the occasional splattering from the flanks.

He picked at the food trying to find something that was edible. He inspected a miserable carrot for clods of earth or wild life and tentatively ate it. Not for the first time, Jimmy noted the cooks in the asylum had a remarkable gift. They could extract all taste even from the most flavoursome of ingredients. Everything on his plate tasted of absolutely nothing.

Jimmy ate what he could, which wasn't a lot if he was to keep any of it down. He didn't know how long he could survive on such a meagre diet. Even as he thought of it, his stomach heaved. He wondered if there would ever come a point, when he was so desperately hungry that even the slop would become appetising enough to eat. Three weeks on that crap was enough. He made a secret vow; whatever it took, he was going to get out of there.

After the feeding frenzy ended, they were all taken to the 'Recreation Room' which was an impressive room with a high vaulted ceiling creating the impression of immense space. Yet that's where the grandeur ended. The flooring was the ubiquitously hard linoleum that featured throughout the entire building and the flaking walls hadn't seen a lick of paint since Queen Victoria died.

Why it was deemed a 'Recreation' room was something of a mystery. If several armchairs and a solitary radio, in the eyes of the asylum directors constituted recreational facilities then the room was aptly named. If anyone hoped for something a little more diverting, physically or intellectually, like pool, table tennis, dominoes or even cards – although, admittedly darts wouldn't have been a good idea, unless they were prepared for innocent bystanders getting random body piercings, while sparing a thought for the tail-end Charlie having the near suicidal task of chalking the scores – it was not to be.

Jimmy stood by the tall arched window looking out longingly at the world beyond. It was dark, but he knew it was fields and trees as far as the eye could see. He knew in his world this place was no longer like that. In his time, Brentwood in Essex, twenty miles from London, was a prosperous middle class town. And the building Jimmy was stood in, an intimidating piece of red-brick Victorian architecture in the Gothic revival style––the Essex County Lunatic Asylum, which in a few years will be renamed Warley Hospital––had been closed down and its grounds redeveloped with a sprawl of executive houses. He knew all that, but what good did it do him? He knew loads of things, especially about the Second World War.

Unlike his brother, Jimmy had always considered himself reasonably intelligent. He hadn't had the support to succeed academically, but he was a self-taught expert on computers and something of a history buff on the quiet. The main reason he had found himself at the asylum was because he told one of the doctors in the regular hospital that most agreed the 15th September 1940 marked the end of the Battle of Britain.

Jimmy remembers the doctor smiling condescendingly as he said, 'My dear young lady, the Jerries are bombing London every night. They could invade any time.'

'No they don't. They invade Russia instead.'

The smile returned hesitantly as if assessing Jimmy's mental state. 'Are you not aware that Germany and Russia have signed a Non-Aggression Pact?'

Jimmy shrugged in a 'so what' sort of way. The doctor broke off the conversation and entered into a whispered debate with two of his colleagues. A day later, Jimmy was sent to the asylum.

One of the orderlies switched on the radio and turned up the volume. It was the BBC's regular news broadcast at seven o'clock.

'This is the BBC Home Service and this is the news read by Alvar Lidell,' announce the distinctive voice of what Jimmy recognised as the iconic wartime newsreader.

'Today there were several enemy raids on the south coast which were repelled by aircraft of Fighter Command. The enemy suffered heavy losses with thirty of their aircraft shot down. The RAF lost nine aircraft, but all the pilots are safe . . . In Parliament today Mr Churchill . . .'

Jimmy zoned out. Not a single hour had passed since being pulled from the bombed house in which he hadn't gone over and over in his mind trying to recall what had happened immediately prior to his rescue. How did he get from his house he shared with his brother and father in Chigwell in the twenty-first century, to one that had been flattened on the Isle of Dogs during the war? But no matter how hard he tried, his last memory of that time was of watching TV in their living room at home. He even remembered the programme: Who Do You Think You Are?, the BBC's celebrity genealogy series, so apt in the circumstances. He had switched over to watch it after enduring another batch of desperate wannabees on the X-Factor. But the event, the one which had brought him there, was a complete blank. That missing time was the key to unlocking the mystery of what had happened to him. If he could piece that together, he would surely know if he was dead, in a coma or some weird sci-fi time-slip. The other notion that was gaining a frightful momentum was that he really was Elizabeth Bradshaw, and like the others in the asylum he really was totally crazy. Jimmy Delahoy, the man from the twenty-first century was no more than the product of a seriously disturbed mind.

'. . . Heroic actions by our firemen have got the blaze in the cotton warehouse in Royal Albert Dock under control. Londoners are warned that they should prepare for a further night of heavy Luftwaffe raids.'

Jimmy looked around the room. Of the thirty or so inmates perhaps two or three were listening with any real interest or true comprehension to the news broadcast.

'Poor bastards in the East End will cop it again,' muttered Stan, one of the lifers in the asylum.

As far as Jimmy could make out, Stan had been sent there when he was barely into his teens for looking up girls skirts and the Board hadn't seen fit to release him back into normal society since. He was no more insane than the next man. It was a childish indiscretion, but it seemed once that you were in the system there was no right of appeal and no way out. Although in reality, after nearly forty years of confinement, Stan was so institutionalised that he wouldn't have been mentally equipped to deal with the outside world.

Stan was probably no more than fifty, but like everyone else Jimmy had met in this world, he looked much older than his years – perhaps it was because everyone was so skinny and gaunt compared to his time and perhaps because almost everyone smoked and didn't have access to free modern healthcare, but they all looked like wrinkly old grandparents.

As it was, Stan was one of the few male inmates Jimmy could talk to on the wing without him sensing a dangerous sexual undercurrent.

Something crossed Jimmy's mind.

'What's the date today, Stan?'

'Fourteenth,' Stan replied with barely a twitch as he continued to listen intently to the broadcast.

'November?'

Stan's eyes momentarily flicked towards Jimmy. With an imperceptible shake of the head he ignored the question and leant closer to the wireless set.

There was something about that date, but Jimmy couldn't place it. Something else now struck him as odd. Unless the Luftwaffe was doing a late turn, he hadn't heard any air raid sirens or the distinctive thrum of their unsynchronised engines passing over on their way to London.

Perhaps they weren't attacking London that night.

Coventry.

The fourteenth of November nineteen-forty. The night the Germans flattened Coventry in an almost perfectly executed raid.

'Stan,' Jimmy said urgently, 'it's not going to be London tonight.'

Stan scowled at the further interruption.

'The Docks,' he said sharply.

'No. They're going to attack Coventry.'

Stan rejected the suggestion with a stiff wave of the hand and resumed listening to the dance band music that was now playing.

Jimmy felt very strange. If Coventry was hit, his prior knowledge of the raid surely proved beyond doubt that he really was Jimmy Delahoy, the man from the future and not just some mentally deranged woman in 1940.

At eight o'clock the orderlies called for lights out and the inmates were led back to their rooms. When Jimmy and Ethel and presumably Alice, were back in the room, Jimmy said, 'Ethel, will you be my witness?'

'Yes, dear,' Ethel replied slowly while concentrating on arranging her slippers by the side of the bed.

'The Germans are going to bomb Coventry tonight. Will you remember that I told you before it happened?'

'Yes, dear.'

'They might think I made it up and I'm mad.'

'Of course you're not mad, dear. None of us are. That's right isn't it, Alice?'

Jimmy swore under his breath. He perhaps should have chosen someone with a tad more credibility to vouch for him.

'Oh . . .' Ethel hesitated. 'Alice tells me she knows your little secret . . .' She hesitated again. '. . . Jimmy.'

If things weren't weird enough, they had just got weirder.

4

'Good morning, Mrs Bradshaw,' said Dr Bloom. 'Please take a seat.'

Jimmy reluctantly sat down. His protest to the orderlies who came to fetch him after breakfast was to no effect. He was given the choice between Dr Bloom and the Electro-Therapy room followed by three days solitary confinement. But now observing the leer on Bloom's face as his eyes lustfully roamed over his body, Jimmy would have suffered the option of being shut away in what was little more than a dark cupboard.

'So,' said Bloom, 'how are we feeling today?'

'Okay,' Jimmy replied cagily.

'Good, good.' Bloom fixed him with his beady eyes and asked, 'You are childless are you not? So when was your last period?'

'Period?'

'Can't remember? I thought so,' Bloom said with a knowing smile, as he scribbled a note on Elizabeth's file. 'A classic case of sexual repression.'

Period?

Jimmy sat dazed. Wasn't his transformation from testosterone-fuelled young Buck into a woman enough, without the hassle of all that messy blood-letting into the bargain?

'So, Elizabeth, when was the last time you had sexual intimacy with a man? Your husband I presume? Describe the nature of that interaction – the details, the sexual positions you preferred. Whether there was any fellatio or cunnilingus involved,' Bloom asked, excitedly dabbing his brow.

Jimmy hesitated. He had never had a sexual encounter with a man. And if he had anything to do with it, he never would. He shook his head.

'But your marriage was consummated?' demanded Bloom.

Jimmy gave a little shrug.

'I will need to examine you.'

Jimmy didn't like the sound of that nearly as much as Bloom appeared to.

'Jump up onto the couch and pull up your smock.'

Jimmy had to think fast. He had no intention of letting Bloom touch him up down there. He had lost his favourite organ, but he had become very protective over its replacement.

'Shouldn't a nurse do it?' protested Jimmy.

'Come, come, don't be shy, I am a doctor.'

'I . . .'

'I said jump up onto the couch! I'll get my gloves.'

Jimmy's eyes flicked towards the half open sash window. Bloom's office was on the ground floor. Given half a chance, Jimmy reckoned he could be out of it in seconds. He needed a diversion.

While Bloom rummaged in a medical cabinet, Jimmy edged towards the window and stood with his back to the opening. He reached for the lower sash. It moved easily upwards with barely a sound. Jimmy was just about to cock his leg out of the window when Bloom swung round pulling on what appeared to be a pair of blue industrial rubber gloves that he exaggeratedly snapped into place.

Jimmy smiled guiltily.

Bloom scowled. 'What are you doing! Did I not tell you to get onto the couch?'

There was a sharp knock at the door and Mrs Hobday, the Matron marched in.

'Doctor, there's an emergency,' she barked.

'Can't it wait?' said Bloom.

'I don't think so,' Mrs Hobday replied haughtily.

Bloom turned to Jimmy. 'Get on the couch and stay there.'

As the pair left and the door shut, Jimmy instantly swung his leg over the window sill and manoeuvred himself out through the opening. He dropped down onto the flower bed and smelt the fresh air. He was hit by a wave of exhilaration. He was free, but for how long? Even if he made it out of the grounds, the distinctive white smock would give him away instantly as an escapee from the asylum. He needed regular clothes and preferably something substantial to keep out the chill. He had an idea.

Jimmy bent low and crept around the building below the level of the windows. He had only been allowed outside a couple of times, so his knowledge of the grounds was sketchy, but he knew the location of the gardener's shed. It was possible there could be some old work clothes inside.

Jimmy edged along the side of the building and craned his head around. The shed was to the rear of the kitchen vegetable garden, which was enclosed on three sides by a towering brick wall. If he entered the walled enclosure and was spotted, he was trapped. But he had to take the chance.

He wasn't overly concerned about the four or five inmates working away at the beds. They were happily lost in their own little world. Jimmy just had to make sure there wasn't an orderly overseeing them. He doubled checked then made a dash for the shed.

Jimmy ripped open the door and froze. Albert, the head gardener was inside. Albert swung round startled, and then smiled.

'You know you ain't allowed in here, missy.'

Jimmy wasn't proud of himself. Albert was a gentle soul devoted to his tiny green charges. He wouldn't hurt a fly. So the resounding clang as Jimmy whacked him over the head with a shovel was all the more painful for both of them.

Jimmy was loath to steal Albert's clothes. Not only had the kindly fellow suffered so unnecessarily, but also because like many others Jimmy had encountered in this bygone-age, personal grooming in the underarm department was a little lax.

After propping Albert up to make his period of involuntary slumber as comfortable as possible and carefully hanging the shovel back on its hook, Jimmy grabbed a donkey jacket and flat cap off a rack. He could have done with trousers or overalls, but there was only a pair of fishing waders.

It wasn't a coordinated fashion statement, or one that lent itself to a rapid flight should the warders give chase, but at least it disguised the smock and went some way to keep out the bitter November chill. Jimmy peered out of the shed to see if the coast was clear then hobbled around to the front of the building struggling with the oversized waders. They made walking slow and awkward, but his intention was to brazenly stroll down the drive to freedom.

But there was a change of plan when he spotted an old soft top MG parked outside the main entrance. It was the vintage type with running boards and big slab radiator at the front. He recognised it as a 'TC', which apparently was something of a sporty flier in its day. Unlike his brother, Jimmy had never stolen a car before, but he was prepared to do anything to get away.

He crept as quietly as it was possible to do towards the car, but the waders made smooth and silent locomotion impossible. His legs slip-slapped noisily together and his feet crunched on the gravel broadcasting his presence to anyone who had half-an-ear out.

The top was down and the key was in the ignition. With a quick glance to see if he had been spotted, Jimmy opened the door and slid inside. The cockpit was snug with a tiny footwell that afforded little space for his now massively over-sized feet. The chunky sole of just one of the waders' boots was nearly wide enough to cover all three pedals, but it was too late to do anything about it.

He turned the key and hit the accelerator. The engine came to life with a throaty burble. He tried to push down the clutch, but the waders fouled on the brake pedal. He twisted his foot over to the side and tried again. He engaged first gear with a grinding crunch that caused the car to stall with a hop and a skip.

Jimmy swore. Even if he ditched the waders, he had left his original footwear, the canvas, asylum-issue slippers, in the gardener's shed. His escape bid wouldn't get very far on bare feet. Then he remembered what his brother had once shown him.

Delboy demonstrated a neat trick if the clutch on a car went and you needed to get home in an emergency.

Jimmy had taken a few driving lessons, but he had never had the money for a car, so he had paid little attention at the time, but Del's technique was worth a try.

He worked the gear stick into first gear then turned the ignition key. As he did so there was a shout from a window above.

'There she is!'

The car lurched forward fitfully under the feeble power of the starter motor straining to propel the car up the steeply inclined path. Jimmy felt tiny surges as each of the four cylinders fired intermittently. The random pop of the exhaust suddenly became a roar and the car, with a rooster tail of gravel from the rear tyres, skittered forward.

Behind him, half-a-dozen hospital staff had exploded from the main entrance. He should have easily left them behind as he powered up the hill, but in the low gear, the engine had reached maximum revs at barely fifteen miles-an-hour.

The hospital driveway wound around the cricket pitch. At the rate he was going a determined pursuer could cut straight across the outfield and head off his escape at the gate.

He tried to crash it into second gear, but the gearbox kicked back with loud grinding noises rejecting the change. He tried to blip the throttle to match the revs for a double-declutch manoeuvre, but instead his clumsy waders hit the brake pedal and instantly brought the car to a halt. He had a fraction of a second to repeat the exercise. He turned off the ignition, but as he momentarily lifted his foot off the brake the car began to roll backwards. His pursuers, now only a matter of yards behind and, assisted by his unintentional reversing, were gaining fast.

With the desperation of a cornered beast, Jimmy yanked the gear lever into reverse to take advantage of a bump start, albeit in a contrary direction to the one he intended. The engine fired instantly rocketing the car back down the slope. Those haring after him jumped every which way to avoid being run-down. All bar one. There was one individual who thought raising his arm, as would a policeman to stop traffic, was enough to prevent Jimmy's flight.

As Jimmy hurtled towards him, gaining speed, Dr Bloom's conceit suddenly evaporated. But it was too late. There was a thump and for a timeless moment Bloom desperately clung onto the back of the car until, with a cry of impending doom, he was swept beneath the rear wheels. In the life or death struggle one of his blue gloves had snagged on top of the petrol tank. A single rubber finger pointed accusingly at Jimmy as if Bloom was crying out from beyond the grave – 'Murderer!'

5

Jimmy knew it looked bad, but he hadn't asked for any of this. Yes, he had killed Bloom, but the authorities claimed he had done it with malice aforethought. In other words Jimmy had committed premeditated murder – a capital offence. Although Jimmy felt really rotten about Bloom's death, even if he was an old perv, Jimmy didn't think he was actually guilty of a crime as such – it was a complete accident. It could have happened to anyone under the circumstances.

Never-the-less the police were called and statements taken. The detective sergeant from the local nick thought it was an open and shut case not worthy of more than a few minutes of his time to investigate. As confirmed by six witnesses, Jimmy had deliberately and wilfully ran the doctor down. As far as they were concerned it was guilty as charged. And if the judge agreed, there was only one outcome. Jimmy would hang.

It appeared his only hope lay in insanity, which was surely the one thing that he could have relied on as an inmate of a lunatic asylum. But no, the police and the hospital authorities were rather keen that he should face the full majesty of the law.

To that end, a doctor from Goodmayes Hospital was summoned by the police as an independent assessor to establish Jimmy's fitness to stand trial before they pressed charges. Army Psychiatrist, Dr Willoughby arrived the following day.

Jimmy sat nervously in Dr Bloom's old office. Whether that room had been chosen deliberately to unsettle him, he didn't know, but Willoughby, with his captain's uniform, neat moustache and no nonsense attitude, certainly did. Jimmy knew from the moment he had observed Willoughby studying his file and shaking his head that the army man had already reached his own conclusion. Willoughby wasn't there to impartially adjudicate upon the state of Jimmy's mind. Willoughby was there to support the establishment's position. If Jimmy was to get himself declared insane he had to prove it way beyond reasonable doubt.

'So, Mrs Bradshaw,' Willoughby said scrutinising Jimmy with a tight smile, 'you were trying to escape – why?'

Jimmy opened his mouth to reply then caught himself. The madness had to start there and then. He could have told the truth and blamed the shit food, but if he was truly insane, they would argue that he wouldn't have noticed just how disgusting it was.

'I was being chased by evil green goblins.'

Willoughby smirked. 'I see. . .'

He ran his eye down Jimmy's case notes.

'No mention has been made before of – evil – green – goblins,' said Willoughby. 'It says here that you are suffering from amnesia caused by severe sexual repression and anxiety. No mention of goblins, I'm afraid. Are they something new, or have you suddenly invented them for my benefit to save your pretty neck?'

Jimmy jumped up and pointed dramatically out of the window. 'There's one!'

Willoughby didn't even look round. 'Mrs Bradshaw, I have interviewed dozens of soldiers who have claimed the most extraordinary things to excuse their wanton dereliction of duty. One, I remember, even claimed to be a dog. Perhaps he was taking too literally the expression barking mad. Yet of those who I have been asked to investigate, none in my opinion were clinically insane. They were either cowards or malingerers, and for that they got their just deserts.'

Jimmy's mind was racing. Willoughby had seen straight through the pathetic green goblins gambit, but an immediate retraction smacked of calculation and cunning. He needed to try another tack.

It should have been easy to pretend to be mad. He was surrounded by enough people that really were not to have picked up a few pointers. The problem was that the other inmate's madness, however bizarre, was so natural and had a certain internal logic about it. But the most telling of all was that you saw it in their eyes. That soulless vacancy was the one thing Jimmy couldn't fake.

Jimmy reluctantly retook his seat and Willoughby shook his head slowly.

'Mrs Bradshaw, we both know there are no green goblins, don't we? We also both know your amnesia, if it exists, doesn't stop you knowing right from wrong? Do you accept what you did was wrong?'

'It was just an accident,' protested Jimmy.

'So, you do understand you were culpable and what you did was wrong, but you claim it was just an accident?'

Jimmy was stunned. He had hardly begun on his quest to prove his mental inadequacy before he had been tricked into confessing he was compos mentis.

'It was the boots – they were too big.'

'You didn't have to drive the car in reverse. You could have stopped. But you decided not to. It was your conscious, deliberate and wilful decision to drive the car at those who were in pursuit. It was more by luck than judgement that you didn't kill more people by this reckless act.'

'I had to get away,' Jimmy blurted out. 'I haven't eaten anything decent in weeks. The food here is rubbish.'

Willoughby picked up Jimmy's file and angrily tamped the papers together on the desk.

'Mrs Bradshaw,' he said, 'do I have to remind you that there's something of a war going on. All food is rationed. Hundreds of sailors die every day crossing the Atlantic to bring what they can to our table – your table. You should be grateful for every scrap you get!' Willoughby shook his head. 'It is with regret, you being a woman and all that, but it will be my recommendation that you are of sound mind, know right from wrong and therefore you are fit to stand trial.'

Willoughby stood up and turned to the window, staring at the countryside beyond.

'But,' he added, 'I suppose it will result in one less person to feed on this small, beleaguered island.'

Jimmy sat open mouthed. It wasn't fair. Jimmy hadn't been given any opportunity to demonstrate how mad he really was.

Jimmy reckoned if Willoughby had his way, he would declare Ethel to be of sound mind, along with her invisible companion, Alice. In fact, if it were down to Willoughby all the inmates would be deemed sane, and suitably punished for malingering.

Jimmy had no option. He would tell Willoughby the truth. If that wasn't crazy enough, nothing was.

'Er,' Jimmy said slowly, 'can I be straight with you?'

Willoughby swivelled around with a taut superior smile.

'I find people prefer to unburden their souls when facing the ultimate penalty.'

'Okay, for a start my name is Jimmy Delahoy not Elizabeth Bradshaw, and I'm a man.' Jimmy let the statement hang in the air.

Willoughby was unmoved, standing expressionless and ram-rod straight with his hands clasped behind his back.

'Dr Bloom makes mention of this in his notes, but go on,' Willoughby said calmly.

'Look, I don't know what happened to me, but one minute I'm in my house watching TV and the next I am being pulled from the rubble of some bombed-out building during the blitz.'

Willoughby frowned. 'T – V?'

'Yeah, telly – television.'

'I see. And you owned this television set?'

'Of course,' Jimmy said quickly. He wasn't going to let on to Willoughby that his brother had acquired it on the fly, no questions asked.

'So, Jimmy you must come from a wealthy family to possess a television set?

'You're joking. We're all on benefits.'

Willoughby thought for a moment then retook his seat at the desk. 'You say you were watching your television set – what programme was being broadcast?'

Jimmy hesitated. He couldn't understand why Willoughby was interested.

'The last one I remember watching was, "Who Do You Think You Are?" It was about some geezer, an old actor I've never heard of.'

'Some – Geezer,' Willoughby repeated disapprovingly.

For a moment Jimmy forgot himself.

'Del, my brother, sometimes says, if they made that programme in the area where we live, it would be called, "Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?"' Jimmy deliberately replaced the 'F' word Del would have normally used out of respect for Willoughby.

Jimmy chuckled, but Willoughby turned away in contempt. Jimmy didn't think it was that bad for one of Del's jokes, but realised even the sanitised version was highly inappropriate coming from the mouth of what was thought to be a respectable woman in 1940.

After an uncomfortable silence Willoughby said, 'Very imaginative, Mrs Bradshaw. I would have thought you would have been aware that the British Broadcasting Corporation stopped its television service at the outbreak of war.'

'I wasn't talking about during the war,' said Jimmy. 'I'm talking about telly in two thousand and fourteen.'

Willoughby returned to his chair and said with a smirk, 'Well, well, this is a new one. Am I sorry to be indelicate, but I would be correct in saying you would be over a hundred years old by that time?'

'I would be if this was me, but this isn't. I told you I don't know how I got here.'

'Or how you became a woman.'

'Right,' said Jimmy. 'Look, I've given this some thought. I reckon that I might be in a coma or something like that. Maybe a weird Time-Slip?'

'So you are suggesting I am simply a product of your imagination?' asked Willoughby.

Jimmy nodded. 'Could be.'

'It could be of course that you are just lying to save yourself.'

'Okay, how did I know about Coventry being bombed?'

Willoughby snorted. 'There can't be many people in the country who don't know by now.'

'But I knew before it happened, so did Churchill, but he couldn't do anything because it would have given away the secret of having broken the Enigma code.'

'Have some respect. Mr Churchill, if you please. Enigma code – interesting. Sounds all very cloak & dagger and highly confidential. A word of advice. You should be careful who you tell these things to, some people might accuse you of being a spy.'

'A spy!'

'Anyway, let us for a moment dispense with any pretence to common sense; if you are in a deep coma and imagining all this, what can you tell me about this future you claim to come from? Say for example, do we win this war against Germany?'

'It ends in nineteen forty-eight.'

'Forty-eight. I see.'

'Actually some historians say that technically we couldn't have won it if the Russians had stopped fighting after the fall of Moscow.'

'The Russians! Good God. What utter nonsense,' said Willoughby. 'Well Elizabeth,' he continued in a mocking tone, 'if the Nazis did turn their army against Russia, as we unfortunately witnessed to our cost in France, they would over-run those spineless Bolsheviks in weeks. The Red Army would collapse as surely as it had done during the Great War. The Russian conscript has even less will to fight for Mr Stalin than it had for the Tsar.'

Willoughby leaned back in his chair and affectedly twirled the end of his moustache between his fingers. 'So, is there any more you can tell me? Something more plausible and specific which might persuade me this story of yours isn't just an elaborate pack of lies?'

Jimmy thought for a moment. There was so much he could tell Willoughby, but it was hard to know where to begin.

'Well,' Jimmy said slowly, 'for the next couple of years or so it's basically all bad news. But then America enters the war after Pearl Harbour.'

'Pearl Harbour?' Willoughby queried. 'The Pacific base for the US fleet in the Hawaiian Islands?'

'Yeah, it's bombed by the Japanese.'

'I see,' Willoughby said slowly. 'It's an awfully long way from Japan.'

'They launched a sneak attack from aircraft carriers.'

'So, the Japanese navy sails all the way across the Pacific ocean, presumably undetected, then attacks one of the most heavily defended naval bases in the world. Naturally the attack fails?'

'Yes and no,' said Jimmy warming to his theme. 'The Japanese sink quite a few ships, but fortunately the American carriers are at sea.'

Willoughby raised an eyebrow. 'And this happens when, you say?'

'The 7th of December 1941.'

'Oh dear,' said Willoughby with a cruel smile. 'Need I remind you that it is now November nineteen-forty? I fear the court will have cast judgement and sentence carried out long before your prediction can be fulfilled.'

'Germany invades Russia in June nineteen-forty one.'

Willoughby smirked. 'But the Russians help us win this war?'

'Yeah, the Germans made the same mistake as Napoleon.'

'Napoleon had horses, the Nazis have tanks,' Willoughby offered a flicker of a smile. 'Again, sadly, I am in no doubt that the judicial process will have moved to a conclusion before June.'

Jimmy thought hard trying to remember an event that will happen in the next few weeks to convince Willoughby. Then he remembered. He had suffered years of abuse, mainly at the hands of his brother, being called, boffin, geek, swot and nerd, but his obsession with history, especially the Second World War, now paid off.

'Sidi Barrani,' he announced triumphantly. 'Wavell's Seventh Army captures the town from the Italians on the 11th of December.'

'That is North Africa, I assume.'

'It's in Egypt.'

'In the next two weeks you say.'

Jimmy held his head in his hands, thinking, thinking, thinking. He was sure it was nineteen-forty. It had to be.

'Yes. Wavell sweeps all the way through Libya to Tobruk.'

'Very interesting. Is there anything more you can tell me?'

'There will be an iconic picture taken of St Paul's during the blitz, just after Christmas. It shows London in flames, but the Cathedral survives unscathed.'

Willoughby nodded appreciatively. 'I see.' He sat back in his chair and shook his head. 'Sadly, Elizabeth, these attempts to divert the due process of the law are frankly wasting my time. If you cannot convince someone who is as open minded as myself as to your unsuitability to stand trial, then a judge will show little mercy if you continue to maintain these fantastical lies.'

'They're not lies. In my time, these events are history – they happened and will happen, whether you want to believe it or not. Just give me a couple of weeks and you'll see,' said Jimmy.

Willoughby gathered together his papers and stood to his feet.

'I've informed you of my decision, which will be in my official report. I see no convincing reason that as a person of sound mind, why you shouldn't stand trial for the murder of Dr Bloom.'

Jimmy made a desperate last bid.

'Are you not the slightest bit interested, as a psychiatrist, to listen to what I have to say?'

'As a liar telling lies? No.'

'But think about it, if I am in a coma, you're turning this into a nightmare.'

'Elizabeth, you are not in a coma. You are as real as I am. Do not carry on this ridiculous pretence or continue these wild stories.'

'It has just occurred to me. If all this is taking place in my head then you can't kill me anyway,' Jimmy said defiantly folding his arms.

'Well, I am sure the authorities will give it a damn good try. Now, good day to you.'

6

Later that day a police car arrived and took Jimmy away.

At Brentwood Police Station Jimmy was taken into an interview room and given a cup of tea and a packet of cigarettes. Jimmy had been told that Elizabeth Bradshaw had smoked before she was bombed. It took all Jimmy's willpower to fight his body's cravings to recommence the foul habit. As for the tea, he was a coffee drinker, but it was warm and wet and better than nothing.

A jolly policeman called Trout was detailed to stand guard over him. Trout was clearly too old and certainly too fat for military service. He spoke with a burr Jimmy would have normally associated with rural Norfolk in his time, but seemingly was commonplace in Essex then. The happy-go-lucky constable kept up a continuous monologue for a solid hour before the detective arrived to formally charge Jimmy. What Jimmy hadn't been told about Trout's slant on life, his family or his droll observations on the chaotic war effort wasn't worth knowing. He even produced a picture of his wife and then of his two sons who were in the army. Although PC Trout was polite and very respectful of Jimmy's needs as a woman – was he too hot or too cold? Did he need the toilet? More tea? – Jimmy was actually relieved to be taken down into the cells for a period of quiet solitude to reflect on his predicament.

The cell was small, cold and austere. There was a mattress on a simple wooden frame, a single bare light bulb and a small high window with metal bars. The place stank of carbolic soap and Ajax, as seemingly did most of the world at this time.

Jimmy slumped onto the bed with his head in his hands.

He had been charged with murder. He was to be taken to Holloway Prison to await trial. With so many eye-witnesses, and therefore little ambiguity over the evidence, the detective thought the case would be heard, and over by Christmas.

If Jimmy clung to the notion that he was in a fantasy of his own making, that last hope was fading fast. He and everything around him looked real, felt real. It was totally mad, but unfortunately it appeared that the truth was that he was trapped in the body of a woman some forty-nine years before he was born. And no sooner had he inherited that body, than he was to have it, and by extension himself, killed by the authorities.

Jimmy's despair was interrupted by the ominous wail of an air raid siren. Moments later he heard the whump-whump from a local battery of anti-aircraft guns. A key turned in the heavy lock of the cell door and PC Trout stood on the threshold.

'Best come with me, miss. Looks like the Jerries are going after the Ford works in Dagenham again and they normally ain't too worried where they drop their bombs.'

Jimmy followed Trout outside into the cold gathering gloom. He led him to the concrete shelter situated in the grounds at the back of the police station. It was crowded with police and felons, who mingled side by side chatting amiably in the thick fug of cigarette smoke that already hung in the air.

Within minutes the wavering drone of the German bombers were heard approaching. The whump-whump of the anti-aircraft guns continued almost lazily as if the gunners knew theirs was a pointless task and they would never in a month of Sundays shoot one down. It appeared the Germans thought so too, as they didn't deviate by a single engine note from their westward course. The noise grew to its height as the planes flew overhead. Everyone fell into an unnatural silence.

Then someone shouted, 'Get down!'

Jimmy heard the high pitched scream of a bomb just a moment before there was a flash and he was hurled to the back of the shelter.

He didn't know how long he had been unconscious, but when he came round and coaxed his eyes into focus, he saw the whole of the front of the shelter had been blown away by the blast. The concrete roof slab had partially collapsed and was tilting at a very precarious angle that threatened to crash down at any moment. Acrid smoke and dust filled the air, but unaccountably among all the chaos the bare light bulb that hung from the ceiling still shone brightly.

Jimmy tried to get up, but in his befuddled state, he hadn't realised he was pinned against the wall by the lifeless body of PC Trout. Jimmy gently shook him to confirm what he already knew. Trout was dead, and looking around Jimmy saw the laughing policeman wasn't alone.

Jimmy respectfully, but not without some difficulty due to Trout's enormous girth, rolled the policeman off his legs. In the process Trout's warrant card and wallet fell out of his pocket onto the floor almost in recognition that the dead copper had no further need for them.

Jimmy carefully eased himself up. He was still disoriented and woozy, but there appeared to be nothing broken, nor were there any wounds spouting great fountains of blood almost miraculously he had got away with just a few scratches. He stared down at Trout's inert form. Even in death the jolly policeman still had a trace of a smile on his face.

Jimmy picked his way over the huge chunks of broken masonry and debris. He ducked under the semi-collapsed roof and out into the welcome relief of the open air. The stench of Cordite hung all around. What had been a small grassed area to the front of the shelter was now a deep crater. A wrecked mains pipe was furiously gushing water into the excavated void.

The huge slab of concrete that formed the roof of the shelter groaned and slid down a further few inches under its own weight. Jimmy turned and shouted urgently into the shelter, 'Anyone alive in there!'

He leant his ear for a reply. There was nothing beyond the ominous grind of the unstable masonry.

'Just make a sound, anything and I'll get help!'

The silence was only disturbed by the hiss of running water. Jimmy stepped back as the roof groaned and moved again, threatening to entomb the dead and injured alike.

Jimmy stood in disbelief that he had been the only survivor. There was the distant bell of an approaching fire engine. The sound brought him back to the reality of the situation.

Was he to hang around and allow the due process of law to take its course, or should he make a run for it? He had barely formed both courses of action in his head, let alone debated it, before he knew what he had to do. But if he was to escape he needed money. Trout's wallet?

Stealing, especially from a dead man, didn't sit easily with him. Yet his brother would have had no qualms about it.

'Why not? The geezer don't need it no more,' his brother would say in the way of his that would make even the most outrageous proposal sound reasonable.

Jimmy uneasily set aside his conscience and warily ducked back into the shelter. Like the closing of a Venus fly trap, the roof immediately slipped down again sending up a cloud of dust. Crouching, he carefully stepped over the bodies and found Trout's wallet. He picked up his warrant card as well with a hazy notion that it might somehow prove useful.

Jimmy was now not only a murderer, but also a thief, yet he wasn't completely without scruples. He couldn't leave without checking if anyone was still alive. He moved quickly between the fallen bodies giving each a vigorous shake. All were lifeless. He threw himself to the ground when the roof groaned and slipped down another foot threatening to crush him. With no room to stand up he crawled towards the entrance. His trailing foot accidentally caught the groin of one of the prisoners, who, then much to Jimmy's surprise let out a pained cry. Jimmy swung round and turned the man over. He was handcuffed to a very dead policeman whose helmet was redundant in every sense of the word – his head had been severed from his body with a straight cut just above the Adam's apple.

Jimmy gagged at the sight, but turned his attention to the handcuffed prisoner. 'This place is falling down. We've got to get out. Can you move?'

The roof slipped again. The prisoner's reply was indecipherable beyond a pained rasp, 'Nahhh . . .'

Jimmy didn't know if the man's discomfort due to a blast injury or because he had just taken one in the nuts, but they had to get out of there fast. Jimmy pulled as hard as he could, but even without the additional weight of the dead copper's head the torso of the weighty PC was like an anchor.

It wasn't nice, but Jimmy had no choice. Rather than chance throwing-up, he averted his eyes as he rooted through policeman's pockets searching for the key to the handcuffs.

Another loud groan from the shackled prisoner was drowned out by the noise of the roof slipping down a few more inches. The imminent threat of entombment turned Jimmy into a man-woman possessed. He virtually stripped the policeman bare in his efforts to locate it. Finally Jimmy dipped his hand in a breast pocket and found it. In an instant the handcuffed man was free and being dragged by his arm towards the opening.

The man cried out as he was pulled roughly over the jagged debris. But Jimmy wasn't inclined to appease his protests even for a moment until they were both well clear of the shelter. It wasn't a second too soon. The immense concrete roof crashed down through the remaining brickwork and pancaked onto the base of the shelter throwing out a blast of choking dust. If there had been anyone still alive inside, they were no longer.

Jimmy rolled the man onto his side in the recovery position. 'An ambulance will be here in a minute. I've gotta go.'

'What's your name,' the man croaked.

Jimmy hesitated. 'Jimmy. It's an old nickname.'

'Cheers, Ginny. I owe you.'

Still clutching Trout's wallet and warrant card, Jimmy raced out from behind the police station and headed towards the main road.

He had only gone about a hundred yards before his chest was about to explode and he was gasping for air. The lack of a decent diet, his prior exertions and the original Elizabeth Bradshaw's fondness for the weed had brought an enforced halt to his escape. He clung to a lamppost for support to get his breath back. He turned away as two ambulances and a fire engine hurtled past him. He guessed they were en route to the bombed shelter. Jimmy was about to make off again when a tiny black Austin 7 screeched to a halt beside him. The driver, wearing his black ARP warden helmet leaned over and shouted out of the passenger window, 'Oi! Miss!'

Jimmy thought about making a run for it.

'Oi!' the driver shouted again. 'Where are you going? You should be in a shelter. We haven't sounded the all clear yet. And where's your bloody gas mask!'

'At home,' Jimmy said, pointing randomly back at a big house set back off the road. Without glancing back Jimmy turned and hurried up its driveway.

The warden eyed Jimmy grimy, dishevelled state with some concern. 'What's happened to you?'

Jimmy shrugged. 'I fell over – tripped.' He shrugged again.

The warden didn't seem wholly satisfied with that explanation, but with a crunch of gears he sped off.

Jimmy waited for a moment until the car had gone then warily crept back down the driveway to the main road. The ARP warden had suddenly made him question where exactly was he escaping to in this crazy historical world. Then an idea formed in his head. He would seek out his family – his grandparents on his mother's side. If anyone, they might be made to understand his predicament and offer him a refuge, to give him time to work out how to end this nightmare. He recalled their address during the war. They moved into it on the day they got married in the nineteen-thirties and only left when they were each carried out in a box some sixty years later. But it meant getting to Bow in the East End of London, in wartime, and that wasn't going to be easy without official travel documents.

7

Jimmy headed for the railway station. It was an uphill slog for the most part. The 'All Clear' siren sounded as he arrived.

He knew Brentwood pretty well in his time, but it all looked so different. He even had to check that it actually was the railway station, as there was no name plate on the small redbrick building. He had forgotten that signage of all types, road, rail and even footpaths, which would have proved useful to the enemy in the event of invasion, had been removed as a precaution across the whole of the southern England.

Jimmy cautiously entered the building and presented himself at the ticket office window. The elderly clerk looked Jimmy up and down with some alarm.

'You alright, my love?'

Jimmy followed his eyes. His utility clothing, which consisted of a simple cotton dress and a wool cardigan, were a grubby patchwork of caked on dirt and dust courtesy of his escapade in the shelter. Undeterred by his shocking appearance, Jimmy flashed Trout's warrant card. If the ticket clerk blinked he would have missed it.

'Inspector Trout,' Jimmy said with as much authority as he could muster.

'Trout you say? Oh – I see. Oh, right.'

'Yes. I've been pursuing for some time a particularly dastardly criminal. I think he has boarded your next London bound train up the line.

The clerk looked Jimmy up and down again. 'Where you been chasin' 'im, down a coal mine?'

'I told you,' said Jimmy, 'he's a tricky customer.'

'Well I ain't 'eard nothing. I ain't 'ad a call from Tony in Shenfield, eh . . .' The clerk hesitated. '. . . Inspector.'

'Never-the-less, I need a ticket for that train to London.'

The man leant back in his chair in a fluster.

'I – I am not sure I can do that, miss – I mean, Inspector. Not without a travel warrant. You know you can't travel by train without one.'

'Are you deliberately obstructing the police in the course of their duties?'

'No, no, no,' the man said hurriedly. 'But rules is rules. You know with the war on and all that.'

Jimmy leant closer as if to confide a secret. 'Look, can I trust you?'

The man was quick to nod vigorously.

'Good,' said Jimmy. 'The man I'm after isn't just a criminal, he's a German spy, and a very dangerous one, who has been sent to assassinate the Queen.'

'The Queen is it. Oh I see,' the man said, finally seeming to appreciate the gravity of the situation. He glanced over each shoulder to ensure he was alone then said in a low whisper, 'Look, the train don't get 'ere for fifteen minutes. I'll get your ticket, but why don't you use the ladies waiting room to clean up a bit first?'

Jimmy kept the gloating smile from his face. 'Good idea.'

The clerk looked Jimmy up and down again.

'If you don't think me too presumptuous, eh – Inspector; it's getting cold and, well, you know – your clothes. Not as smartly turned out as a lady policeman should be.'

The ticket clerk appeared from a side door holding a heavy black trench coat.

'Here are, put that on. It might be a bit big, but . . .'

Jimmy didn't care. He donned it willingly against the chill evening air and wandered onto the platform. He found the ladies waiting room. It was empty. A door at the rear of the room was marked W.C.

He studied his face in the mirror. It still surprised him not to see his own, but the ticket clerk was not wrong, Elizabeth Bradshaw did look a right state. He soaped his hands and cleaned his face as best he could. Having towelled dry, he glanced in the mirror again. Still a little grubby here and there, but he didn't look nearly half as bad.

He strolled out of the waiting room and returned to the ticket office, but the clerk had gone. A notice had been put in the ticket office window.

Back in 30 Minutes.

Jimmy waited impatiently then called through the ticket window, 'Hello. This is Inspector Trout.'

Jimmy checked the side door from where the clerk had earlier emerged. It was locked. He walked down the platform. The place was deserted. Jimmy was unsure what to do. If the clerk didn't get back in time he would have to board the train and take his chances without a ticket, no travel papers and a police warrant card that wouldn't have passed casual scrutiny, but there was no alternative.

The station clock made a metallic tonk sound as it recorded the leisurely second hand moving around the face. If it was running on time and not delayed due to the air raid, the train should arrive in five minutes.

Jimmy strode out of the station back to the road hoping to find the ticket clerk. There wasn't a soul around. He was surprised not to see at least a few people going about their business. He walked back through the station building to the platform and slumped onto a bench. The walls were covered in what had become since iconic and collectable wartime propaganda posters: Keep Calm and Carry On, Dig for Victory and Loose Talk Cost Lives. To Jimmy's eyes they were faintly comical, but no one in the whole world at this time knew what he knew – that it would all turn out fine in the end.

'Excuse me, miss,' a voice called out behind him. It was the ticket clerk. 'If you would like to come with me we'll sort out your tickets.'

Jimmy followed the clerk through the side door into the tiny ticket office. The door was instantly slammed shut behind him. Two men, dressed in identical trench coats and trilby's, grabbed Jimmy's arms.

'Right, come with us.'

Jimmy struggled to break free, but their grip was too strong.

'Thanks for the call, Mr Pomeroy. I suppose you can spot these characters a mile off?'

'Is she dangerous, sergeant?' asked the clerk.

'Killed a man,' the other plain clothes policemen replied flatly.

'A right escape artist this one,' said the first detective. 'Only two people got out of that shelter and guess who happened to be one of them.'

The detective snatched Trout's warrant card from Jimmy's hand.

'May I take this opportunity to offer my condolences for your brother-in-law, Tom Trout. He was a good copper.

Jimmy was led out of the station and put into the back of a police car that had silently drawn up outside.

'Where are we going,' asked Jimmy.

'Holloway prison has been bomb-damaged. My instructions are to take you back to the asylum for now.'

8

On arrival at the asylum, Jimmy was immediately led to the high security wing of the hospital. It was where the really dangerous patients were housed.

The two detectives handed Jimmy over to the orderlies, one male, one female and both used to taking no nonsense.

'Keep an eye on this one,' one of the detectives said as a parting shot.

Jimmy was bundled into a room and the key turned in the lock behind him. He slumped onto the solid mattress.

The walls of the tiny cell were covered in flaking blue paint punctuated by a small barred window. The only other feature was a chunky radiator that was turned off. Only now did Jimmy realise how cold the room was. He shivered and pulled Pomeroy's trench coat tightly around him.

He sat on the side of the bed lamenting what he was to do now. Another escape attempt was all but impossible. He knew they didn't mess about in those days. Convicted prisoners didn't get the luxury of numerous appeals and years of waiting on death row. It was just a quick trial then just a couple weeks later the big drop. The authorities weren't too bothered about the odd miscarriage of justice here and there, believing that God as their judge would welcome the poor souls into Heaven if they were truly innocent. If he had any say in the matter, Jimmy would rather have not left that final judgement to the Almighty.

Jimmy was escorted from the cell to dinner by the same two orderlies, who walked in close attendance to prevent any funny business.

They took him to the dining room and waited while Jimmy queued up for his meal, then sat him down and stood guard behind him.

Jimmy was surprised to see Ethel sitting opposite.

'What are you doing here?' asked Jimmy.

'They told me you had been brought back and I asked to see you.'

'That's very kind of you, Ethel, but you had better watch out as they say I'm a highly dangerous criminal, but thankfully not mad, apparently.'

Ethel smiled. 'We both know you are not that, don't we, Alice.'

Jimmy's eyes flicked towards the empty chair next to Ethel that had been reserved for her invisible friend.

Ethel leaned forward and whispered, 'We know who you really are.'

Intrigued, it didn't require any further encouragement for Jimmy to lay his knife and fork aside and leave the pigs swill on his plate untouched.

'And who might that be, Ethel?'

'Well young man you have got yourself in a right pickle, haven't you? You don't really belong here.'

Jimmy stared at her and shook his head in confusion.

'What's that, Alice?' Ethel asked cocking her ear toward the empty chair and she smiled. 'Alice wants to know what it's like where you come from.'

Jimmy considered Ethel's enquiry for a moment then began slowly. 'Well. . . People aren't chuckin' bombs at you for a start! Not unless you count the occasional one by some terrorist or other. But apart from that it's alright. We have cars, big tellys, computers, mobile phones, everyone's got one. People are always moaning about muggings and stuff, but compared to what you lot have to put up with, it's okay.'

Ethel tilted her head to one side and asked coyly, 'Jimmy? May I call you that? It must be a strange place because these things you talk about mean nothing to me.'

'Telly? Television? Mobile phone – a telephone you can walk around with. It doesn't need wires.' Jimmy hesitated. 'A computer? Erm, well it does loads of things really. It's a bit hard to explain. A bit like an electronic brain. It started out doing letters and stuff like an automatic typewriter, but now there's the Internet, games, music and even films you can watch. Most of the new ones have a camera so you can see people and talk to them all around the world.'

'It all sounds wonderfully exciting this world of yours.'

Jimmy shrugged. 'It's alright I suppose. Better than this stinking place.'

'What's that, Alice?'

Jimmy yet again instinctively glanced at the empty chair.

'Alice wants to know what they do with people like us, where you come from.'

'Apart from the real fruit cakes, they let you out to live in the community.'

'We're not locked up? We're free?'

'Yeah, there's a bloke a few doors down from us who lived in one of the flats – he wasn't the full ticket. Harmless enough though.'

'Hear that, Alice, we'd be free.'

Jimmy automatically glanced over to the vacant seat again and groaned inwardly. The Ethel & Alice double act got him every time.

'Ethel, surely Alice could leave anytime if she wanted?' smirked Jimmy.

'Oh no dear, she wouldn't go without me. We've always been together and we would leave together or not at all.'

The bell rang announcing the end of meal time.

Jimmy eyed the remains of his runny dinner with revulsion. Even if he'd had the slightest inclination to finish it, he couldn't as the plate was snatched away by one of the orderly's. They took him arm in arm and marched him back to his isolation cell.

9

Next day Jimmy was introduced to his defence Brief appointed by the court. The first impressions weren't favourable; his name for a start – Mr Bumpkin. The name, like the man, inspired little confidence.

Jimmy had been taken to a small office. When he arrived Bumpkin was sitting behind the desk engaged in a losing battle with some paperwork that he was trying to bring into some order. Bumpkin was short and round and his moon face glistened with a repulsive damp sheen not unlike a toad.

'Ah, Mrs Bradshaw, take a seat, take a seat,' he said waving vaguely at the empty chair.

For the next few minutes Jimmy sat with growing disillusionment. Bumpkin, without once making eye contact, continued to shuffle paper around with no satisfactory resolution in sight.

'Perhaps I'll sort those later,' Bumpkin said with a forced laugh and pushing the heap aside.

Bumpkin took a moment then leaned back in his chair. He struck a pose by inserting his thumbs in his lapels and puffing out his chest.

'My name is Benjamin Bumpkin. I have been instructed by the court to prepare the case for your defence.'

Jimmy, in his twenty-first century guise, wouldn't have hesitated to swear. The only thing saving him from a long drop on the end of a short rope was to be some bumbling idiot straight out of a Beatrix Potter book.

Bumpkin sighed. 'An unfortunate business, Mrs Bradshaw, very unfortunate. The evidence is so damning, you see.'

'A plea of insanity must be the angle to take. This place is an asylum after all and I'm bloody locked-up in it!'

Bumpkin harrumphed loudly. He took off his wire-framed glasses and vigorously polished them with his handkerchief. 'I don't think there's any need for that sort of language, Mrs Bradshaw. Besides, this is a difficult case. Dr Willoughby has declared you sane. No court would dare challenge his professional judgement.'

'So what do you suggest then?' Jimmy asked with undisguised sarcasm.

Bumpkin ran a shaky finger around his wing collar and dabbed the sweat off his brow.

'Well, having read your file and the mitigating circumstances that brought you here, I . . . I think, umm, well we perhaps should throw ourselves upon the mercy of the court and ask for clemency. Ask them to – to – to commute your sentence to – to life in – in – in prison.'

'That's it!'

'The court will probably be quite reasonable seeing as you are a woman.'

Jimmy held his head in his hands. 'Is this your first case, Mr Bumpkin?'

'Good heavens no. I have been in practice for over twenty years.'

'And have you defended many murder cases in that time?'

'Ten or so.'

'Did you get any of them off?'

'Well . . .'

'Clemency?'

'Ah . . . well, no . . .'

'How long have I got,' asked Jimmy.

Bumpkin dabbed his glistening brow and rummaged through his disorderly papers.

'I believe . . . Ah-ha, here we are.' Bumpkin squinted at his notes. 'The case is due to be heard on the 16th of December at the Old Bailey.'

Two weeks.

Bumpkin opened his briefcase and shovelled the papers inside.

'Shall I see you again before the trial?' asked Jimmy.

Bumpkin snapped shut the briefcase. 'No, no, no, I don't believe there's any requirement for that.'

Bumpkin smoothed down his greasy, centre-parted hair and extended his hand.

'It has been a pleasure meeting you, Mrs Bradshaw. But I have other pressing matters, so sadly, I must bid you good day.'

Jimmy recoiled. Bumpkin's handshake was sticky and limp like an over-ripe lettuce. The barrister then did a smart about-turn and departed the room. Jimmy ran his hand up and down his smock to wipe off the slime and eyed the window. It was a first floor room, but he was prepared to take his chances if his best hope was Bumpkin's plea for clemency.

But as Jimmy took a step towards the window the door burst open and two orderlies grabbed him by the arms. They hauled him from the office and back to the high security wing.

10

The next few days passed not only far too quickly, but inexplicably, also in a horribly, slow terror-filled way with an all pervading sense of doom.

His only respite from the boredom, if respite was the correct term, was feeding time at the zoo. Ethel still made a point of seeking him out on every occasion where she brought him up to speed on the gossip in the wing – such as the proposal to castrate poor Henry and the suggestion that Dixon should be lobotomised. She also continued to question him about the world he had left behind. She was fascinated by his description of the mundane realities of life in the twenty-first century: Central heating, which excitingly to her wasn't a reference to a solitary source of heat in a family home, like a gas or coal fire in the living room. Everyone having a washing machine and a refrigerator; there was even a machine that washed the dishes, inside toilets and whatever next, a separate room just for a bath.

'Everyone must be so, so happy,' said Ethel.

Jimmy shrugged 'Sometimes.'

'How can people ever be unhappy when they have so much?

Jimmy shrugged again.

Ethel patted his hand affectionately. 'When are you leaving?'

She was referring to the court case. She asked every time they met. It was a jolting reminder of his predicament.

'I have been told I'll be leaving tomorrow. They'll keep me in the cells until the trial in three days' time.'

'Such a shame, and just before Christmas too.' Ethel cocked her head to one side. 'What's that, Alice?' Ethel smiled. 'Alice says she has a good feeling that everything will turn out just fine.'

Jimmy smiled wryly. Perhaps if Alice replaced Bumpkin as his Brief, he might have stood a better chance of getting off. It certainly wouldn't have harmed a plea of insanity.

The prison wagon arrived on time. Even though the roads had very little traffic on them, it still took over two hours and the negotiation of three military checkpoints before they reached the Old Bailey.

Jimmy was accompanied in the back of the van by a butch woman prison officer, who sat opposite and leered at him unashamedly all the way. Jimmy would look away then glance back only to find the guard's lustful eyes still upon him.

Jimmy couldn't work it out. Even though he was now technically a female of the species, the metamorphosis hadn't enticed him into overly concerning himself about his appearance. He was wearing a plain smock dress; certainly no make-up and his curly hair hadn't seen a brush in days. So what was it about him that was so alluring? Perhaps the female guard hankered after what she perceived as Elizabeth Bradshaw's inner femininity. Jimmy would have been only too happy to put her straight on that score, but he too suffered from the same contradiction. There were a few nurses at the asylum he seriously fancied. Did that now make him a lesbian? He tried not to think about it.

They turned a corner and the Old Bailey swung into view. The impressive dome topped building with the gold Lady of Justice holding a sword in one hand and the scales of justice in another was instantly recognisable; the place his fate, his life as Elizabeth Bradshaw, was to be decided.

The van drove around behind the building and stopped at the rear entrance, which was big enough to accommodate the tall prison vehicle. While they waited for the huge metal folding door to be pulled back, Jimmy noticed the decorative portcullis ironwork suspended over the entrance. Perhaps it had been put there to give those who failed to get a 'Not Guilty' a taste of things to come.

A guard emerged from a side door and hauled the great door to one side then waved the van through to the inner courtyard.

Jimmy was taken down to the cells by his attentive travelling companion, who took the opportunity to discreetly grab Jimmy's bum as she trailed him down the steps. Jimmy didn't react. He just walked quicker before his admirer got any other ideas. The male guard who was leading the party pointed Jimmy towards his cell.

'There you go, missus. It 'ain't much like home, but you'll be fed reg'lar.'

Jimmy was inclined to say, 'Thanks,' but he thought it might have sounded too sarcastic.

The door slammed behind him and amplified by the bare tiled walls, the turn of the key echoed like a portent of doom. A song immediately popped into Jimmy's head, 'The End' by The Doors.

If possible the cell was worse than the one he had been held in at the asylum. The olive green ceramic tiles reminded Jimmy of slime mould. Maybe they were chosen to disguise the real stuff creeping up the walls. The cell certainly smelt damp enough to support a sizable colony. There was no heating and the heavily barred window competed with the light fixing on the ceiling as to which provided the least illumination.

He sat on the bed and waited. He was informed that Bumpkin was due to arrive to go over the case details. He should have been told not to bother. All that Bumpkin required for his role as his defence counsel was a white flag.

After a few minutes the key turned and the door swung open. Bumpkin anxiously bumbled into the room, seemingly pre-occupied with looking for something.

'You know I've put my glasses down and do you think I can find them,' he said feeling his pockets.

'They're on your head,' Jimmy said with a sigh.

Bumpkin felt on his head and retrieved them. 'Oh yes, how – how silly of me. Getting a bit – a bit – forgetful.'

Bumpkin put his briefcase on the bed and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

'Now where were we . . .? Oh yes, right.' Bumpkin hesitated. 'Look, Mrs Bradshaw, I need to ask you a delicate question. Forgive me, but it is of great importance.' He cleared his throat self-consciously. 'Mrs Bradshaw, are you with child?'

Jimmy stared at him confused. 'Do you mean pregnant?'

Bumpkin coughed again with embarrassment and ran his finger around his collar. 'Well, if you put it like that.'

Jimmy considered the idea. That would have been some prospect – him having a baby. He instantly cast that grim thought aside.

'No,' Jimmy said firmly. 'I think we can safely say that's not happening.'

'Oh, dear, that is a pity, such a pity,' Bumpkin said as he stuffed the papers back in his briefcase. 'They never hang a woman with child.'

Alarmed, Jimmy instantly retracted his firm assurance.

'But there's a chance I might be. Can't they do tests?'

'Tests? Surely you'd know?'

'How?'

'I'm no expert, but surely if you are with child you would be getting – well – bigger for a start. Any sign of that?' Bumpkin asked, glancing at Jimmy's stomach.

Getting bigger! With the amount of weight Jimmy had lost he could have sat for a Lowry portrait.

Bumpkin cleared his throat again.

'I understand your husband is in the army, is he not? And he hasn't been home on leave in six months, correct? If you are with child and it is at an early stage, then . . .'

Jimmy filled-in what he had left unsaid. It would have meant Elizabeth Bradshaw was a shameless hussy, who had gone behind her husband's back while he was away fighting. But no one throughout all this had given the slightest indication that Lizzie Bradshaw was anything other than a devoted wife.

'Amnesia,' Jimmy suggested hopefully.

With a faint look of disapproval Bumpkin said, 'Very well, I will arrange for a mid-wife to examine you. Meanwhile, I have just found out your case is the first to be heard tomorrow.' He shook his head. 'Which is a pity. I am led to believe Judge Burrows enjoys a lunchtime tipple after which he is inclined to be more lenient towards the defendants.'

Jimmy was still thinking about the possibility of being pregnant when he realised what Bumpkin had said.

'First to be heard? I thought murder trials went on for weeks.'

'Can do,' said Bumpkin. 'It very much depends on the strength of the Defence case – witnesses to be called, expert testimony, etcetera.'

'But you think my case will be over by lunchtime?'

'Oh yes, more than likely. Too many witnesses for the prosecution, you see, and, well, er, none for the defence.' Bumpkin tried to smile encouragingly. 'They don't like hanging women, Mrs Bradshaw. I'm sure we can get your sentence commuted to life in prison.'

Jimmy groaned inwardly. 'Can we not offer a plea of Manslaughter?'

'Manslaughter?' Bumpkin harrumphed. 'I'm sorry Mrs Bradshaw, but you are facing a charge of murder. And unfortunately, it is quite apparent that you did in deed kill Dr Bloom with a murderous intent. Therefore we need to focus our energies on mitigating circumstances to extract maximum leniency from the court.'

'And you're confident that'll work?'

Bumpkin hesitated and ran his finger around his collar. 'I'm always very confident at the start of a trial. Now good day to you.'

11

Jimmy stood in the dock. He held onto the rail to stop his hands shaking. He had been in court a few times before, mainly in the spectator's gallery to see Delboy get off, usually on some technicality or other. When he was younger he had once appeared before the Bench himself, charged with damaging a public building. They said he had smashed all the windows in his school in a gratuitous act of vandalism. Fortunately Delboy was on hand to provide him with a cast-iron alibi. He came across as an extremely credible witness, even if not a single word of his testimony was true.

But the Old Bailey was different.

All the bewigged court officials were going about their serious business like the irresistible cogs in a grinding machine, which will spit Jimmy out at the end in a conveyor belt of justice that lacked any trace of humanity. Even Delboy would have struggled to talk himself out of this one.

Bumpkin gave a single nod of acknowledgement when Jimmy had been brought up from the cells into the dock. The cadaverous Judge Burrows, who given a hooded cowl and scythe was the personification of the Grim Reaper, peered over his glasses and eyed him coldly. Jimmy offered him his sweetest smile. Burrows held his gaze for a moment then turned away unmoved.

The prosecuting counsel paced the floor in small circles keen to get proceedings underway. A court official called the session to order and the preliminaries began.

Jimmy was required to swear on the Bible that he was to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For once that suited him fine, but he doubted they would believe a word of it.

The charges having been read, the judge asked Jimmy to enter a plea. Before Jimmy could speak Bumpkin jumped in. 'Guilty, your Honour, but with mitigating circumstances.'

'G-G-Guilty!' Jimmy spluttered in surprise.

'Very well, if that's the plea you have both entered,' said Burrows who then with no more ado turned to the jury, ignoring Jimmy's stuttering interjections to correct the disastrous misunderstanding. 'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, although you are no longer required to pass judgment in this case, I feel under the circumstances testimony must still be heard from those who witnessed this foul and heinous crime to assess the true extent of the defendant's culpability.'

Heinous crime!

Jimmy couldn't believe what he was hearing. Weren't judges supposed to be fair and impartial?

In quick succession, the orderlies who had witnessed Jimmy's escape attempt took the stand and each, like in a game of hangman, hammered another plank into his scaffold. Being described as, "Having the look of the Devil in his eye" didn't help his cause, nor did, "Doctor Bloom was such a kindly soul – he wouldn't hurt a fly."

Jimmy couldn't look at Albert when the gentle gardener gave his quiet account of being rendered unconscious, as he put it, by a shovel-wielding maniac.

Willoughby's testimony was the most damning. The mention of 'Evil Green Goblins' caused a ripple of laughter in the staid courtroom. Otherwise his confident testimony was listened to in rapt silence. There was no doubt in Willoughby's mind, with the inference being that therefore there should be none what-so-ever in the court's mind, that Elizabeth Bradshaw did know right from wrong and was therefore fit to stand trial.

Bumpkin didn't see fit to challenge that assertion even after Jimmy's theatrical bout of coughing to gain his attention.

'Would you like some water,' Judge Burrows asked.

'Well actually I was hoping that m' Brief might see fit to cross-examine Captain Willoughby on that point.'

The judge turned to Bumpkin. 'Is that your intention, Mr Bumpkin?'

'No, not at all, M'lud. If it pleases the court, Captain Willoughby can stand down.'

Willoughby smirked as he strode out of the courtroom.

The prosecution barrister then stood up and declared, 'I have no further witnesses for the Crown.'

'The time is now eleven o'clock. We will adjourn for half-an-hour. On our return I shall hear your argument for mitigation.' The judge fixed his gaze on Bumpkin. 'With your guilty plea, I do hope you haven't got a whole parade of character witnesses to waste the courts time in pleading for mercy.'

'Certainly not, M'lud.'

'Good fellow.'

'All rise. The court is now in session.'

Jimmy was back in the dock nursing his knuckles. They smarted a bit, but not as much as Bumpkin's nose probably did. The smack in the face had proved just the right encouragement Bumpkin needed to let Jimmy take the stand and speak in his own defence.

Judge Burrows leant forward and addressed Bumpkin.

'I will now hear your argument for mitigation.'

'Yes, M'lud,' Bumpkin said with a distinct nasal twang from his bloodied snout. He shuffled through the papers on his desk. Failing to find the document he required, Bumpkin abandoned the task and reluctantly took centre stage in the court. He cleared his throat nervously.

'M'lud,' he said, 'if it so pleases you I will explain how this poor unfortunate woman, a woman who just two short months ago was pulled barely clinging to life from the bombed ruins of her home; a woman who I suggest is suffering the civilian equivalent of Shell-Shock; a woman who has lost all of life's treasured memories . . .' Bumpkin paused, gingerly dabbing his nose with a handkerchief.

'Mr Bumpkin,' Judge Burrows said wearily. 'I will not allow you to indulge in such melodrama within my court. I wish to hear facts, not this crass attempt to evoke sympathy with this nonsense – now put your handkerchief away and please continue, but keep strictly to the facts of this matter.'

Bumpkin stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. 'Oh yes, the facts, certainly. Right.' He took a deep breath. 'Well the facts of this case are that due consideration must be given when it comes to sentencing because my client is – is – is – well a – a – a – woman . . .'

'Objection!' cried Jimmy, leaping from his seat.

All eyes were then on him.

Judge Burrows glared at him imperiously. 'May I remind you, Mrs Bradshaw that we are not in an American courthouse and this is not some Hollywood 'B film'. You will speak when you are asked to or you will be held in Contempt of Court. Never-the-less, is there something you wish to say?'

'Yes,' Jimmy said firmly. 'I wish to take the stand.'

Bumpkin shook his head and scuttled back to his desk.

The court room fell silent.

Judge Burrows leaned forward and said, 'And what would you like to say to the court that might mitigate the terrible circumstances of this crime?'

'Well,' Jimmy began slowly, 'at the time of the accident I was suffering from a temporary form of madness and therefore had diminished responsibility, which means Dr Bloom's death was manslaughter and not murder.'

Jimmy thought he had cracked it when the judge nodded encouragingly. The judge's face then flushed with anger.

'So, the defendant believes she is more qualified to pronounce judgement upon her state of mind than an eminent and highly qualified psychiatrist such as Captain Willoughby. Who I might add made no reference to "Temporary Madness" in his own testimony nor indeed did any of the case notes taken by Dr Bloom. Correct me if I am wrong, Mrs Bradshaw, but didn't the deceased doctor diagnose you as suffering from severe amnesia brought on by. . .' Judge Burrows referred to his notes and coughed. '. . . by, well, ahem – other circumstances?'

'Yes, but . . .'

'And I assume from your apparent intimate knowledge of the Law that you have taken your Articles when you speak so authoritatively on the subject of Murder, Manslaughter and this spurious defence of "Diminished Responsibility". As I warned your counsel, the defendant will keep to the facts, not wishful thinking.' Judge Burrows peered down his nose. 'Now are there any facts you want to inform the court of before I consider sentence.'

Jimmy had nothing to lose. He took a deep breath. 'I am not Elizabeth Bradshaw,' he declared.

A murmur went around the court.

'And what's more,' Jimmy continued, 'I'm a man!'

The murmur turned to uproar.

'Order! Order! I'll have order in my court,' cried Burrows.

A hurried conference was convened between both counsels and the Judge. A consensus appeared to be reached and the counsels were dismissed back to their seats.

The court room was held in spellbound silence as the Judge turned and addressed Jimmy.

'The defendant is making a mockery of this court,' he growled. 'You were examined yesterday by a senior midwife to determine the assertion made by your defence counsel that you may be with child. Mr Bumpkin informs me there is no ambiguity over your female persuasion and as for claiming . . .'

'My name's Jimmy! I am from the future. I knew about the raid on Coventry.'

'Order!'

'The Eighth Army is about to capture Tobruk.'

'Order in my court!'

'How do I know about the Enigma Code and Ultra if I'm . . . Oi!' cried Jimmy as a court orderly grabbed him and bundled him roughly from the dock back down into to the cells.

12

The key turned in the cell door.

Bumpkin stepped in holding a handkerchief to his nose. He immediately held up his hand.

'No more violence, Mrs Bradshaw if you please. I think you've done enough damage for one day.'

Jimmy sat on the bed holding his head in his hands.

'The judge didn't let me say what I wanted to say.'

'Quite. But unfortunately what you did say has been more than sufficient for the judge to change his mind.'

Jimmy looked up. 'Really?'

'Yes,' said Bumpkin. 'But not for the better, I'm afraid. There had been a tacit agreement between all parties that the mandatory death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment, but after your performance in the dock, I believe he is now more inclined towards the ultimate penalty.'

'What!'

'Yes, I'm sorry, Mrs Bradshaw. Your fate is now out of my hands. Good day to you.'

Jimmy lay on the bed staring at the ceiling. He couldn't blot out the terrifying thought of standing on the scaffold with the noose around his neck – the sudden lurch as the trap door opened – the falling, then what? Indescribable pain as his neck stretched and snapped. Perhaps there would be no pain, just oblivion. Worst of all was the vision of not dying instantly but choking to death in unimaginable agony as he swung on the end of the ever-tightening rope.

He gulped and ran his hand around his slender neck. He jumped off the bed and paced furiously up and down the cell trying to shake off the terrible vision. He barely noticed the cell door opening and a new face wearing a trench coat and a trilby walking in.

'Mrs Bradshaw?'

To Jimmy all these characters looked the same, like extras from old gangster films. This one had greying hair and an intelligent face.

'Mrs Bradshaw, please I need to speak to you. We only have a moment. I believe the judge is ready to pass sentence.'

'Who are you?'

'My name's Barrington-Warner. Take a seat, Mrs Bradshaw.'

Jimmy reluctantly sat on the bed.

'I was in the viewing gallery. I was interested to hear what you had to say in the witness box.'

'Doesn't matter, does it?'

Barrington-Warner sat down beside Jimmy.

'I would like to clarify something you said.'

'That I'm really a man?'

Barrington-Warner smiled. 'Comedy is best kept for the music halls, not the Old Bailey.'

Jimmy was about to remonstrate with him, but what was the point.

'No, I was referring to that business about the Eighth Army.'

'Wavell is about to take Tobruk from the Italians?'

'Yes, that's the jobby.'

'Don't get too excited though, when Rommel gets there, he takes it back again.'

'Rommel?'

'Field Marshal Rommel in command of the Afrika Korps.'

'Yes I think I've heard of him now,' Barrington-Warner said slowly. 'Anyway, this information about the Eighth Army, how did you come by it?'

'I read a lot,' Jimmy said with a shrug.

'I see,' said Barrington-Warner. 'What if I told you that information about General Wavell's advance hasn't yet been made public?'

Jimmy shrugged again. He looked Barrington-Warner up and down. 'Who are you?'

Barrington-Warner smiled. 'I work for a small organisation, who is interested in these affairs, shall we say.'

The cell door opened and a prison guard stood ready to take Jimmy back up to the court room.

'One more thing, Mrs Bradshaw,' Barrington-Warner asked. 'Enigma? What exactly do you know about Enigma?'

'The code . . .'

'Come along now,' interrupted the prison guard. 'We mustn't keep the good judge waiting now, must we. He's a busy man with lots of interesting people to see today.'

In the dock Jimmy could barely stand. His legs lacked even the marginal strength of rubber tubing. The black cloth draped over the judge's wig was unlikely to have found itself there by way of a chance wardrobe malfunction, and it was even less likely to have been a comedy prop to demonstrate the judge's wicked sense of humour.

The judge's lips moved and he was probably talking in a volume that could be heard throughout the court, but Jimmy didn't hear a single word. He was so transfixed by that small deadly square of cloth that all his other senses had temporarily ceased to function. Then he heard the chilling words that snapped him out of his terrified reverie.

'. . . you will be taken from this place to a place of lawful execution where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And God have mercy upon your soul.'

In it hadn't been for the prison guard catching him under the arms Jimmy would have ended up as a crumpled heap on the floor.

'Come along,' the guard said as he led Jimmy away.

Back in the cell Jimmy no longer even had his privacy. A prison guard was now posted inside to stop Jimmy doing something outrageously daft like committing suicide.

After a few minutes there was a knock on the door and Bumpkin entered the tiny room. 'I am sorry Mrs Bradshaw, but I did my best.'

'Your best! Do you ever wonder if you are really cut out for this job?'

Bumpkin puffed out his chest. 'I have already taken the liberty of lodging an appeal based on the fact that you being a woman, you couldn't possibly fully understand the mechanical workings and implications of recklessly driving a motor vehicle.'

'Did you not think to mention that during the trial?'

'I thought it best to keep my powder dry for the appeal.' Bumpkin ran a finger around his collar. 'There is one thing I need to clarify with you. It may prove decisive in swaying the appeal judges.' He dabbed away the sweat on his forehead. 'Have you ever possessed a driving license?'

Jimmy hadn't, but he didn't know about Elizabeth Bradshaw. She had been a humble housewife from in the East End, which at that time made it highly unlikely, but not impossible.

Jimmy answered honestly. 'I don't know.'

'I thought you might say that,' said Bumpkin. 'I hope to God they don't discover one. We shall proceed on that basis. In the meantime I have been told that Holloway Prison still can't accept any new prisoners due to the bomb damage. It has been decided that you shall be returned to the Essex County Lunatic Asylum, where you shall be held until the outcome of the appeal. And there-after, when possible, you shall return to Holloway for sentence to be served, whatever that may be.' Bumpkin shuffled nervously. 'Anyway, I will keep you apprised of the situation. Now, good day to you.'

13

Jimmy was returned to his solitary confinement cell at the asylum. In a strange way he had missed it. Having endured the carefully organised madness of the judicial system, it was good to get back to where the madness was pure and simple. Although he noted at dinner time, in the four days since he had been away, the food hadn't markedly improved.

Ethel, his adopted fairy godmother, as usual, made a bee-line for him, with presumably Alice in tow.

'We didn't think we'd see you back.'

Jimmy used his fork to aimlessly push around the spew on his plate. 'Me neither. You can thank the Germans.'

'I'd never thank them for nothing. But it's good to have you back all the same.' Ethel leaned forward and whispered, 'I told Stan about where you really come from. He thought it all sounded marvellous. But he also said that you made it all up because it sounded too good to be true. I told him that you would never lie to me. So he said . . .' Ethel stopped and looked to her left. 'Yes I know, Alice, Stan does speak his mind. Well he said if you weren't making it up, well, you must be mad didn't he, Alice.'

Jimmy reached out and touched Ethel's hand. 'I'm not making it up, but madness? Sanity? Do me a favour. Outside these walls there is a war going on that will claim over sixty-million lives, and lay waste to much of Europe and beyond, and most of those people who have caused it will be considered sane.'

Ethel squeezed Jimmy's hand in return. 'That's just what I told him. What's that, Alice? Yes quite right dear, they do say there are more out than in.'

Under close guard Jimmy was returned to his freezing cell. He certainly couldn't rely on a full stomach of hearty fare to provide him with an inner glow. Three carrots and a piece of turnip wasn't enough to stoke the fires in a rabbit let alone a human being. He wrapped himself in a blanket and stared at the blank walls. With no other distractions, Jimmy had no expectation other than to be left sat there alone and feeling sorry for himself until lights-out. But he was surprised a few minutes later when the cell door opened and an orderly growled, 'You have someone to see you. Follow me.'

Jimmy was taken to one of the offices. The orderly opened the door and ushered Jimmy in.

Barrington-Warner removed his hat and stood up. 'Good evening, Mrs Bradshaw. I am sorry for calling at such a late hour.'

Jimmy hovered uncertainly.

'Please, take a seat,' said Barrington-Warner pulling out a chair.

Jimmy sat down. Barrington-Warner did likewise.

'How's the food?'

Jimmy pulled a face.

'Sorry,' said Barrington-Warner. 'I read your file.

Barrington-Warner dipped his hand in his coat pocket and pulled out a small square brown paper parcel. 'Here. This is for you.'

Jimmy took it hesitantly. It had some bulk, but it was also soft to the touch. He peeled off the wrapping. There were two rounds of thickly cut sandwiches.

'I hope cheese and pickle is alright. Good meat is strictly rationed.'

Jimmy eyed them ravenously.

'Please, feel free to tuck in.'

Jimmy didn't need a second invitation. In minutes he had scoffed the lot leaving his belly full and content for the first time in weeks. There was no other feeling like it. If he was a cat he would have been purring.

'I expect you are wondering why I am here?' Barrington-Warner said solemnly.

Jimmy stifled a belch before answering. 'My guess is you are Secret Service.'

Barrington-Warner's expression didn't change, but his eyes registered surprise.

'Mrs Bradshaw I underestimated you. But the reason I'm here tonight is because it is my sad duty to inform you that your husband has been killed in action. I am very sorry.'

'I'm sorry to hear that too,' said Jimmy. He wasn't proud of it, but his immediate reaction was relief. Even as a condemned prisoner, Jimmy would be no longer obliged to keep up the pretence of dutiful wifey. 'Was he a good man?

'The letter from his CO says he was a fine and brave soldier. Would you like to read it?'

Jimmy shook his head. There followed a moment of respectful silence.

'Mrs Bradshaw, this is probably not the best time, but there is another reason I'm here tonight. I would leave it for another day, but events are pressing.'

Jimmy guessed as much. People of Barrington-Warner's calibre weren't sent to deliver the news of a lowly infantryman's death.

'If you hadn't already worked it out, it is because you apparently know an awful lot about what is going on in this war for, if you will excuse me for saying, an otherwise unremarkable housewife from the East End.'

'I amaze myself sometimes. I must have a better memory than I thought.'

Barrington-Warner observed Jimmy quizzically, unsure what to make of his reply.

'So, Elizabeth – may I call you that? This leaves us in a dilemma. I have asked myself, "How does Elizabeth Bradshaw know so much?" Naturally my first assumption is that she is a German spy,' Barrington-Warner said, letting the statement hang in the air to gauge Jimmy's reaction.

Jimmy had half a mind to throw his hands up and cry, 'Gott in himmel, you've sussed me out!' just to wind him up, but he contented himself to a tight smile and a single shake of the head.

'You won't believe me even if I told you the truth.'

'Yes you are right, Elizabeth. After having read your file, it is absurd to believe you are a spy, although I did read that Captain Willoughby still harbours some suspicions on that score. We have also done some background checking on you. Before you were injured in that bombed house you exhibited no unusual behaviour. For want of a better expression, you were a completely normal law-abiding citizen. But afterwards you began to make some extraordinary claims.'

'Only because I know them to be true.'

Barrington-Warner offered a wry smile. 'I have to admit, I struggle with the account you have given. For someone as down to earth as myself, I tend to seek a more prosaic explanation. To that end I wonder, "Does Elizabeth Bradshaw have a contact within the War Office that is, for what purpose I cannot as yet fathom, feeding her this confidential information?"'

Barrington-Warner produced a pipe from his pocket and struck a match. He relaxed back in his chair and watched the aromatic clouds of smoke rise into the air.

'This in turn raises the further question,' he continued casually. '"What made Mrs Bradshaw now suddenly reveal these confidences?" Was it simply her injury or is she a woman spurned, and now wishes to exact her revenge on her ex-lover by cleverly exposing his treasonable acts to the authorities?'

'I am sorry,' said Jimmy. 'I have always told the truth. Unfortunately it is crazy, and I cannot explain it, but I there is no mole in Whitehall. I know these things because they are historical facts. Simple as that.'

'Very good, Elizabeth, very good,' said Barrington-Warner nodding appreciatively and leaning across the table. 'Look, just give us a name. No one will ever find out where the information came from. I will personally ensure that your good name will never be tarnished by rumours of infidelity.'

'I told you . . .'

'This man is dangerous. He may be part of a Nazi spy ring. If this information gets into the wrong hands we could lose this war. Please, Elizabeth. Think of England.'

Jimmy did, and the England he immediately thought of was the one that was intending to painfully stretch his neck in the near future.

'What's in it for me?'

'If your patriotic duty is not enough to persuade you then perhaps we can try to assist you with your current difficulty.'

'And decent food?'

'That can be arranged. I thought the conversation might take this turn. You can thank me for the basis of your appeal – your lack of driving finesse. I will give Mr Bumpkin any assistance I can. In the meantime – a name please.'

Jimmy wasn't scheming like his brother, Del, but that didn't mean he hadn't learnt a thing or two from him.

'I'll think about it.'

'I commend your loyalty to this person, however misplaced.' Barrington-Warner turned to the window then asked, 'When you tried to escape, where were you going?'

'Just away.'

'The railway clerk tells me you wanted a London bound train. Who were you going to see?'

'No one, I thought it was easier to disappear in London.'

'With no papers? Money?'

'I hadn't thought it through.'

Barrington-Warner hid his irritation.

'Very well, I shall meet with you again in two days. Perhaps by then you will have had enough time to furnish us with the information we require. A small Christmas present to Mr Churchill, shall we say? And perhaps in turn you may discover Christmas is a time for good will to all men, and indeed women.'

14

Jimmy didn't sleep that night. He was tossing, turning and pacing the floor throughout the long hours of darkness.

It was obvious why he had been returned to the asylum rather than having him transferred to another prison, even if Holloway couldn't truly accommodate him. It was a less than subtle ploy to see if there was a contact at the asylum that was passing him information. For that to work, presumably Barrington-Warner needed men on the ground - spies, spying on him. They would soon discover they were wasting their time.

As for the 'Mole' idea, did he dare string them along? Give them a name that Barrington-Warner so desperately wanted? In truth, the name of the informant he could have confidently given them was in the top echelon of the War Cabinet. Not that he would openly admit it, as his mates would have taken the piss, but Jimmy had read through all six volumes of The Second World War by Sir Winston S. Churchill, which most agreed was the definitive account of the conflict. Those books largely formed the basis of all he knew about the war. He doubted fingering the great man as his insider would have gone down well.

He filled his head with his extensive knowledge of the war and the belief that knowledge would prove his salvation. Yet he only had to mentally let his guard down for a second and the reality of his situation returned to haunt him. He could almost feel the burning tug of the noose around his neck.

Finally around dawn he fell into a fitful sleep.

What felt like only moments later, he was woken by an orderly carrying a heavy tray.

Jimmy stared up bleary eyed at the unwelcome intrusion.

'Mrs Bradshaw, breakfast.'

He wasn't inspired to leave his warm bed to endure the tasteless wallpaper paste that passed for porridge.

'I'm not hungry,' said Jimmy pulling the covers back over his head.

'I'll leave it here,' said the orderly as he left the cell.

An unusual aroma of cooked food reached his nose. Nice food. He nearly didn't recognise it as he hadn't smelt its like in such a long time.

Jimmy poked his head out and sniffed the air. The orderly had set the covered tray upon the floor. Jimmy reached over and lifted the lid. The smell that hit him almost took his breath away; Eggs, bacon, fried bread and black pudding – masses of it.

Jimmy ate it so fast he nearly made himself sick. Under any other circumstance he would never had considered eating black pudding, but he bolted down every last scrap and licked the plate clean.

Jimmy was amazed to discover there was even a fresh pot of coffee on the side.

There had been barely enough time for his food to go down before the orderly returned to collect the tray and marched Jimmy off to meet the new facility director, Dr Farley.

'Good morning, Mrs Bradshaw,' Dr Farley said beaming as he strolled across his office to greet Jimmy. 'Take a seat, take a seat. Cigarette?'

Jimmy waved away the offer and with some reluctance he sat down. Farley was much younger than his ill-fated predecessor. He was slim, clean shaven and smiley faced with penetrating green eyes. If Jimmy was a real woman he would have no doubt found him devilishly handsome and had him swooning over his raffish charm.

Jimmy immediately wondered why someone of his age hadn't been called-up to the army. He allowed himself a humourless snort when he realised that Bloom's replacement was obviously one of Barrington-Warner's placemen working not very discreetly undercover.

'My name is Dr Algernon Farley and I have been sent to run the hospital on an interim basis until a permanent appointment is made.'

Jimmy remained silent, content to let young Algernon do the talking.

'I have read your file with great interest,' continued Farley.

'Everyone does,' Jimmy said with smirk.

'And so they should. I find your claims truly fascinating. It will be a lasting shame if they are not investigated further, before . . . Well you know.' Farley cleared his throat to hide his discomfort. He perched on the corner of the desk. Jimmy instinctively shrunk back in the chair fearing he was to be the victim of more sexual harassment. Farley pulled back offended.

'Please, Mrs Bradshaw, I mean you no harm. I am just interested in finding out more about you.' He smiled hesitantly. 'I have a little confession to make.'

'Being – why you haven't volunteered for the Army?'

Farley smiled and pointed down. 'Flat feet.'

Jimmy sat with his arms tightly folded. He didn't buy that, or Farley's chummy approach. He saw it as a naive ploy to get him to open up. He might be a real doctor, but he had obviously been sent there by the intelligence guys.

'I am a man of Science by training,' continued Farley, 'but I am also a man who believes in many things that my peers would pour scorn upon. I am a spiritualist and a member of the Theosophical Society, following the teachings of Madame Blavatsky.'

Jimmy had vaguely heard of her, but made no comment.

'Isis Unveiled is her best work. It's truly fascinating and unparalleled.' Farley reached out to touch Jimmy's hair. Jimmy viciously slapped his hand away.

'My, you're a feisty one.'

'Can I go back to my room now?'

Farley examined his slapped hand. 'I apologise, Mrs Bradshaw, but I am curious to witness that, for a woman, you demonstrate remarkably little interest in your appearance as exemplified by your hair.'

'You said you had read my file?'

'Tell me, are there times when you feel different about such things? Feel inclined to make yourself look more feminine? Attractive?'

Jimmy sighed wearily and drew his arms tighter around him. He could have done without all this. Farley obviously got his kicks from groping his female patients when they were a bit more dolled-up.

'Can you recall any lost periods of time where perhaps afterwards you discovered your appearance was more womanly?'

'No. Can I go now?'

'Any lost periods of time where you suddenly think, "How did I get here?"'

Jimmy smiled wryly. Only for the last three months of his life. 'It's in the file.'

'Interesting,' Farley said. 'And you have no recall of your life as Elizabeth Bradshaw prior to your rescue from the bombed house?'

'You've read the file?'

'Yes, quite.' Farley took out a cigarette from the box and tamped down the end. 'Truly fascinating.'

Farley drew on his cigarette and slowly exhaled staring contemplatively into the distance.

After a moment of indecision, Farley said, 'What I am going to suggest to you will undoubtedly shock you. Most of my contemporaries would consider it outrageous, even unethical to promote such ideas to a patient.'

Farley drew on his cigarette again and unintentionally exhaled the foul smelling smoke in Jimmy's direction. Jimmy choked as he wafted it away.

'Could you open a window?'

'Only if you promise not to try to escape,' Farley said with a smile. 'That's in the file too.'

Farley slid up the sash and a blast of cold air that lacked any Christmas cheer swept through the office.

'It is probably unreasonable for you to have heard of a Doctor of Psychiatry by the name of Morton Prince. An American, but we can forgive him that,' said Farley without any trace of humour. 'Dr Prince has specialised in studying abnormal psychology and he has come across several cases of what he calls – Multiple Personality Disorder.'

Farley paused in expectation of having to explain the terminology to a poorly educated East End housewife. He was slightly taken aback when Jimmy nodded indicating his familiarity with the term.

'You've heard of this? Dr Bloom mentioned it?'

'No. But I've read about it,' said Jimmy.

'Interesting,' Farley said slowly. 'Well, your case notes in my opinion strongly indicate you may be suffering from this Multiple Personality Disorder, what most consider is a medically explainable psychological condition. Different alter-egos taking control of your body at different times, often with each being unaware of the existence of the others. An unusual feature in your case is the lack of interchange of these alter-egos. Dr Prince cites many case studies, but almost invariably, he has witnessed the array of personalities to emerge from the individual. But to-date no one has witnessed any such change of a controlling entity within yourself. The original personality of Mrs Elizabeth Bradshaw, nor any other, has been observed since her unfortunate trauma in the bombed house. Do you feel that is true?'

It sounded about right, but if Lizzie Bradshaw was still lurking around, Jimmy had no idea what she might be up to when he thought he was safely tucked-up asleep in bed.
'So, tell me, what do you think happened to you?'

Jimmy told him and thankfully for once he wasn't immediately hauled off for a few enlivening volts in the Electro-Therapy Room.

Farley stubbed out his cigarette and tapped the ends of his fingers together. 'It is an extraordinary claim. I read you file with some caution, but hearing you speak, I am, shall we say, more open minded. And as you have discovered to your discomfort, few of my colleagues would agree. Your knowledge of these future events, if true, should be utilised for the benefit of the war effort.' Farley leant forward across the desk. 'Is there anything you can tell me that might convince those who would dismiss your claims outright?'

Jimmy had told them before but no one had listened.

'An iconic picture of St Paul's in the Blitz will appear in a newspaper between Christmas and New Year. It sends a propaganda message around the world that supposedly God is on our side and Britain is going to stand firm against the Germans no matter what.'

'Anything else?'

'Loads. But it's a case of remembering it all.'

Farley jotted notes on a file. He looked up encouragingly. 'An integral feature of Dr Prince's therapy is the use of the trance state of hypnotism. I take it you've heard of hypnotism? Mesmerism? Would you agree to be put in a trance so I can investigate the root of your condition? I will attempt to regress you back to the event that sparked this dramatic transformation.'

Jimmy regarded Farley warily. He had seen stage shows where a hypnotist had got members of the audience to bark like dogs or eat onions imagining they were apples. And what if he did rediscover Mrs Bradshaw somewhere in his head and she made a re-appearance – where would that leave him?

Furthermore, Jimmy wasn't stupid. Hypnotism would be a convenient way to attempt to extract the information about the supposed spy-ring. Never-the-less, even if Farley was working for the Secret Service, using hypnotism to unlock his mind might just give Jimmy the answers he so desperately sought. He told Farley he would think about it, but in truth the decision had already been made.

15

'Excellent,' said Farley.

He rose from his desk and led Jimmy to the couch.

'Hop up here and we can begin.'

Jimmy slid onto the couch. Although supposedly hypnotised people can't be made to do something they would find morally objectionable, like killing someone or performing a sexual act, Jimmy was still uneasy at the prospect of handing over the control of his subconscious to young Algernon. There was always the possibility that he might find the real Mrs Bradshaw hiding in his brain and she might easily have her head turned by such a fine young gentleman. Jimmy shuddered at the prospect. But there was no option. The alternative was never discovering what had really happened to him.

Jimmy lay down on the couch. He stared up at the nicotine-stained, crazed plaster on the ceiling – the result of years of neglect and countless thousands of cigarettes.

'Comfortable? Good,' said Farley producing a silver pocket watch on a chain from his pocket. 'Now just relax. I suspect you've seen this method used before?'

Jimmy nodded and blew out his cheeks. It was show time.

Farley held the watch at arm's length in front of Jimmy's face. 'Stay relaxed, keep your head still and follow the watch as it swings back and forth.'

Farley hadn't started, but Jimmy felt sleepy already. A superb slap-up lunch an hour earlier had seen to that. With a massive roast dinner on top of the huge breakfast he'd had, he thought he was going to burst. It was as though he was being fattened up for the kill.

Farley set the watch in motion.

'Just relax and listen to my voice. You must follow the watch as it goes to and fro. To and fro . . . To and fro. Just listen to my voice.'

Jimmy's eyelids became heavy. The constant drone of Farley's voice receded into the distance. He was enveloped in a peaceful calm as the tension in his body slipped away.

'Three. You are beginning to wake. Two. You can hear my voice. One. Now open your eyes.'

Jimmy was disoriented. For a moment he didn't know where he was. In an all too brief moment of joy he thought he was back home in the reality of the twenty-first century having finally awoken from his terrifying ordeal. The reality crushed him just as quickly when he saw the familiar nicotine-stained ceiling of Farley's office.

'Can I help you sit up?' asked Farley extending his hand.

Jimmy ignored the assistance. He swung his legs down and kicked the ground in frustration. Farley turned away and stood thoughtfully gazing out of the window at the rolling fields beyond.

Jimmy glared at Farley with an intense and irrational anger. It was as though Farley was personally responsible for bringing him back from where he should rightly be to this cruel and alien world – the one to which he truly didn't belong.

'Well?' demanded Jimmy.

Farley continued to stare out of the window as he replied slowly, 'You are a good hypnotic subject. Very good.'

Jimmy couldn't read Farley's curious manner. Was he disappointed because he was going to have to report to Barrington-Warner that there was no spy-ring? Had he worryingly discovered Jimmy Delahoy really was only a figment of Elizabeth Bradshaw's shattered mind? Or was his behaviour that of a man with a guilty secret – a troubled conscience. Surely he wouldn't have taken advantage of him while he was hypnotised? Jimmy did a quick recce of his privates which appeared unmolested.

Satisfied that whatever troubled Farley wasn't related to any sexual transgression, Jimmy waited. But young Algernon seemed reluctant to volunteer a debrief.

'So, what happened?'

Farley didn't respond immediately, but continued to stare intently out of the window.

Finally he said, 'This is more extraordinary than I could have imagined.' Farley turned around and reached for the cigarette case. He lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply. 'Dr Prince believes the cause of multiple personality is the fragmentation of the mind with identifiable and repressed personality traits, which are pigeon-holed and utilised by the recurrent alter-egos. The story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the classic example. Few scientists today would dare claim these alter egos are demonic possession or an invasion by a disincarnate entity.'

Farley drew on his cigarette again.

'Before the war – Jimmy. May I call you Jimmy by the way?'

Jimmy raised his eyebrows in surprise.

'Before the war I spent time in India. Even with my medical and scientific background I witnessed things that defied rational explanation: firewalkers, Yogis sleeping on beds of nails, snake charmers and holy men who materialised tons of holy ash seemingly from nowhere and distributed hundreds of hot and freshly made sweets to their adoring followers. Quite astounding. There are many castes, sects and tribal groupings, but for all their differences they all have one overriding belief – Reincarnation of the soul. When you die you will be reborn in order to make amends for the karma of your previous existence.'

Farley stubbed out his cigarette.

'This, unfortunately, brings me to the bad news.' Farley offered a flicker of a smile. 'At the precise moment Elizabeth Bradshaw's body literally gave up the ghost in her bombed house, you, Jimmy Delahoy were also killed. Your freed soul has somehow, not reincarnated, but pre-incarnated, latched onto if you like, Mrs Bradshaw's near lifeless body.'

'I'm dead!'

'Well, your original body is. And to make matters worse, you were murdered. Shot in the back by an assassin's bullet.'

'I thought the idea of being reincarnated meant coming back as a kid and starting over sometime in the future,' spluttered Jimmy, struggling to get his head around the devastating revelation.

Farley shrugged. 'So did I, until this afternoon.'

'I'm stuck here like this. There's no way back?'

Farley hesitated then said, 'No.'

'I don't 'effin' believe it.'

Jimmy jumped off the couch and furiously paced around the office swearing under his breath, while demanding answers for questions as they came into his head.

'Do I know who did it?'

'You have an idea.'

'Who?'

'Eddy Purchase.'

'That stupid bastard! Why?'

'By the sound of it, you were probably a victim of mistaken identity. He was after your brother, Derek. They had some business together.'

Jimmy remembered Delboy bragging that he had stiffed Eddy out of some money, a lot of money. He had cut him out of a drug deal. Jimmy hadn't wanted the details. The less he knew what Delboy got up to the better. Delboy probably could have handled 'His Thickness' that was Edward Purchase, with his gift of the gab – making extravagant promises he had no intention keeping – to talk him out of his murderous intentions. Perhaps Eddy, as stupid as he was, knew that and fired at the first thing in the cross-hairs, which unfortunately happened to be Jimmy.

'How have I ended up here, at this time?'

'Time doesn't exist in the spirit world. Past, present, future there is no differentiation. It is all one.'

Jimmy continued to pace around the room. 'So, when this body dies – what then?'

'What happened to you, has answered the eternal question: Is there life after death?' Farley smiled. 'And that answer is unequivocally, yes! I believe your soul will once again transmigrate to another corporeal body, probably as a new born baby, and your life will start anew. Any fear you have about death or dying should now be banished. Mankind can rejoice. You are truly remarkable.'

As convinced of life after death as Farley seemed, Jimmy wondered if he would have been sufficiently confident to take Jimmy's place on the scaffold.

'Where does that leave me?' asked Jimmy.

'To my mind, you are a precious jewel being the unequivocal evidence of the indestructible soul. You should be nurtured and examined by the best minds in the country.' Farley shook his head. 'But my suspicion is that few of my peers would agree. They would rather have you dubbed as some charlatan to be dismissed and ridiculed than have their dogmatic and materialistic view of the world challenged.'

'You'll report this to the authorities?'

Farley cast his eyes down. 'It puts me in a rather invidious position I'm afraid. I have my reputation and standing to think of you must understand. But . . .' Farley said wagging his finger firmly. '. . . but, regardless of the philosophical and religious implications, you with your knowledge of that which is to come may prove England's salvation to end this damn, pointless war.'

'I ask again, so where does that leave me?'

'I will prepare a report describing your gift of what I will describe as your "Second Sight", and implore the Ministry to utilise your remarkable talents for the war effort.'

'And this would be way of Barrington-Warner I presume?'

'Barrington . . .?' Farley cut short feigning ignorance. 'I'm sure any information you can divulge will be of interest to many.'

16

Back in his cell in the secure wing, Jimmy had requested a pen and paper. The orderly brought him a writing pad and a fountain pen with a bottle of ink.

'Haven't you got a proper pen?' Jimmy asked.

The care-worn orderly looked at him as though he was mad. An expression he would have honed to perfection over the many years of working in that establishment.

'That is a proper pen,' the orderly said bluntly.

'I can't use one of these. Haven't you got a ballpoint?'

'Ballpoint? Never heard of it. Perhaps a pencil might suit you better? Or would you prefer a slate and some chalk, my dear?'

Jimmy glared at him. 'Pencil.'

The orderly turned to leave.

'And don't forget the sharpener.'

Within five minutes the orderly returned holding a fistful of pencils.

'Not too sharp,' he said handing them over.

'Don't be so hard on yourself,' Jimmy said under his breath.

'We don't want any accidents do we now?'

'Sharpener?'

'Ah, we had to take the blade out – for your own safety.'

'So you bring me a sharpener that doesn't sharpen? I don't suppose you thought to bring me a chocolate teacup, which would have been just as useful?'

The orderly gave him the 'You're mad look' and backed out of the room shaking his head.

Jimmy wasn't contemplating writing a suicide note, although he was probably at his lowest ebb since the start of the whole affair. Even after the court proceedings and the shock of the death sentence being handed down, there still lingered a hope that somehow there was a way to get back to his own time. But Farley's contention that he was trapped in their world had crushed even that spark. If he still had any hope left at all, it was that Farley was wrong. Yet with the gap in his memory filled, it all now made sense. It was crazy, illogical, impossible and stupid, but as bizarre as it was, his detached soul or life-force or whatever, had attached itself to Lizzie Bradshaw in her dying moment.

Farley said it was his karma. He also said it was believed people chose the person they are going to be in the next life.

That had to be crap for a start. If Jimmy had had a choice about what he was going to be in a next life, especially at this time, it would have been a fighter pilot maybe, or perhaps dashing tank commander, then he could have amply repaid this unspecified karmic debt by heroic deeds in service of his country. Why would he choose to be a humble housewife? Living a brief life as Lizzie Bradshaw, household drudge and convicted murderer, was hardly likely to change the balance of payments in his karmic account.

With the potential brevity of Lizzie Bradshaw's rebirth foremost in mind, he intended to write down a few of the key events of the war, believing it would be a shrewd insurance policy against the authorities acting too hastily. Not too much information, but just a few teasers to establish his worth and deter them from dispatching him for the drop.

First he created a timeline in the early years of the war: Nineteen-forty to forty-three. Then with only vague dates he filled in some of the low points for the Allies, such as the Nazi invasion of Russia – Pearl Harbour – the Fall of Singapore – the Fall of Greece and the humiliating defeat in Crete – the victory of the Afrika Korps in the Middle East and the invasion of Burma. The entry at the bottom of the list was perhaps the most poignant: The total extermination of the Jewish Nation in Europe between 1939 and 1948 – twelve million dead of which no trace was found except the evidence of the dismantled concentration camps and a few mass graves the Nazis hadn't managed to conceal before the end of the war. The other entry he carefully omitted was the mutual exchange of atomic weapons: a rocket attack on America by a Nazi V3 with a nuclear warhead and likewise a bomb dropped from a B52 in the heart of Berlin that finally forced the Nazis to surrender in September 1948.

Two hours later his brain hurt from the exertion, but he was pleased with the result – there was enough doom and disaster to keep the secret service boys interested, but enough positive information held back as a bargaining tool. If they didn't need his help after that series of incompetent military disasters then they never would.

He carefully folded the sheaves and slid them under the mattress. If, as Jimmy suspected, they would regularly search his room, that lot will make quite a find. In the meantime to make good his justification for writing material, he began a diary. The first entry was:

21st December 1940: Today I learned that I was dead. Bit of a shock LOL. But chin up, it's nearly Christmas.

Jimmy sat on his bed and chuckled. Only the British make such jokes in a time of deep crisis. It was called, uncomfortably, but appropriately to his circumstances, Gallows Humour.

It briefly occurred to him that he should give up the fight against the judicial system and take his chances with whatever the next incarnation had in store, but almost as quickly he dismissed the idea. His life as Jimmy Delahoy wasn't great. He wasn't rich or famous. He didn't swan about in a flash car or live in a big house, but he had a nice girlfriend and a few good mates. And now looking back, on balance, he realised he was actually happy. Okay, he had to keep an eye on Del, who was always trying to drag him into a few scrapes, and avoid the subsequent run-ins with the law, but he didn't really miss out on much. Then he thought of his dad.

Paddy Delahoy would have been devastated at the death of his youngest son. His dad had always acknowledged Jimmy as the brains of the family, the sensible one, the quiet one, the one who avoided trouble; the one who might have made something of himself. It was Jimmy who had been his dad's crutch when his mum died, stopping him hitting the booze too hard and drinking himself to death from grief. Jimmy was the one who regularly spent time with him and took him to the pub for a few beers. Jimmy was the one Paddy Delahoy knew he could rely on with the uncertainty of old age approaching. Paddy Delahoy was a good man who didn't deserved what life had thrown at him.

Tears rolled down Jimmy's face as he made a secret vow. He wouldn't give up. He would somehow find a way to get back to his own time by whatever means it took, however hard, however painful.

17

Next morning Jimmy had a pleasant surprise. He was brought from his cell and taken to the Visitor's Room where a very attractive young lady was waiting to see him.

The room was sparsely furnished with six rickety tables, hard lino flooring that amplified the lightest footfall and not unexpectedly it stunk of polish and carbolic. It couldn't be less conducive to a relaxed meeting place if it tried. But all that was forgotten at the sight of the gorgeous apparition before him.

The girl wore an eye-catching high-collared red and white floral dress and a scarlet wide-brimmed hat worn fashionably at the side of her head. She stood up from behind the Formica topped table and offered Jimmy a delicate hand.

'We haven't met,' she said with a warm smile. 'My name's Rosie. Rosie Peach.'

She was stunning. Her blue eyes were the colour of cornflowers and her hair shone like gold. Her full lips were coloured a flawless cherry red lipstick and her high cheekbones were blushed with a natural pink hue.

She sat down and gestured for Jimmy to follow. He slid into the seat unable to take his eyes off her, transfixed by her natural beauty. Rosie glanced up at the orderly standing on guard at Jimmy's side.

'Please, can we speak alone?' she asked the orderly as she hit him with a glorious smile. It instantly melted his dutiful resolve. With a gooey smile, he drifted back towards the rear of the room and took up position by the door.

Rosie then turned that glorious smiled upon Jimmy. His heart did a couple of back-flips. At that moment he wouldn't have hesitated for a moment if she had asked him to cut off his right arm, just for the hell of it.

Rosie took Jimmy's hand and stroked it gently.

'This place is beastly. They don't look as though they are treating you at all well.'

The sensual touch of her fingers sent a shiver of delight through Jimmy's body that brought him out all over in goose bumps.

Jimmy was unable to reply. He had temporarily lost the power of speech. Rosie smiled and brushed his cheek.

'You poor thing,' said Rosie, squeezing his hand. 'You're probably wondering who I am?'

Jimmy nodded, but he knew. She was nothing less than an angel.

'My brother asked me to come to see you. To thank you. He can't do it in person, you see. He really wanted to, but he's well – a little indisposed at the moment.'

Jimmy didn't dare tell her he hadn't a clue who her brother was, nor why this brother should be thanking him in case it turned out to have been a huge mistake, causing this heavenly vision to disappear from his life forever.

Rosie saw his confusion.

'Alfie. Don't you remember? At the police station? The shelter that was bombed?' You pulled him clear. He said your nickname was Ginny.'

Jimmy finally offered a nod of understanding. 'I'm sorry, I didn't know his name.'

'Well you saved his life. He wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for you.' Rosie leant across the small table and added with a giggle, 'And he is quite taken with you.'

Jimmy closed his eyes and bathed in her intoxicating aroma.

'Alfie has told me to let you know he hasn't forgotten the promise he made. He owes you.'

Dragged from his heavenly reverie, Jimmy shrugged. 'I did what anyone would do. But how did you find me?'

'He put the word out and he knows a few people at the police station.' Rosie squeezed his hand again. 'You see, Alfie never goes back on his word. So, he has asked me to come here and see if he can help. Anything at all.'

Jimmy reckoned the name of a decent barrister wouldn't have been a bad start, but even that was too late.

'That's very good of him, but apart from getting me out of here, I really can't think of anything at the moment.'

'I'm sure Alfie won't be happy with that and will want to do something. It's not every day someone saves your life.'

Jimmy considered the proposal and sought to turn it to his advantage.

'Rosie,' he said hesitantly, 'look there is something.' Jimmy felt his face flush. 'It has been really lovely seeing you today. I don't get any visitors and I just wondered. . .'

'Oh you poor dear, of course I'll come and visit you. Especially after your bad news – your husband.' Rosie gently stroked his hair. 'Alfie would like that. I'll bring you a cake. I mean, if that's allowed?'

'They might just check to make sure you haven't hidden a file inside it,' said Jimmy.

'Alfie made me do that once. It didn't do him any good mind – he just broke a tooth on it.'

They both burst out laughing and in that instant Jimmy knew for the first time, in both of his lives that he was truly and madly in love.

He always thought he loved his girlfriend, but even in that ridiculously short space of time since meeting Rosie, the feelings he had for this perfect angel before him was of a different magnitude altogether – something he had never experienced before – a desperate unaccountable yearning for another human being that was so immense as almost to crush him.

'Five minutes,' called-out the orderly pointing to his watch.

'Oh is that all, we have so much to talk about,' said Rosie.

'Yes,' said Jimmy, almost struck mute again by the avalanche of his desire.

'Oh, I should have asked, your nickname, Ginny. Is it okay for me to call you that?'

'It's close enough,' said Jimmy with a soppy smile.

'So, tell me about yourself, Ginny.'

Jimmy tensed. This most magical moment in his whole life was about to have its happy-ever-after ending shattered. What could he tell her that wouldn't make her flee screaming in terror?

'I'm not very interesting,' said Jimmy with a shrug. 'I'm keener to know about you, and Alfie.'

'Well, Alfie's good really. He just gets involved with stuff he shouldn't do. With all this rationing there's always someone who will pay to get hold of things that aren't readily available. He was had up for petrol racketeering this time. Three months in the Scrubs. If you met him properly, you are sure to like him.'

'He sounds like someone I know,' Jimmy said wryly. He reached out and tentatively took her hand, which sent another quake of delight through his body. 'What about you, Rosie. Tell me about yourself.'

'I'm training to be a stenographer. We must all do our bit for the war effort.'

Jimmy saw she wasn't wearing a ring. 'You're not married?'

'No,' she said pouting. 'I've met lots of nice boys, but Alfie always says they're not good enough for me and chases them away. I'm twenty-three. I'll end up on the shelf.'

'Oh, I doubt that,' Jimmy said staring deeply into her eyes.

'Time,' declared the orderly placing a firm hand on Jimmy's shoulder. 'Come along now.'

Jimmy wanted to slap him away, not wanting this moment to end, but Rosie acknowledged the unyielding power of authority and stood up. She leant across the table and pecked Jimmy on the cheek.

'Until next time,' she said walking out of the door.

Her departure was like a light snuffed out in his soul. He would have an agonising wait for the 'next time' for it to reignite.

18

Jimmy was hardly listening as he sat in Farley's office. He was in love. Barrington-Warner's probing questions on his return visit later that day bounced harmlessly off his glowing shield of happiness. Even the prospect of being executed in a few weeks didn't seem half so bad.

'Dr Farley believes you have Second Sight – the power to see into the future. Would you agree with that?'

'The knowledge of your future, the war, yes.'

'He tells me that while you were in this trance jobby, he confirmed that you are not aware of, or involved in any German spy ring within government circles.'

'I did say.'

'Quite,' said Barrington-Warner producing a pipe from his pocket. 'So tell me, where does this information come from? Did you not have some cock and bull story about you actually being possessed by a spirit from the future?'

'Something along those lines.'

'Anyway, you will have to excuse my scepticism. This modern Spiritualist craze has somewhat passed me by.'

He struck a match and held it to his pipe.

'Dr Farley says he describes you as what he calls a clairvoyant. Do you speak with different spirits in these séances? Is this character from the future your spirit guide?'

Jimmy tried hard to keep a straight face. If Farley was to be believed, Jimmy didn't need to employ a spirit guide, he was one.

'You could say that.'

'And they tell you these things?'

'I sort of just know it.'

'It what, comes into your head, just like that.'

'Just like that,' said Jimmy resisting the urge to do an impersonation of Tommy Cooper.

'How detailed is this information that is relayed to you?'

'Depends on the event. Some things are more important than others. So I have a better recall of them.'

Barrington-Warner drew a couple of puffs on his pipe as he thoughtfully paced around the room.

'Elizabeth,' Barrington-Warner said slowly. 'You once said you had information relating to the German Enigma coding machine?'

Jimmy hesitated. Previously, any such enquiry would have been met with a carefully evasive reply. The knowledge that the code had been cracked was only known to a handful of people on the Allied side at that time. If a whiff of that most closely guarded secret ever got out and reached the Germans it might seriously jeopardise the outcome of the war. But that day was different. He was in love. He really didn't care about all that cloak & dagger stuff anymore.

'They decode the signals at Bletchley Park.'

Barrington-Warner's pipe nearly fell out of his mouth. 'Well, well, Elizabeth, you are full of surprises. Yes indeed, full of surprises. The purpose of that establishment is top secret.'

He took a moment to carefully extinguish the pipe and slowly return it to his pocket as though buying time to regain his composure.

Finally he said, 'You obviously aren't aware how few people have access to that information?'

'This'll make you laugh,' said Jimmy still carefree and riding high on the first flush of love. 'After the war we sell the machine to other countries who don't know we've broken the code so we are able to decipher all their secret transmissions, and these other countries, including Germany, don't even find out until the nineteen-seventies.'

Barrington-Warner didn't find it funny. With a sudden decisiveness he dropped into his chair and leant across the desk.

'Your supposed powers of second sight have let you down on this one, Elizabeth.'

Jimmy regarded Barrington-Warner closely. Was he playing a game to protect perhaps the biggest secret of the war?

Jimmy shrugged. 'If you say so.'

'The operation at Station X remains in its infancy.'

'I thought Ultra broke the Enigma code earlier this year, in nineteen-forty?'

Barrington-Warner's looked up in surprise, but didn't reply.

'Why did you ask me if I knew anything about Enigma?' asked Jimmy.

Barrington-Warner sat quietly assessing Jimmy's credibility.

'Elizabeth,' he said slowly, 'I want to make arrangements for you to be transferred to Station X.'

'Why?'

'As you can probably tell, I don't believe in all this second sight nonsense myself, but it will be interesting to see what others make of you and your claims.'

'To give me the third degree, like the Gestapo?'

Barrington-Warner gave a hollow laugh. 'We don't go in for all that business. You forget we're the good guys in the white hats.'

Jimmy then realised what that meant as regards being able to see Rosie again.

'How long for?' he asked.

'For as long as it takes.'

'But . . .'

Barrington-Warner raised his eyebrows. 'I thought you'd have been only too pleased to legitimately get away from this awful place without all the bother of escaping?'

'Yes, but . . .' Jimmy couldn't think of any truly justifiable reason to remain at the asylum. Yesterday he would have packed his bag instantly at the opportunity, but everything had changed in the few hours since he had met the most wonderful girl in the world. The alien world he had found himself in was horrendous enough without the only thing that had brought him the slightest joy being denied him.

'When?'

'The next few days. It is Christmas Eve tomorrow. I can arrange transport on . . .' Barrington-Warner flicked through a small diary and tapped a page. 'Monday the thirtieth.'

A week. Jimmy had no idea if Rosie intended to revisit in the next few days. He doubted he could get word to her that he was going to be taken away. It was also highly unlikely that Alfie's goodwill extended to him getting Rosie to track him down to an ultra-secret establishment, no matter how much was his debt of gratitude.

'A girl came to see me this morning,' Jimmy said hesitantly.

'Yes, so I understand you received a visitor. A charming young lady I am told. Rosie Peach, sister of Alfie Peach a local wide-boy and black marketeer, currently serving three months in Wormwood Scrubs.' Barrington-Warner smiled with a hint of self-satisfaction. 'And your business with her was?'

'She came to thank me on Alfie's behalf for saving his life in the air raid shelter.'

'They do say the Devil looks after its own.'

Jimmy ignored the secret serviceman's sarcasm. 'Well, I was wondering if word can be got to her that I am to be moved?'

Barrington-Warner eyed Jimmy suspiciously. 'To what end? Surely she's fulfilled her remit. Is there something you're not telling me, Elizabeth? Are you suggesting we tell her you are being transferred to a top secret establishment?'

'No, of course not,' Jimmy said. 'It's just that she said she'd to visit me again. I wouldn't want to let her down.'

Jimmy knew that sounded paper thin as Barrington-Warner continued regarding him with suspicion.

'I have to say, Elizabeth this does raise a major concern for me over how much of this second sight business you may have discussed with her. As from now on that is classified information. I will require both of you to sign the Official Secrets Act.'

Jimmy wanted to put him straight, but Barrington-Warner held up his hand.

'I do understand from the orderly that you didn't appear to discuss anything of a sensitive nature, but under the circumstances I feel it is a wise precaution.'

'But she can visit me again?'

'I think so, but under the strict supervision of Dr Farley. We wouldn't want your pretty young friend getting into trouble now, would we? The punishment for breaching the Official Secrets Act in war time is particularly severe.' Barrington-Warner smiled and reached under the desk. He produced a gift-wrapped parcel and placed it in front of Jimmy. 'A Christmas present. It's not much, but regardless of what you may think, if you help us, we will do what we can for you.'

The present was the size of a smallish square hat box. Jimmy pulled it towards him and felt its weight. Inside was probably exactly what the packaging suggested it was – a hat, which was so what he needed.

'Trying to guess what's inside? I'd have thought you'd have known that already.'

'Well, it's certainly not an A-bomb, is it.'

'A what bomb?' queried Barrington-Warner.

'Just a joke,' said Jimmy with a secret smile.

19

Christmas Day.

As a special dispensation and under close supervision, Jimmy was allowed to join the other inmates for the Christmas celebrations. Oh Joy!

Homemade coloured paper chains had been strung across the dining hall to give it more of a festive air. Most of the inmates wouldn't have noticed the effort made by the staff to cheer up the grimly soulless place. Even the cooks had upped their game and threatened to produce something not unlike a traditional Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. Although in this instance the promise of all the trimmings was in all likelihood to have been literally true.

Jimmy sat opposite Ethel, who as always had made straight for him. Naturally the chair beside Ethel was empty, reserved for Alice. Standing to his left was an orderly who had been sent to keep guard over him and sitting to his right was the Major.

The Major, who most believed had only been a lieutenant during the Great War, was a bit of an oddity. The first impression on meeting him was that he was perfectly normal. He was known to protest to anyone who cared to listen that it was all a mistake and he shouldn't be there, declaring himself as sane as the next man. But this assertion was to no effect as he had been in the asylum for over twenty-years.

Yet so well regarded was he within the establishment that he was a trustee who was allowed to wear his own clothes and had been given almost free rein organising and overseeing groups of inmates during gardening and cleaning details. He was a natural leader of men and had survived the First World War, but most believed the cost of that survival had been his mind.

The Major would rationally converse, offering an informed and often forceful opinion on a wide range of subjects until at some point in the conversation he would say something completely mad.

Jimmy happened across him the first time one afternoon when they both were in the recreation room staring out of the window. The Major struck up a conversation about the night sky. Jimmy was impressed with his depth of knowledge on the planets and the stars.

'You know they call Venus the Morning Star?'

Jimmy did know that.

'Funny old place, Venus,' the Major continued, bouncing on his toes with his hands clasped behind his back. 'It goes the wrong way you know. In is the only planet in the solar system that rotates backwards. The sun rises in the west and sets in the east. How about that then? The sight of that would be enough to make you consider taking more water with it.'

Jimmy nodded in wry agreement.

'They vanished you know.'

'What?' Jimmy asked innocently.

'The moons.'

'Moons?'

'The moons of Venus – Gone.'

'What moons?'

'Two-hundred-years ago they were there, as plain as day, anyone could see them even with the smallest telescope, then they were gone.'

'Venus hasn't got any moons.'

The Major turned to Jimmy. 'Quite, but that was then. Just like the Earth was once flat, but now strangely it isn't. The past is a curious place.' He leant in close and whispered, 'It isn't always what it seems, you know. You can't trust it, if you understand my meaning.' The Major tapped the side of his nose. 'But mum's the word.'

He then strode off purposefully to break-up a group of inmates squabbling over the wireless.

*

Jimmy sat quietly, while the Major harrumphed impatiently as they waited for the Christmas dinner to be served.

'Damn fools. I wouldn't let any of those people near my cook house. They'd damn near poison all my men.'

'They do their best with what they've got, Major,' said Ethel. 'There is a war on.'

'War! I don't call this a war. Fighting in those damn trenches is what I call a real war.'

Jimmy stayed out of the argument. He too had little expectation of the culinary extravaganza that was soon to be put before them. The Major jumped to his feet and threw his napkin onto the table.

'They're late. Dinner was for two and it's now four minutes past. How can we expect to win a war if we can't even cook a meal on time? In my day we'd have had them taken out and flogged for dereliction of duty. If my orders were to go over the top at two, we went at two, not four minutes past or when we felt like it.'

With that he stomped off towards the kitchen.

Ethel took advantage of the Major's departure. 'It's so nice that they let you have this special dinner with us, Alice and I do miss our little chats with you,' said Ethel, gently stroking his hand, adding with a giggle, '. . . Jimmy.'

Jimmy put a finger to his lips. He had been given the strictest instructions not to discuss anything that might compromise his security. He glanced at Reg, the stern-faced orderly on-guard at his side. He stood to attention with his hands clasped behind his back and unblinkingly stared into the distance seemingly unaware of Ethel's little indiscretion.

Jimmy's eyes flicked towards the orderly.

'Oh Jimmy,' said Ethel laughing, 'don't worry about Reg, he's as deaf as a post. Aren't you, Reg?'

Reg was indeed very hard of hearing as it took Ethel tugging on his sleeve to gain his attention.

'Er what?' said Reg jolted from his silent world.

'I said,' replied Ethel in a raised voice, 'you're going a bit deaf.'

Reg appeared to catch her drift and glanced down at his watch. 'Ten past two,' he barked in a clipped tone and then resumed his less than completely vigilant guard duty.

'See. No need to worry about him.' Ethel took Jimmy's hand. 'So tell me, what's Christmas like where you come from?'

Jimmy blew out his cheeks. It was question that took him back.

When he was young and it was all four of them together, mum, dad, Delboy and him, it was great, magical, perhaps as it is to all kids. The presents and all the stuff mum bought that we never had at any other time, like dates and walnuts, which no one ever ate anyway. But after mum died it was just another excuse to get drunk, more so than normal. Dad made an effort to cook the turkey and all that, but it was never the same. It took him hours to make it, just for it all to be wolfed down in seconds. It no longer felt anything special. It had become just another meal.

'Pretty much the same really,' said Jimmy.

'I imagine it's wonderful,' said Ethel dreamily. Her face then creased with concern as she turned to the empty chair beside her. 'Alice is asking, "Do you still have rationing?"'

Jimmy smiled. 'No. There's definitely no rationing,' he replied. 'There's fast-food places everywhere. You can get as fat as you like. And lots do.'

'Fast food? Do you have to chase after it or something?'

The Major marked his return with a series of harrumphs.

'Damn fools. No one in the cookhouse has seen them.'

Ethel squeezed Jimmy's hand to stop him, but it was too late as he asked innocently, 'Who?'

'My men of course.'

'Your . . .?'

'Lost 'em. Every man jack of them, gone. Absent without leave. I'll have 'em shot.'

Jimmy considered seeking clarification, but he saw Ethel's discreet shake of the head warning him not to go there.

'They are probably on the parade ground, Major,' said Ethel reassuringly.'

'Parade ground,' harrumphed the Major. 'That's it, on the parade ground. Must be. I'll go and check.'

The Major spun round and marched out of the room.

Jimmy pulled a face. 'What's with all his men being lost? He thinks everything is disappearing all the time?'

'They say in the Great War the men in his unit were blown to bits by a direct hit from a shell as he led them over the top. Apparently there was nothing recognisably left of any of them as though they had literally disappeared. It was a miracle they say that he survived almost unscathed, but he has been looking for them ever since.'

Jimmy was about to comment, but the Major had returned.

'Damned fellows. This is desertion. I'll have their guts for garters for this.'

Fortunately the arrival of the food distracted the Major from further speculation as to the whereabouts of his phantom command.

'You're late!' the Major growled at one of the orderlies acting as a waiter for the day.

The orderly, wearing a sad festive paper hat cocked at what was intended to be a jaunty angle on the side of his head, ignored him and plonked the plate down in front of the Major, slopping some of the watery contents onto the tablecloth.

The Major harrumphed loudly again and said, 'Damned insubordination. I've given men ten lashes for less.'

After Jimmy's dinner had arrived in much the same dilatory fashion, with likewise half of it ending up on the table, he stared down at the remainder trying to identify exactly what was on his plate. Whatever the ingredients at the start had been – animal, vegetable or mineral – the cooks had excelled themselves yet again by masterfully disguising their origin by removing all shape, colour and smell from what purported to be a traditional Christmas dinner.

Jimmy prodded and pushed the goo around his plate in search of a tasty roast potato or a juicy chipolata, but none were to be found. Thanks to Barrington-Warner, he had eaten well recently and had few qualms in pushing his plate aside untouched. The lack of a decent meal wasn't nearly as crushing as it once was.

The Major and Ethel tucked-in eagerly as did the less fortunate in the institution. It wasn't long before spits and spats of food passed back and forth across the table.

A piece of something warm and gooey splatted onto on Jimmy's lip. Without thinking he flicked it away in revulsion. What might once have been a carrot before the cooks got hold of it, and prior to it being chewed to pulpy ball and ejected from someone's mouth, landed on Dixon's plate. Dixon's hair-trigger temper obviously hadn't mellowed with Yuletide spirit. He sprung out of his seat, and with his spoon held above his head poised to strike like a dagger, he lunged at the culprit.

Fortunately for Jimmy, but unfortunately for Ernie, a peaceful but completely demented lifer, Dixon had got the wrong man. Poor Ernie probably had no idea why he was suddenly sprawled on the floor with his dinner all over him.

With the Major taking it upon himself to assume command, he barked at the attending orderlies to arrest Dixon and have him marched at the double to the guardhouse. Before anyone was marched anywhere, the orderlies had to first get hold of Dixon and prevent him from trying to stab Ernie with a soft-metal spoon, which was specially designed to harmlessly bend on a puff of wind. It was more likely to tickle him to death than cause an injury, but Ernie's cries of protest were less than manful all the same.

After Dixon was dragged away in a painful double arm lock Ernie was helped back into his chair. The assaulted inmate, who had already forgotten that he had been assaulted, looked up and down the table in confusion wondering where his dinner had gone. Jimmy reckoned Dixon had done him a favour.

'I should be in the Officer's Mess,' harrumphed the Major. 'Shouldn't have to mix with the other ranks.'

'Crackers!' said Jimmy.

'What!'

Jimmy picked up one of the crude homemade Christmas crackers and held it out for the Major to pull. The Major glared at Jimmy with a look that said, 'Don't be ridiculous.' and turned away. Jimmy offered it to Ethel who enthusiastically grabbed the other end.

'Don't forget to make a wish,' she said.

A wish?

Two days ago there was only one thing Jimmy would have wished for, but now having met Rosie. . .

Even as he longingly thought of her, he knew it was wrong. She was a woman and so was he, if only technically. Although it didn't feel wrong inside, a relationship between them would never happen, not in the unenlightened world of nineteen-forty. And regardless of how strongly Jimmy felt, undoubtedly she would want a real man with a real man's body, to love her, to marry and have children by, not some freak chimera of the supernatural.

Ethel tugging on the cracker harder than he expected surprised Jimmy out of his gloomy thoughts. For a little old lady she was still mightily strong. The cracker ripped in two with Jimmy getting the bigger half.

'You won,' said Ethel. 'See if there's a present inside. There's always a present.'

Jimmy shook the crepe-paper covered tube then peered inside. He pulled out a cigarette card with a picture of a black horse on it.

'Ooo! Look at that – a beautiful horse.'

Jimmy couldn't get nearly as excited about it as Ethel, but it brought a smile to his face. For people with nothing, who always expected to have nothing, the pleasure gained from the tiniest gift or token was immeasurable.

'Would you like it, Ethel?'

'I couldn't, it's yours.'

'It is my Christmas present to you.'

Ethel frowned and glanced to the empty chair beside her.

'Oh, sorry,' said Jimmy quickly. 'A Christmas present for you and Alice.'

'That would be wonderful.' She leaned across the table. 'I bet you have thousands of these where you come from.'

'Oh yes, thousands and thousands.'

'I thought so. It is so wonderful. I bet you'd give anything to be back there?'

Jimmy considered exactly what desperate lengths he would go to if there was even the slightest possibility of returning to his own time? Then again the question was irrelevant. There was no way back. In his time he was six-foot under and there was nothing that could change that.

'I. . .'

Jimmy was interrupted by a distant air raid siren cranking-up its plaintive wail. The Major sprung to his feet.

'Nobody panic, don't panic.'

The orderlies began gathering the inmates and shepherding them out of the room. Most were so far gone that the perilous nature of their situation was completely lost on them. The inmates from Jimmy's dining room met those from the other wings filtering down the stairs to the outlying air raid shelters that were dispersed around the asylum grounds.

As they filed into the open, the freezing air bit hard causing grumbles, chattering teeth and the energetic patting of arms to keep warm. The orderlies stood by the door and handed-out blankets to eager hands.

'Move along now. No dawdling,' bellowed the Major.

The ghostly brigade shuffled in a disorderly fashion towards the shelters on the far side of the cricket pitch. In the distance the Brentwood town sirens continued to sound out their melancholic wail.

'Come on, keep up.'

Mainly thanks to the Major, Jimmy and about fifteen others were quickly installed in one of the shelters. Once all were inside, the heavy metal door was slammed shut and they waited for the possible onslaught from above.

Apart from the stray bomb that destroyed the shelter at the police station, the only other time the Brentwood area had been attacked was when the Germans targeted the railway marshalling yards at Shenfield. But with a shocking aim, they had only managed to kill two cows and a bull who had been minding their own business in a field next to the asylum.

For the local area most air raid warnings were false alarms, but there was always the outside chance for once it was real. Jimmy had been fairly ambivalent about the possibility of death raining down from the skies. He had survived unscathed from one very near miss and there was still no telling if he was destined for a grimmer fate at the hands of the British establishment. If Farley was to be believed, a bomb might be the quick and easy way to start anew. Although, now having met Rosie, he would prefer hang around just a bit longer for the chance to see her again.

Though only a very few of the more responsible inmates were allowed to smoke, to prevent the possibility of a fire, or setting themselves alight, very soon there was a thick fug hanging in the air. Jimmy was in half a mind to ask if he could borrow Reg's gas mask. As the designated orderly in charge of the shelter, he like the other staff in the asylum were the only ones issued with them at the outbreak of war – a callous, but expedient decision on the part of the authorities.

'I hate those Germans,' said Ethel. 'It doesn't bear thinking about what might happen to us if we're invaded by those jackbooted monsters.'

Jimmy smiled. 'I thought Alice would have reassured you that it won't happen.'

Ethel looked towards an empty space to her left and nodded. 'Alice is wondering why you think she should know what's going to happen in the future.'

'I assumed that's the sort of stuff she can do.' Jimmy leant in closer to ensure he couldn't be heard above the general hubbub. 'Because she knew about me.'

'It was your aura. She knew it wasn't right. She knew it didn't fit the body that she had seen it around.'

'My aura? Perhaps I need to take more baths.'

Ethel gently pulled his arm. 'Oh, you do make me laugh. It's nothing to do with . . .'

Jimmy smiled and held up his hand. 'Sorry, Ethel I'm only joking with you.' He was intrigued. 'Has she noticed anyone else with the wrong aura?'

'Well,' she hesitated. 'I'm not sure I should say.' She cocked an ear to one side. 'Alice is laughing,' said Ethel. 'She says you will probably find this funny.'

Jimmy waited expectantly for her titillating revelation.

'Captain – Willoughby,' whispered Ethel. 'Alice senses that he is really a woman.'

It was inappropriate in the nervous atmosphere of the shelter, but Jimmy couldn't help himself as he burst out laughing. It was loud enough to turn heads.

Once Jimmy had got over the entertaining notion of Willoughby being a woman, maybe for the first time it occurred to him to enquire who exactly Alice, her imaginary and highly perceptive friend, was.

'Ethel . . .' But before he could ask, the All Clear sounded its monotonous drone. The warning was another false alarm. Perhaps the Luftwaffe had been given a day off for Christmas.

The easing of tension in the shelter was tangible. A buzz went round in expectation of returning to the relative warmth of the asylum. Jimmy, like most, turned to Reg to await the door being unlocked to release them. But Reg appeared in no rush to vacate the freezing shelter.

After a few moments of stubborn inactivity on Reg's part, Ethel tugged at his sleeve.

'Reg, can we go back it is very cold?'

Ethel stopped him from checking his watch.

'Reg, the 'All Clear' has sounded.'

'WHAT?' Reg shouted unnecessarily loudly in the confined space, primarily for his own benefit.

'The ALL CLEAR, it has SOUNDED,' Ethel shouted back exaggeratedly patting her arms. 'Brrr, it's cold.'

Reg shrugged. 'WE'VE GOT TO WAIT FOR THE ALL CLEAR.'

'Hurry-up, Reg, it's freezing out here,' said Jimmy.

The plea literally fell upon deaf ears as Reg stood firm.

The stand-off continued for a while until the Major produced a pen and paper and wrote: "ALL CLEAR SOUNDED 30 MINS AGO"

Reg read it and shouted, 'ARE YOU SURE?'

'Of course I'm sure, you blithering idiot!' barked the Major. He harrumphed and then wrote down: "YES"

Reg looked torn. After a moments consideration he turned the key in the door and popped his head out. Satisfied there weren't any bombs about to drop on his head, he led his charges back to the main building.

Jimmy found it remarkable that no one was in the least bit concerned at their late return or indeed had even noticed their prolonged absence. Unfortunately, which is not the operable word in Jimmy's case, but for the others, the Christmas pud and mince pies had already been eaten. With the meal over they were then taken to the recreation room with the promise of two hours of seasonal merriment and frivolity.

One of the orderlies, uninhibited by his lack of talent, gamely knocked out a series of rollicking sing-along-songs on an old upright piano, which probably hadn't been troubled by a tuning fork since the Boer War. Some inmates knew the words, some recognised the tunes, and were split into those who "LA"'d their way through them or those that "DE"'d, while some made strange unpredictable sounds that weren't entirely at odds with the musical accompaniment. The overall result was not unlike a pet shop on fire.

To Jimmy, a child of the twenty-first century with its modern electronic eradication of bad musicianship, it was hell. It might have been just bearable after a few drinks inside him, but the asylum ran a dry house. So the mangled rendition of Roll out the Barrel had a wistful irony about it, as did Down at the Old Bull and Bush.

For Jimmy, Christmas nineteen-forty ended not so much with a bang, as a blinding headache.

20

They boarded the train at Brentwood.

Jimmy and his guard, a particularly severe looking military policeman, were sat side by side as the train headed towards London. Jimmy found it quite exciting to be on a steam train. When he was a kid they had normally been the thing of bedtime stories, or the occasional day out to a working railway museum. The smell of smoke, oil and steam as it hurried by the windows was exhilarating, as was the evocative noise of the coaches rattling and bumping along the uneven tracks and over the points. When the driver blew the whistle Jimmy was five again; the train was being pulled by Thomas and he expected to see the Fat Controller standing waiting eagerly for their arrival at each station.

The reality was different. There was no Fat Controller. At each station the platforms were heaving to overflowing with uniformed humanity. Although the military policeman, by the unfortunate name of Sergeant Major, had put a 'Reserved' sign in the corridor window, several soldiers had tried to enter the temptingly near empty compartment on the otherwise over-crowded train. Sergeant Major had dealt with them in short order.

It had been made clear that under no circumstances was fraternisation allowed with anyone without a top level security clearance. Even Sergeant Major had come from his regular posting at Bletchley to collect Jimmy and escort him back in person.

By the time the train pulled into Liverpool Street Station, he longed to breathe air that wasn't tainted with smoke and grease. Jimmy's romance with steam-powered travel was over, unlike the yearning for his new love. He was totally gutted that she hadn't been back to see him before he left.

Each day following Christmas, he would awake hoping and praying she would return, and each day ended with the same disappointment. He had made discreet enquiries of the orderlies and the Major, with his freedom to roam the asylum, asking if a female visitor had been deliberately turned away.

The orderlies knew nothing and the Major just barked, 'Looking for a girl! You lost her? I'm looking for my men. Lost 'em, every man jack.' With that he stomped off.

Even in the short drive to the railway station in Brentwood Jimmy hoped to catch sight of her out and about in the streets. But it was not to be. Jimmy asked Sergeant Major if he had been given orders as to when Jimmy was to be returned to the asylum. On that subject or any other normal communication, except growled commands, Sergeant Major remained resolutely silent.

When the train came to a halt at Liverpool Street Station, Sergeant Major produced a pair of handcuffs and secured them together. The MP, carrying Jimmy's bag, then led him down the platform into the busy main concourse that was bustling with a nation at war.

Wartime Liverpool Street Station didn't resemble in anyway the modern facility that Jimmy knew. It wasn't the brightly lit, glass-roofed station of his time, but a smoky Victorian red brick and ironwork edifice built to celebrate the age of empire. With the smartly turned-out porters weaving their heavily laden luggage trolleys through the teeming masses, the overwhelming cacophony of sound: whistles, idling locomotives noisily belching steam, strident calls from the guards and the general hubbub of humanity, it felt like the film set from Brief Encounter.

Outside a car was waiting to transfer them to Euston Station for their onward Midland Railway connection. It was early evening by the time they arrived at Bletchley Park – Station X. Tired and hungry, Jimmy waited patiently in the car for Sergeant Major to deal with the necessary paperwork at the guard post by the main entrance. Satisfied all was in order, the guard, a tough looking naval petty officer with a huge bushy red beard, swung open the massive wrought iron gates and allowed them to pass through.

Jimmy stepped out of the car onto a carpet of fleshly fallen snow. The sudden chill took his breath away. Shivering he was led into the imposing oak-panelled entrance hall of Bletchley Park House. Jimmy was met by a tall man dressed in casual civilian clothes with a stylish silver cigarette-holder clenched between his teeth. He drew deeply on the cigarette and introduced himself as Fleming. He said he had been assigned as her liaison officer. He announced no rank or service affiliation, but from his thick roll-necked woollen sweater and his military bearing he was old school officer class, probably Royal Navy.

'Good journey?' asked Fleming as Sergeant Major handed him Jimmy's bag. 'It's damned cold out there. Let me take you to your room.'

Sergeant Major relieved of his duty, saluted and marched back out of the hall to the car.

Fleming smiled reassuringly. 'We have a bath waiting for you and some dinner.'

Jimmy blew into his hands to warm them. It was just as cold in the old house as it was outside.

It didn't go unnoticed.

'This place is beautiful in the summer.'

Already wary of their true intentions, that statement set alarm bells ringing. The reference to summer didn't suggest his time at Bletchley was going to be a short term arrangement. So what now of Rosie? As crushingly hard as it was, he had to accept he was never ever going to see her again. He could have wept.

Jimmy gloomily trailed behind Fleming as they climbed the magnificent curving staircase to the first floor. Fleming continued along another oak panelled corridor, which was adorned with portraits of several generations of the house's owners, and stopped at the last door on the right. He unlocked the door and deposited Jimmy's bag on the bed.

'I hope this will be comfortable. If you need anything, my room is immediately next door.' Fleming smiled reassuringly. 'When you've settled in I'll take you to get something to eat. Oh, I am sure I don't have to tell you, but keep the blackout curtains pulled at all times. We don't want to give Jerry something decent to aim at now, do we.'

Fleming closed the door behind him and locked it from the outside.

Jimmy gave the place the once over. It was certainly fancier than his isolation cell at the asylum, with its detailed oak panelling to the walls, an ornate ceiling and a huge deep pile rug at the foot of the single bed. Jimmy tested the bed springs, first by hand, then by sitting and bouncing on it. The wrought iron bedstead creaked a little, but the mattress, by comparison to the one he had been sleeping on, was soft and welcoming, as were the layers of thick fleecy blankets. When the wind blew there was an icy draught from the old sash windows, but the room was utter cosiness compared to the rest of the house. Best of all was the luxurious adjoining bathroom where the bath with its maximum war-time limit of five-inches of lukewarm water awaited him.

Jimmy unpacked his few possessions, one of which was his Christmas present from Barrington-Warner. He set the gift on its stand upon the burr walnut dressing table. The crystal ball wasn't Barrington-Warner's idea of a joke. It was a prop – a naive attempt to reinforce Jimmy's credentials as a 'Psychic Medium'. Barrington-Warner foresaw fierce resistance from the intellectual elite based at Bletchley at the use of, "spiritualist mumbo-jumbo," as he put it, to make a realistic contribution to the war effort. To him, Jimmy's credibility was foremost. Barrington-Warner obviously believed that Jimmy's new crystal ball would somehow seal the deal with the boffins based there. Perhaps people were far less cynical than in Jimmy's time.

Jimmy flicked off the ceiling light and pulled back the curtains. He casually tried the window. Both sashes were nailed shut. Outside was pitch black. The darkness was so total that the only sign that a world still existed beyond those four walls was the gentle patter of snow gusting against the windowpanes.

He closed the curtain and switched the light back on. He opened his small suitcase and took out the clothes which he had been donated to him. Simple beige utilitarian outfits that he had yet to try on. At the asylum they had asked him what size he was. Naturally he didn't have a clue. Mrs Hobday suggested, somewhat appropriately, 'Medium', innocently unaware of his new guise.

For the journey, Jimmy had worn an old set of clothes said to have been found unclaimed in the back of a drawer in the asylum laundry. Even with his female transformation, Jimmy hadn't developed a keen eye for fashion, but the clothes in question looked suspiciously like those once worn by Dorothy, one of the dementia patients. It was her Sunday best she wore for the very infrequent visitor she received. Her passing was a blessed relief to everyone, especially to the orderlies who had to follow her around mopping up the results of her torrentially incontinent bladder and the constant trickle of snot and drool. The outfit still stank of wee and disinfectant.

After emerging wrapped in a towel, fresh and glowing from his bath, he pulled the new dress from his case. The thick cloth felt like coarse sacking, but the warmth it assured was most welcome. He cast off the towel, but hesitated before slipping on the dress. He still wasn't comfortable with dressing as a woman. He would have preferred something vaguely more masculine, like slacks and a blouse, but his wardrobe consisted solely of the hand-me-down dress and a two piece outfit.

Having secured the front of the simple knee-length dress with its hooks and eyes, he checked his appearance in a mirror. Elizabeth Bradshaw wasn't bad looking in a mumsey sort of way. Her nice smile was marred by the gaping black holes due to the absence of both premolars immediately behind the front teeth.

He ran his tongue around his mouth. Compared to Jimmy's day, for a thirty-year old woman, Elizabeth Bradshaw's teeth were shocking, as were most other people's he had observed in this historical world. Of any four seated at a dining table in the asylum, between them they were unlikely to have been able to muster more than a dozen of their own teeth.

With impeccable timing Fleming knocked on the door from outside. 'Mrs Bradshaw, may I come in?'

The lock turned and he entered the room. He was carrying a newspaper.

'Mr Barrington-Warner asked me to give you this. He said you might find it interesting.'

Jimmy unfurled a copy of the Daily Mail dated the 31st December 1940. There was a huge black and white picture on the broadsheet's front page of St Paul's cathedral standing undamaged amid the London firestorm. A smile spread across Jimmy's face. He was proved right. His expression then changed to one of puzzlement.

'This is dated tomorrow. I don't . . .?'

'We always approve the first editions of the press before they go out. We can't be too careful. We don't want to inadvertently gift the Germans any sensitive information.'

Jimmy looked at the photograph again with a sense of pride. He was vindicated. He did know what the future held which to his mind surely would make his knowledge invaluable to the war effort.

'Are you ready for me to take you to dinner?' inquired Fleming, being suaveness personified as he lit the cigarette in its silver holder.

'What's the food like?' Jimmy asked fearing the reply.

'Just about edible.'

Jimmy was led down to the kitchen where he was given a seat at the table used by the kitchen staff. There was a place setting for one and the food was already on a plate waiting for him. No one else was around.

'Are you . . .?'

'Fleming held up his hand. 'I've already eaten. Please do tuck in.'

Jimmy eyed the fare on his plate with caution then tentatively forked a little into his mouth. The mash was lumpy but seasoned and the two slices of spam weren't much different to those he had eaten as a young boy at home. The spinach had been boiled down to almost molecular level, but overall, as Fleming suggested, it was edible. Jimmy cleared the plate except for the gloopy spinach which he pushed to one side.

Fleming had sat quietly reading a book and smoking on the other side of the room waiting for Jimmy to finish. On cue he looked over the moment Jimmy had laid down his knife and fork.

'I believe they have a pudding for you. Carrot cake and custard. Can't say I'd recommend it though. Sugar is so hard to come by these days as are decent eggs. Can't make a decent custard without good eggs and sugar, don't you agree.' He then added with a smile, 'And in my opinion you can't make a good cake either.'

'On your recommendation, I'll pass on the pudding,' said Jimmy.

'Very wise. Very wise,' said Fleming setting his book aside. 'When you are ready there is someone I'd like you to meet.'

21

Jimmy was led through the house to a small room at the rear. They would probably call it a study, but it was bigger than the living room in his own home. One wall was shelved floor to ceiling and was stacked full with old leather-bound books, while the other walls were covered in an array of old oil paintings.

Jimmy had expected to see Barrington-Warner sitting the desk waiting for him, but it was a new face. Someone he hadn't met before and someone who greeted him like a long lost friend as he entered the room.

The tall slim man with swept back grey hair stood up and extended his hand with a warm smile of welcome.

'Mrs Bradshaw, I've heard a lot about you. Please take a seat.'

The man's face was lined and haggard with stress. He looked in his late sixties at least, but like most others at this time his appearance probably belied his true age. He had an extraordinarily tall forehead and bright, piercing blue eyes that exuded a serene wisdom.

Once all three were seated he said, 'Let me introduce myself. My name is Alistair Denniston. They tell me I'm in charge here, but don't you believe it. They just needed someone to lick the stamps and put the envelopes in the post box.'

Jimmy smiled. Denniston's relaxed manner put him instantly at ease.

'I am aware of your recent unfortunate history and again unfortunately, you will not have the freedoms the others working here have. But Barrington-Warner thinks you can be of invaluable assistance to us. Do you also believe that, Mrs Bradshaw?'

His success with the photograph of St Paul's had buoyed his confidence.

'Yes,' he declared firmly.

'Good, good,' Denniston repeated slowly. He flipped open a silver cigarette box and pushed it across the desk. 'Please.'

Jimmy held up his hand. 'I don't.'

'Quite right,' said Denniston. 'It's a foul habit. But you don't mind if I do?'

Denniston lit his cigarette.

'I understand you demonstrated none of this psychic ability before your unfortunate accident . . .' Denniston hesitated. 'Look here, Mrs Bradshaw, can I be frank with you? This Spiritualist stuff . . . Let me explain. The chaps we have here are some of the brightest people in the country, dare I say the world – mathematicians, linguists, historians, classicists and even a chess grandmaster. But what they all have in common is a solid, logical and above all a rational approach to what they do and this Spiritualist business – well – doesn't sit easily with that. But I am prepared to set aside my prejudice. If what you can do will help us win this war, then I for one welcome your presence here.'

Fleming who had sat quietly throughout nodded vigorously in agreement. Three months ago Jimmy would have been equally sceptical. Even now the notion of disincarnate souls aimlessly floating around was faintly ridiculous, but surely he was proof positive that mind and body weren't a single interdependent entity.

'I understand,' said Jimmy. 'It still surprises me too.'

'Barrington-Warner and Dr Farley have both vouched for you, but you realise the role each of us has to perform here it is not to be discussed with anyone, I mean anyone, including each other. On that basis, it has been decided that the cover story for your presence, to avoid rumours of endorsing hocus-pocus and the spiritualism, is to be that of an idiot savant. A rare genius with numbers, but a social misfit and recluse. How do you feel about that?'

Jimmy wasn't sure how he was meant to feel. Idiot wasn't anywhere near as bad as the savage insults he normally faced on the mean streets of Chigwell, which usually began with an 'F' or a 'C', yet having 'Idiot' as an official title somehow rankled. It crossed his mind to ask if 'Idiot' could be dropped to leave him as just a savant with personal issues, but he was too tired to argue.

'As Fleming here has undoubtedly advised you, he is going to be your liaison officer acting between the Y-station intercepts and yourself. For this purpose we have allocated you Hut 13. You begin work tomorrow. If that is all, Fleming will escort you back to your room.' Denniston looked up with a smile. 'Oh, by the way there is one more thing. We have given you a code name – Ariel. We thought it appropriate.'

Jimmy nodded. 'That's fine as long as you don't expect me to work standing on the roof.'

22

Jimmy was awoken by a repeated knocking at his bedroom door. With the blackout curtains pulled it still felt like the middle of the night. Having briefly poked his head up into the freezing air, he was even less inclined to venture from his cosy bed. The knocking persisted and most reluctantly Jimmy slipped out from beneath the blankets. The cold instantly set his teeth chattering and his breath came out as a dense cloud. He pulled the curtains back to reveal a watery sun that had barely risen and the windows were thickly frosted on the inside. He grabbed a fleecy dressing gown and drew it tight around him.

'Are you dressed?' Fleming's distinctive, clipped voice inquired from outside in the passage. 'Breakfast is served.'

'Two minutes,' Jimmy replied through his still chattering teeth.

Jimmy was grateful for the cloying warmth of the kitchen which once again no one else appeared to be taking advantage of, or more likely, were expressly forbidden to enter while he was around. The coffee was awful like a value brand version of Birds Mellow.

Fleming sitting at the end of the room reading must have seen him pull a face. 'They tell me it's made with chicory. For the life of me, I don't know why they bother making it at all when it tastes like that.'

It was grim, but Jimmy drank it all down and welcomed the warm glow it gave him inside. But he couldn't handle the porridge, which, having been made with watered-down milk and without sugar, tasted like hot papier-mâché. He pushed the bowl aside untouched.

Fleming smiled. 'I suspect one of the kitchen porters will finish that up. Now, if you are ready, I'll take you across to hut thirteen and we can get things underway.'

He pushed a cigarette into his silver holder and lit up.

'You might want to put on a few more layers and a thick coat as it is damn cold out there. One of the coldest winters on record so they say.'

Suitably attired with any item of clothing he could lay his hands on, Jimmy waddled like the Michelin Man to a hut set back on its own. It was some distance from the others, which were mostly arranged around the tennis courts on the other side of the house.

'Here we are. This is to be your new home,' said Fleming holding the door open and allowing Jimmy to enter.

Jimmy realised immediately why the small prefabricated buildings were called Huts, because that's exactly what they were – glorified garden sheds. Constructed entirely of timber with a felt roof and about the size of a narrow school classroom, Hut 13 featured no modern conveniences beyond lighting rigged up with crude exposed wiring. There were four plain desks set in a line and the three windows either side so heavily taped against bomb blasts so as to scarcely allow any natural light to filter through. There was no carpet on the floor, no telephone, no running water, no toilet and the sole source of heat was from a single puny iron stove at the end of the room. It reminded Jimmy of pictures he had seen of the huts in German POW camps. He wondered if anyone in Bletchley Park had as yet been minded to form an escape committee.

'You will have to forgive me, Mrs Bradshaw, but I have no idea how you work. Do you require subdued lighting for the séance? It is very quiet here. I don't think you will be disturbed. Do you need a pen and paper? An Ouija board? Tarot cards? Do you require someone else to be present? Tell me.'

Jimmy had to think for a second. 'Pen and paper.'

'Good. I will bring them with today's cribs from the intercepts and we will see how you get on.'

A wave of dread hit him. The enormity of the task had dawned on him. He had a pretty good handle on the various important events that happened during the war, significant dates and the personnel involved, but the day to day nitty-gritty of troop movements, specific targets for air raids and Kriegsmarine operations were impossible to remember even if by the incredibly slim chance he had ever once read something about them.

When Fleming departed, Jimmy wandered deep in thought, towards the far end of the room to warm his hands by the stove. He tried to recall if New Year's Eve, nineteen-forty was militarily significant in any way. Nothing especially came to mind except of course the relentless air raids on London. His confidence from the previous evening was fading fast. He had tried to explain to Fleming that his 'Insights' weren't specific enough for what they intended, but Fleming insisted the intercepts were their main priority at this time.

Fleming knocked as he strolled back into the hut with pen and a sheaf of papers in hand.

'Here we are Mrs Bradshaw. If I can explain. The 'Cribs' are small section of coded text which we are pretty sure we know what they contain. German radio operators are often instructed to send weather reports at a specified place in their transmissions. So if we know the ciphertext means 'Weather' it will help us break the code for the rest of the message. On each of these 'Cribs' we have tried to identify their source, which may help. Any questions? And is there any more I can do for you before you start?'

Jimmy glanced at the pile of papers with their neatly typed rows of random letters seeking inspiration.

'Mrs Bradshaw?' said Fleming interrupting Jimmy's gloomy musing.

'Okay,' said Jimmy. 'I'll give it a try.'

'That's the spirit. Excuse the pun,' enthused Fleming. 'Just ask the guard if you need me. He is just outside.'

Fleming had a short inaudible conversation with the guard and left.

Jimmy pushed one of the desks as close to the tiny stove as possible then moved a chair beside it and sat down. He set the note paper aside and stared down at the pile of coded intercepts. He was instantly taken back to his school exams. A sheet with questions and another sheet for answers except, then at least, the questions posed in the school exams were in English not a jumbled string of five letter clusters.

At the top of the pile was an intercept believed to have been sent by the Bismarck. Jimmy had read that the German naval code had been the hardest to break during the Second World War because the Kriegsmarine Enigma operators followed the strict security procedures better than their less conscientious counterparts in the army and Luftwaffe. In the early days, without those lapses in transmission protocols the code probably wouldn't have been broken at all.

At the top of the page was a time and date of the intercept and below it the five letter blocks of ciphertext, three of which, halfway down, were circled with the note "weather report" written in the margin. Apparently: ZAXCV. BGFVC. ETVQS – decoded and translated somewhat miraculously into English as, "weather report". How the code breakers knew that, Jimmy hadn't a clue, as much as he didn't have the slightest idea as to what the remainder of the signal might contain.

He stared at it long and hard trying to zone out his conscious mind, attempting to tap into the vast reservoir of knowledge residing deep in the subconscious. Nothing came. Expecting him to work out what that signal from the Bismarck was impossible. It was a microscopic detail of the war that was almost irrelevant to its future course. What he did know was the Bismarck having sunk the pride of the British navy, HMS Hood in May 1941, was itself attacked and sunk by a flotilla of British ships not but a few days later. Not that the British chiefs of war could have known that five months ahead of time. Jimmy knew what the British government at the time feared more than anything else was that these mighty German pocket battleships, such as Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Tirpitz and Admiral Scheer, if allowed to plunder freely on the oceans, would totally decimate the Atlantic convoys. It would rapidly starve Britain into submission and force us out of the war. But on New Year's Eve nineteen-forty Jimmy knew what they didn't, that with the advent of rapidly improved military technology on the sea and in the air, the days of the mighty surface raiders was over.

Jimmy pushed the intercept from Bismarck aside and wrote his own brief note in the margin: "Sunk May 1941"

The second intercept was from an army unit in northern France. The 'crib' in the margin said: "Nothing to report" with a line circling three blocks of five letter gobbledygook ciphertext.

With nothing to report, there was little point wasting too much time on it. The next one looked more interesting. It was an intercept from a Y-Station in Gibraltar believed sent by the Italian army commander, General Graziani. The 'cribs' highlighted were: Bardia & Tobruk

Jimmy wrote in the margin, "The Italian are desperate for reinforcement and fear these 2 towns are the next to fall – They are both taken easily by General Wavell in early January."

Jimmy's early success with the intercepts didn't set a precedent for those that were to follow. Most like the first, 'Nothing to report' message were the minutiae of armies at war which he could offer no useful insight upon.

His increasing failure with intercepts mirrored his growing discomfort. His teeth were chattering and his fingers were so numb that he could barely hold a pen. He was virtually hugging the stove but it still did nothing to chase the chill from his bones. After two hours he could take no more. Jimmy went out to the guard.

'Can you tell Mr Fleming, I'm-m-m done here-ear,' said Jimmy as he shook uncontrollably.

The Guard shouldered his rifle and barked, 'Wait here.' He ushered Jimmy back inside the hut and locked the door.

Within minutes he and Fleming returned.

'This cold. Terrible,' said Fleming rubbing his hands and advancing upon the stove in the hope of gleaning warmth from it where Jimmy had found none. 'How did you get on?'

Jimmy didn't say anything. He gave Fleming the sheaf of intercepts. Fleming flicked through them raising an eyebrow when he saw the note about the Bismarck.

'Nothing else?'

'No. I'm afraid not.'

'The Spirits weren't too helpful today then?' said Fleming, failing to keep the disappointment from his voice.

'It was too-oo cold.'

'I wouldn't have thought your Spirits would be affect by the cold.'

'Mine are. I have a Native American Indian guide and he is not used to this sort of weather where he came from.'

'Maybe where he came from there wasn't a war on and heating wasn't strictly rationed?' Fleming smiled then fanned out the sheaf of intercepts and counted the sheets. 'All present and correct,' he announced. 'It's half eleven and a bit early for lunch, but I'm sure the kitchen will be more comfortable than in here.'

Awaiting Jimmy in the kitchen was a cup of steaming hot tea. Also awaiting him was Barrington-Warner's Christmas present, which was sat in the centre of the table.

'You forgot to bring this with you,' said Fleming. 'Would it have helped?'

Not unless it could have been burnt in the stove, but Jimmy shook his head.

'I only use it for personal readings,' said Jimmy, immediately regretting the statement. Personal Readings. What had made him say that? He was adopting his new persona perhaps too enthusiastically.

Fleming regarded Jimmy closely. 'It will probably come as no surprise, but many are still questioning your presence here. Captain Willoughby, for one, has been most vociferous on the subject.' Fleming lit a cigarette. 'He has also strongly objected to the basis of your appeal. We are hoping to conclusively demonstrate your ability to provide useful intelligence, but . . .' He waved the sheaf of intercepts. '. . . frankly what you have given us here is, well . . . I shall report back to Mr Barrington-Warner and seek further instructions. In the meantime, I'll . . .'

Fleming abruptly fell silent as a young scullery maid with a white mop cap and apron walked in. She gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. She instantly realised her dreadful mistake.

'Sorry, sir. I didn't know. I thought you'd finished. Sorry, sorry,' she said backing out of the room.

Fleming then continued as though the interruption had never occurred.

'In the meantime, I'll inquire if we can arrange alternative accommodation which hopefully will be more conducive to you contacting your Spirits. I've heard you people normally prefer a darkened room for your séances, is that correct?'

'It does tend to encourage the things that go bump in the night.'

'Quite. It has also encouraged numerous charlatans who have used it to take advantage of the gullible and weak minded. Of which naturally there are none here,' said Fleming with a wry smile. 'Never-the-less I'll see what I can do.'

23

Later that afternoon, Jimmy sat on the edge of his bed pondering the unappealing prospect of spending New Year's Eve alone in his room. His recent Christmases had become something of a non-event, but he had made up for it by seeing in the New Year with gusto in the company of his party-animal pals. Jimmy even suspected the original Elizabeth Bradshaw would have slipped off to the local pub to down a couple of milk stouts in quiet celebration. Yet he was to spend it alone with little to buoy his spirits. He couldn't help think of Rosie, but that only made it worse.

There was no doubt that she too would be out celebrating. And with who? Jimmy knew it was ridiculous to be jealous but he couldn't help it. He held his head in his hands. Sometimes he wished he really was in a coma and someone would just pull the plug.

A sharp knock at the door startled him from his gloom. 'Mrs Bradshaw, are you decent, may I come in?'

Jimmy got to his feet. 'Yes.'

Fleming entered the room. 'I have secured another location within the house. You should, and your ethereal friends, should be hopefully more communicative in there. Come with me.'

Jimmy followed him down the corridor. Fleming led him up the stairs to a room on the top floor that was probably once a bedroom used by the lowlier of the servants.

'We've cleared this out and, as you can see, put a table and chairs in it. Is this more agreeable?'

Jimmy cast his eye around the cobwebbed, windowless space that had been created out of the attic of the old house. It wasn't nearly as cold as the hut, but neither did it incline Jimmy to break out his shorts and shades.

'Thank you.'

Fleming glanced at his watch. 'It's four-thirty. I'll bring some fresh 'Cribs' for you to go over. Dinner is at seven.'

Fleming locked the door behind him as he departed. Jimmy immediately investigated his new home. The chunky radiator made strangely urgent gurgling sounds, but gave out little warmth for all the activity. A single shaded light hung over the cloth covered table casting a glow that faded abruptly to darkness beyond the table top. He slid behind the furniture and stooped into the dark eaves. Unseen cobwebs brushed his face. He flicked them away in revulsion. From the corner of his eye he saw some small, and some not so small, long-legged creepy-crawlies scurry away high into the old rafters. If they thought communication with his Spirits would be aided by a room where things might go bump in the night, he was definitely in the right place.

Fleming soon returned with a sheaf of papers and was carrying the crystal ball.

'Thought this might be useful,' Fleming said setting it down upon the table.

He handed Jimmy the papers. 'We are particularly interested if you can glean any information on this one,' he said tapping the top sheet. 'We believe it is the order to redeploy several Luftwaffe squadrons, but the intelligence analysts are quite at a loss to know where. If your spirit friends can throw any light on that, we'd be very grateful.'

Fleming turned to leave. 'Oh, by the way, should you need the bathroom or anything, we have rigged up a bell. Just give this cord a tug and someone will be with you shortly.'

Once Jimmy was alone, he settled down at the table and stared at the sheets of coded messages before him, desperately seeking inspiration. The only assistance he had been given to the content of the Luftwaffe communication was Weather Report and an arrow pointing towards a ringed cluster of the coded five-letter nonsense words. He racked his brains to recall if this redeployment was a significant tactical event, but his memory wouldn't play ball.

Jimmy had once read that every event, everything anyone had learned, read or spoken during their lives' was kept on record within the brain. The word for it was 'Cryptomnesia', hidden memory. He probably had read somewhere, at some time, in all of the countless books he had studied, the significance of the Luftwaffe redeployment, but retrieving that information from his head was another thing. He needed to have been a 'Memory Man', like the music hall entertainer in John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps. He wasn't and never would be. It was hopeless.

In desperation, he pulled the crystal ball over and stared into the shiny sphere. Apart from his own face looking back at him with a giant nose like in a fairground mirror, not unexpectedly it offered no hint as to the meaning of the coded text before him.

He considered what was happening in the broader context of the war: The British pushing the Italian army back in North Africa, the constant blitz air raids and the war in the Atlantic. He did recall a vague notion of increased air activity in the Mediterranean as a prelude the Rommel's Afrika Korps landing in Tripoli and the sinking of some Royal Navy ships. That was the best he could do. He wrote those sketchy notes in the margin. Its potential usefulness to the intelligence guys was debatable.

He sat back in the chair and twiddled the pencil in his fingers as a name popped into his head: HMS Illustrious. He hadn't a clue where it came from, but he remembered Illustrious, a brand new aircraft carrier leading a convoy to the besieged island of Malta, was attacked and sunk by a surprise air attack from Luftwaffe torpedo and dive bombers on the 10th of January. Unable to be resupplied, the RAF bulwark against Malta's invasion by the Nazis were helpless to prevent the island's fall and the subsequent disastrous consequences for the British in the Middle East. It is that event which could relate to the redeployment. He added it to his notes and circled "HMS Illustrious sunk – Surprise Attack 10th of January – catastrophic result due to lack of air cover."

Pleased, Jimmy set the priority transmission to one side and picked up the next in the pile. It was believed to have been sent from an SS infantry unit stationed in Calais. A section of code was ringed and "Nothing to report" was arrowed towards it. Jimmy blew out his cheeks. It was the start of a rapidly growing discard pile.

Jimmy was startled by a gentle knock at the door. He assumed it was Fleming seeing how he was doing. Jimmy didn't think it needed acknowledging as Fleming usually entered without invitation. The knock sounded again.

'Come in,' Jimmy said wearily, in expectation of having to explain his failure once again.

The key turned hesitantly then the door opened a fraction.

'Is that Mrs Ariel,' whispered a young girl from the corridor.

Jimmy recognised the voice. It was the scullery maid from earlier that day.

'Can I come in?'

Jimmy opened the door half expecting her to have been the bearer of a warming beverage. She was empty handed. It was obvious the visit wasn't official as she nervously hopped from foot to foot constantly looking over her shoulder.

'Can I speak with you?'

Jimmy held the door open and allowed her into the room. The young girl immediately spotted the crystal ball.

'I thought so,' she said in delighted surprise. 'I told Mrs Mottram in the kitchen that I was sure you were one of those Medium Spiritualist people.'

What could Jimmy say – he had been caught with the smoking gun.

'Look,' the young girl continued, 'I know I shouldn't be here, but I am so worried about my brother, I was wondering if, you know – if it's not too much trouble, like. I know I shouldn't be stopping you from your work and all, but he's all I've got, see. I just want to know he's going to be alright. Some of his pals have already been killed. And . . .' she faltered as tears welled in her eyes.

Dare Jimmy risk her being found there? Fleming might return at any moment. If discovered she could face the sack or worse for contravening the official secrets act. And how could he offer her any comfort or reassurance about her brother, just one among millions who are fighting and perhaps will die in the conflict now overwhelming mankind.

Jimmy was about to usher her out of the door, but the pleading look in her eye was irresistible.

'Just tell me if he is going to be alright, please, Mrs Ariel. And I won't take up anymore of your time.'

'Just call me Ariel.' Jimmy then hesitated. He had a sudden revelation. The girl, who was barely out of her teens, and her brother, were only like millions of others around the world at this time, and were the true reality of war. That reality wasn't the heroic and dashing deeds of Generals that filled the pages of the histories written since – the stories that had thrilled Jimmy as a child – but they were just two of the tens of millions of ordinary people who had never wanted a fight and longed only to survive the war, and in peace, return to their own simple lives once again.

'What's your name?' asked Jimmy.

'Belle.'

'I can't promise anything, Belle.'

Jimmy pushed the coded intercepts to one side and pointed to a seat on the other side of the table. She didn't appear to mind all the cobwebs and spiders dangling around her head. With her white apron and mop cap, the girl reminded Jimmy of the nursery rhyme character Miss Muffet, accepting she was sat on a dining chair and not a tuffet, whatever that was.

Jimmy prepared for her 'Reading' by theatrically running his hands over the smooth crystal and staring deep inside. A performance designed to buy him some thinking time as much as anything else, but Belle sat enthralled.

'Are we going to have a séance?'

'Well, sort of. Now, what's your brother's name?'

'Richard Head. But most people call him Dick.'

Jimmy managed to stifle a laugh. 'That's unfortunate.'

'What?' Belle asked in alarm. 'Have you seen something? What's the crystal ball say?'

'No, no,' Jimmy said quickly. 'It's just that the crystal is a bit foggy today. Not very clear.'

'Foggy? Richard's in the Royal Navy and he says sometimes the sea can be very foggy. That might be it.'

'It must be. Too foggy. I probably can't tell you much.'

'Please try. Richard's a stoker. He can't tell me which ship he's on exactly, you know, loose talk costs lives and all that, but he says he is on the finest ship in the entire navy.'

Jimmy continued to stare into the crystal. Unsurprisingly the glassy orb revealed nothing but misshapen reflections, yet Jimmy offered her a few baseless words of comfort.

'I think I see him with his shovel. He looks happy. He is having a laugh and a joke with his fellow stokers. They all seem to enjoy the monotonous toil of tossing coal into the boilers relentlessly hour after hour after hour.'

Belle clapped her hands together with joy. 'I knew he'd be alright. I had a feeling. Thank you. But what about in the future, can you see that? Will he be okay?'

Jimmy dutifully stared into the crystal again. 'I think he'll be fine. I see loads of people having a big party when the war ends. I think I can see Richard in the crowd.'

Tears ran down Belle's face as she leaned over and took Jimmy's hands in a warm embrace. 'Oh thank you, thank you, with all my heart. You don't know what a comfort that is to me.'

Belle stood up and wiped her eyes. 'I must go. They'll be wondering where I've been got to all this time.'

The door shut and Belle locked it behind her, before she could be heard skipping off down the hallway.

Jimmy only reluctantly returned to his task. Having briefly glanced at each sheet of intercepts, one after another in quick succession, he slapped them on the discard pile. A hundred percent failure rate would prove his smug detractors right and give his supporters just cause to re-evaluate their position and Jimmy's future.

Jimmy tugged on the bell pull. There was little point prolonging the agony any further.

24

Jimmy woke with a start staring out into the darkness. His heart was racing. It wasn't a nightmare that had propelled him from his deep slumber, but a disturbing poke from the subconscious – a dreadful realisation. The 'Reading' he had given Belle had come back to him. Her brother was serving on the biggest and best ship in the navy, which could only mean he was serving on HMS Hood – the largest battle-cruiser in the British fleet and the ship that will be lost with all hands when it is sunk by the Bismarck in less than five months' time.

He pulled the covers up to escape the chill. Getting back to sleep was out of the question. Logically, he knew it wasn't his fault if Stoker Richard Head was one of the millions whose was destined to die during the course of the war. Jimmy's only crime was to assure Belle that he had survived. But was it a worse crime not even to try to warn her of her brother's peril? He wrestled with his conscience – dare he play God to decide who shall live and who shall die.

He set aside that moral dilemma and lay in bed trying to devise a method of getting word to Belle without making it obvious to Fleming as to what had taken place. Jimmy might accidentally bump into her at some point, but, under his security blanket, fate may have it that their paths will never cross again.

During the dark hours before dawn, Jimmy devised a plan. He also considered the potential consequences of his actions – changing the future – and perhaps for the first time serious doubts had crept in as to the role he had elected to perform. Would saving Stoker Richard Head mean another naval rating was doomed to die in his place? In the original course of events, Richard's replacement might have been on another ship who would have saved countless lives through some heroic action – lives which would now be lost if he were to be posted to the Hood due to Jimmy's well-intentioned meddling.

Belle's brother's plight was on the microscopic scale in the scheme of things, but if the High Command did take advantage of Jimmy's knowledge, such as saving HMS Illustrious, it could affect the whole outcome of the war. It could literally change everything and not necessarily for the better.

But regardless of the consequences, he knew Belle – she was a real person, not one of the faceless millions who shall perish in the bitter conflict. He knew he couldn't have lived with himself if he didn't at least try to prevent her brother's death.

Jimmy sat wearily at the breakfast table. It had been a long night. Jimmy hadn't just lost hours of sleep questioning his role in this wartime world. The New Year had literally started with a bang.

Within an hour of getting into bed, a stray stick of six German bombs had landed in the grounds, but had cause little damage to the buildings except for a few blown out windows. It was probably a straggler from a raid on Coventry or Birmingham jettisoning the remains of its load as it turned for home. The pilot couldn't possibly have known that a second's delay in the bomb's release might have taken out the cream of the country's intelligentsia, who, conveniently, were all gathered together under one roof celebrating the New Year. It would have set back Allied code-breaking potentially by years. Jimmy heard a fire engine rush to the scene, but after an hour it everything fell quiet again. Just as the propaganda poster urged the British nation to do, everyone had Kept Calm and Carried On.

As usual Jimmy was the only diner enjoying the cosy warmth of the kitchen. Fleming sat at the far end of the room smoking and reading a paper while Jimmy sipped unenthusiastically at his cup of ersatz coffee. He clasped the cup in both hands seemingly to warm them, but there was another motive. Hidden in his palm was a small square of folded paper the size of a postage stamp. On it he had written a note to Belle, telling her to contact him urgently regarding her brother.

With one eye on Fleming, he worked the square of paper to underneath the cup ensuring it was completely out of sight. He carefully placed the cup back on its saucer.

'The kippers were better than the porridge,' Jimmy said casually.

Fleming put down the paper. 'Have you ever tried kedgeree, Mrs Bradshaw? It's simply wonderful. You must some time.'

Fleming laid the paper aside and rose to his feet. 'Look, after the last couple of days and all that, with your approval, we are hoping to try a new approach. I believe in spiritualist circles automatic writing at these séances is practiced with some success. Isn't that correct?'

'I'm afraid . . .'

Fleming held up his hand. 'Yes we know. So we have taken the liberty of contacting Dr Farley. Naturally under the strictest cloak of secrecy we have asked him to come here and be of assistance. He assures me that when he is present at your séances they are extremely fruitful. It appears significantly more so than when you are left to your own devices,' he added pointedly.

Jimmy didn't disagree. It was an interesting development that troubled him. He was in no doubt that when hypnotised Farley would be able to pick-the-pocket of Jimmy's mind and retrieve useful information for the intelligence guys. But should they act upon that information there was no guarantee that it wouldn't make everything a disaster.

'When is he arriving?'

'Tomorrow. Can I suggest, that to make the most of your time here, today we continue with the new intercepts we received first thing this morning. Maybe with another day warming up, your Spirits might be more amenable when the good doctor arrives.'

Jimmy had waded through the pile of intercepts two or three times. The 'Cribs', the usual batch of unhelpful guesses – Weather Forecast, Nothing to Report and even Happy New Year lent themselves to no meaningful revelations. The first of January 1941 was a slow day on the war front.

Jimmy rested back in his chair and blew into his hands to warm them. He then picked up the stack of intercepts once more, but he was interrupted by a quiet knock on the door followed by a familiar voice.

'Mrs Ariel, it's me.'

Jimmy jumped to his feet. 'Belle, come in.'

The key in the lock turned and Belle apprehensively slid into the room.

'Mrs Ariel, I . . .'

'Belle, look . . .'

Both stood anxiously staring at each other. There was fear in her eyes.

'It's about Richard,' said Jimmy.

Belle gasped as her hand flew to her face. 'You know don't you?'

Jimmy took a deep breath. 'Belle, I . . .'

'I knew you'd find out,' Belle said. 'I shouldn't have come to you, but I had to know and now . . . The navy's his life, you see, I don't know what he will do, but I had to find out if he was going to be okay. He's all I've got. I know it's asking a lot from you and there's no reason why you should, it would be the proper thing to do and all that, but do you really have to tell them?'

'Belle, be quiet and listen, you must get him off that ship.'

Belle crumpled sobbing.

'He hardly ever has an attack now and he's always as right as rain afterwards,' she said between great heaving sobs. 'The navy's made a man of him.'

Jimmy took her in his arms and held her tight.

'Belle, I see danger for him,' he said gently.

'But he'd never let his chums down. I know he wouldn't. If he had told them about his seizures, epilepsy they call it, then they wouldn't have let him join up. It will break his heart.'

Jimmy pulled back from the embrace. 'Epilepsy?'

'The children always made fun of him when he was young. They called him, Richard the Retard or Dancing Dick. They were always very cruel, see.'

Jimmy took a step back and put his hands on her shoulders as he fixed her firmly in the eye.

'Belle, he must tell them. Will you promise me?'

She hesitated then nodded.

'Trust me it's for the best. You'll both thank me.'

She nodded again and wiped away the tears running down her face.

'Now off you go.'

The key turned in the lock and Jimmy was alone once more. Had he done the right thing? That he had changed the course of the war was highly unlikely. But he was aware of a chaos theory called The Butterfly Effect, which posed the question, "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?" And even if he had changed the future in some modest way how would he know?

It was all too much to get his head around. He was smart but not in a deep thinking intellectual way. The only bit of philosophy he knew could be paraphrased as: Does a bear shit itself in the woods when a tree nearly falls on its head without making a sound?

Jimmy picked up the pile of intercepts then put them straight back down again. He couldn't face the hopeless task of trying to unravel the random jumbles of letters yet again. He sat back and waited to be called for lunch.

His complete failure with the morning's intercepts was rewarded, following a hearty of bowl of vegetable soup, by another equally large indecipherable pile of transcripts. He attended to them with much the same enthusiasm as those earlier.

While his thoughts turned to Rosie and admiring the serendipity of a spider weaving its delicate web between the rafters, there was a knock at the door. The key turned and a stout lady of uncertain years entered the room. She too wore a white apron and a mop hat, in the same style as Belle's.

'You'll be excusing me,' the woman said hovering nervously. 'I knows you're busy, but can you spare me.' The woman dipped her hand in her pocket and pressed a silver coin into Jimmy's palm. 'Belle was telling me,' she added quickly, 'and well I wuz wunderin'. . .'

Jimmy looked down quizzically at the coin and then at the woman. 'Mrs Mottram?'

The woman rocked on her heels and nearly toppled over backwards in shock.

'Oh my, oh my,' she said fumbling with her apron while labouring to catch her breath. 'Oh my – she said you were good, you can see everything, but . . . oh my.'

Jimmy sat her down before she had a heart attack.

'I won't takes much of your time,' she said feverishly wringing her hands. 'But my son, I . . .'

Jimmy was struck by an awful dread. In trying to save Belle's brother, he had acquired a reputation as an end-of-the-pier fortune teller. If he wasn't careful the whole place will be queuing up the have their runes read.

'Look, Mrs Mottram . . .' Jimmy hesitated. She was desperate. He didn't have the heart to immediately turn her away. 'Mrs Mottram, I didn't read your mind, Belle told me who you are.'

'But you knows I was coming.'

'Mrs Mottram, I don't think this is a good idea.'

She shuddered with a look of horror. 'You'ves seen something. I knew it, I knew it. Please tell me it ain't true, I beg you.'

'Mrs Mottram, please.'

'No, tell me, even if it's bad. I've gotta know.'

'I don't know if it's bad.'

'I knows your hiding it from me, but you won't say.'

Jimmy took a deep breath. 'Look, first of all what's your son's name?'

'Terry. He's a good lad. A little bit wild that's all. Never did me no harm though. Police said he was a trouble maker, a wrong-un, but they didn't know him. They put him in a special unit in the army. He says in his letters that he can't tell me what he does. I can't help be worried for him.'

'Do you know where Terry is posted?'

'In his letters he says it is always either too hot or too cold. In the desert I think, but you probably knows that already.'

'Mrs Mottram, I can't possibly know everything about everyone.' Jimmy paused. What could he say without her concluding the worst from it? 'Not everyone comes through.'

'You've got your crystal ball. Why can't you?'

'Africa's a long way away?'

Mrs Mottram's face hardened. 'That don't seem right. You can speak to those spirits of yours with it, and to my mind you can't get much further away than that.'

'They're on a different plane. The crystal ball is like a hot line to the Otherside.'

'I don't knows about no planes and no "Hot Line", whatever that is, all I wuz hoping is you can give me some comfort about my boy. I crossed your palm with silver and everything.'

Jimmy looked down at the coin in his hand. It was a silver sixpence, which was the same as two-and-a-half pence in modern decimal money. A sixpence then had the relative buying power then of no more than a pound in his time. Not exactly a lottery win, but his acceptance of it constituted a contract that carried a specific burden of responsibility.

He reluctantly placed his hands around the crystal ball. 'Let me concentrate hard.'

Mrs Mottram leant forward expectantly, her white mop cap barely able to contain her wild black hair.

Jimmy peered into the shiny globe. 'It's not very clear. I think perhaps it's a dust storm in the desert.' He looked closer. 'I see a tall young man waving.'

'Tall? Terry's only five-foot-five.'

'Oh, sorry, that must be one of his pals. Ah, now I see, Terry's standing behind. I can see him now. Handsome, dark-haired . . .'

'Dark-haired? Terry don't take after me. He got his looks from his good-for-nothing father. His dad was bright red, ginger and stayed that way until the day he died. He was always in the pub, he was. I told him, I did, mark my words, I said, one day the drink will do for you. And it did.'

'Tragic,' Jimmy said gently.

'A beer barrel fell on his head. If he hadn't been in the pub cellar thievin' it would never have happened.'

'A terrible loss to you all.'

'Nah, couldn't wait to be rid of him, I couldn't. That's why Terry got into trouble because of 'im. I wuz hopin' the army would straighten him out.'

'Ah, I think I can see Terry now. It was the sand. I couldn't make out his hair properly. He's looking in good shape. I can see him talking earnestly to a vicar. They are discussing Jesus and repentance. Terry is promising to mend his ways.'

Mrs Mottram jiggled in the chair and silently clapped her hands in delight.

'I knew he was a good boy really. Is he going to be alright? The war I mean.'

Jimmy exaggeratedly polished the sphere with his sleeve. 'This might make his future clearer.' Jimmy gazed deeply into the crystal. 'Terry's a tough lad. I feel he can take anything the Germans throw at him, I'm sure.'

'So, he'll be alright? He won't get killed or nothin'?'

Jimmy took her hands in his and squeezed them tight. 'It's all going to turn out fine.'

Mrs Mottram jumped to her feet. 'Oh thank you, Mrs Ariel, thank you. You don't know how much comfort this brings me that me boy will be safe.' She winked at Jimmy. 'And I'll make sure I sees you right for your meals, I will. I normally saves the best for all the toffs, but I think you're better deservin'.'

After she had gone, Jimmy felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of guilt. Young tearaway Terry might survive the war, but equally he may not, and Jimmy thought of the devastation his death would bring to his mother. It scared him. The war would eventually end with an Allied victory without his help, so what difference would his knowledge of the future really make; nothing beyond the selfish act of trying to save his own neck. Farley was due to arrive next day and he had a decision to make.

He glanced at the coded pile of intercepts. Knowing he wasn't going to waste any more time trying to decipher them, he pulled the bell cord.

25

Jimmy was escorted from his attic room by Fleming and led down to the library. Fleming flicked through the pile of intercepts on the way.

'Your Spirits still aren't forthcoming I see. I hope Dr Farley's presence at your séances will encourage them to be more loquacious otherwise, unfortunately, we may have no choice but to send you back to prison.'

Jimmy didn't reply. The warning was clear. They were losing patience with him and more importantly, he was proving of little value, and therefore had become expendable.

'Wait here,' Fleming said as he left the room.

Jimmy briefly scanned along the bookshelves for any titles that caught his eye, but the skilfully crafted leather-bound tomes, although impressive in their own right, were of little interest to a young man from the twenty-first century. He spent the rest of the time pacing up and down in deep thought.

He had been told that a guard had been posted outside the door, which Jimmy assumed was as much to keep anybody out as him in. So it came as a surprise when the door opened and a short man with black hair cut in a severe sweep-over style, not unlike Hitler's, entered the room. Jimmy recognised the face but he couldn't immediately place it.

'I'm sorry to disturb you,' said the newcomer in a quiet voice. 'There's a book I'm after.'

Jimmy stepped aside. 'Quite a lot to choose from.'

'Yes, it's an excellent collection. I find this room quite therapeutic. You too?'

'These aren't really my subject matter I'm afraid.'

The newcomer extended his hand. 'The name's Turing, Alan Turing. We haven't met.'

Jimmy was stunned. There before him, as a living, breathing human being was the man whose picture adorned almost every book ever written about wartime code-breaking and the birth of computers.

Jimmy tentatively shook his hand. 'I have a code name I'm afraid. That's all I am able to tell you.'

'How exciting,' said Turing. 'I wish they had given me my very own code name – like a spy. The best I get to be called around here is 'Prof'.'

'I am known as Ariel.'

He studied Jimmy for a moment then said with a kindly smile, 'So, you're an archangel, are you? A messenger from God. Well, archangel, I wish you luck and I hope the communications you bring from Him above are nothing less than advantageous to the war effort.'

Turing excused himself with an old fashioned bow and wandered over to the bookshelves. He browsed up and down, taking down the occasional book and glancing at the contents, before putting it back.

'Wouldn't it be marvellous,' Turing said scanning along the row upon row of books, 'if one day a machine could do this for you.'

Jimmy got the distinct impression that Turing would have voiced that opinion whether he was there or not.

'Perhaps, one day they will invent a machine that also can give you access to anything that has ever been written, discussed or dreamt about, without ever leaving your home,' Jimmy said with a wistful smile.

'My word, wouldn't that be something,' said Turing. He shook his head. 'Sadly, it can never happen of course. You would need a device the size of a battleship to contain all the information even if the books were condensed onto microfilm.'

'Not if the data was held in an electronic format within the machine.'

Turing abruptly stopped browsing the shelves and slowly turned around. 'And what format could that be? How can a machine truly understand English?'

'I doesn't need to. Not using a binary code. Then as far as the machine is concerned it processes information as a simple 'Yes' or 'No', using a relay switch that is open or closed.'

Turing studied Jimmy closely. 'If you'll excuse me, but for a young woman your grasp of these matters is truly remarkable - outstanding.'

'Potentially in the first instance these machines could be programmed using reels of tape or hole-punched cards.'

Turing flicked back his sweep-over. 'There are insurmountable problems with mechanical systems of speed, which is the limiting factor in any computation.'

'Such a machine, which I guess would probably come to be known as say, a Computer, needs to be an electro-mechanical system using electronic valves.'

'Yes, I imagined as much, but who has the technical knowledge to build such a thing?'

'Well, there's an engineer called Harry Metcalfe. He is a genius.'

'Harry Metcalfe, you say? I must remember that name.' Turing offered another bow. 'May I say our conversation has been most enlightening – most enlightening indeed.'

With that Turing swept out of the room, his pursuit of a book set aside or forgotten.

Jimmy couldn't possibly forget the name, Harry Metcalfe. Frank Purchase, Eddy's older brother, took great delight in telling anyone who cared to listen that Harry Metcalfe, his grandfather, had seemingly won the war single-handed. Metcalfe had built the world's first electronic computer, Colossus, which broke the Enigma code. An extraordinarily smart guy, whose super intelligence hadn't been passed down the family line culminating, two generations later, in a pair of borderline retards namely Frank and Eddy Purchase, the pond life who had slithered out of his gene pool. He would have been so proud.

Alone again, Jimmy once again perused the shelves for something to read. Still finding nothing of interest, he wandered over to the refectory table in the centre of the room which had a selection of daily newspapers. What immediately caught his eye on the front page of the Daily Express was a picture of Winston Churchill above an article headed:

Prime Minister facing a vote of no confidence

Jimmy wouldn't have given the news report another thought if he hadn't seen the subheading:

Mr Churchill is under increasing pressure to resign

Puzzled, Jimmy picked up the paper. He couldn't recall reading in any of the history books that Winston Churchill seriously considered resigning at any stage during the war. He always had his detractors in Parliament, the appeasers such as Lord Halifax and Lloyd George, who had urged him to sue for peace with Germany, but Churchill had always successfully out-manoeuvred their political intrigues.

Jimmy slid into a chair and read the article. The editorial suggested that following the blitz firestorm on the twenty-ninth of December that destroyed much of the commercial heart of the City of London, the Prime Minister's resolve is wavering and for the sake of these islands and for the preservation of our empire, a conditional peace with honour with Germany is no longer unthinkable. The article suggested, should he lose the vote Churchill didn't feel he had the right qualities to negotiate with Mr Hitler, and therefore was expected, in the event, to recommend to the House that Lord Halifax should be engaged as his successor and lead the country towards an armistice with honour.

Jimmy read the article and then reread it. It just wasn't true. Churchill would never have given up. The report must have been false, planted to fool the Germans.

Jimmy picked up a copy of the Times. It carried a similar front page report, as did the Daily Sketch. Jimmy sat back in his chair staring thoughtfully into the distance. Had this event been airbrushed out of history to carefully preserve Churchill's 'Bulldog Spirit' reputation? Jimmy knew that the wartime leader was sometimes riven with doubt, but nothing that he had read came close to suggesting he would have just laid down and given-up the struggle against Nazi tyranny.

The door to the library bursting open startled Jimmy from his contemplation. Fleming strode purposely into the room with a scowl.

'Mrs Bradshaw, come with me.'

Jimmy got to his feet. His mind was still on the news reports.

'There has been a change of plan,' announced Fleming briskly. 'We cannot take the risk of any further security breaches as occurred just now.'

'Alan Turing?'

'I am not at liberty to confirm that. But the person in question has been spoken to and we are satisfied your roles have not been compromised.'

Fleming motioned for Jimmy to follow.

'I will take you to your room where you will wait until alternative arrangements can be made.'

Jimmy trailed after Fleming as they climbed the grand staircase.

'The newspaper reports,' said Jimmy. 'They say Winston Churchill will resign. That won't happen.'

'Many believe that might be perhaps the correct course of action for this country,' replied Fleming without breaking his stride. 'We are in a war we cannot win because of a guarantee we cannot keep to a distant European country that few have any affinity to or would even be able to find on a map.'

'Anyway, I know it won't happen.'

'Another of your presentments, Elizabeth?'

'You could say that.'

'Well, let's just hope your spirit chappies are right this time.'

'Are you a betting man, Ian?' asked Jimmy as they marched down the corridor to his room.

Fleming wheeled round in surprise. 'I don't think I ever mentioned my first name? Anyway, as it happens I do like the occasional flutter on the GG's.'

'I would have a small wager with you. Five pounds says Churchill won't resign.'

'Five pounds? That won't make me a rich man. I am happy to take your bet, but an insider in Whitehall tells me if he loses the vote he will not challenge the decision.'

Fleming unlocked Jimmy's door and swung it open. Jimmy reluctantly stepped into his bedroom.

'I will get back to you as quickly as I can,' said Fleming as he was about to pull the door shut.

'Oh, by the way, Ian,' said Jimmy, holding the door open. 'Don't worry about being a rich man. There are other more lucrative ways to earn a living than as your old job as a journalist. Perhaps after the war you should try your hand at writing spy novels instead. Something tells me you might have a flair for that.'

Fleming stopped and nodded his head slowly. 'You may just have something there.'

'A British agent naturally. How about James Bond, 007 – License to kill. That would be a good tag line for your hero.'

Fleming nodded again appreciatively. 'Has a ring, doesn't it. I'll bear your comments in mind, thank you.'

26

Later that evening Fleming escorted Jimmy to the hallway of Bletchley House. Waiting for him in the drive outside was a military policeman standing rigidly to attention beside a dull olive green car. Snow still lay thickly on the ground almost frozen solid by the brief daytime thaw and refreezing overnight. It crackled under foot as Jimmy was led to the vehicle. Fleming carried his bag and passed it to the MP.

Jimmy only heard snatches of the short conversation between them. There was to be no train ride back to the Essex countryside and the asylum. Jimmy was to be driven directly to an address in London.

With Jimmy installed in the back of the car, Fleming made no gesture of farewell as he spun round and strode back into the house. The military policeman engaged the drive with a crunch of gears and the car skittered uncertainly across the icy surface. Jimmy wrapped himself in a thick travel blanket against the cold and after a few hours of driving through the pitch black of night he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

His dreams were filled with frightening uncertainties twisted into horrors by the demons of the subconscious.

He awoke with a start. The dream; a resignation speech by Winston Churchill that had left the free world devoid of all hope, faded into something tantalisingly beyond his recall. All that remained was a terrible sense of dread.

The first grey fingers of dawn were lightening the sky. Gone was the anonymous countryside having been replaced by street after street of identical 1930's built red brick terrace houses that were the vast sprawl of the recently built outer London suburbs.

Jimmy looked out for any landmarks; something to place him in London, but with the road signs have been taken down for the duration of the war and a cityscape that was unrecognisable from the capital he knew, they could have been anywhere.

At a military check point, the MP pulled the car over to the side and killed the engine. He entered the small wooden guard post and found the NCO in command. The NCO scanned the papers and made a phone call. The MP helped Jimmy out of the car and led him to the hut. Jimmy pulled the blanket tightly around against the bitingly cold of first light.

The NCO pulled out a seat for Jimmy to sit down but not a word was exchanged. A private leant into the hut holding a tin mug of tea.

'Er y'are, luv,' he said.

Jimmy enclosed his hands around the welcome warmth of the cup. He had barely taken a sip when a small unmarked box van pulled up outside. A man wearing a fawn trench coat and trilby got out. The MP stepped out of the hut and they silently they exchanged paperwork. His job done, the MP got in the car and drove off.

The new arrival entered the hut.

'My name's Henderson. Mrs Bradshaw, please come with me.'

The NCO took Jimmy's cup from him with an apologetic shrug.

Jimmy followed Henderson to the van.

'Sorry about this,' said Henderson. 'There's no other way I'm afraid.'

Henderson opened the back doors of the windowless rear compartment and helped Jimmy inside.

'Take a seat, it's not far.'

There were two simple wooden bench seats fitted at the sides and a tiny air vent in the roof which allowed only a crack of daylight to throw any illumination on the matt grey interior. Jimmy perched on one of the benches bracing himself for, not only the journey, but also what the future had in store.

The van accelerated away hard.

With no visual signals to anticipate cornering and braking and no hand holds, the ride became very interesting to the point of nauseous, as he was thrown about like a rag doll in a wild fairground ride. He slid backwards and forwards along the bench and was thrown off his seat when turning right or cracked his head on the side when turning left. Thankfully within ten minutes the ordeal was over and the van screeched to a halt at their secret destination.

Henderson pulled open the doors and offered Jimmy a hand to get out.

'Sorry about the transport, but we need to keep some of our addresses hush-hush.'

Jimmy looked up at the elegant, but unremarkable terraced house, which was one of a long street of uniformly similar properties. Jimmy guessed he had been brought to a secret service safe-house.

Henderson swung open the wooden gate and led the way to the main door with its decoratively etched glass panel. He pulled a bell cord. It only took a moment before the door opened and they were inside. Henderson nodded to the man holding the door open, but passed no pleasantries nor did he introduce his detainee as he led Jimmy up the stairs.

'This is your room,' said Henderson.

It was a bedroom at the back of the house with a window overlooking the garden. It was simply but adequately furnished with a single bed at its centre, a pine dressing table, wardrobe and matching wash stand.

'You should be comfortable here.'

'How long is that going to be?'

'That is not for me to say, I'm afraid.'

'Is Dr Farley coming here?'

'As I say . . .' Henderson then smiled. 'I can rustle you up some breakfast. Porridge and toast – how's that?'

'Just toast would be fine.'

Henderson departed and Jimmy explored his new home.

He was drawn to the window and the magnificent lawned expanse of the rear garden. Patches of snow still lay thereabouts but even in the depths of winter you could still have played snooker on the manicured swathe of green. Jimmy casually tried to open the window. Not unexpectedly it was screwed-down tight. He tested the bed. The mattress was firm and the blankets adequate. It wasn't as plush as Bletchley Park, but in the last few weeks he had endured accommodation that was ten times worse.

He lay on the bed staring blankly at the ceiling. He tried not to, but his thoughts once again turned to Rosie. He had to stop torturing himself. Theirs, it seemed, was fated to have been the briefest of brief encounters – a tiny beacon of joy in this alien world. His gloom was interrupted by Henderson.

He marched in with toast, tea and marmalade.

'Here we are. Once you have eaten this we can get cracking straight away.'

Jimmy looked up questioningly.

'There are some things we need to go through. The Top Brass are concerned. Some think they have already got egg on their faces over this.'

'Barrington-Warner?'

'Can't possibly say,' said Henderson. 'Fifteen minutes?'

Jimmy was taken downstairs to the back of the house to a room which would have been built as the dining room. There was an oak table in the centre of the room surrounded by hard-back chairs.

'Take a seat, Mrs Bradshaw,' said Henderson. He then excused himself and left.

Jimmy waited anxiously. His secondment to Bletchley Park had been a disaster. He realised that the authority's frosty change of attitude would almost certainly be reflected in whoever next walked into the room.

27

There was movement in the hallway. Jimmy tensed in anticipation. He heard muffled voices. The handle turned and with a stiff formality Barrington-Warner strode into the room. His smile of acknowledgement was short and sharp and without warmth.

Barrington-Warner took off his hat and tossed it on the table. He then stood with his back to Jimmy staring out of the window.

'It didn't go quite as well as we hoped, not even with your crystal ball,' he said without a hint of irony.

Jimmy remained quiet.

'Questions are being asked at the top level,' continued Barrington-Warner. 'And while we can justify keeping you out of prison on the basis of work vital to the war effort, it appears the political situation is about to change dramatically. Should Mr Churchill succumb to the pressure to resign, which seems likely, undoubtedly his successor will sue for a peace with Germany. With the war over, the likes of yourself and your predictions and perhaps even I, will become superfluous to requirements.'

'But that won't happen. He won't resign.'

Barrington-Warner swung round. He concealed his irritation beneath a thin smile. 'You can be so sure of yourself on this, Elizabeth, yet at other times you fail to provide any useful information at all.' Barrington-Warner pulled back. 'Anyway, regardless of what you believe, I have it on good authority that Winston is in the throes of a deep depression – he calls it his Black Dog. If it is the will of parliament he is prepared to quit for the sake of the country and the Empire. I understand he has already indicated his intentions to the war cabinet should he lose the vote of no confidence.' Barrington-Warner pulled a sheet of paper from his briefcase. He laid it on the table.

'Yours I believe?'

Jimmy leant forward. It was the notes on the war he had jotted down, which he had left hidden under his bed in the asylum.

'With Winston gone and the war over . . .' Barrington-Warner picked up the paper and with a slow deliberation ripped it in half. 'This becomes simply make believe, a fantasy.'

Jimmy couldn't understand it as he looked down at the torn pieces of paper. It was crazy. Then a thought occurred to him. 'Were those notes ever shown to Mr Churchill?'

Barrington-Warner wavered. 'I am probably not at liberty to say.'

'I'll take that as a yes, then.'

'As I said, I am not . . .'

Jimmy wasn't listening. He began pacing around the room. He was overcome by a terrifying realisation; a fear that had stalked him since his meeting with Belle and the warning he had given her about her brother. Had he accidentally changed the whole course of history? Had Churchill been swayed to give up because of what Jimmy had written on that sheet of paper?

'Are you alright, Elizabeth,' Barrington-Warner asked with some concern.

Jimmy stopped abruptly. He knew what he must do. 'I must see him.'

'Winston?' Barrington-Warner queried with a patronising smile. 'He is a very busy man and he doesn't usually entertain cranks and stargazers – present company excluded of course.'

'I must speak with him. The existence of the free world is at stake.'

'Don't you worry yourself about that, there's plenty of free world out there in the Empire – a quarter of the globe to be precise.'

Jimmy wasn't to be deterred. 'Can you arrange a meeting?'

'I am but a humble servant of the crown, Elizabeth. I am not privy to organising the Prime Minister's diary.'

'Who can then?'

'Elizabeth, we have allowed you a certain latitude until now which many believe was far too great. Please accept that Winston has more concerns now than to listen to your baseless entreaties.'

Jimmy saw the secret serviceman with contempt. 'You really have no idea what will happen in Europe if Hitler has his way, do you? Hitler exterminated twelve-million Jews – an entire race of people. How many Arian and non-Arian alike will also die if he isn't stopped?'

Barrington-Warner rocked on his heels. 'We are aware that Herr Hitler is transporting Jews to labour camps in the east.'

'They're not labour camps, they're industrially organised death camps, where Jews are being gassed daily in their thousands – a holocaust on a scale this world has never seen before.'

'Come, come, Elizabeth that is such a frightful notion. The German's are human you know.'

'Hitler has to be beaten. Churchill is the only man who can see the country through to victory against the Nazi's.'

'It seems as though you've backed the wrong horse on this one.' Barrington-Warner hesitated. 'Look,' he added slowly, 'I don't know I should be telling you this, but secret peace talks have been restarted through our ambassadors in Switzerland. We have been given assurances that if Herr Hitler is allowed free rein in Western Europe he will make no territorial demands upon these shores or any part of our empire.'

Jimmy stared at him in disbelief. 'Do supposedly sane people really believe that?'

'Some, such as Lord Halifax and others do.'

'Do you?'

Barrington-Warner wasn't so certain of himself.

'And what about the Japanese?' demanded Jimmy. 'They might have different ideas about the preservation of your glorious empire in the Far East.'

'I am sure we can handle those tiny Jap fellows if they carry-on getting uppity. Anyway Winston will have weighed up all these factors and still feels that he is taking the right course of action.' Barrington-Warner snapped shut his briefcase and picked up his hat. 'In the meantime there is still a war on and I have requested Dr Farley to report here. Any advantage we can gain in the next few weeks means we will have greater leverage at the negotiating table.'

Later that afternoon Jimmy was led down to the room at the back of the house again. Henderson had offered no explanation. He opened the door and allowed Jimmy to step inside. Farley rose from behind the table with his hand extended in welcome. Jimmy barely noticed. His eyes were trained solely on the other person sat in the room, the one with their back turned to him.

The woman was in army uniform with her blonde hair curled under a hairnet, and looking so different from the first time they had met, but Jimmy almost gasped at the instant recognition.

Rosie slowly turned around as she stood up. 'Hi, Ginny.'

Jimmy was struck dumb with confusion, joy, more confusion, a strange tingling feeling all over his body and then a little more confusion to top it off. He stood speechless with just a silly smile and a happy puzzled frown.

'Miss Peach at her own request has been given a temporary rank in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and is assigned to me as my stenographer.'

Farley slid out from behind the desk and placed an arm around Rosie's shoulder. Jimmy didn't like the way Farley was touching her. It looked too familiar within the usually strict formality of military hierarchy. What made it worse was that Rosie appeared not to mind.

'You two have met of course.'

Jimmy's gooey smile had faded. He tried not to let his disappointment show. Jimmy had built her up in his own mind to be the physical embodiment of all that was pure and wonderful in womanhood and everything he desired. She couldn't be blamed if her head was turned by the likes of young Algernon who must have been force-fed 'Handsome Pills' as a child.

'I once helped her brother,' Jimmy said flatly.

'Helped!' said Rosie, with her glorious smile lighting up the room. 'You saved his life, no less.'

'So I understand,' said Farley affectionately squeezing Rosie's shoulder.

'Anyway,' said Rosie discreetly manoeuvring out of Farley's grasp and throwing her arms around Jimmy, 'give us a hug. How are you?'

Jimmy melted at the same time as fireworks went off all over his body.

'Are they looking after you and feeding you right?'

'I can't complain,' said Jimmy loath to let her go.

Rosie buried her head into his shoulder. Jimmy assumed it was out of affection until she turned her head slightly and whispered in his ear.

'Don't trust them. They say they've found a driving licence.'

Jimmy squeezed her tighter as the implication sunk in. He didn't want the moment to end, but Rosie finally managed to push him away to arm's length.

'Dr Farley tells me we have a lot of work to do. I think we best get cracking with the séance. I've never been to a séance before,' she said breezily as if her secret warning had never occurred.

'How long are you here?' asked Jimmy to gauge the time he had left.

'Well,' Farley said slowly, 'I take it you are aware of the rapidly changing political situation. My orders are to continue to provide information useful to our forces until high level negotiations have reached a conclusion.'

Jimmy glanced at Farley and then turned to Rosie. 'I need to speak to Dr Farley alone. Do you mind?'

The question hadn't been direct to Farley, but the young psychiatrist took it upon himself to consent to the request.

'Very well.' He gently stroked Rosie's shoulder. 'Would you mind awfully stepping outside for a few minutes?'

Rosie appeared confused and only reluctantly left the room. Jimmy observed Farley as she departed. The young psychiatrist's eyes never strayed from her shapely backside for a moment.

Farley was in love. Or lust. Jimmy recognised the signs. It was a behaviour pattern that was universally built into men's genes. Jimmy was furious at him muscling in on his girl. But on reflection, why would any right thinking man not fall in love with Rosie? She was gorgeous.

'Elizabeth, er, Jimmy,' said Farley. 'I do beg your pardon, but I'm never sure what to call you.'

Jimmy thrust out his chin. As a serious contender for Rosie's heart, Jimmy Delahoy reminded himself that he was all male, one-hundred percent total man, except for the minor issue of his corporeal being.

'That's what I needed to talk to you about,' Jimmy said sharply. 'Does Rosie know about me? Who I really am?'

Farley lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

'Miss Peach has no idea. Such charming young lady as her couldn't possibly understand the metaphysical concept of Transmigration of the Soul. She has been told nothing beyond the notion that you are a spirit medium.'

Jimmy was relieved. Had she known who he really was, undoubtedly she would have fled screaming. And who could have blamed her. Jimmy still struggled with it himself.

'Dr Farley, there is something I urgently need to talk to you about.'

Farley retook his seat and flicked ash off his cigarette. 'Go on.'

Jimmy took a deep breath. 'I've changed the future. Not just in a minor way – but the whole outcome of the war.'

Farley rested back in his chair. 'A bold claim – that a single person's can alter the outcome for such a countless number.'

'Churchill read my notes on the war and it has weakened his resolve to continue the fight. To preserve what he can of the Empire.'

'Do you seriously believe a man like Mr Churchill would be swayed by a single document written by an inmate of a lunatic asylum?'

'Maybe not swayed,' said Jimmy, 'but perhaps it was the icing on the cake that which tipped him over the edge into his depression.'

'I think you might just flatter yourself.'

'Listen, all I know is that in my world Winston Churchill didn't resign. He saw it through to the end – to the final victory over Nazi Germany in nineteen-forty-eight. I must be allowed to speak to him and persuade him not to give up.'

'You!' Farley cried out. He ground out his cigarette in to the ash tray. 'Need I remind you, you are unfortunately a convicted murderer, a criminal. I cannot believe for a minute that Whitehall would countenance such a thing. Don't get me wrong, I of all people understand who you really are and, if I am being frank, I do actually believe you, but that is not my remit in being here. My orders . . .'

'Your orders,' snapped Jimmy. 'Trust me, that phrase was heard a lot at the end of the war from the German side – "I was only following orders." It didn't matter, they were all hanged anyway – the SS concentration camp guards, the officers, the generals.'

'I'm sure,' said Farley squirming uncomfortably in his chair. 'Never-the-less . . .'

'What if I don't cooperate,' said Jimmy. 'Let me guess. You just happen to find a driving licence. The one you are currently keeping secret from the appeal court.'

Farley rocked back in surprise. 'How did you know?'

'I'm psychic remember?

'Are you?'

'No, of course not, but I know how you people work.'

A flash of anger crossed Farley's face. 'Look here, I am no more comfortable with this than you are. Since our last meeting I too have been giving this a great deal of thought about getting involved with these matters. All I can say is that, unlike you, I have no first-hand knowledge of the future and can only use my judgement and the information at my disposal to evaluate what will be the best course of action for this country. This is a lousy war, which presently it is hard to see how we can possibly win, but . . .' Farley threw up hands. '. . . I will help you as much as I can. And of course you do realise this is what you may have been sent back here for. To change this ghastly present so that we all may look forward to a better future.'

Jimmy dismissed the suggestion with a sharp wave of his hand. He knew with absolute certainty that whatever strange circumstance had brought him there, it surely can't have been to change the outcome of the war to the advantage of the Nazis.

'I've got an idea,' said Jimmy. 'Churchill has been told I'm a Medium?'

'Mister Churchill has, yes.'

'Well, you report back that I have had a very important message from the spirit world which I can only deliver in person.'

Farley smiled. 'Mr Churchill, I am sure, has quite a lot on his plate at the moment. Where this doubtful communication would rank in his priorities right now is highly debateable.'
'Tell him I have had a premonition of the Nazi swastika being flow over Buckingham palace and him and the king being shot by a firing squad in the back garden of 10 Downing Street.'

Farley's eyebrows rose. 'I say, that might push the poor chap completely over the edge.'

'It's a gamble, but at least he might agree to see me.'

'Many have tried to, "talk Winston Churchill round," when his mind was made up, but few can say they have succeeded.'

Jimmy was convinced that when presented with the facts Churchill would see reason and Keep right on to the end of the road – the song by Harry Lauder he took inspiration from. Churchill was said to have played it constantly when his uncertainties were at their deepest.

'We must try.'

'Very well, I will personally prepare a report that will be sent this evening. In the meantime we have work to do.'

*

'And it's time to wake up, Elizabeth. Wake up.'

Jimmy slowly came round from the hypnotic trance. Farley stood over him smiling and Rosie sat with a pen and note pad recording the last of what had been said.

'The spirits have been kind to us tonight, Elizabeth.'

Jimmy sat up from the couch. Rosie was beaming at him with excitement.

'What did they say?'

'I'll leave it to Miss Peach to type up her notes. Suffice to say, Ariel was most informative and the commanders in North Africa will take heart.'

Jimmy glanced at Rosie who winked at him.

The clock on the wall said six o'clock. Farley had been digging deep into the vault of his subconscious for over an hour.

Before they had started the session, so as not to reveal their secret, Rosie had been asked to vacate the room again while Jimmy was hypnotised. Once he was safely in a trance and in 'communication with his spirit guide', she was called back in.

Carefully chaperoned by Farley, Jimmy hadn't yet been able to speak to Rosie alone. And that didn't look likely to happen any time soon either, not with Farley all over her like a rash with his barely concealed amorous advances. Young Algernon was like a love-sick puppy following her every move with a soppy expression and mooning at her with his big green eyes. Jimmy wanted to punch him in the face.

'This is quite enough information for them to paw over for one day.' Farley then turned to Rosie. 'How about a spot of dinner? I know this quite fabulous place in the West End.'

Jimmy held his breath willing her to say no.

There was a slight hesitation, but Rosie said, 'That sounds lovely, doctor.'

'Until we meet again, Elizabeth,' said Farley strolling out of the room with Rosie on his arm. Rosie glanced back over her shoulder and pulled a 'yuk' face behind Farley's back. It made Jimmy feel a little better, but only a little.

28

Barrington-Warner was waiting for Jimmy in the usual room downstairs.

'Ah, Elizabeth, a good night's sleep? Good, good, anyway the Top Brass are very pleased with your work. Dr Farley obviously has the knack of getting your chums in the spirit world to be more forthcoming,' he said puffing on his pipe.

'Are they coming back today?' asked Jimmy.

'If you think you are up to it. As I understood it, doesn't all this spirit communication drain you? We don't want you getting exhausted now, do we.'

'Only when I produce ectoplasm.'

Barrington-Warner nodded, impressed.

The closest Jimmy would have ever come to producing ectoplasm was if he had a very bad cold. The notion made him smile and had briefly taken his mind off more pressing matters as in Farley letching after his girl.

'I feel the spirits have a lot more to reveal.'

'Excellent. I will ask Dr Farley to return this afternoon.' Barrington-Warner opened his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper. 'I the meantime, this might keep you occupied.'

He handed Jimmy a copy of an internal memo.

'More speculation about Winston giving in to the calls for him to resign. Far more of a reality than pure speculation now, I fear. Some believe Winston no longer has the will to stand firm. It gives us a chance to make further gains in North Africa before we sit down with the Nazis and discuss peace terms.'

'I asked Dr Farley to send my report for Mr Churchill's urgent personal attention.'

'So I understand. I am sure Winston will read it in his own good time.'

'Can I ask you something?'

'Of course. And I hope I can give you an honest answer.'

Jimmy hesitated. 'Have you considered that by seeking knowledge of the future from the spirits, might not that in some way change what was meant to be, perhaps for the worse?'

'This all sounds rather deep, Elizabeth. A little Dickensian – A Christmas Carol etcetera, and Philosophy wasn't my strong suit at Oxford. I read Mathematics. Got a First actually. And now I'm a spy. Life doesn't always turn out how you think it's going to, does it?'

Jimmy wanted to cry out, 'Tell me about it!' but bit his tongue.

'I met some fine fellows at Oxford. To a man, all were exceedingly clever chaps.' Barrington-Warner stared thoughtfully out of the window at the garden. 'I remember one chap who was impressed with J. B. Priestley's ideas on Time. He said there must be time paradoxes, anomalies if you like, that made some events impossible and others that suggested time might be circular in nature, which I understand is the predominant belief of primitive cultures around the world. He explained to me about the Grandfather Time Paradox, the strange logic of which ran around my head for days after we first discussed it.'

'He said, "If you went back in time and accidentally killed your grandfather when he was young, your father would not be born and therefore neither would you. If you are not born you cannot go back in time and kill him. So, if he doesn't die, you will be born and therefore it is once again possible for you to go back in time and kill him, and so on." All nonsense of course.' Barrington-Warner smiled. 'No one is ever going to build a time machine, these philosophical musings are best left to the crusty academics, don't you think.'

'I don't think you understand . . .'

The MI5 man cut him short. 'I don't think you need worry yourself about this. I am sure that if these spirits of yours thought it such a bad thing, they wouldn't be so forthcoming with the information they provide. And quite frankly, if this war comes to an end under negotiated terms because of these friends of yours on the other side, then I for one will be very happy.'

'Yes, but . . .'

Barrington-Warner held up his hand. 'That's all I have to say on the matter and perhaps I have even said too much.'

By the time Farley and Rosie arrived, Jimmy was anxiously pacing the room. The confidential report suggested it was the timing of when the axe will fall, rather than if he can survive the 'vote of no confidence' which was the last stumbling block to the formalities. Churchill must read his note sooner rather than later if the whole world wasn't to be plunged into a terrifying catastrophe of Jimmy's making.

Rosie gave Jimmy a conspiratorial wink as she followed Farley in through the door. That at least put his mind at rest that she hadn't succumbed to Farley's rakish charm. As for Farley, he didn't look at all well.

'You will have to excuse me, Elizabeth, but I seemed to have a little tummy trouble. The food tasted fine last night and dear Rosie here isn't suffering, but . . .'

Farley suddenly turned an urgent visit-the-doctor shade of green and made for the door. Rosie gently pushed it shut behind him. Farley was heard charging up the stairs two steps at a time in the direction of the bathroom.

'We haven't got much time,' she whispered. 'You mustn't trust them. I told Alfie about you. They let him out on parole for good behaviour. See, I told you he wasn't all bad. Anyway I told him what they are making you do for them. He reckons they are just using you and when they're done they won't let you go because you know too much. You might be a danger if the Germans got hold of you and tortured you for information.'

That he knew too much was something Jimmy had vaguely concerned him, but he hadn't reckoned on being kidnapped and tortured by the Nazis. Yet his foremost concern at present was to get Churchill to see sense and persuade him to stand up to his political foes.

'Rosie, listen, I need to see Winston Churchill to persuade him not to give up.'

'The Prime Minister, gosh!'

The proposition far from fazing her immediately set her considering the practicalities of such a Promethean task.

'You'd need transport and papers. Can't go anywhere in London without having papers. I reckon Mr Churchill spends most of his time in Downing Street. Alfie knows someone who works there in the kitchen. He also knows a footman who works at Buckingham Palace. Alfie knows loads of really nice people – he meets most of them in jail. He says they're all real proper gents.' Rosie gently touched Jimmy's arm. 'I'll see what Alfie can do.'

They heard tired footsteps descending the stairs.

'I hope it's not catching whatever Farley's got,' said Jimmy.

'Don't you worry about that – I gave him some laxative this morning. Quite a lot really. I'm sure a whole packet won't do him any harm. But that'll teach him to keep his hands to himself. I don't know what sort of girl he thinks I am, touching my knee like that. And I told Alfie. As you can imagine he wasn't best pleased. It took all my persuading for Alfie not to come here and have it out with him.'

'You know where we are in London?'

Rosie looked at him quizzically. 'Of course. Dr Farley drove us here in his car.'

'So you could find this place again?'

'Course.'

They fell silent as Farley gingerly crept back into the room. His face had turn from green to ghostly white.

'I'm frightfully sorry about that. It's just this damn . . .' His hands cradled his stomach as he gasped, '. . . sorry.' He then spun round and shot back up the stairs.

Jimmy stalked around the room. 'I know it's asking a lot, but it needs to be as soon as possible, this week. Can Alfie do it?'

'This week?' Rosie said in surprise. 'I'm sure Alfie will do what he can, but it's the papers, they have to be real good genuine forgeries.'

'I don't know how long I have. If Churchill resigns . . .' Jimmy didn't want to think of the consequences. 'If he can just get me as far as Downing Street I'm sure I can persuade them to let me see him.'

Rosie looked doubtful.

'Ginny.' She chewed her lip. 'I don't think they'll just let you walk out of here. I am sure it was an accident and all that with the doctor, but you have been convicted, well – you know – of murder.'

She was right. It was a bit of a technicality being under close house arrest.

'Listen,' he said suddenly. 'I have a plan.'

29

It hadn't been stated officially, but Henderson was obviously Jimmy's designated handler. His room was on the same landing as Jimmy's, but at the front of the house next to the bathroom. Other agents regularly came to relieve him while he slept, to maintain a round-the-clock guard.

For the first couple of days the agent sent to cover was a nervy type called Ovary, who was then was replaced by a different character altogether by the name of Smitts. Smitts was a South African with a fierce crew-cut and a head that appeared to have been hewn out of a block of granite with all the sculptural precision of a sledgehammer. Although he was rarely heard to speak, beyond barked commands, his accent to Jimmy's ear was distinctly Germanic. Henderson said he was Afrikaans, but Jimmy reckoned they should have dug a whole lot deeper into his background before allowing him to join the Secret Service. As a candidate for a German spy or double agent, he was way up there. Assuming British Intelligence had lived up to its name, they must have been very confident that Smitts was who he said he was.

It was the afternoon of the fourth day at the safe-house. Jimmy was once again apparently casually wandering around while discreetly surveying the house for a weak point as a means of escape, when Smitts appeared and struck up a conversation. And what seemed even more out of character for the laconic six-foot Boer, he asked Jimmy to give him a psychic reading.

'Really?' Jimmy replied in astonishment.

'I fear fer my young broer. 'E's fightin' in Noord Afrika.'

Jimmy observed Smitt's cold dead eyes. He didn't give the impression that brotherly love, nor any feelings toward his fellow man ever had cause to trouble what might pass for his soul.

'I don't think I'm allowed,' Jimmy replied cagily.

'But you'd be able t'say eff 'et's gonna be all raaght.'

Jimmy took a moment to unscramble the Pidgin English then said, 'But I haven't got my crystal ball.'

'I 'erd dis spirit guide, Ariel, don't need no Crystil boll.'

Jimmy took a step back. It wasn't right. He just couldn't believe someone like Smitts would have bought into all the Spirits and Spiritualism stuff. The words and the man didn't go together.

'Have you checked with Henderson?'

''Enderson, doesn't know I'm auskin'. Et's between me an' you.'

There was something in Smitts manner that was unsettling. He smiled, but not an ounce of warmth reached his eyes. Jimmy fobbed him off.

'I sense the spirits are not with me today, maybe tomorrow.'

Smitts fixed Jimmy with a long and hard stare before replying, 'Tomorrow when 'enderson is aart.'

That evening Barrington-Warner arrived unexpectantly.

'Look, Elizabeth, you need to believe me this not my doing. Unfortunately strings are being pulled in the background and with Winston's censure likely to be imminent, many feel the due process of law, with regard to yourself should recommence. Fortunately for me, I had never intended to make a career in the Secret Service, while others, like Dr Farley, face potential professional ruin and quite frankly humiliation as a consequence of this misadventure. I myself have had to face serious criticism over this matter. I am asked, "Why didn't this supposedly remarkable 'Medium' foresee Winston being forced to resign and the likelihood of peace?" All your other future predictions are now viewed as pure flights of fantasy. It is deemed a highly embarrassing gaff within military intelligence. And they have a point. There are many who would want to erase this ill-conceived affair from the records.'

Jimmy made ready to defend himself, but he didn't waste his breath. It wasn't Barrington-Warner he needed to convince of the truth of this, but the great man himself, Winston Churchill.

'So, what now for me?'

Barrington-Warner shrugged. 'I have no orders. I assume you will once again fall under the jurisdiction of the legal system.'

'When?'

'From the Secret Service's point of view, as soon as possible. I assume the legal authorities will want to expedite this matter. There are many who are very vocal on this matter. Captain Willoughby more so than most.'

Jimmy panicked. Not because of the deadly fate that might await him, but because the plan he had hatched with Rosie was potentially in ruins.

Once Jimmy had discovered a way to escape from the building, he would leave the bathroom light on as a signal to one of Alfie's men keeping watch outside. Rosie would then meet him under the cover of darkness and they would make directly for Downing Street.

But Barrington-Warner's news meant any escape bid had to be within twenty-four hours or not at all. Jimmy had secretly examined every door and window in the house. The place was secured tighter than a Scotsman's wallet. The situation was hopeless.

Jimmy slept fitfully. As much as altruism filled his waking hours, at night the demons held sway taunting with nightmarish dreams of dangling on the end of a rope that was choking the life out of him.

At an unknown time before first light he sprung bolt upright in bed. He was bathed in a cold sweat and gasping for air.

He jumped out of bed to rid the vision from his mind. He grabbed his dressing gown and drew it tightly around him against the bone-aching cold. In an act of desperation he tried to prise up the sash window, but it refused to budge. Anger welled up inside. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hand then in blind fury he slammed his fist against the glass. The blow would have easily shattered a normal pane, but painfully his hand just bounced off. The bastards had thought of everything including replacing the original windows with unbreakable safety glass.

It seemed like an eternity before Jimmy heard signs of activity below. Footsteps climbed the stairs. Smitts open the door.

''enderson's aart. Come wit me.'

Jimmy followed him out of his bed room and down the stairs. As usual he was taken to the dining room at the back of the house.

'You stay 'ere and contact yer spirits and I'll be back for ma readin' shortly.'

It was the last thing Jimmy wanted – concocting a load of bullshit for the South African hardman. Jimmy wouldn't mind betting that you could stub out a cigarette on his face and he wouldn't even flinch. Then another thought occurred to him which was equally disturbing. Where had Henderson gone?

It was the first time to Jimmy's knowledge that Henderson had actually left the house in the last four days. Perhaps with the changing political circumstances the secret service man had been reassigned to duties with a greater priority. It meant he was alone with Smitts – a man who gave the impression that he would happily beat you to death for uttering a word out of turn.

As soon as Smitts had left the room, Jimmy jumped to his feet and wrestled with the handles on the French doors. They were locked solid, as were the side windows. He grabbed one of the chairs intending to smash his way out, but the moment past. What would it have achieved? Even if he had managed to escape, Smitts would have been onto him instantly.

It was with some trepidation that Jimmy sat down to await Smitts arrival. At the centre of the table was his crystal ball gleaming with its distorted mirror like reflections. It gave no clue, and nor was it ever likely to, as to the future wellbeing of Smitts little brother.

Jimmy heard Smitts heavy footfalls descending the stairs. The door swung open and he entered the room. His mouth was upturned into an unsettling imitation of a smile. Jimmy shuffled nervously on the chair.

''ow are der spirits, Ariel?'

Jimmy detected mockery in the inquiry.

'It's a bit early in the day for them. There is probably not much I can tell you about your brother, but I'll try.'

'Is it too braaght?'

Jimmy said nothing but his eyes followed Smitts as walked behind him and made to pull the heavy blackout curtains across the French doors. Then in a blur a brown cord whirled over Jimmy's head. It found his neck and instantly bit hard into his flesh. Choking, Jimmy fought hard as the course brown cord cut deeper. His fingers frantically tried to dig under the telephone cable to relieve the agony of the steadily increasing pressure.

'You didn't see this comin', did yer. You're a fake. I 'aven't got no bro'er. You upset too many people and now yer gonna die.'

Of that Jimmy was in no doubt. He felt the excited pant of Smitts breath on the back of his head as the Boer twisted the cord ever tighter. Jimmy's chest was ready to explode from the air trapped in his lungs. His vision was tunnelling into a point of light as though he was falling into a bottomless well.

Moments before unconsciousness and death, something within Jimmy fought back. In a detached, out-body-experience, as if he was observing from afar, he saw the struggling figure of Mrs Bradshaw make a grab for the crystal ball. Seemingly beyond his own will, she flung her arm backwards with a strength he didn't know she possessed and smashed it squarely with Smitts' face. There was a sickening crunch as the crystal shattered Smitts' nose. A warm spurt of blood splattered onto Jimmy's neck. Yet the deadly noose didn't yield an inch. Jimmy fell deeper and deeper into the abyss of dying.

He was ejected back into consciousness with a loud gasp as his lungs gorged on the life-giving air. His body fed on the oxygen, clearing his head in dizzying waves. With the terrifying recall of what had happened, he snatched the cord from around his neck and flung it aside. Smitts was sprawled out across the floor behind him unconscious.

Jimmy shakily levered himself out of the chair. He steadied himself. Enraged, he kicked Smitts hard in the ribs. The would-be assassin gave out a reflex grunt, but didn't stir. Jimmy looked down at the cord that so nearly strangled him and his fury flared again. Two, three, four times he slammed his foot into Smitts' side then with his anger spent, the urgency of the situation returned. If he couldn't escape from the house before Smitts came round he was dead meat.

He rolled Smitts over onto his front and tied his hands behind his back with the telephone cable. Jimmy searched in his pockets for keys. Smitts didn't have any on him and the two-timing bastard received another hefty boot in the gut in lieu of it.

Jimmy wiped the bloodied crystal ball on the table cloth. He wasn't even sure why he was keeping hold of it beyond its weighty sense of security. Jimmy checked Smitts' bindings again and then charged into the hallway. It was no surprise to find the solid front door was locked with a double mortise. He raced throughout the house frantically checking every window and door. None even hinted that they could be opened. With his options exhausted he stood with his heart racing at the foot of the stairs. He glanced up. Directly at the top of the stairs was Henderson's room.

It was the one place in the house he had never had been able to recce as a means of escape. He sprinted up the steps two at a time. Lock-wise, the room only appeared to have its original fitment – a small brass latch intended only for a modicum of privacy not one sturdy enough to prevent a determined entry. Jimmy had nothing to lose and didn't hesitate. He rocked back and, kung-fu style, he kicked the door open.

The Henderson's room was starkly empty except for a single bed which had been stripped down to the mattress. Jimmy rushed to the window. He undid the catch and pushed hard. With a stubborn creak from the rusty hinges it reluctantly opened. He was immediately hit by a blast of chill January air. He stared down at his desperate escape route. It was at least a twelve foot drop onto the concrete paved ground below. In the grip of a fight or flight response, of which fight wasn't a serious option, Jimmy's instinct was to go for it. But a quieter, but wiser voice in his head suggested caution. A hard landing on the paving had broken bones, agony and immediate recapture by Smitts written all over it.

The cast iron soil pipe leading from the bathroom caught his eye. He gauged the possibility of getting hold of it and climbing down. He stretched out of the window, but it remained tantalisingly out of reach. If he was still in his old body, which was a good foot taller than Lizzie Bradshaw's, grabbing it would have been easy.

While again contemplating the near suicidal leap onto the concrete, he was struck by another icy blast of air. Even if he did manage to get clear, he wouldn't last five minutes in that cold. He climbed off the window ledge and crept back onto the landing. He peered over the banister listening intently for any movement that would mean Smitts was awake. There wasn't a sound. He crept into his bedroom and pulled a thick woollen jumper and a heavy overcoat from the wardrobe. Jimmy swung round to return to Henderson's room and saw something that stopped him in his tracks. Hanging from a coat hook on the back of his bedroom door was a wire noose. It was the exactly same type of brown telephone cable that Smitts had tried to strangle him with.

Jimmy's head swam. That bastard Smitts had planned to kill him and then make his death look like suicide. Jimmy swore as he felt the reassuring weight of the crystal ball in his hand. He should have done Smitts some really serious damage while he'd had the chance – something that would have put him out of the game for a long time, if not forever. But it was too late. There was no way he was going back downstairs to finish the job.

He slid back in Henderson's room now appropriately clothed to avoid freezing to death and checked out of the window to see if there was anyone in the street who might be watching. Beyond a couple of parked car the place was deserted.

He eased himself onto the window sill. The window was a wide as it would go, but with the extra bulk of his added clothing it was a tight squeeze to get through the narrow opening. Crouching tentatively on the ledge, he warily slid his foot along the sill which was still wet from the morning frost. Taking a firm grip on the frame he groped towards the big soil pipe. Yet it remained resolutely beyond his grasp. With a very careful adjustment of his feet, he tried again. His fingertips brushed the cold metal, but the stout ironwork still wouldn't come fully to hand.

He clambered back into the room shivering. He had only been exposed to the elements for a few moments but the bite of the cold air was instant and disconcerting. His fingers were already numb and he wasn't convinced even if he could get a good hold on the pipe, he would have had the strength to go for it - or ultimately the balls.

He cupped his hands over his face to breathe some circulation back into his fingers. Above the sound of his own breath he heard a noise from downstairs. His heart almost leapt out of his chest. There was another sound – the muffled creak of a lightly trod floorboard. It meant only one thing. Smitts had come round and was creeping through the house searching for him. It wasn't a big house and it would only take Smitts moments to work out where he was.

He turned back to the window. Even if he could have reached it, a leisurely departure sliding down the drainpipe was now out of the question. He eyed the hard ground below reckoning his chances of walking away from a drop like that unscathed. Slim was the answer and now even if he was lucky enough not to break a few bones, Smitts wouldn't be far behind.

There was another movement on the stairs. Jimmy clambered up onto the sill and stared fearfully down at the ground. He couldn't do it. With nothing remotely like a detailed plan in mind, he dropped down from the window and hid behind the open bedroom door. All he had to defend himself was the crystal ball. He held it shakily above his head ready to strike in the hope of wielding killer blow. If he didn't . . . he didn't want to think about it.

The soft footfalls crept closer. Jimmy tensed.

'Com aart, com aart, where ever you are.'

Jimmy nearly wet himself. The bastard! Not just satisfied with trying to murder him, Smitts was enjoying tormenting out of pure spite. The footsteps quickened. Perhaps Smitts had seen the gaping window through the open doorway and had put two and two together and made five.

Jimmy heard the sound of Smitts rushing along the landing towards Henderson's bedroom. Timing was everything. With a heavy footfall on the threshold, Jimmy kicked with all his might at the bedroom door. There was a reverberating bang as the solid wood door slammed full-on into the onrushing Smitts. It was instantly followed by a howl of anguish and then the sound of a big meaty, Smitts-sized object crashing heavily to the floor. Jimmy leant his ear to the door – all was quiet. Not a sound. Jimmy had no idea if Smitts quietly gathering himself getting ready to launch another attack or if once again he was out for the count.

Jimmy wasn't inclined to hang around to find out. He looked at the mattress on the bed and eyed the window. He looked back at the mattress again. If he could get it out of the window onto the concrete below it would cushion his fall.

He didn't think throwing a mattress out of a window was too difficult. Back in his own time, most high-rise blocks of flats in his area featured at their base an aerially deposited mattress or two, among an assortment of similarly discarded household detritus, such as old TV's and sofas.

He wheeled the bed across the floor and jammed it up against the door. It wouldn't hold Smitts for more than a few seconds, but it might buy him just enough time to get clear. At least in the open there was a chance.

He tried to lift Henderson's mattress, but it was surprisingly heavy. Jimmy slid it off the bed and stood it on its side then guided it towards the window. Jimmy propped one end on the window sill and picked up the back end, but unhelpfully the mattress creased in the middle. He raised the back end again and then crawled underneath it to support the bendy middle section on his back. He worked it through the opening until with a final jiggle he got it out and airborne.

Jimmy sprung up to observe the result. It wasn't anywhere near as good as he hoped. The mattress hadn't fallen flat. Part of it was bent up against the brickwork with barely half its length lying flat on the ground available to cushion his fall. The proposed jump left little room for error.

Jimmy climbed out of the window backwards. With his legs dangling in the air, he carefully eased himself down until he clung on to the ledge at full stretch. He nervously glanced at the mattress. His fall needed to be directly downwards with no outward trajectory. With his hold slipping on the wet sill there was no going back. He glanced down to take a final aim and let go.

If anything he was too precise. Far from coming to grief on the hard concrete, he landed in the crook in the mattress. Much to Jimmy's surprise, the old mattress, which must have had some serious trampoline-like springs, sent him arcing back up into the air in a graceful swallow dive and deposited him in a heap into the hedge at the front of the garden.

He staggered out of the dense privet with a few bruises and some scratches, but miraculously he was in good shape.

He didn't waste a moment. His frozen fingers fumbled with the latch on the garden gate and he dashed out into the street. He snatched a glance back at the house. There was no sign of Smitts, but he didn't intend to hang around. He was about to make off when he eyed the car parked outside the house. As poor Dr Bloom discovered to his cost, Jimmy wasn't the world's most accomplished driver, but setting that aside, he was once again up for the challenge. Unfortunately for Jimmy, but perhaps fortunately for everyone else in the vicinity, the black Morris 8 was locked.

He took a second to get his bearings. He cursed that he hadn't had a chance to quiz Rosie about the area. The houses in the street were all very grand and upmarket which meant that in all likelihood he was in a prosperous middle class suburb of North, or possibly West London.

With no map or street signs to guide him, it was a reasonable assumption that if the area was North London and he used the southerly midday sun as a rough guide, it should more or less lead him towards central London and from there it was relatively straight forward to find Whitehall. Although, employing the sun solely as his guide, if he was starting from West London, and his journey took too long, come the evening, he would end up back where he started. Regardless of his precise location, with some urgency, he needed to put as much distance between him and Smitts as possible.

With a final glance back to see if Smitts was onto him, he dashed down the road. Jimmy had only reached the first junction, barely a hundred-yards from the house, before he was blowing hard, gasping for air. He stood bent with his hands on his hips at the crossroad. The low southerly sun was directing him straight ahead in all likelihood towards his goal, but he immediately turned into the side road to keep out of sight while he got his breath back.

The mortal remains that he had inherited from Elizabeth Bradshaw weren't built for speed nor had they much in the way of stamina, especially with the additional heavy clothing. To make matters worse his throat began to swell up from the near strangulation making it even harder to breathe. Fear and adrenalin had carried him along so far, but now he sat propped against a low garden wall struggling to carry on. While cursing Smitts' murderous intentions and Lizzie Bradshaw's physical short-comings, he was startled by the sound of a car roaring up the road from the direction of the safe house. He only had a split second before he'd be spotted. He threw himself over the low wall and lay flat out of sight. Jimmy didn't dare move even after hearing the car speed off down the road. He counted to thirty then crawled up onto all fours and peered over the wall. There was no sight, nor sound of the car. He tentatively slipped out of the garden and hurried down the side road.

What he really needed to find was an Underground station. Tube stations were practically permanent landmarks in London's cityscape, which otherwise had changed almost beyond recognition since the war. Find one, and he would know exactly where he was.

Lost in his own thoughts, Jimmy was startled when a push-bike squeaked as it overtook him from behind. His reaction was extreme enough to cause the cyclist, an old man in a flat cap, to glance back with some concern. The cyclist hesitated for a moment as if he was going to ask if Jimmy was okay, but seemed to think better of it and rode on.

Jimmy watched the bike disappear into the distance. Behind him he heard the roar of a car being driven hard. He swung round to see the Morris 8 screech around the corner and speed directly towards him. Even at a distance, Jimmy saw Smitts was at the wheel. The snarl on his blooded face made even more intimidating by the noticeable absence of a front tooth.

Jimmy turned to run, but it was hopeless. Elizabeth Bradshaw's unathletic old bones were never going to out run even a mildly determined pursuer, let alone a maniac like Smitts. The car slewed across the pavement, bumping up the kerb and came to a crashing halt against a front garden wall blocking Jimmy's path. Like a whirlwind, Smitts leapt out of the car and made a grab for Jimmy. Jimmy fought back, but he was no match for Smitts' enraged strength as he dragged him towards the car.

'Tryin' to run orf, were yah.'

Jimmy punched and kicked, but Smitts had nearly bundled him into the back seat when a voice chirped up, 'Oi, chum, that ain't no way to treat a lady.'

The frantic wrestle ceased as they both looked up in surprise. The old boy on the bike had returned.

'Listen, chum, it looks to me like the lady ain't sa keen on goin' wiv you, so why don't you just leave her alone and sling yer hook.'

'Fuck orf,' growled Smitts.

'Now that ain't no way to talk wiv a lady present.'

'Fu–– Arrrrrrr!'

Smitts was cut off in mid-sentence as a fierce punch landed squarely on his already battered nose. Jimmy winced at the sight of Smitts' nose that was already almost impossibly flattened being smeared across his face even more so.

Smitts blinked furiously in surprise, and momentarily dazed he released his hold on Jimmy. Jimmy tumbled onto the floor and in a flailing commando roll he clambered out of arm's reach to safety. He was back on his feet in time to see Smitts bite-back the pain and gather himself. He raised his fists to retaliate, but the old boy had other ideas. A short black cosh was a blur as it arced through the air catching Smitts straight between the eyes. Smitts went down like a felled tree.

'Used to do a bit of boxing when I was a kid,' the old boy said.

Jimmy eyed the cosh.

'Oh, this,' the old boy said a little embarrassed. 'Comes in handy sometimes.'

His rescuer bent down and picked up Smitts feet. 'Gi's a hand. I take it you are Ginny. Alfie sent me to keep an eye on yer. My name's Michael. Or Mad Mickey to my friends.'

Mickey dragged Smitts over to the pavement seemingly unconcern as Smitts' head bounced up and over the kerb with a disturbing cracking sound.

'We'll dump him in 'ere.'

Mickey moved round and got Smitts up under his arms and Jimmy grabbed his feet. On the count of three they slung Smitts over the low front wall of some poor unsuspecting householder. It took fly-tipping to a whole new level.

'Is he dead,' Jimmy asked more out of curiosity than concern.

'Nah. But he ain't gonna be winning no beauty contest any time soon either.'

Smitts was no oil painting to start with, but now his rearranged face it was one that even his mother would have struggled to love.

'So we best be goin',' said Mickey rubbing his hands to brush off the dirt.

'Okay,' said Jimmy, unsure how Mickey intended they should make their getaway. If Mickey thought Jimmy would be happy to go all the way to Downing Street on the crossbar, he had another think coming.

'We'll take the car,' said Jimmy.

'Can't drive,' Mickey replied bluntly.

'I can,' Jimmy said breezily as he slid into the driver's seat. 'Sort of.'

'You sure. Alfie didn't say nothing about stealin' no cars.'

'We're not stealing it, we're borrowing it.'

'What about me bike?'

Jimmy eyed the ancient bone-shaker. 'Leave it around the corner. Who'd be stupid enough to steal a heap of junk like that.'

'I did!' said Mickey.

'We can't get it in the car.'

'S'pose you're right,' said Mickey as he squeezed his considerable bulk into the passenger seat.

Jimmy glanced over. Mickey's tatty tweed suit and flat cap gave him the appearance of some old coffin-dodger. In reality Mad Mickey was a man in his prime – twenty-years too old for the Army, but still as hard as teak – a man to be reckoned with.

'Alfie said I was to take you to a safe place. There's a Bubble in the 'olloway Road said 'e'd put you up no questions asked like. You won't get no funny business from, Camp Costas, if you know what I mean.'

'May be afterwards.'

'After what?'

'After I've been to see the Prime Minister,' Jimmy replied as he started the car. He didn't dare catch Mickey's eye, who he knew was looking at him in wonder.

'The Prime Minister?' Mickey queried. 'Then I suppose it's off to Buckingham Palace to have tea with the King and Queen, is it?'

Jimmy ignored the sarcasm and found reverse gear. The car instantly kangaroo'd backwards down the kerb and into the road, stalling. He restarted the engine and, with a grinding of cogs, he jiggled the gear stick into first.

'Okay, Mickey, which way to Downing Street?'

30

There was a police checkpoint in the distance. A barbed wire road block had been set up across the street. There was a narrow gap just wide enough for a single vehicle to pass through. He doubted the road block was for his benefit – news probably wouldn't have had time to filter out about his escape – but never-the-less they would have to field some very awkward questions if they were pulled-over.

'Mickey, did Alfie give you an ID card or anything for me? Travel warrant?'

'Nah. He said get you safe to Camp Costas and he would sort it out from there.'

'What's the chances of those coppers stopping us?'

'With strict petrol rationing and, if you don't mind me sayin', lady, your driving . . .' He shook his head wistfully.

'Hmm, that's just what I thought.'

Jimmy brought the car to sudden a lurching halt by cutting the ignition. There was a loud blast on the horn from the bus following closely behind as it narrowly avoided rear-ending him. The bus swerved past him rocking on its suspension towards the checkpoint.

One of the policemen stepped into the road and flagged it down. Jimmy looked on uncomfortably as the constable boarded the bus and set about checking papers. His police partner stood on the bus platform with his arms tightly folded keeping watch.

'What's that road up there?' asked Jimmy.

'Tottenham Court Road. That's where we gotta go then down the Charing Cross Road to Whitehall.'

'How far?'

'Couple of miles.'

'We'll have to walk.'

'The copper's seen us. Won't he fink we're up to something?'

'Not if we pretend the car's broken down. Get out and get your head under the bonnet.'

'Anyfin' you say, lady.'

Mickey undid the leather straps and raised a flap of the gullwing bonnet seeming to look for the problem. It immediately caught the policeman on the platform's interest. Mickey gave him an exaggerated shrug. The policeman called upstairs to his partner. He hopped off the bus and strode towards the seemingly stricken Morris. He rounded the front of the car and joined Mickey on the pavement looking under the bonnet.

'I think it might be this,' Mickey said pointing at a wire.

The policeman peered deeper into the engine bay. 'I think that's okay. It might be your distributor.'

Jimmy opened the car door and without a sound, he slid out. He eased the door shut and all but tiptoed towards the now temporarily unguarded checkpoint.

With the bus filling the narrow gap between the barriers, there was virtually no room to get by. As Jimmy approached he searched for the second copper who was somewhere on board checking papers. Jimmy quickened his step when he saw him occupied on the top deck. Jimmy weighed up his chances of squeezing through the narrow gap without drawing undue attention to himself. It was tight, but if he turned sideways and breathed in he could just about make it.

If any of the bus passengers were observing, Jimmy's behaviour appeared suspicious enough perhaps to tip-off the policeman. It crossed Jimmy's mind to crouch down below the level of the bus windows to keep out of sight, but unless the bus driver was blind he couldn't have failed to see what was going on.

Never-the-less Jimmy tucked his tummy in and began edging down the side of the bus. He had nearly got passed when from behind a voice boomed, 'Oi! Where do you think you are going?'

The policeman who had been on the top deck was now stood on the platform with his hands on his hips scowling at him.

Jimmy offered a guilty smile. An innocent explanation eluded him until a little of what he had learnt from brother Delboy, the Fast Talking Maestro, came to his rescue.

Jimmy affected a relieved air. 'Oh, thank goodness, there you are. I was looking for you. Our cars broken down and your colleague said you are an absolutely wizard mechanic. He said he was sure you could get us going again in no time.'

The policeman's chest swelled with pride. Finally, his automotive engineering prowess had received the recognition it deserved from a fellow officer of the constabulary.

'I do consider myself a dab hand with these modern automobile contraptions. Oh, yes, nothing much flummoxes me. Give me a wrench and a screwdriver and I can repair most things, oh, yes. I've got a bent for it, you see.'

'Then you're just the man we need.'

Jimmy strained to keep the fake smile on his face as the policeman stepped off the bus and made towards the car. But the copper with the professed mechanical bent had only taken a couple of steps before he halted sharply and swung round.

'Identity card please, miss,' he demanded.

Jimmy performed an admirable Macarena as he patted himself down. 'Oh, I remember the other nice policeman asked to see it and I think he must still have it.'

The policeman eyed him doubtfully and then switched his yearning gazed towards the irresistible lure that was the wonderland of clapped-out metal and bolts parked fifty-yards yonder. Visibly torn between duty and his passion, the car won.

'Wait here. I'll have you back on the road in no time.'

The policeman, at a quick march, strode off.

With the policeman's departure, Jimmy hopped onto the bus. The lady conductor dinged the bell twice and the bus set off.

'Move along down,' she called out ushering Jimmy inside.

Jimmy shuffled down the narrow aisle hanging onto the rail. The seated occupants didn't even glance-up at the latest arrival on the crowded bus. That changed moments later after the lady conductor called out, 'Fares Please.'

Jimmy turned in alarm.

'Where're you goin' to, luv?'

'Whitehall.'

'Tuppence.'

'Tuppence?' Jimmy queried.

'Yes, luv. A bit less than thruppence and a bit more than a penny.'

Jimmy urgently patted his pockets for real this time. It had never occurred to him that he might need hard cash to fulfil his epic mission.

'Hurry up, luv, I ain't got all day. There is a war on you know.'

Jimmy was truly penniless. He smiled apologetically. 'Sorry, I seem to have forgotten to bring out . . .'

The conductor dinged the bell twice and the bus set off again without Jimmy. He was left standing on the pavement with the passengers on-board glaring at him with little sympathy. His bus ride had lasted barely a half a mile.

He crossed the street into Tottenham Court Road. He turned up his collar and kept his head down. Depending on how Mickey played it, and if Smitts had recovered, the police might soon be scouring the place for him. There was no time to lose.

He was quite out of breath when he reached Trafalgar Square. It was odd to see the iconic symbol of London so devoid of crowds. Even the pigeons were scarce, having no scraps to scavenge upon, the place abandoned by the habitual pre-war horde of sightseers. It was desolate and bleak with its smoke blackened brickwork and dry, lifeless fountains. The sight of the rows of barrage balloons lining the length of the Thames as far as the eye could see was a sombre reminder of a country in the dark days of war.

Standing at its centre looking up at Nelson's Column, Jimmy had a strange vision – a sense of seeing this scene at another time – a different world to the one that he once knew – a world in which London didn't rise out of the ashes of war to hold a glittering place in the worlds of commerce, arts and forward thinking enterprise, but remained held in a stasis of gloomy oppression without advancement.

Jimmy knew that the vision was of how this country would be if the Nazis prevailed – an insignificant and backward island on the periphery of continental Europe, held in repression like the East European countries during the Soviet era. The bleak vision of the future spurred him on as he crossed the square and hurried into Whitehall.

In his lifetime, Downing Street had always been out of bounds to the public with heavy iron gates at each end and patrolled by armed policemen. Although there was a war on, and the papers were filled with scare stories of subversive Fifth-Columnists trying to bring about the country's defeat from within, Downing Street was still like any other public thoroughfare in London, open for all and sundry to stroll along and freely go about their business.

Two armed guards were stationed either side of the glossy black door of number ten. They were fully equipped for war, wearing battledress, steel helmets and fixed bayonets. They stood rigidly to attention while a police sergeant with his hands clasped behind his back patrolled up and down the pavement outside whistling casually.

Jimmy ran his hands through his bushy hair and then brushed down his coat. If he was to meet a figure that was a colossus in the history of Britain, and the world, he didn't want to look like some old bag lady.

Jimmy stepped towards the front door. The soldiers were unmoved but the policeman immediately placed himself between Jimmy and the entrance.

'Good morning, madam. No loitering please. Now move along.'

'I need to see Mr Churchill.'

A kindly smile creased the policeman's face. 'Mr Churchill is very busy. Now move along.'

'You don't understand . . .' protested Jimmy.

'Mr Churchill is a very accommodating man, but he has asked not to be disturbed right now. So, if you would be a good lady, I'll ask you to move along.'

'I have an appointment. Please, just tell him I'm here. The outcome of the war depends on it.'

The policeman's eyes widened with mock incredulity.

'An appointment? The outcome of the war no less? And who then shall I say is calling?'

'Ariel.'

'Well, perhaps you should have radioed ahead.'

The policeman laughed at his own witticism and even the two soldiers couldn't stifle a chuckle.

'I'll ask you just one more time to move along.'

'You have no idea how important this is.'

'Mr Churchill has plenty of very important things to keep him busy right now, so . . .'

'What's the date today?' Jimmy demanded sharply.

'The date?' The constable turned and winked at the guards. 'So you have an appointment, but you don't know what today's date is. I see. It's the 11th of January. Is that the correct day for your appointment?'

'HMS Illustrious – tell him.'

'A fine ship. But I'm sure Mr Churchill knows that already.'

'And hopefully not sunk thanks to me. Now, please tell him.'

'Now look . . .'

'Constable,' said Jimmy, 'if Mr Churchill knows I've been here and you've not informed him . . .'

The policeman regarded Jimmy for a moment and perhaps saw the determination in his eye.

'Very well – Ariel – I will inform the Under Secretary of your presence. Stay here.' The policeman entered the building and re-emerged a few minutes later with a more sober attitude and the Under Secretary, who said, 'Please, follow me.'

He led Jimmy through the door into the sumptuous hallway of 10 Downing Street. The modest exterior belied the magnificence of the Georgian building. It was a rabbit warren of high-ceilinged rooms such that a new visitor would have needed a highly detailed map to successfully negotiate. Yet Jimmy knew this place. He felt sure he had been there before.

Jimmy was met by the undersecretary, a slim, older man, totally at ease in these high status surroundings. He took Jimmy deeper into the maze and knocked at a bland set of double doors.

One was opened by a young woman of around Elizabeth Bradshaw's age. Jimmy had seen her photograph in books. It was Olive Margerison, Churchill's secretary, who had been at his side throughout the war.

'Hello, Ariel, the Prime Minister will see you now.'

She swung open the door and allowed Jimmy to step into the room.

31

Churchill sat behind his desk in a studded leather wing back chair. He peered above his half-moon glasses scrutinising Jimmy as he walked in. Jimmy faltered under Churchill's intense gaze. The moment was electric.

Some would say, there before him was the greatest Briton who had ever lived – someone whose face, voice and deeds would be instantly recognisable to the people of this land for a thousand year.

'Ah, Ariel,' said Churchill in his distinctive irascible growl, 'I understand you have demanded to see me?'

Jimmy's throat was dry. He had temporarily lost the power of speech.

Churchill pointed to a seat. 'Seeing as you have taken so much trouble to get here, you had better sit down.'

Jimmy robotically walked forward and dropped into the hard leather seat. Churchill slowly cast his eyes over him. 'I admire determination in people, especially in a woman. It is the determined who get things done.' He rested back. 'You should be proud. I am told due to your prescient warning about the surprise attack on HMS Illustrious, although it was severely damaged, it was not lost and Malta is saved for the time being.'

On one level Jimmy was delighted, but on another he realised yet again he had deliberately meddled in what was meant to be.

Churchill's hand hovered over a mahogany cigar box.

'My doctor tells me these are bad for me, but what do all these quacks who fuss around me, know eh?' he said with a twinkle in his eye. 'What do you think?'

'I think he might be right, but in the end all the cigars didn't seem to do you any harm.'

A wry smile formed on Churchill's fleshy face. 'Do I take that as another of your prophetic revelations and I am destined to live to a ripe old age?'

'Well . . .'

'I'M NOT SURE I WANTS TO!' bellowed Churchill.

Reading or watching TV documentaries about Churchill and references to his legendary curmudgeonly temper couldn't prepare Jimmy for the real thing. The great man's explosive personality was palpable as the solid desk at which he was sat – an almost physical presence that filled the entire room. It took all of Jimmy's willpower not to be cowed into a gibbering idiot by its tidal wave.

'Tell me, why I shouldn't have you arrested this minute.'

Jimmy's heart was beating hard.

'Because, Mr Churchill, I have come to reason with you.'

'To reason? Do you not think I cannot see reason!'

'You must not let them force you to resign.'

'Now tell me, what other course of action should you suggest? My enemies are massing against me, both at home and abroad. Herr Hitler has much of Europe under his Nazi jackboot, and our armed forces, no matter what I may state in public, are being shown to be wanting against his might, suffering humiliating defeat after defeat.'

'But the Battle of Britain? The Few?'

Churchill nodded wistfully. 'We are indeed immeasurably indebted to those heroic young men who gave their lives to protect these islands. We gave the Luftwaffe a bloody nose, but now they lay waste our cities. The civilian population is reaping the whirlwind of their vengeance, as night after night they tear the heart out of this great land and for what . . .?'

'To beat the Nazis. Total war is the price we had to pay to win.'

'You believe we can be victorious in this conflict. I too once believed that, but even if we can persuade the Americans to fight at our side, I now have grave doubt that the price is worth paying for that final victory.'

'But in your speeches you spoke of, "The noble task of liberating Europe from the scourge of the swastika." and the Nazi's were, "A monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime." Surely . . .'

'You quote me well, young lady. I do not retract a single word. If Herr Hitler was in this room I would not hesitate to strike him down dead with my own hands. A fouler example of the human race would be impossible to find. But how will future generations of England judge me if through my vain-glorious disregard of the cost of this war the British Empire falls? An empire that covers one quarter of this globe. An empire that took over three-hundred years to build by countless patriotic and fearless adventurers who set out from this Sceptred Isle in our name to claim distant lands for the Crown. Should I through my hubris be the one to bring about its downfall?'

'Mr Churchill . . .' Jimmy hesitated. It was hard to challenge Churchill's steely glare. 'This war changes everything. The world moves on and the age of empire is over.'

'Is this what your spirits tell you?' demanded Churchill.

Jimmy hesitated again. 'I know what the future holds. I've been there.'

Not for an instant did Churchill's gaze waver.

'After the war much of the old British Empire demands its independence, first India and then in Africa. A wind of change blew through these continents with a new cry for self-determination and freedom.'

'Then I am right,' growled Churchill. 'To continue this war will bankrupt this country economically and emasculate the military to prevent its collapse. To continue on with this struggle means to lose everything this country and I have ever stood for.'

'It must only delay the inevitable. You are a staunch believer in democracy, but do you not believe the people of the empire should have the right of self-determination – for them to choose if they wish to be ruled by the British?'

'Then what would we be if this insignificant island were no longer the master of such an empire.'

'We will be a land we are proud to live in. A land in which we can hold our heads high and say, "We did what was right however much pain and hardship it took." A land that forever is seen as a beacon of fairplay in an uncaring world – a safe refuge for the oppressed and wronged. A land . . .'

Churchill held up his hand. 'Ariel, enough. Please leave the stirring speeches to the old windbag you see before you.' He pulled a sheet of paper from his desk. 'You have catalogued these events that you believe will come to pass. I see listed here nothing but military disaster. If it is true, why do you insist I should continue to prosecute this war in Europe and not transfer our entire resources to protecting the Far East from the Japanese threat?'

'Because on the 18th of September 1948 the Germans surrendered – you led this country to victory despite all the setbacks and hardships. You are hailed forever more as a hero, and some even proclaim you are the greatest Briton who has ever lived. Some even describe this war as your own personal victory.'

Churchill was unmoved. 'Hitler?'

'He committed suicide a few days before the end.'

'The Japanese?'

'August.'

'Why so long?'

'Everyone underestimated them. They had to drop the bomb on them in the end to force them to surrender. As did the Americans on Germany.'

'One bomb?' he snapped.

'Two actually.'

'Some bombs!'

Jimmy smiled. 'It certainly was a shock to the Japanese. It was a shock to the Americans as well when Hitler struck first with a rocket attack on New York.'

'Rockets! And you say I will be hailed as a hero because we were victorious. Did we liberate Poland and honour our guarantee of its independent sovereignty?'

Jimmy shifted uncomfortably in the chair. 'Not exactly. It became part of the Soviet Union as did most of Eastern Europe.'

'The damned Russians!' exploded Churchill. 'And tell me, how is it we are to suffer a humiliating defeat in the desert when as of today we are giving the Italians a good hiding?

'The Afrika Korps led by Field Marshal Rommel was said to be unstoppable when it bolstered the Italian army. Many believe that if Bernard Montgomery had been in command of the Eighth Army at the time it might have been a very different outcome. General Montgomery did acquit himself very well in the later campaigns to liberate France.'

'Montgomery you say. I've heard of him. A particularly prickly fellow by all accounts. Not well liked by the General Staff.'

'It is those same generals who lose you Egypt and your oil supply in the Middle East.'

'Quite.' Churchill regarded Jimmy closely. 'And did this proud nation flourish and prosper on the spoils of this war?'

'Well, after the war there was a period of austerity.'

'And when did we rise from the ashes?'

'In the nineteen-seventies.'

'A generation! And so you tell me this was called a victory and I am hailed as a hero – Why!'

'Because what will happen if you allow Lord Halifax to sue for peace and give the Nazis free rein in Europe. With the threat from us gone, the Germans will turn their full military might upon Russia. Without a war on two fronts, they will probably overcome the Red Army. With the whole of Europe under his control Hitler can proceed with the 'Final Solution' unchallenged.'

'The Jews,' Churchill said gravely. 'How many?'

'All of them. Twelve-million. The entire Jewish race wiped-out in Europe. Only a few escaped. Many of those went to the new Jewish homeland set up in the Midwest of the United States which was donated to them by the American government. But you mustn't forget the Slavs, the Gypsies, the disabled, the insane and anyone who didn't fit their crazy Arian ideal. And how many tens of millions more will die on our side and theirs if you step aside now. You can't abandon these people. The world needs you.'

'You make a powerful argument. There is much more to you, Ariel than meets the eye,' said Churchill glowering over the top of his glasses. He leant forward over the desk. 'Now, what can your Spirits tell me about the Bolshevik scourge? Is that murderous dictator, Stalin to be toppled?'

'No,' Jimmy replied reluctantly. 'Actually, under his command the Red Army finally played a big part in defeating Hitler.'

Churchill snorted. 'They do say the Devil looks after his own.

'Someone said the very same about me.'

'So, this Soviet – Union, the Bolsheviks attempting to subdue its neighbours under the crushing yoke of its diabolical regime.'

'It is sometimes said that an Iron Curtain fell across Europe, one that stretched between the Baltic and the Adriatic.'

'Iron Curtain? That's a good phrase. I'll remember that,' said Churchill nodding appreciatively. 'But this Bolshevik imperialist expansion – we set our might against it? Crush it at birth? Is that why I am hailed as a hero?'

'Well,' Jimmy said slowly, 'after the defeat of Germany, you were a lone voice in urging the Allies to fight on and to bring freedom and democracy to the Russian occupied lands in the east. Unfortunately the world and this country had had its fill of war. You lose the nineteen-forty-eight election to the Labour party who bring the troops home.'

Churchill reached for his cigar box. 'Damned socialists. Spineless closet Bolsheviks to a man.'

He lit a cigar. After several puffs he mellowed. 'Yet after all these things, you say I am still hailed as a hero? A Great Briton?'

'Yes. And that is why you mustn't cave-in to your opponents. You must rally support in the House of Commons. You mustn't allow your enemies to back you into a corner and force you to resign.'

'Huh. I know my enemies are. It is those who claim they stand behind me that are of most concern.'

'The freedom of the world hangs in the balance. Use your power and influence to make them see reason as you have before. Make them understand.'

Churchill rested back in his chair. A hint of a smile formed on his lips. 'Once again you demonstrate a determination which puts mine to shame. But I fear, politically speaking, I am a busted flush. I no longer have the energy to fight this war on two fronts both against my enemies at home and those abroad. I have nothing left to offer. I once promised this country my blood, sweat, toil and tears of which I am now exhausted. Perhaps it is best if younger men take this country forward to a peace with honour.'

'Mr Churchill,' Jimmy said hesitantly, 'surely this is just one of those dark periods in your life you call your Black Dog? You can and will bounce back. I know you will, because I know what the future holds. Have you not always taken inspiration from Harry Lauder's song Keep Right on to the End of the Road? And so you must now.'

'Ariel, enough,' growled Churchill. 'I have allowed you to badger me more so than even my own dear wife.

'Mr Churchill, my sole purpose today was to speak with you, to try to persuade you not to give in to those who would sue for peace. This war is just, and it must be won. And won by you.'

'You perhaps have given me the good reason and the courage to continue with this righteous cause. I need to summon once more is the bloody-minded defiance to face down those who would see me gone.'

Churchill rose out of his chair and turned to the window. 'Tell me, Ariel, will the people of this proud land follow me through all these terrible tribulations?'

'It was said that you were the only reason the British nation continued to fight. Without your staunch resolve and determination the country would have quit long before now. You must not let them, or the world down.'

Churchill was unmoved and continued to stare out at the Downing Street lawns. 'From John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlborough through to my father, there is an unbroken lineage of Englishmen who, unerringly and with great self-sacrifice fought only for the noble cause of this land. I now too carry that immense burden.' Churchill took a lingering a draw on his cigar. 'Very well,' he said sharply. 'Ariel, I concede you have indeed made me see reason.'

A tear welled in Jimmy's eye. He had done it. He had put right his calamitous error and set history back on its true path.

'I face a motion of censure in the house tomorrow. My adversaries are sure to gather their supporters about them. I must gather mine and put my faith in God that right shall prevail.' Churchill puffed on his cigar. 'You are a remarkable woman, Ariel. And so now what shall we do with you? Turn you over to the police as I should?'

'The secret service tried to kill me earlier. They were planning to make it look like suicide.'

Churchill regarded him closely, but his expression didn't change. 'They tell me you are considered a potential danger to our security and the war effort. If you fell into the wrong hands, with your knowledge and the Nazi's ruthless means of obtaining information, this country's slender negotiating advantage at any peace table would be lost.'

Jimmy sat open mouthed. His assassination had been sanctioned at the highest level. Smitts wasn't some psychopathic rogue element within the secret service, he was under orders.

'That doesn't seem fair after all the help I've given you.'

'Quite,' said Churchill. 'And I agree, but when dealing with Hitler's Nazi tyranny, sometimes the British spirit of fair play must be set aside. For which I am truly sorry. Unfortunately this conflict is not being fought on the playing fields of Eton. This war, any war, is no more honourable than the one that preceded it. Death has already come to millions of innocents and if prolonged long than is necessary, to many millions more on both sides. I am sorry, Ariel.'

There was a knock at the door. A smartly dressed Downing Street official stepped into the room. Churchill didn't look surprised. Jimmy guessed there was a secret buzzer under the prime minister's desk.

'Higgs, please escort this dear lady to the kitchen. She will be in need of some hearty sustenance before the police arrive.'

Higgs held the door open and directed Jimmy towards the hallway.

'Whatever now my fate, I thank you, Mr Churchill. The world will be in your debt for evermore.' Jimmy held out his hand and Churchill gave it a single firm shake.

'Good luck with whatever your future brings, Ariel.'

32

Jimmy was led down to the basement into the vast kitchen that provided for all those that worked in the government offices above. It was a huge room with a high vaulted ceiling and even though it was bitterly cold outside, the warmth from the almost industrial preparation of food was extraordinary. It was almost unbearable, like a sauna.

Jimmy was offered a seat at the chopping-block table in the centre of the room. An army of cooks buzzed around the range stoves attending to bubbling pots and pans. Higgs called over to one of the cooks and told him to look after the guest then made his exit.

'What can we get yer?' asked a cheerful Cockney with a broad smile. 'Shouldn't really with rationing and all that, but I can do yer eggs bacon and fried bread. How's that?'

Sounded pretty good to Jimmy. 'Please.'

'Got real coffee too. D'ya like coffee? Don't see much of the real stuff nowadays. They keep it to themselves,' said the young cook jabbing his finger toward the ceiling.

Real coffee. Perhaps of all the things Jimmy had truly missed from his previous existence in the twenty-first century was proper coffee.

'Have you got a mug,' Jimmy asked eagerly.

'Got quite a few mugs here. Most of those blokes over there in fact,' said the Cockney pointing towards his fellow cooks. They instantly responded with cat calls and a salvo of tea towels hurled in his direction.

'Look, this ain't no place for a lady to eat. I'll cook your grub and you can have it in the breakfast room upstairs.'

Jimmy followed behind the Cockney cook as he carried the tray of food up one flight of stairs to the breakfast room. It was much less grand in concept compared to the cathedral-like kitchen. With its flat unadorned ceilings, simple mouldings and deep window seats it could have been a room in any other modest home. Yet incongruously a lavish mahogany table stood at its centre.

'Bit quieter in here, missus.'

The cook set the tray down on the table and pulled out a chair.

'What's yer name?'

Jimmy hesitated. Just who was he – Jimmy Delahoy, the young, dead, ducker and diver who'd had little opportunity to better himself in his own time; a condemned murderess awaiting execution or a fake Medium who so nearly caused a catastrophe.

'I'm known as Ariel.'

The Cockney cook sniffed. 'You ain't English then – not with a soapy name like that.'

Jimmy smiled – Ariel – it certainly had a modern soapy connotation.

'It's not my real name,' said Jimmy tapping the side of his nose.

'Ah,' said the Cockney, winking and tapping his nose likewise.

'My name's Billy, so if you need anything let me know.' Billy turned to leave but Jimmy called him back.

'Billy, this is a long shot, but we might have a mutual acquaintance. He knows someone who works here – Alfie Peach.'

Billy's smile of recognition instantly disappeared. He shuffled awkwardly. 'Nah, don't know no one by that name.'

Billy was a shocking liar, which perhaps explained why he had ended up in a prison cell with Alfie in the first place.

'Trust me, I'm not telling anyone about your past. I don't know what you did and I don't care, but can you get word to him that I'm here.'

'Told yer, don't know no one by that name,' Billy said firmly as he left the room.

Now Jimmy's mission with Churchill had been fulfilled, his thoughts had once again turned to saving his own neck – literally. The ridiculously vague notion of Alfie coming to his rescue before the police arrive was as unlikely as getting anything in the way of help from Billy.

He smiled glumly and tucked into his food. He was stuffed full as he wiped the plate clean with the last of the fried bread. For someone with the Sword of Damocles hanging over him, Jimmy still had a healthy appetite. He belched his appreciation and washed the food down with a mouthful of beautifully rich coffee. If they tried to hang him now the rope would snap. He rubbed his distended stomach and sat back in the chair to await his fate.

Jimmy never saw Billy again. Two burley plain-clothes policemen turned up within the hour and burst into the breakfast room.

'Are you, um, er, Elizabeth Bradshaw?'

For moment Jimmy considered saying no – he was Ariel, and that Lizzie Bradshaw had made a run for it an hour ago, but the younger officer had already produced a pair of handcuffs. Within moments he and Jimmy were chained together.

'I'm Detective Sergeant Good and this is Detective Constable Bard. Come with us.'

'So it's going to be the old Good Cop, Bard Cop routine is it?'

The two detectives exchanged puzzled glances.

'Never mind – too soon,' said Jimmy. 'Where are we going?'

'Where do ya think – a day trip to the zoo?'

After his rather unpleasant experience with Smitts, it was good to know he was in the safe and sarcastic hands of the Metropolitan Police.

Jimmy was led out of the rear of the building to a waiting car. To his surprise his useless barrister Bumpkin was sat in the back seat.

Jimmy eyed the unmarked Wolseley saloon. By modern standards it was tiny and not designed to comfortably accommodate three people in the rear.

'This will be cosy,' said Jimmy turning to his chained escort. 'Do I have to sit on your lap?'

The young detective glared at Jimmy then leant in through the car window. 'Mr Bumpkin, can I ask you to sit in the front, please sir.'

'What?' said Bumpkin distractedly as he tried to gather up the papers that had spilled out from his briefcase.

'The front, sir, please.'

'Look officer, there are private matters I need to discuss with my client. I won't have time at the police station. I need to speak to Mrs Bradshaw on the way.'

Young Sergeant Good hesitated then released the handcuff on his wrist. As Jimmy slid into the back of the car he collected up some of Bumpkin's papers that were scattered on his seat. The detective leaned in past him and snapped the free end of the handcuff onto Bumpkin's wrist.

'Officer, what do you think you are doing?' protested Bumpkin.

'Just a precaution, sir. We've been told she's a slippery character.'

Bumpkin huffed and puffed and made to protest again, but then accepted the situation. Jimmy handed him the gathered sheets.

'Thank you, Mrs Bradshaw,' said Bumpkin stuffing the returned documents into his case. 'I am sorry to have to inform you under these less than ideal circumstances that your appeal has failed.'

The car set off with a jolt. Sergeant Good leant back from the passenger seat.

'Mr Bumpkin, you do know Scotland Yard is only five minutes from here?'

'Oh yes, oh yes, my business with Mrs Bradshaw won't take long.' Having sorted his papers, Bumpkin found the sheet he was looking for. 'This is an application for a driving licence. Your signature I believe?'

Jimmy looked at the creased formal document. It was stamp dated 6th of June 1935. Obviously a clever fake, but one that was good enough to get him hanged by. In a modern court the document would have been easily discredited by a sharp defence lawyer. They would have had no trouble in casting serious doubt upon its authenticity by posing the question, "Why would a humble housewife pay five-pounds, a month's wages then, to obtain a driving licence when there was little hope or expectation of ever getting behind the wheel of a car?"

Could the instructor be found who taught her to drive, and when did they do so without attracting the attention of friends and neighbours in the squalid slums of the Isle of Dogs?

'So therefore,' continued Bumpkin, 'it is my unfortunate duty to tell you that the sentence will stand and . . .' He mopped his brow with a handkerchief. '. . . and well, you-you shall be returned to prison forthwith to await – er, to await, s – s – sentence.'

With screeching tyres DC Bard slung the car around a turn throwing Jimmy and Bumpkin on top of each other in the back seat. Bumpkin looked appalled by the innocent contact as he struggled to restore a respectable distance between them. Jimmy wasn't over enamoured by the intimate with his sweaty Brief either. Another sudden turn the other way sent Jimmy flying back onto his own side quickly joined by Bumpkin. With the two once again heaped together, the car screeched to a halt. A man standing in the middle of the road had frantically waved them down.

A car was slewed across the road with someone lying face down in the middle of it. At first glance it wasn't clear what had happened.

DC Bard wound down his window.

'Get that car out of the way. This is urgent police business.'

'We've got a man dying here. He's been knocked down,' said the man. 'Hit and run.'

Having pushed Bumpkin back into his seat, Jimmy finally managed to see what was going on. The Good Samaritan attending to the casualty looked familiar.

'Just get that thing moved,' growled Bard.

The rescuer got to his feet and approached the police car. 'Spare a thought for this poor fella, can't yer? He's not long for this world. Gi's a hand?''

'Nor will you be if you don't get that thing shifted.'

As the familiar face drew level with Bard's window, he stooped down pointing at the rear wheel.

'You've got a puncture.'

'Can't have,' said Bard.

'Flat as you like. Take a look.'

The detective reluctantly got out of the car.

'Looks fine to me.'

'Take a closer look.'

The detective bent down.

There was a dull thud and DC Bard hit the floor. He would for some time be oblivious to the fact that he had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Mickey palmed the cosh out of sight.

'Eh, copper, your old China don't look so good.'

Sergeant Good twisted the driver's mirror to see what happening. Unsure, he got out of the car.

Mickey was quickly at his side. 'He just collapsed.'

Sergeant Good turned to him angrily. 'What happened? He was fine a minute ago.'

Mickey crouched down on his haunches. 'Dunno.'

Detective Good dropped down on one knee and turned the unconscious DC Bard onto his back. While Good shook his colleague in an effort to stir him back into life, Mickey got to his feet and slipped the cosh out of his pocket. A moment later there were two sleeping policemen in the road.

Bumpkin had witnessed the whole thing and was cowering in the back seat.

'I'll give you money,' he whimpered. 'No violence please.'

Mickey yanked open the back door of the car and pulled Jimmy out with Bumpkin tumbling beside him not realising they were chained together.

'What's he in for?' asked Mickey.

'He's not under arrest, he's my barrister.'

'God help yer.'

Mickey effortlessly picked one of the young detectives up and slung him in the back of the police car. Mickey stooped down to move the other detective when Jimmy waved his manacled hand.

'We need to get the key.'

Mickey threw the second unconscious policeman into the back of the car and propped him up against his colleague like a pair of bookends. He set about rifling their pockets then pulled out of the car in alarm. Two constables in the distance had spotted the strange goings-on and were hurrying towards them.

'More coppers. Quick get in the car.'

'You said you couldn't drive.'

'I can't.'

'But I can,' said the mortally wounded hit-and-run victim miraculously restored to life as he sprung up and dusted himself down.

'Look ata state a ma clothes.'

'Who's he?' queried Jimmy.

'That's Costas the Bubble,' said Mickey. He turned aggressively towards Bumpkin. 'You ain't 'eard that, right.'

'No, no,' Bumpkin said cowering in the back seat. He tried to wipe his brow but only succeeded in punching himself in the face with Jimmy's handcuffed fist.

'Costas, get us out of 'ere as quick as you like,' said Mickey ushering Jimmy and Bumpkin into the back of the car.

Costas was a natural Boy-Racer. He took great delight in slinging the heavily laden vehicle about the road at breakneck speed. With squealing tyres and with scant regard for the comfort of his passengers, he roared past everything in his way.

'How did you know where I was?' asked Jimmy.

'A little birdy told me,' grinned Mickey.

'So, where to now?'

'Change of plan,' Mickey said bluntly while casting his eyes towards Bumpkin. 'We need to get rid of him.'

The quivering barrister recoiled. 'I – I must warn you, mister––'

'Shut it!' growled Mickey. 'We need a knife.'

The blood drained from Bumpkin's face. There was no doubt at that moment, even going at fifty miles-an-hour, he wouldn't have hesitated to jump out of the car if he wasn't attached to Jimmy.

'I beg you, no violence.'

Bumpkin began hyperventilating and making distraught mewing sounds as Mickey rummaged through the glove box.

'This'll do,' he said holding up a glinting flick-knife. At that point Bumpkin fainted and fell into Jimmy's lap.

Jimmy pushed him off as Mickey grabbed Bumpkin's handcuff and tried to pick the lock with the point of the blade. Bumpkin briefly came round but immediately passed-out again with a desperate wail when he saw the gleaming knife over his wrist.

'Blade's too big. I can't do it,' said Mickey. Without asking he pulled Costas' cravat from his neck.

'Hey, what-a-you-a doin'?'

'We'll have to blindfold him and sort these out later.'

Moments later Bumpkin looked like a battlefield casualty with the white cravat wound tightly around his head and a single opening for his mouth. He briefly stirred while being bound, but slumped lifeless on the seat again once Mickey had tied-off the end. 'Where are we going?' asked Jimmy.

Mickey put a finger to his lips. 'We need to check if your friend 'ere's really akip first.'

Mickey turned and put his fingers under Bumpkin's chin and lifted his head.

'Is he still asleep?' whispered Jimmy.

With a short sharp movement, Mickey coshed Bumpkin on the head.

'Yeah, he is now.'

'So where are we going?' asked Jimmy, pushing the podgy dead-weight of the barrister away.

'I reckon me and Costas will have to lie low until all this blows over. What with Costas half-hinching this motor and the other business with the coppers.'

'So, where are we going?'

'A yard near Canning Town. Alfie said he was going to meet us there.'

In a seedy industrial area off The Highway in Wapping, near the docks, Costas screeched up to a set of barbed-wire topped gates. He slammed on the brakes, stopping but inches from the solid woodwork. He sat aggressively revving the engine until unseen hands within the yard pulled the gates open. Costas dropped the clutch and the car shot inside.

Mickey climbed out. 'Stay 'ere.'

Within a few minutes Mickey return with a pair of bolt croppers.

''Ere we go,' he said sliding the steel links into the jaws of the cutter. Almost effortlessly the hardened steel blade sliced through the chain. Once free, Jimmy instinctively reared away from the comatose heap of sweaty humanity next to him.

'What's going to happen to him?' asked Jimmy turning to Bumpkin.

'I'll let Alfie decide. He 'ain't no fan of them Briefs.'

Jimmy stepped out of the car. They were in a scrapyard surrounded by towering stacks of broken old bangers.

'Best wait in 'ere until Alfie arrives,' said Mickey leading him toward a run-down yard office. It was guarded by a snarling Alsatian dog that strained to get at them from the end of a short chain.

Mickey stepped forward, tickled the dog's ears and then commanded it to sit. 'That's it. Easy Henry – easy boy. She's a friend.'

The dog quietened down and sat panting with its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth. Jimmy warily walked past the now docile creature fearing its pacification was only due to its master being at its side.

'Does it bite?'

'Only people it don't like. Just like me.'

Jimmy was offered a seat inside the grotty shack that passed for an office. Having seen the state of the threadbare chair, which was only held together with grease and grime, he said he would prefer to stand.

'Sorry this 'ain't no better, missus. Costas was involved in a bit of bovver last night. We can't use his gaff. '

Dismayed, Jimmy cast his eye around the hovel of an office with its piles of dog-eared paperwork, overfull ashtrays and full to the ceiling with dirty old car parts.

'Did Alfie say how long he would be?'

'Nah, sorry, missus. Hopefully by tonight. If not . . .' Mickey shrugged.

Jimmy desperately hoped so too. The prospect of having to sleep overnight in that place was dire – cold, dirty and nowhere even to properly lie out made even the prospect of a dank prison cell inviting. Even the thought of finding a shop doorway and sharing it with a flea-bitten tramp was marginally more inviting.

'Alfie won't let yer down,' said Mickey with a wink. 'Another little birdy tells me 'e's quite taken wiv' yer.'

'Taken with me?'

Mickey winked again.

It was the wink that was worrying. In its own right, 'Taken with him,' meant nothing, but the wink changed everything. If Alfie had lecherous designs upon him, it was a cause for concern on many levels. Jimmy tried to dismiss the thought as Mickey set about freeing him from the handcuff with a lock pick.

In the early evening there was activity at the gate.

Mickey popped his head around the door. 'You're gonna be all right.'

It was dark in the yard. Men with dim yellow lamps pulled back the gates and a dark coloured van rolled into the yard. There was a small Red Cross sign on the side and a brass bell on the front wing. Jimmy assumed someone had taken pity on Bumpkin and had arrange for him to receive treatment. In the last few hours Mickey hadn't taken any chances. The slightest indication that Bumpkin was stirring meant the cosh and the useless barrister yet again became reacquainted.

The driver's door opened and a figure in the shadows slid out from behind the wheel. Mickey shook the new arrivals hand and pointed towards Jimmy in the office. The pair walked across the yard. Jimmy waited in trepidation not knowing how he should respond to his smitten benefactor – a woman still in deep mourning over the loss of her husband – a woman emotionally scarred and numb to amorous advances – a woman unable to love again. Worst ways, Jimmy would have to tell him to just bog-off and keep his hands to himself.

As the pair moved into the light, he finally saw the new arrival. It was Rosie. His gorgeous amazing Rosie had ridden to the rescue. Jimmy's heart ached for that girl.

'Mickey, you know how to treat a lady,' said Rosie, casting her twinkling eyes around the grubby office.

'Alfie said nuffin' about takin' 'er to the Ritz,' said Mickey.

'Ginny,' said Rosie, 'we need to get you out of here, quick. I've never seen so many coppers. And they're combing the streets for you. You must be at the top of the 'Most Wanted' list. Let's get a move on before it's too late.'

'What's happened to Alfie?'

Rosie raised her eyes. 'He's helping the police with their enquiries – again!'

Jimmy glanced at the ambulance. 'What, we're going in that?'

'It's perfect. No one would think you would go on the run in an ambulance. And,' she added casually, 'I need to get it back.'

'To where?'

'The asylum of course. It was in the garage and no one was using it, so . . .'

'Won't they notice it's gone missing?'

'Doubt it. The place is in uproar. That beastly Captain Willoughby has been appointed as the new Senior Psychiatrist. No one knows whether they're coming or going at the moment. He has taken it upon himself to reassess all the patients and interview every member of the staff. It is bedlam. Mrs Hobday has left. Others have refused to do the extra duties he's imposed.'

Rosie took Jimmy's hand and led him across the yard. Bumpkin remained slumped in the back of the stolen car and, thanks to Mickey's over-exuberance with the cosh, was still in the land of Nod.

'What about him?' Jimmy asked.

Rosie turned to Mickey. 'Take him back to where you found him and leave him there.'

'Look, I don't wanna cross Alfie's girl, but apart from the place swarming wiv old Bill, Costas has left, and me, nor none of those other mugs can drive.'

Rosie hesitated for a moment. 'We'll have to take him.'

'What, unconscious?' queried Jimmy? 'What if he wakes up?'

Mickey drew his cosh. 'Do you wanna borrow this?'

'No thanks,' said Jimmy. 'Bumpkin's already suffering from over-exposure to lead.'

'Tie him up,' said Rosie, 'then put him in the back of the van. We'll let him out in the middle of nowhere.'

'What if he grasses?' said Mickey. 'We'll go down for a long stretch.'

'I'm sure he won't give us away. He is Ginny's Brief after all.'

One of the things Jimmy loved about Rosie was her sweet innocence. He had to remind himself it was a very different world in which he was living, not the unprincipled rat-race of his time, but her faith in Bumpkin keeping his mouth shut was in all likelihood to prove sadly misplaced.

The decision wasn't open to given no further time to debate. The ominous wail of air raid sirens suddenly filled the air. The lights of the noble maritime city, the epicentre of the greatest empire the world had ever known, fell into total darkness. From all directions searchlight beams began to scan the inky black skies.

33

Jimmy held on grimly while Rosie drove the ambulance with a certain élan, untroubled by the extreme likelihood of a catastrophic accident at any moment. Jimmy assumed incorrectly that theirs was to be a stealthy getaway, creeping unobtrusively out of the capital's back streets into the relative safety of the Essex countryside.

Jimmy casually raised the matter as they raced along the very dark, empty highways at a reckless speed that hadn't just left skid marks in the road.

Rosie advised him confidently that, 'Ambulances are always rushing places. When do you ever see one going slowly?'

Jimmy considered suggesting that is was when the occupants had a not unreasonable expectation getting out of the thing alive, but he said nothing and closed his eyes.

Although he fiercely gripped the hand-hold on the door, he was still mercilessly tossed around the cab as Rosie relished in making wild, last-minute turns oblivious to the discomfort of her passengers. Bumpkin more so than Jimmy. As Rosie skidded around each corner, dull thuds were heard from the rear compartment. Even if Bumpkin was awake, trussed up as he was with his hands tied behind his back, he could do little to stop himself being propelled around like a ball on a pinball table.

They had only been driving for a few minutes when behind them they heard the bombs falling in the heart of London. Flashes of light from the blasts were reflected in the shiny brass bells mounted on top of the ambulance's front wings.

'It's the docks they're after again,' said Rosie.

'Mickey's scrapyard isn't that far from them. Have they got a shelter?'

'If I know that lot, they'll take shelter in the pub.'

Soon the blacked-out streets of London gave way to the impenetrable darkness of the countryside. If the roads of the capital had a reasonably predictable logic about them, then keeping the ambulance in one piece on the medieval pattern of winding lanes in rural Essex was pure guesswork, unaided by street lamps, white lines, cat's eyes or a decent set of brakes.

Rosie did well until from around a bend a large tree suddenly appeared that had no intention of getting out of the way. The ambulance performed a neat trick by stopping before Rosie and Jimmy did, which without modern contrivances such as seatbelts and air bags, ensured they both painfully shot forward and cracked their heads on the windscreen. It was followed by a thump and a cry from behind as Bumpkin demonstrated that he too was somewhat out of kilter with the motion of the ambulance. Although they weren't travelling at any great speed, Jimmy head spun from the impact and it took a few moments for it to clear.

'You okay?' asked Jimmy rubbing the growing lump on his forehead.

'Oops,' said Rosie trying to smile but only managing to wince.

'Any idea where we are,' asked Jimmy.

'We're just before that new fancy Southend Arterial Road. They call it a dual carriage way, like two roads together. I don't think it will catch on, mind. Never seen more than one car going each way at a time. Anyway, the asylum's only a couple of miles the other side of it.'

Rosie restarted the engine and immediately steam began belching out of the radiator. She reversed it out of the tree and back onto the roadway. Even as the engine idled great clouds of vapour swirled wraith-like into the air.

The throbbing ache in Jimmy's head subsided. 'I'd better check on Bumpkin. You stay here. I don't want him to see you.'

Jimmy opened the rear door of the ambulance. Bumpkin was in a heap on the floor still with his hands tied, but the scarf that had acted as a blindfold had slipped down around his neck.

'Mrs Bradshaw, I must protest,' spluttered Bumpkin. 'I insist you release me this instant. I am in some distress. This is reckless behaviour.'

Jimmy reckoned it was a good a place as any to dump him out. He dragged Bumpkin from the back of the ambulance and set him down on his feet. He then pulled a blanket over his head.

'Mrs Bradshaw – Please!' protested Bumpkin, his voice muffled by the thick cloth.

'It's a cold night. You'll need it.'

'As your legal counsel I must insist . . .'

'Don't take it off before we're gone.'

'Mrs Bradshaw,' said Bumpkin, 'I cannot condone this reckless course of behaviour. You must release me this instant and turn yourself in to the police.'

Jimmy took a deep breath as he considered the request. 'If I untie you, will you give me your word that you won't reveal anything about where we are?'

'Of course,' Bumpkin said instantly, which was way too fast for Jimmy's liking.

'So you swear to give your word of honour?'

'Please untie me and I'll swear.'

'Swear first.'

'If you insist.' Bumpkin stood to his full height with his shoulders back as if he were addressing a court room. 'I swear to abide by my oath of confidentiality to my clients.'

'So help you God,' added Jimmy. 'And cross your heart and hope to die.'

Bumpkin harrumphed again. 'I swear and cross my heart and hope to die.'

'No vainites?'

'Mrs Bradshaw, please.'

'Swear,' demanded Jimmy.

'Oh, if you insist – No vainites.'

'Very good, Mr Bumpkin,' said Jimmy as he untied the knotted cord. 'Can I suggest you tell the police you had no idea how you got here as you were knocked unconscious and woke up in a ditch?'

'Yes, a ditch – a sound idea. Knocked unconscious for the whole journey – yes, a sound idea.'

Before leaving, Jimmy issued a stern warning. 'Don't let me down. Because if you do . . .' He jabbed a finger into Bumpkin's flabby stomach. The lawyer squealed and doubled up as though he had been shot. 'Be afraid, be very afraid.'

Bumpkin held his stomach and spluttered, 'You – you – you can rely on me, Mrs Bradshaw. My – my – my oath of confidentiality is sacrosanct. Yes, you can trust me.'

'I hope so.' Jimmy jabbed him again for good measure. 'And don't take that off until we're gone.'

'Trust me, Mrs Bradshaw.'

Jimmy clambered back into the ambulance. He nodded to Rosie who immediately set off into a dense fog of their own making.

'Do you trust him?'

'He gave me his word not to look.'

Rosie glanced in her wing mirror. 'He's already pulled the blanket off.'

Jimmy swore under his breath.

'Don't worry this has got false number plates anyway. I switched them over.'

'Never-the-less, he knows it's an ambulance with a big dent in the front. The quicker we can ditch it and get going, the better.'

'Get going?'

'To wherever you and Alfie are helping me escape. I think Ireland would be a good bet. I've got family links there – in Galway.'

'Ginny,' Rosie said hesitantly. 'Look, Alfie didn't say anything about helping you escape to Ireland. He wanted to meet you again to thank you in person for saving his life. I'm sure he will help you as much as he can, he's got connections and favours he can call in, papers and all that, but as for getting you out of the country . . .'

'So where are we going then?'

'I thought the asylum would be a good place to lie low until Alfie sorts out his latest bit of bother.'

'How can I lie low in a place crowded with people?' But even as Jimmy dismissed the notion, he realised it wasn't such a ridiculous idea. If it was solely down to the inmate's dobbing him in, then he could have easily lived in the place for years without anyone noticing.

'Hopefully it'll only be for a couple of days and then Alfie might be able to sort something out.'

Jimmy glanced over to the light of his life, stunningly beautiful and innocent. He didn't want to argue with her, but her proposal lacked the practical detail for him to be completely sold on the idea.

'I thought you could hide in one of the air raid shelters. They've got beds set up and everything.' Rosie gave him a sweet smile. 'I'm a regular visitor there now. No one will notice me coming and going to bring you food.'

Jimmy stared out of the window into the darkness. The country was still in the grip of a desperate winter. Holed-up in a freezing cold air raid shelter, even for a couple of days, had dying horribly of hypothermia written all over it. In police terminology, he would have literally become a hardened criminal.

'Is there nowhere else?'

'It is so difficult with the war on and everything. Our house is small. And people notice things. Strangers coming and going. I don't think mum would understand. She says with rationing there's hardly enough to feed us as it is.'

They fell into a thoughtful silence as the ambulance, which had exhausted its steam and had started sounding very distressed, trundled through the winding lanes.

Rosie slowed down as the gates of the asylum loomed into view.

'Right, duck down in case anyone's watching,' said Rosie as she hopped out of the cab.

Jimmy bent low in the seat. Above the noise of the expiring diesel engine that was rattling and clattering like a demented knitting machine, he heard the scrape of the huge wrought iron gates being opened.

Within moments Rosie was back behind the wheel.

'Keep your head down and I'll take it slow.'

With the engine nearing meltdown nothing beyond slow was remotely possible.

The ambulance came to a halt beside one of the out-lying air raid shelters. With the headlights doused it was very quiet and very dark. A thought occurred to Jimmy.

'What about if there's an air raid?'

'Well, you'll be safe in here.'

'No, I meant the others. People will be using this.'

'I'm sure no one will notice.'

Jimmy couldn't argue with her glorious smile.

'Stay here, I'll open it up.' Moments later she was beckoning him over. 'I can't put the light on until the door's closed.'

Jimmy stepped into the shelter and Rosie pushed the heavy metal door shut behind them. She flicked on the light. It was a bare bulb that was draped in a decade's accumulation of cobwebs.

'This isn't too bad,' said Rosie inspecting the bunk beds wedged into the corner. She plumped up a pillow and both promptly choked on the dust. She tutted. 'They don't look after this place, do they.'

Rosie turned apologetically to Jimmy. 'Sorry, Ginny, this is beastly I know. It won't be for long. I'm sure Alfie will sort something out. But first, he is trying to get you a new identity card.'

Rosie pecked him on the cheek and departed. Outside Jimmy heard her furiously churning over the starter to try to resuscitate the flat-lined engine. Only very reluctantly did it gasp back into life. As soon as the two remaining viable cylinders half-heartedly fired, she dropped the clutch and the ambulance limped away to the garage, on what would inevitably be its last short journey before going to that great scrapyard in the sky.

Jimmy stripped-down the makeshift bed and shook out the bedding. Not only was it the world's greatest repository for dust, but also home to a sizeable colony of small inhabitants that scuttled each and every way when disturbed. Jimmy wasn't usually squeamish about the odd spider, but there were some seriously mean looking biggies amongst them, who appeared most reluctant to seek alternative accommodation. He gently encouraged them to move on with wafts of his hand and judicious shaking.

'Go on, away you go. Toddle off.'

It didn't take long to metamorphose from Dr Doolittle into the Terminator.

'Two seconds – or you're so dead!'

It wasn't a fair contest.

Jimmy tossed the bedding aside. The spiders had stood their ground and won. If they weren't leaving he would rather freeze than snuggle up all night with that eight-legged menagerie.

Jimmy didn't have time to feel sorry for himself before a distant air raid siren cranked up its wail. It was time to hide. He flicked off the light. It plunged the shelter into total darkness causing him to walk straight into a wall. Nursing his nose, he felt his way along the rough brickwork towards the bunk bed. There was a space at the end to crouch down and hide out of sight.

An uncomfortable few minutes past before he heard the approach of footsteps and then the door swinging open.

'Move along now. No dawdling,' boomed the Major's distinctive voice.

The light went on and a ghost-like gaggle of inmates shuffled into the shelter. Amongst them was dear Ethel.

'Hurry up, hurry up. We need to get a blackout before Jerry paratroopers home-in on the light,' urged the Major. 'Where is our damn cavalry? Have they withdrawn? More worried about their precious horses than fighting a war.'

As the shelter filled, Jimmy emerged from his hiding place and mingled unobtrusively amongst the arrivals. No one seemed to notice him even though Jimmy glaringly stood out from the smock-wearing assemblage by wearing regular clothes. That was no one except Ethel, who, even through a jostling mass of bodies, made directly for him.

She squeezed through and stood at his side without acknowledging his presence. She gently nudged him in the ribs and unwound the blanket from her shoulders. Jimmy took the hint and draped it around him like a shawl.

Still looking away, she said under her breath, 'It's lovely to see you, Jimmy.'

'You too.'

They stood side by side in silence. The Major continued to bark out orders.

'Pay attention now. I want you all to hold your breath. It's cold in here and when you breathe out you are making a lot of vapour which the Jerries will spot.'

'Not inside,' cried out a reasonably sane voice.

'These Jerries are damned cunning you know, damned cunning. Now, after three.'

Most ignored him because they were too far gone even to grasp the concept, while others disobeyed orders and continued to do what nature intended. Those who did try to assist in the war effort were soon blue of face and at the point of collapse.

'I'm in hiding,' whispered Jimmy. 'Don't tell anyone.'

'I know,' Ethel replied quietly. 'Alice told me you were here.'

'Oh,' said Jimmy.

Then the whole shelter fell anxiously silent. Even the truly mad stopped their ceaseless chatter. The unsynchronised thrum of the approaching formation of Luftwaffe bombers vibrated through the brickwork.

'They're low,' said a scared voice.

'It's something round here they're after,' said another.

'Fords,' said someone else.

'Tilbury docks,' said yet another.

'No talking,' boomed the Major. 'Keep holding your breath.'

There was a reassuring whump of Ack-Ack fire in the distance. The first bombs exploded not too far distant and shook the shelter bringing down dust and plaster from the ceiling.

'It's the railway – Shenfield.'

'Romford more like.'

'If they were aiming at Fords in Dagenham, they missed.'

'Quiet that man!' barked the Major.

'Jimmy,' whispered Ethel, 'you can't stay here. Captain Willoughby . . .' She pulled a face.

'I know,' hissed Jimmy. He daren't explain without implicating Rosie.

'Rosie is a lovely girl . . .' Ethel said with an enigmatic smile.

Jimmy rocked on his heels. 'Who told you – Alice?'

She didn't answer.

'I'm hoping this is going to be for one night only.'

Ethel turned to him in concern. 'Jimmy, you must find a way to return to your world. This isn't where you're meant to be.'

'There's no way back for me. I am now what I am. The person I was in my world is dead.'

'Think, Jimmy, there must be a way. Your world is so wonderful. How Alice and I yearn to see just something of the place you've come from – to be a part of it, to experience it even for a moment.'

Jimmy didn't have the heart to burst her starry-eyed bubble. His world wasn't anyway close to the utopia she imagined it to be. What was the true measure of happiness – material possessions, good health and relative security or real humanity and a genuine selfless spirit of kindness? Bar the food, the smoking and everyone trying to kill him, including the Luftwaffe, this period would have been a pretty good time to live in.

Ethel turned and cocked her ear towards an empty space.

'Really,' Ethel said in surprise. 'I'll tell him.'

Jimmy waited to be apprised of Alice's latest revelation.

'Alice says that you do know how to get back to your own world.'

Jimmy raised an eyebrow. 'I know? How do I know? And if I do, I must have forgotten. You couldn't ask her for any clues could you?'

'She says she mustn't tell you. You must work it out for yourself.'

Jimmy smiled wistfully. 'You can tell Alice that I'll rack my brains.'

'She's standing next to you, you can tell her yourself.'

'Thanks, Alice, I'll work on it,' said Jimmy directing it at thin air. As he did so, a question he had always been meaning to ask popped into his head.

'Ethel, can I ask, who exactly is Alice?'

Ethel frowned as though it was obvious. 'My sister.'

Jimmy nodded and would have been happy to leave it at that. There was nothing to be gained from challenging her delusion. An imaginary friend or sister, it amounted to the same thing.

'She died,' said Ethel.

'That's very sad.'

'It was a long time ago now. She was only a baby. They wouldn't let me go to her.'

Jimmy only had to witness the faraway look in her eye to realise that this was a real emotive memory she was recalling from her childhood, not some fantasy conjured by her tortured mind.

'I knew she wasn't well, didn't I, Alice. I was only five-years old, but ever since the day Alice was born there was a special bond between us. I made a promise to her on the day she came into the world that, as her older sister, I would always look after her and protect her and never let her come to any harm. But they stopped me going to you, didn't they, Alice. You cried and cried. Grandma said you were just seeking attention. She said you must learn. As your cries became evermore desperate, I knew you were ill. It was an infant's cry for help from those who shouldn't have hesitated to give it. I knew if someone would fetch the doctor, he could save you. I begged them to go to you and then they would see how ill you were. Grandma told me I was a rude and silly child and insisted that my mother took me to my room. Mother wanted to go to you, she really did, but Grandma stopped her. The child must learn she said. I was locked in my room and when your cries finally stopped, I knew. Later people, men dressed in black suits came and took you away.'

Jimmy squeezed Ethel's hand. 'I'm really sorry.'

Ethel smiled. 'I was playing the garden when you came back to me, didn't you, Alice. You told me not to tell anyone because they might think I was silly and a bit daft in the head. But I didn't care. Mother and Grandma could say what they like. They beat me and made me go hungry, trying to stop me playing with Alice. They even sent me away to Aunty Agnes to work on the farm, but they came between us once and I vowed I'd never ever let them do it again.'

Jimmy squeezed her hand again. He felt oddly ashamed. He had sneered at these people in the asylum. Laughing at their demented behaviour, mocking their madness, but behind many, like Ethel, like the Major, like probably many others kept hidden from the rest of society, there was a genuine story of tragedy. Minds broken by events beyond their control. Their souls irrevocably tarnished by guilt and loss.

'Is Alice still a little girl?' asked Jimmy.

Ethel glanced towards the space at her side. 'Alice says, she doesn't think a gentleman should discuss a woman's age.' Ethel then leant towards Jimmy and whispered, 'She's a little sensitive about being . . .' Ethel hesitated and mouthed – 'Fifty.'

With the Major still berating those around him who had failed to do their bit for King and country by continuing to breathe, Jimmy asked, 'Where's Reg? Is he not in charge?'

'Captain Willoughby said he wasn't up to the job – his ears.'

'Harsh.'

'We hate that man, don't we, Alice. Anyway, we heard Reg has now volunteered for the Observer Corps.'

'His eyesight's better than his hearing then?'

'Not much, but he does make a lovely cup of tea.'

Around midnight the all-clear sounded. Jimmy was out on his feet. If he wasn't holding onto the bed post when those squashed around him drifted towards the door, he would probably have simply fallen over out of sheer exhaustion.

As the occupants of the shelter exited into the freezing night air, Ethel deliberately held back. She stood in front of Jimmy's crouching figure at the end of the bunk bed to keep him out of sight. She had snatched blankets off two departing inmates who had barely noticed the deft removal from their shoulders. She passed them around her back towards Jimmy.

She was the last to leave the shelter. The Major, who was shepherding the unruly troop back to the asylum, boomed, 'And turn that light out!'

Ethel stepped across the threshold and raised her arm as if to flick the switch, but slammed the door behind her, leaving the light still burning. Jimmy wearily emerged from hiding. With an effort, he stood up on his bone-achingly tired legs. He longingly eyed the bunk bed, but he couldn't bring himself to sleep in the company of all those bugs.

He spread one blanket across a narrow bench that was against the wall and settled beneath the other two. Comfortable it was not, nor cosy. No matter how tightly he rolled himself in the double blanket, he still couldn't get warm and no matter in which position he lay, one or more bolt heads securing the bench slats to the base dug painfully into his flesh. He was also hungry and he desperately needed the toilet, but never-the-less, as a mark of his exhaustion, he was asleep within minutes.

34

He awoke surprised to discover that even under the desperately uncomfortable circumstances he had still managed to get a couple of hours of rest. But that brief respite had allowed his earlier exploits to catch up with him – near strangulation, leaps from windows, fighting with Smitts and crashing ambulances. Every joint ached and muscles had stiffened in places he didn't think he even had muscles. The protruding bolts in the bench had left his body covered in small indentation, like the dimples on a golf ball. But worst of all was the cold. His discomfort had gone beyond shivering and chattering teeth. He had no feeling at all in his extremities and his face was stiff with numbness. He flexed his fingers to restore circulation. They moved only sluggishly and without sensation as though they were robotic appendages. It was as if at his spine had turned to ice and was freezing the marrow in his bones turning him rigid from the inside out.

He stood up and drew the third blanket around him. He turned off the light and pulled open the shelter door. It was still dark. A blast of freezing air whipped across his face forcing him to instantly retreat back inside. With the light on, he raised his arms up to the bare bulb hoping to glean a little warmth from it, but his hands were so lacking in sensation that he could have plunged them into molten lead and not flinched.

Jimmy collapsed onto the bench taking in great gulps of air. He had been fiercely running on the spot for what he imagined was at least half-an-hour. He was shivering now, which medically was probably a good sign, even if it hadn't actually chased any of the bone-aching chill from his body.

Once more he looked outside. The first grey light of dawn was on the horizon. He prayed someone would come soon. He prayed someone would come soon with food, hot food and a hot comforting drink. It revolted him to think it, but he would have even eaten the slop they dished-up in the asylum – every scrap and without hesitation or complaint.

He sat on the bench and rocked back and forth constantly flexing his fingers and toes to stave off the cold while fantasising about tucking into a Full English breakfast. Imagining the smells and aromas, especially of bacon – of slicing into a runny golden fried egg on fried bread and popping it into his mouth – of eating a mouthful of juicy sausage covered with a squirt of mustard – a hot mug of fresh coffee to wash it down. The fantasy soon turned into an agonising torment.

Then there was a noise. Even within the thick reinforced walls of the shelter, he heard the approach of a deep growling vibration. As it grew louder, he dared to open the door to see what was happening. The dawn was clear and bright and the sight he witnessed banished in an instant any physical misery.

Rising as one into the blue sky was a squadron of Spitfires. The pulsating power of six Merlin engines made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He guessed they had just taken off from the RAF base at nearby Hornchurch, possibly setting out on a dawn patrol over the Channel. Jimmy watched awestruck as they passed overhead deafening him with their meaty roar. He could have wept with joy. He had occasionally seen a single Spitfire perform at airshows, but never a whole squadron battle-ready and in flight.

He watched them until they were but tiny black dots in the sky and the sound of their engines had faded away to be replace by the gentle sound of the dawn chorus.

Jimmy was still staring spellbound at the now empty sky when a voice behind him called out, 'Oi, missus!'

Jimmy spun round in alarm. It was a young lad, no more than fourteen. He was wearing clothes Jimmy would have expected the boy's grandfather to have worn – flat cap, plaid jacket and baggy trousers tied at the waist with a bit of string. He was standing next to an old bike with a large wicker delivery basket on the front.

Jimmy stared at him unsure what to do. The boy was bound to give him away.

'You Ginny?' the boy asked hesitantly.

Jimmy didn't know what to say. Was he to deny it?

'Because if you are,' continued the boy, 'I'm to take you to our house. Rosie sent me.'

Jimmy's heart fluttered at the mere mention of her name, and now she had sent him a saviour. His yearning for that precious girl was simply overwhelming.

Jimmy glanced at the bike. 'Is it far?'

'Nah, jump on,' the boy said indicating towards the crossbar.

Jimmy glanced at the bike again his eyes narrowing. 'How far?'

'Dunno. The farm's just up the way.' The lad shrugged. 'Ten minutes about?'

They were an unholy marriage with Jimmy perched on the crossbar and with the young lad puffing and panting and pedalling furiously as they wobbled along the undulating lanes. On one very steep descent Jimmy clung onto the handlebars with ever whitening knuckles, hardly daring to look, as they accelerated to breakneck speed.

'You might want to brake a bit,' Jimmy suggested casually disguising the fact that he was in fear of his life.

'The brakes is on.'

Jimmy closed his eyes. He would rather not know in advance which tree was going to kill him. They hit a rough patch of ground and Jimmy was bounced repeatedly off the crossbar. Each bump inflicting a new and painful bruise on his tender backside. Finally the bike slewed to a halt. Jimmy gingerly slid off the crossbar rubbing his abused buttocks.

'Mum!' bellowed the boy as he dashed inside the old farmhouse.

Jimmy waited beside the abandoned bike. The farmhouse was a simple building – flat fronted with plain white render, a door in the centre with the front elevation punctuated by four symmetrically placed windows. Every child who had ever drawn a house drew one exactly like this. It even had a chimney in the middle of the roof with smoke rising from it.

A short stout woman wearing an apron emerged from the house.

'You must be Ginny?' she said coldly.

Jimmy smiled uncertainly. The fatted calf could rest easy over his arrival.

'I'm doin' a favour for Rosie and not that no good brother of hers. The way he carries on, my brother Eric, their poor father, would be turning in his grave if he wuz alive today. So would my dear husband, Alby. God rest his soul.' The woman reluctantly extended her hand. 'Anyway, I'm Dotty. Pleased to meet you.'

Jimmy was led to his room accompanied by Dotty issuing a long list of do's and don'ts. Most of which were understandable in view of wartime austerity – hot water, the limited use of – electricity, the lack of – food, the non-wasting of, even though they had the privileged access to the farm produce. Perhaps the most important 'don't' as far as Dotty was concern was that Jimmy didn't do any of that 'hocus-pocus' and séance malarkey under her roof. It was witchcraft and dealing with the devil as far as she was concerned. Jimmy promised he wouldn't dabble while he was there.

Jimmy washed and came down to a wonderful breakfast. A mass of eggs and bacon which he ate ravenously while seated beside the warming comfort of the range. Dotty had warmed too. She and Jimmy hadn't suddenly become Best Buds, but she had lost the hard edge to her voice.

'I hear you lost your husband. I'm sorry, but you 'ain't the first and you won't be the last. And Rosie tells me you are in trouble.'

Jimmy went to explain, but Dotty instantly held up her hand. 'I don't want to know the details. If Rosie says youz ain't all bad that's good enough for me. It was a bad thing you did, but it don't make you all bad.' Dotty collected up the breakfast plates. 'Now up to your room with you and keep the curtain closed. Youz can't leave the house during the day. We ain't got many neighbours, but the ones we 'ave got are nosey buggers, especially Tom. I tells him all the time to mind his own, but he's always ferreting around looking for gossip, lookin' to pass a bit of tittle-tattle to the local Bobby, who looks after him – if you knowz what I mean.'

'Who's Tom?'

'He's my labourer. I can't look after this place on me own. And the lad ain't yet strong enough.'

Jimmy glanced around. 'Where is he, your lad?'

'Neville? He's at school. Waste of time mind. God ain't gifted him much of a brain for fancy learnin'. He'll be a good farmer if the Army don't take him and gets 'im killed. And I knowz what your thinkin', Neville won't say nothin' to nobody. He knowz when to keep his mouth shut.'

Jimmy lay on the bed with the satisfaction of a full stomach and the cosy warmth of thick and proper bedding. He only realised how tired he must have been when he woke from a deep and satisfying sleep. And for the first time ever in that crazy world he had found that on awakening he wasn't greeted by a gut-wrenching anxiety. His soul felt at peace. The comforting old farmhouse had a serene and timeless air, seemingly removed from the catastrophic interlude that presently was occupying the whole of mankind.

That feeling was a novel and exhilarating experience. He was confident that Churchill only had to stand his ground against his detractors and defeat the 'Motion of no Confidence' and history would be set back on its true path. And as for his own predicament, the threat of imprisonment or worse now seemed a million miles away.

As he lay staring at the cracks in the ceiling, he heard voices below. Dotty's strident tones were evident as was an occasional much quieter voice. He listened hard. Dotty was dominating the conversation, the content of which Jimmy only managed to catch the odd word. But when the second voice finally got a word in edge-ways he almost sprung out of bed in excitement. It was Rosie.

He slid into the brown tartan slippers Dotty had provided him with and leant his ear to the bedroom door. Dotty had begun another loud monologue. Jimmy lifted the catch and eased the door open. Old houses aren't discreet. The door creaked as did the floorboard on the threshold. Another voice suddenly came from below, cutting across his host. A man's voice.

'You got someone stayin', Dotty?'

'Yeah, me ghost. And if it ain't me ghost it's the wind. Now getcha gone. My animals need feedin' and I ain't payin' the likes of you, Tom, to stand around gossiping.'

'You can't be too careful, Dotty. Them German paratroopers could be landin' any time.'

'Well if they do, I doubts they would start the invasion in my farmhouse. And if they do, I've got me gun.'

'A shotgun won't be no good against them Germans.'

'I've got my dear Alby's service revolver. It was good enough to kill them Germans in the first war and it'll be good enough to kill them in this one. Now get on with yer.'

Jimmy heard the front door close which was followed by footsteps on the stairs. Dotty appeared and ushered Jimmy back inside his room, closing the door behind her. Jimmy had expected her to bawl him out.

'I don't trust him,' she said anxiously. 'He's such a nosey bugger. He'll be snooping around when my backs turned.' Dotty put her hands on her hips and sighed. 'What we gonna do with you, Ginny?'

There was a gentle knock at the door. Jimmy turned with alarm to Dotty. She put a finger to her lips and pointed towards the wardrobe. Jimmy crept across the floor and carefully eased open the wardrobe door. The camphor from the moth balls made him gasp, but he slid inside and pulled the door shut behind him.

He heard the bedroom door open.

'Oh, it's you, my dear.' Dotty then whispered, 'Has he gone, definite?'

'I've locked the front door. Ginny it's safe. You can come out.'

But Jimmy had already stepped out of the wardrobe, so desperate was he to see Rosie. As soon as she saw him she flung her arms around him and squeezed him tight.

'You're so brave to have survived the night in the air raid shelter?' She gave him one of her glorious smiles. 'I'm sorry. It must have been beastly uncomfortable?'

'Pretty beastly,' said Jimmy playing down the most horrendous night he had spent anywhere and at any time in both of his lives to save Rosie from further self-recrimination. 'What can I expect?' He shrugged. 'I'm a desperate fugitive on the run and there's a war on.'

'I woz sayin' to Ginny, I don't knowz what we can do to stop old Tom prowlin' about. He can't be trusted.'

All three stood in thoughtful silence. Jimmy had visions of being relegated to the barn. Then another thought occurred to him.

'Look, this is none of my business, but this Tom, why don't you just get rid of him? Sack him?'

'I wish! But there's no one else to do the labourin' in these parts. Not now. All the good 'uns has been called up. Tom was too young for the first one and he reckons they says he's too old for this one. I don't reckon he's tried too hard to persuade the Army otherwise.'

'Aunty,' Rosie said suddenly. 'Old Tom – isn't he a bit peculiar when there's sickness about. Didn't he refuse to work when it was thought you had that Spanish Flu?'

'I told 'im it was just a cold, but he wouldn't have it. Didn't dare come near the place for a week.'

'Why don't you tell him I've got something frightfully catching? Then I'll stay here at the farmhouse and in this room with Ginny and that'll be sure to keep him from prying.'

Dotty rubbed her chin. 'Won't be so bad during the day mind, as long as we're careful, keep the door locked an' all, but it'll mean you both sharin' that bed at night.'

Jimmy glanced at the bed and then at Rosie, hardly daring to believe what had been suggested. It was as though all his Christmases had come at once.

Dotty turned to Jimmy and said sternly, 'I don't want any malarkey mind.'

Jimmy's jaw nearly fell open. How could she possibly have guessed? His throat dried. What could he say? Rosie would be horrified.

'I knowz what it's like when you young women get together. Talkin', laughin' and gigglin' 'til all hours. I needs me sleep more than most. I don't want yer keepin' me awake, understood?'

Rosie winked at Jimmy. 'We promise, aunty. No malarkey.'

Under the circumstances, Jimmy already knew from his side of things that was going to be an excruciatingly difficult promise to keep.

35

All four sat gathered around the wireless. It was a massive two foot cube of Bakelite that was a nod to Art Deco style, with a tiny glowing dial at the centre. The quality of sound it emitted was not unlike that produced by two tin cans and a piece of string. But never-the-less the four were sat forward on their seat listening spellbound to the BBC broadcast. It had been announced in funereal tones that the prime minister was shortly to address the people of the British Empire.

Jimmy sat tense with apprehension. Constantly rubbing his palms on his legs did nothing to relieve the tide of clamminess. Perhaps it was normal for BBC announcers to preface Churchill's important speeches with such reverence, assured that the entire nation would be similarly gathered around a radio set hanging on his every word.

The band music faded out.

'The prime minister will now address the nation.'

There was a slight pause then Churchill began in his distinctive slow growling voice.

'It is with much regret and a heavy heart that I must speak to you now from the prime minister's office at number 10 Downing Street.

You will be only too aware I once promised this proud nation and the people of the British Empire, that I would give you my blood, sweat, toil and tears which to the absolute best of my endeavours I assuredly have so done. But tonight, by a narrow margin, my fellow Right Honourable gentlemen in the Houses of Parliament have made it known that they believe these qualities alone are insufficient to guide this indomitable nation to a final victory against the evil scourge of the Nazis.

Therefore it is with the deepest sorrow, and foreboding, but one which leaves me no alternative other than to immediately offer my resignation as your prime minister . . .'

Jimmy's head was spinning. He felt physically sick.

'Huh. So much for, "We'll fight them on the beaches." He 'ain't got nothin' right since he started,' jeered Dotty.

'I'm afraid,' Rosie said quietly.

Jimmy could find no words to reassure her. She had every right to be afraid. How could it have happened? Their meeting had surely inspired Churchill to stand firm against his detractors.

'I don't think the King will accept his resignation,' Jimmy said confidently. 'No, that's what'll happen. The King will see sense. You'll see.'

'Be quiet he's still talking,' said Dotty.

'I have met with His Majesty the King and he has accepted my resignation as of midnight tonight.

It is my understanding that Lord Halifax will temporarily accede to the my role until such time that the Cabinet elects a new leader, who I'm sure will with equal determination and vigour continue to carry the fight to the enemy . . .'

'Looks like the King don't want him neither,' Dotty said with a wry smile.

'Does that mean the wars over, mum?' asked young Neville.

'Hope so. Least it might stop them Germans invadin'.'

Jimmy held his head in his hands. 'I don't understand.'

'I cannot commend enough the peoples of the British Empire, wherever they are around this globe, for their spirit and willingness to fight for England their mother country, for England the land of hope and glory, and for the Empire upon which the sun never sets. God willing their sacrifice will not be in vain, and freedom, justice and tolerance will once again prevail in a world free from Nazi tyranny.'

There was a moment of sober reflection before the BBC radio announcer said, '. . . and now please stand for the national anthem.'

The national anthem then crackled out of the wireless. Dotty, Neville and Rosie stood respectfully to attention while Jimmy paced the floor distraught. As the last strains of 'God Save the King' died away, Rosie took Jimmy's hands. They were shaking.

'That's really upset you, hasn't it?'

Jimmy could only nod. He had no words to express himself – nothing that would make any sense or not be thought of as completely insane.

Jimmy lay on his side staring into the darkness. Sleep was impossible. He was tucked-up against Rosie. They were perfectly moulded into each other like spoons. Although part of him was set on fire by the warmth and sensual touch of her bare flesh, with the hint of her breasts against his hand, all night his head pounded with a terrible dread.

Somehow he had changed everything and now it was too late to put it right. Churchill had gone, to be relegated to the footnotes of history – a man who had promised so much was doomed to be judged as a mere a blusterer and a failure. To be referred to in the same derisive way as his misunderstood and recently deceased predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, whose only folly was to desire peace.

And what modern world would it now bring? It was more than possible that his own father would never have ventured from his native Ireland to a Britain cowed by the Nazi domination on the continent. Had he not strayed from his tiny village in Limerick he wouldn't have met his wife, Jimmy's mother, and therefore by extension he and his brother Del would never have been born. And always bubbling beneath the surface was the barbarism that would be unleashed without constraint, against all those they deem subhuman or anything less than their insane Aryan ideal.

Against the fury of these thoughts constantly running around in his head, he desperately grappled with some way to put things right. Hadn't Ethel suggested that Alice said he already knew how to correct the wrong? Why was he giving that notion any possible credence – this sage advice from an imaginary dead sister – it had to be desperation. Yet this same imaginary person had known exactly who he was – Jimmy Delahoy, the young man from the future, who shouldn't be there, and not the unfortunate Elizabeth Bradshaw. Had Alice not also informed Ethel rightly that he was in the shelter?

Although these things whirled around in head, come dawn he was no nearer a resolution. Rosie let out a gentle sigh as she turned over. Jimmy kissed her on her shoulder and squeezed her waist allowing his arm to drift upwards towards her breasts. He slowly drew his arm back allowing his hand to gently caress them. It sent a tremor of delight through his body.

Rosie stirred again unawares. Jimmy felt ashamed by the sly violation. He mentally begged her forgiveness and kissed her once again on her shoulder.

He swung his legs out of the bed. His was body racked with a bone-aching tiredness. He rubbed the sleep from his bloodshot eyes. He recognised the way he felt – the emptiness inside – the sense of meaningless – nothing mattering – the pointlessness – it was exactly the same numb emotional void that had overwhelmed him when his mum had died.

She hadn't been right for a while, but his mum had soldiered on without complaint until the surprise diagnosis of an advanced terminal illness caught them all unawares. Three weeks later she was dead. Barely out of his teens, Jimmy remembered how badly he had taken it, but his dad, who was always a quiet man of few words, crumbled. After she had left him there was always a vacant, faraway look in his eye as though part of him, the best part, had died with her.

Jimmy sat on the side of the bed summoning the will to face the new day in a bleak world that he had created. Rosie awoke and rolled onto her back. She opened her eyes and hit Jimmy with one of her glorious smiles. 'Ginny, you don't look at all well,' Rosie said sleepily. 'Are you okay?'

'Didn't get much sleep.'

'I'm sure after one of Aunt Dotty's super breakfasts you'll be right as rain.'

Jimmy tried to respond with an appreciative smile, but he couldn't maintain it. Once the promise of a Full English would have had him bounding to the breakfast table, but he had little appetite. He felt in an unaccountable way undeserving of the precious rations of eggs and bacon.

The sound of a vehicle pulling up outside the house dragged him from his dark introspection. He heard voices. Dotty's, then a man's, but it wasn't Tom. He slid up to the window and eased aside the thick blackout curtain. A black police car was parked directly outside the house. Dotty was talking to the taller of the two policemen. Jimmy recoiled and flattened himself against the wall. His heart was beating wildly. He was desperate to hear what was being said. First names were being used. It was a casual exchange without stiff police formality.

He caught the tail end of the exchange.

". . . on the run . . ." and ". . . door-to-door enquiries . . ." from the policeman.

To which Dotty replied in her booming voice, 'You 'ain't come here for no door-to-door enquiries, young Billy. You want to knowz if I got any eggs that don't need accountin' for.' There was laughter.

A few minutes later the car drove away. So intent was he on what was happening outside that he hadn't noticed that Rosie was stood beside him.

'What's going on?' she whispered.

'Police.'

'Bumpkin?'

'They're likely to be doing a sweep of the whole area around where I dumped him out of the ambulance.'

'Seems strange that the police came here so soon,' said Rosie.

'But Bumpkin wouldn't know about you or your family?'

'Yeah, but Dr Farley does. He knows we're pals.'

It was true. Dotty's old farm house had seemed a safe-haven, an island sanctuary far removed from the troubles enveloping the world. Now sadly it seemed as though the harsh reality of that world had finally caught up with it.

'Wait here,' said Rosie. 'I'll see what happened.'

A few minutes later Rosie came back up the stairs and popped her head around the door. 'It's all clear. Tom's in the lower field.'

Jimmy joined them in the kitchen. Dotty stood deep in thought.

'I don't think Billy suspects nothin'. I've known him since he used to piss in his pants.'

Rosie saw her concern. 'So what's worrying you, aunty?'

'Billy said he was going to ask Tom to keep a special look out, especially in the barn and the outhouses. And you know what that'll mean – the Law has given him authority to snoop about as much as he wants.' Dotty turned to Jimmy. 'I ain't gonna turn you in, Ginny, whatever yer done, but it'll mean stayin' put in the bedroom 'til this blows over. And I've told him about you havin' something catchin', Rosie. He sent his best regards and hopes you get well soon. You know that Billy has always had more than a little fondness for you.'

Rosie pulled a face. 'Well I haven't for him. Not after the number of times he's arrested poor Alfie. They went to school together. Old pals should stick together, not be dragging him off to jail every five minutes.'

*

'I thought you could read this,' said Dotty handing Jimmy the morning's paper.

Jimmy took it and sat up in the bed. Rosie was sat at the dressing table brushing her hair in the mirror. Jimmy would have been quite content to watch her sensual feminine preparation all day – the erotic way she rolled up her stockings and carefully attached them to her suspender belt – the meticulous application of a delicate hint of make-up, blusher, lipstick and mascara – just enough to be stunningly attractive without too much that would have been at odds with that of someone supposedly seriously under the weather. The careful selection of an outfit to wear – asking his opinion of pink or blue.

It was with little interest that he unfolded the broadsheet. It was the newspaper under Lord Beaverbrook's proprietorship, the Daily Express. The headline in three inch capitals was unambiguous:

'CHURCHILL RESIGNS'

The Prime Ministers defeat in the House of Commons filled the whole front page. It spoke of the new leader, Lord Halifax and speculated on the direction the government would now take in the war. Jimmy couldn't bring himself to read the editorial. It made him feel sick to think of it. A subheading at the bottom of the page caught his eye.

CHURCHILL loses vote due to unforeseen circumstances?

Most believed that the Prime Minister would have narrowly carried the House and defeated the vote of no confidence but for the decisive intervention of the Right Honourable Member for Staines, John Charlesworth (Labour). He challenged Mr Churchill to deny that only hours before he'd had his fortune told by an end-of-the-pier stargazer, a woman convicted of murder who had until recently been confined to a lunatic asylum, in an attempt to predict the outcome of not only the vote that evening, but the whole course of the war.

Above the uproar that ensued, Mr Churchill stoutly refuted the claim and described the lady in question as an astute visionary and invaluable advisor on unrelated matters . . .

There was more, but Jimmy threw the paper aside. Someone in Downing Street had leaked the story about their meeting. Churchill had been made a laughingstock and had lost vital credibility with the handful of MPs who might have swung the vote in his favour. That Churchill would have summoned the courage to take on his adversaries without Jimmy's intervention was now something no one would ever know. The only thing Jimmy was certain off was that Churchill had been ousted from power because of him. It was crazy – in trying to do right, he had caused everything to go spectacularly wrong.

He curled up under the blankets and shut his eyes. To fall asleep now and never wake again would have suited him fine. Rosie pecked him gently on the cheek. Even in his deep gloom that simple act of kindness momentarily lifted his spirits.

'I'll go and see what aunty is cooking up for lunch. It must be about that time. I do hope its soup. She makes a wonderful vegetable broth.'
Rosie made the agreed signal – two stamps on the floor. The hoped for response of one bang on the ceiling from below would indicate it was safe to come down. Both waited in expectation. A heavy thump resonated up through the floorboards

'Won't be long,' said Rosie.

36

For three days Jimmy's hadn't moved out of the bedroom except for calls of nature. All he did was eat, read and try to sleep. Rosie kept him company for the most part, but even she was becoming a little frazzled by the boredom of it all. The only excitement was provided by Tom suddenly turning up at the front door, who, if they hadn't known better, seemed to be trying to catch them out. At least twice Rosie, still supposedly unwell, had had to bolt back to the bedroom only moments before being spotted downstairs. Dotty couldn't hide her concern that Tom's only topic of conversation was the missing fugitive and his suspicion that she was still in-hiding around those parts. Dotty overloaded him with work to keep his mind off the subject, but she still saw him sniffing around the barn and outbuildings at every opportunity.

From Jimmy's point of view the situation was reversed. With so little to expend his energy on, he spent most of the nights awake and staring into the darkness. Although he really tried to suppress his forbidden desires, the warm touch of her skin and her natural musk drove him wild. Sometimes, if only to lift him from the abyss of despondency, he gave into his longing.

When Rosie was in a deep sleep he would snuggle up close and nestle into her back to feel the soft contours of her body. He would snake his arm over her stomach, then allow his hand to drift up towards her breasts.

A man's arousal was physically obvious and familiar to him. That of his female body, not so. But with gentle movements of his fingers so as not to disturb her, he would take himself to a shuddering climax. Yet following each sordid self-gratification he was filled with loathing. He was little more than some grubby abuser and was even more shame-faced in the mornings when she awoke completely unaware of the sly violation. Not only had he let her down and taken advantage of her innocence, he had also broken his stern promise to Aunt Dotty that there would be no malarkey.

'Aunty reckons the police will have given up looking around here. They probably will think you've fled the area by now,' Rosie said brushing her hair.

'She might be right. But has she told Tom that?'

Jimmy wasn't even bothered about getting dressed, as the new day was likely to be as depressingly uneventful as those which preceded it.

Rosie turned to him. 'Ginny, do you want me to brush your hair. It's looking a bit, well . . .'

If 'bird's nest' was the new fashion, then Jimmy was at its forefront. He didn't particularly take an interest in his appearance, but he couldn't resist her willing smile. He sat at the dressing table. The soft brush was barely man enough for the job as it pulled agonisingly through the tangle. It brought tears to his eyes, but he was determined not to make a fuss, seeing it as a bizarre test of his inner manhood.

Rosie suddenly stopped. Yet there was no excruciating tug on his hair to indicate the brush was snagged. Jimmy glanced over his shoulder to see what was wrong.

'Shush!' Rosie said sharply. 'I heard something.'

Dotty was heard thundering up the stairs. At the same moment the top of a ladder appeared at the window ledge, gently vibrating indicating someone was climbing it. Jimmy leapt out of the chair and tried to make for the wardrobe. He didn't make it before a cloth cap with a pair of furtive eyes peering out from beneath it appeared at the window scanning into the room. Dotty burst in.

'Tom's cleaning the windows!' But with a gasp she realised it was too late. Tom had clearly seen all three stood together. He climbed another rung and made a token show of cleaning the glass, but his ghost of a smile said it all.

'You must speak to him,' Rosie said turning urgently to Dotty.

Dotty did well to look innocent and mimed offering Tom a cup of tea. He stared back coldly, his chamois leather squeaking as he polished the glass.

The charade done with, Tom stowed the leather and started down the ladder. Jimmy reacted instantly fearing Tom would race off to get his thirty pieces of silver from the local constabulary. He rushed to the window and without thinking pulled up the bottom sash and cried out, 'Stop!'

Tom's head snapped up and with a renewed urgency he continued scrambling down the ladder.

Afterwards, when the dust had settled, literally, Jimmy rationalised his actions. He had tried to stop Tom, to talk to him, nothing more. There was no ill-will at its heart. That he hadn't thought his next action through was true. That he hadn't fully appreciated the precarious nature of a man a goodly way up an unsecured ladder, had also played a sizeable part in what happened next. That Rosie and Dotty were horrified was only to be expected. He was too.

He didn't know why he had done it. Perhaps he thought grabbing the top of the ladder would somehow halt Tom's escape, to give them the opportunity to reason with him, to prevent him blabbing his mouth off. It succeeded spectacularly, but not in the way Jimmy foresaw.

With Tom's weight, the ladder propped against the window ledge was reasonably stable. Jimmy having seized the top of the ladder in both hands, the unevenness of the ground below caused the ladder to pirouette on one leg. Much to Tom's wide-eyed alarm, it swung out sideways into fresh air.

It was surprising how long the now vertical ladder teetered upright before toppling to one side taking peeping Tom with it. Tom's flat cap flew off and was carried away on the breeze as though wisely abandoning ship before the final reckoning.

Jimmy leaned out the window. The ladder lay on the ground as did the flat cap close by, but as for Tom, there was no sign. Ominously, the end of the ladder that Tom had last clung to lay over the lip of the slurry pit. The surface of the foul black ooze showed a distinct signs of recent disturbance.

'Is he . . .?' asked Rosie who was now next to Jimmy leaning out of the window.

Jimmy craned his head searching for him, but his eyes were drawn back to the slurry pit.

'If he's dead,' continued Rosie, 'we'll be up to our necks in it.'

Which on balance was a marginally better fate than Tom's, who was now in all likelihood in it well above his neck.

Dotty squeezed between them to witness the scene below. 'I hope 'e ain't broke my ladder. I'll never get another one like that with the war on.'

A few minutes later all three were gathered around the slurry pit with their heads bowed.

'He might have run off,' suggested Rosie with little conviction.

Dotty shook her head. 'Old Tom don't go nowhere without his cap.' She stared at the foul ooze and sighed. 'Nope, I reckon he's in a better place now.'

Recoiling from the stench, Jimmy couldn't totally agree with that sentiment, but as a simple expression of her religious beliefs it was appropriate.

If Farley was correct about the spirits and reincarnation thing, then Tom could expect to return to this world via the traditional route as a bouncing baby, but perhaps one who grew up with an unaccountable aversion to ladders and shit.

'Is it very deep?' asked Jimmy reluctantly contemplating Tom's grim demise.

'Six foot, about. Couldn't stand up in it.'

'We must report it to the police,' said Rosie.

'We'll have some explainin'.'

Jimmy thought for a moment. 'Who,' he asked, 'would know if he went missing?'

'He lived alone and no one much cared for him, but tongues round 'ere would soon be waggin'.'

'But it might buy us some time – a couple of days, for me to get away from here.'

'Where would you go?' asked Rosie. 'Alfie hasn't made any arrangements.'

Jimmy had no answer. 'Look, you two have done enough for me already, and now this. I don't want you to get into any more trouble.'

'The only troubles yer got me into is – who's now goin' to feed my animals?'

The three mourners stood in respectful silence beside Tom's potentially last resting place.

'Aunty,' said Rosie, 'what if I asked at the asylum if we could borrow some of the patients to help out on the farm?'

Dotty regarded her doubtfully. ''ain't they all dangerous like?'

Rosie laughed. 'They're not like that at all. Most of them wouldn't hurt a fly. Would you believe they even put someone like Ginny in the high security wing?'

Dotty's expression indicated she hadn't found it hard to believe at all. There was perhaps the suspicion that Jimmy had more blood on his hands over yet another outlandish death than he would care to admit. Never-the-less she conceded the animals wouldn't get fed by themselves.

'Might be worth askin'.'

'In that case you'll have to report Tom's disappearance to the police,' said Rosie.

'Then they really will come pokin' about.' Dotty turned to Jimmy. 'Nobody comes much to the farm. They leave us alone, but I don't know how I can continue to keep yer hidden if the police come searchin'.'

She was right. If the police found him, a convicted killer, and recovered Tom's dead body, it might lead to accusations of premeditated murder that implicated Dotty and Rosie.

'You're right. I think it is best that I leave as soon as possible.'

'Where would you go?' Rosie asked. 'You've got no papers or anything. You can't.'

Jimmy shrugged. 'I can't stay here. It's too dangerous for you.'

'Look, I've had an idea.' Rosie offered one of her glorious smiles. 'I need to speak to Captain Willoughby. If he lets me bring some of the patients down here, I've thought of a way to hide you.'

'What if he doesn't?'

'Then I'll just have to use my feminine wiles on him like I did with that soppy Dr Farley. I had him eating out of my hand.'

Jimmy wasn't convinced her feminine wiles would cut the mustard with Willoughby, especially if his invisible friend, Alice was right about him really being less than fully manly. But he sincerely wished her the very best of luck.

37

Rosie was the eighth wonder of the world. Jimmy's heart ached for that girl. By whatever means she had persuaded Willoughby to allow a small detail of the most trusted inmates to assist on the farm. It was arranged that she would go to the hospital, bring them back in one of the ambulances and return them every evening before it was dark.

Over dinner that evening she had told them that naturally Willoughby was curious as to what might have happened to Tom. He had pointed out that in wartime those involved in essential work, especially food production, didn't just take off on a whim.

She said she had played her part well by agreeing it wasn't like him at all and saying if he didn't turn up in the next few days they would call the police. Even if it was for only two or three days, at least it gave them some breathing space in which to work out a plan of what to do next.

Jimmy was woken by a commotion outside. It had been the best night's sleep he'd had in a long while. The space in the bed beside him was empty and he realised why.

He peered between the tiny gap in the blackout curtains. His suspicion was correct. An ambulance from the asylum stood idling on the drive belching out diesel fumes.

Rosie hopped out from behind the wheel and opened the rear doors. The Major was the first out. Jimmy heard him immediately barking orders to those still inside.

'At the double you lot. Don't you know there's a war on?'

Depending on which inmates had been selected for the detail there was every possibility that they didn't. Stan cast a jaundice eye at the weather as he reluctantly emerged from the vehicle.

'Gonna rain.'

'Best you get a move on then,' barked the Major.

The Major organised Stan and the other two volunteers into a line as if on parade. Jimmy recognised the faces of the two inmates, but he had never had cause to speak to either of them. He thought one was called Peter and the other Jacko. Both were no more than thirty and both had bad institution haircuts – the regulation extreme short back and sides. And probably like Stan they weren't inherently dangerous or even truly mad, but Jimmy hoped they kept their mouths shut when they saw him, in the shape of Lizzie Bradshaw working alongside.

Dotty stood with her hands on hips waiting to direct her workforce to their tasks. The Major snapped her a salute. 'Ready for inspection.'

'I ain't inspectin' no one. I need my animals fed. The hay's in the barn and the cows are in the lower field. I'll be inspectin' later to see if you've done it.'

The Major turned back to his squad. 'You heard the lady – Now get to it!'

Jimmy got dressed and slipped down stairs. Dotty and Rosie were both warming their hand against the range.

'I do hope they'll all come back and not run off,' said Rosie.

'They can do what they likes after they fed my animals.' Dotty turned to Jimmy. 'Your breakfast is cold, but you'll need something inside yer if you're going to work in them fields. It's bitter today. You need to wrap up warm.'

Dotty took away Jimmy's empty breakfast plate.

'Can you drive a tractor?'

Of course he couldn't, but without hesitation he declared, 'Yes.'

Doesn't every kid, or men who haven't quite grown up, want to drive a tractor. Jimmy was no exception.

'That lot'll need help. So far they've only managed to drag one bale down to the animals and most of that was left as a trail of hay behind 'em.'

In the garage, under Dotty's watchful eye, Jimmy clambered up onto the tractor wearing a hat, thick coat, scarf and gloves. He inspected the array of levers and switches with interest and then concern. There didn't seem to be an obvious ignition key. Reluctant to expose his true ignorance of the mechanical monster, he feigned acquainting himself with the controls while discreetly looking for a way to get it started. Finally he conceded defeat.

'Um, I'm not familiar with this model.'

'Have you tried the startin' handle? Engine goes much better when you use that.'

Dotty replaced Jimmy in the driver's seat and primed the fuel pump to prepare for starting.

'Right, bring the piston up to compression and when I say go swing around as hard as you can.'

Jimmy held the starting handle waiting for the command.

'Right, I've primed the pump, now – GO!'

Jimmy hefted the lever over. The engine started in a rattling explosion of fury. He released the handle, but not a moment too soon before it viciously kicked back into a neutral position nearly breaking his arm.

'Right.' Dotty prepared to dismount, but saw Jimmy's reticence. 'Do you want me to back it out of the garage?'

Jimmy shrugged. 'Might as well seeing's you're up there.'

With the tractor idling in the yard, Dotty went through the controls, summing up.

'. . . most of these others you won't have to worry about. We'll hitch up a trailer and all you has to do is take it nice and steady. We don't want any more accidents now do we?' she said with a knowing glare.

Jimmy crunched it into gear and trundled off into the field with bales of hay on the trailer. By the time he had reached the inmates in the lower field Jimmy was thoroughly enjoying himself. There was nothing to it – it was like driving an off-road buggy, but very very slowly. The challenge of bouncing in and out the humps and hollows on the way had made it all the more exciting.

'Here comes the cavalry,' said Stan.

That Jimmy stalled the engine when he brought it to a halt was a nuisance, but not a disaster. The starting procedure seemed quite straightforward.

'Right men,' barked the Major. 'Unload that trailer and follow me.'

Stan looked curiously at Jimmy. He might have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, but he was no fool. He recognised Jimmy instantly. But he simply shrugged and carried on.

Jimmy waited while they filled the feeding troughs. The Major led them back.

'Climb aboard,' said Jimmy.

'Right men, all aboard. No dawdling now.'

'Actually, I need one of you to turn the starting handle.'

The Major pointed to Jacko. 'You man! Get down and operate that starting handle for the lady.'

Jacko reluctantly slid down from the back of the trailer.

'Bring it up to compression,' Jimmy called out as he vigorously primed the fuel pump.

Jacko took the starting handle in both hands. Jimmy was about to warn him to stand clear when the engine fired, but it was too late. Jacko whizzed the handle round. The engine came to life with a roar followed immediately by a dull thud and a pained cry. Jimmy stood up in the seat to see what had happened only to watch Jacko go down like a sack of potatoes, knocked out cold.

Jimmy leapt off the tractor and rushed to his side.

'Can you hear me?'

Jimmy was quickly joined by the Major and the others.

Seeing Jacko's inert body the Major was instantly on top of the situation and took command. 'Sniper! Take cover!'

The Major dragged the confused Peter behind the trailer for his own protection and urged him to return fire.

'Stand fast. I've sent for reinforcements. My men will be here to relieve us shortly.'

While the Major conducted his private imaginary war, Stan gave Jimmy a hand to lift the still unconscious Jacko onto the back of the trailer.

'How's he look?' asked Jimmy.

Stan shook his head. 'Well, he's got a starting handle-size dent in the side of his head, but apart from that, fine.'

Jimmy winced. It wasn't his fault – technically.

Having persuaded the Major to make a tactical withdrawal, Jimmy returned to the farm yard.

Dotty saw Jacko stretched out on the back of the trailer.

'What's the matter with him?'

'Damn rotten luck – a sniper,' the Major said through a pained clench jaw.

Dotty turned to Jimmy for clarification.

'Well . . .' Jimmy was too embarrassed to explain.

'Got a whack on the nut from the starting handle,' Stan said deadpan.

'He ain't dead is he?' Dotty asked alarmed.

'No, just unconscious,' Jimmy quickly reassured her.

'Right, bring him inside. I've got some smelling salts.'

They laid Jacko out on the kitchen table. Dotty leant towards his mouth.

'Least 'e's breathin'. That's somethin',' she said raising her eyebrows at Jimmy.

Rosie applied a cold compress to his head. 'That's quite a dent. I think I can see the name of the starting handle manufacturer imprinted on the side of his head.'

The Major was having none of it. 'This man's a malingerer. There's nothing wrong with him that exercise and cold showers won't put right. In my day . . .'

'Look, my animals still need feedin', so it's best if you lot carries on doin' what you're 'ere for.'

Jimmy led the depleted squad outside. They bundled four bales of hay on the trailer and set off again for the lower field.

The tractor's return to the yard brought Dotty scurrying from the farmhouse. The ambulance had gone.

'Rosie's taken 'im back to the hospital,' Dotty said as though reading jimmy's mind. 'No more mishaps I do hope?'

'Apart from the Major informing me I've got Trenchfoot,' said Stan.

The Major failed to notice Stan's dry aside. He was too preoccupied with turning Peter into a hardened fighting machine.

'Has Jacko come round?' asked Jimmy.

'Not so's you'd notice. But it's hard to tell with this lot. Anyway, I've got some tea brewin'. Come inside, it's perishing out here.'

38

That night over dinner, after Rosie had ferried those still fit for duty back to the asylum, the conversation was strained.

'I can't blame them for not bein' happy.'

'That Captain Willoughby was very rude,' said Rosie. 'I told him I was driving the tractor at the time. He asked me, why did I allow someone mentally deranged to operate such a complicated and hazardous piece of machinery? I said, I thought Jacko seemed quite able. Poor Jacko.'

Dotty turned to Jimmy with a reproachful scowl. 'S'ppose they'll be callin' him Wacko Jacko now. And it's lucky you didn't have 'im working on the threshin' machine or we'd still be pickin' bits of him out of it.'

'Anyway, the good news is that Jacko was up and talking when I left. He wasn't actually talking any sense, but at least he was talking.'

The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. Shortly afterwards Jimmy went up to bed and fell almost instantly asleep. Fresh air and a hard day's work on the farm had taken its toll.

He woke before dawn. Rosie was at his side. For once he wasn't consumed by lust. Thoughts were churning around in his head, but one that constantly returned was Alice's contention that he did know how to set the record straight and put history back on its true path. Tied up with those ideas was the multitude of often bizarre conversations he'd had with various characters he had met in this historical world. Was there a clue to be found amongst them?

Then in a moment of blinding clarity he had the answer. Every move he had made, with every innocent action he had inadvertently changed the future because he was living in a world in which he shouldn't be. The only way to prevent that was to not be killed by Eddy. And the only way he could do that was to stop Eddy being born in the first place. No Eddy meant there was no bullet in the back, therefore Jimmy didn't die and accordingly history would be set back on its true path. Unfortunately, with that revelation, Jimmy also realised the only way to prevent Eddy's appearance in this world some forty years hence was to dramatically interfere with his ancestry. He had somehow to stop Harry Metcalfe siring the girl child that would go on to become Eddy's mother. But how? The answer, when it came, rocked him – it was unthinkable and shocking. Yet the only absolutely sure way to prevent Eddy and Frank Purchase being born two generations down the line was for Harry Metcalfe himself to be killed.

Jimmy's head spun. Not only was he contemplating cold blooded murder, but also once again he was considering seriously meddling with things that are meant to be. Eddy's grandfather was a brilliant engineer who created the first electronic computer that helped win the war. How and when would it have ended without his genius? Against that uncertainty was the knowledge that Jimmy, by causing Churchill to be ousted from power, had in all likelihood set history on a cataclysmic path that will claim tens of millions of more lives than it should have otherwise. So what price one man's life against an evil tyranny controlling the entire globe?

Killing any of Eddy's four grandparents would surely prevent the genetic creation of Jimmy's witless assassin. Unfortunately, and unlike the other three, Harry Metcalfe was renowned and easy to locate especially with the short time Jimmy had left to him.

Nothing delighted Eddy more than telling everyone that Granddad Harry ran the place at the Marconi factory in Chelmsford and virtually won the war single-handed. Harry Metcalfe, an electronic genius and a man guilty of no crime other than the sins of the seed of his loins, must die. He must die before he spawns the child, the child that will create a lineage leading to the birth of Eddy.

He had felt pretty bad about killing Dr Bloom, perhaps less so about Old Tom, but killing Harry Metcalfe was wrong on so many levels. There was simply no other way. Tragically, Harry Metcalfe must forfeit his life for the good of all mankind.

*

Jimmy was deep inside the garage preparing the tractor when he heard the ambulance return. Rosie had left immediately after breakfast, cycling up the asylum to collect a fresh detail of volunteers. He spun the starter handle over carefully avoiding Jacko's fate. It spluttered and rattled into life with clouds of dense smoke belching out of the exhaust. Even above the din of the engine, he heard Rosie calling out. He had never heard her raise her voice like that before – something was wrong.

Jimmy wiped his hands on a rag and edged past the tractor towards the front of the garage to find out what was happening. He was near the door when Rosie yelled out at the top of her voice, 'Captain Willoughby's here. Aunt Dotty, Captain Willoughby's here.'

Jimmy realised the commotion had been for his benefit. He slid back against the wall and craned his head to look outside. Willoughby stood in the yard immaculately turned-out and ramrod straight, slapping his swagger stick into the palm of his hand. He slowly turned full-circle taking the minutiae of every detail around him. Jimmy retreated to the back of the garage. The tractor was filling the place with noxious gas. Jimmy could hardly breathe, but he daren't stop the engine alerting Willoughby that there was someone inside.

Dotty emerged from the farmhouse to greet him.

'What brings you 'ere, Captain? You come to help feed my animals?' she said in her booming voice.

Willoughby's reply was drowned out by the sound of the engine.

''ain't nothing special about my tractor,' said Dotty. 'I don't sees why youz would want to look at it.'

Willoughby said something else.

'Well, when it's warmed up you can 'ave a look. I've got a pot brewin'. Come and have a cuppa first.'

It fell quiet in the yard. Jimmy glanced out the door. The ambulance stood idle. Parked behind it was Willoughby's car, but the yard was empty. Assuming Willoughby's mission was simply to investigate the rogue tractor that did for poor Jacko, it should have been a safe bet to hideout in the barn. He slowly edged out of the garage. If Willoughby reappeared now, Jimmy was done for. Even dressed as a typical Land Girl in regulation khaki dungarees and with his hat pulled down over his eyes, the sharp-eyed Willoughby would undoubtedly still recognise him.

Jimmy had nearly made it to the barn when he heard voices emerging from the farmhouse. He shouldn't have glanced back. It was an instinctive reaction – a stupid, stupid mistake.

'You not be wantin' to finish your tea?' said Dotty standing in his way and doing her best to distract him.

Willoughby didn't respond. His eyes were locked on Jimmy. For a timeless moment they held each other's gaze. Even at that distance Jimmy saw a taut smile form on Willoughby's face. The Major following him out of the farmhouse broke the spell.

'Right men, fall in!'

Jimmy fled into the barn. He hid at the rear of the rickety building behind a towering stack of hay bales. His heart was pounding. He had to get away. As soon as Willoughby reported it back to the police, they would swoop on the farm and arrest all of them as accomplices, which just wasn't fair on Rosie and Dotty.

A rusty pitch fork hung on the wall. Jimmy visualized Willoughby meeting an unfortunate end. That sort of thing happened all the time on farms with all the dangerous tools and heavy machinery as poor Jacko found out. They could claim Willoughby tripped and fell on it with tragic consequences. No one would be able to prove otherwise. As Jimmy imagined the scenario he became appalled with himself. He couldn't believe he was seriously contemplating such a despicable act. Bloom first, then Tom and now proposing to do away with both Metcalfe and Willoughby – it was the mentality of a psychopathic serial killer. Dotty and Rosie were in enough trouble already if Tom's body was discovered, without yet another corpse to dispose of.

The plan to kill Eddy's grandfather had been barely formulated without a specific thought to its timing. But that had all changed with his discovery by Willoughby. Jimmy had to make his move before the opportunity was lost forever.

He waited anxiously in the barn nestling into the hay to ward off the January cold. His senses were on high alert for any indication that Willoughby had taken things into his own hands and demanded the barn be searched. There were none. The only sound was the tractor reversing out of the garage and standing idling in the yard. After a few tense minutes the tractor drove off towards the fields. Willoughby and Dotty exchanged stiff pleasantries and moments later a car, with its tyres crunching on the gravel, drove away.

'Ginny, are you still in 'ere?' Dotty called out urgently. 'It's clear. He's gone.'

Safely back in the house, Dotty paced up and down wringing hers hands as she explained what had happened.

'There can be doubtin' it – he recognised you. Didn't say nothin', mind. It was the look of 'im. Don't know what we're gonna do. I reckon he'll 'ave the police 'ere soon as not.'

Jimmy hung his head with guilt. 'Look, I don't know how to say how sorry I am. I shouldn't have got you in to all this. I'll leave now. It might not be so bad if I've gone.'

'Ach! Me and Rosie can look after ourselves. It's you I'm worried about. I'm not sure what we can do.'

'I do,' Jimmy said firmly. 'I have to set things straight. Put right all that I have done wrong.'

Dotty regarded him doubtfully. 'That might take some doin'. There ain't many who can bring back the dead.'

It had seemed so startlingly simple when the revelation came to him that morning – Harry Metcalfe must die to put things right. It would be a terrible murderous act, but one that would be the necessary sticking-plaster to heal the cataclysm about to envelop the world. Yet it was one thing for crusty old academics to contemplate the 'Grandfather' time paradox, and musing over the bizarre consequences of premeditated murder, but another altogether to be that murderer. Jimmy also recognised a dread that simmered beneath the surface. Harry Metcalfe, the man who would have helped win the Second World War, would be killed for no reason. His death would change nothing or even worse. The die had already been cast and this country's future without Churchill as its wartime leader was the new reality, the new truth of this time in history.

Jimmy held his head in his hands. Surely the greater crime against humanity was to do nothing? Allow this future to unfold – allow the Nazi abomination to prevail. Bolstered by that notion Jimmy cast his doubt aside. 'Dotty, can I borrow your gun?'

'Borrow Alby's gun!' said Dotty rocking back on her heels. 'I 'ope you ain't thinking of doin' something stupid.'

'Dotty, trust me. It's the only way.'

'Killin' yourself ain't no answer.'

'Killing myself? I'm not going to kill myself.'

Dotty eyed him suspiciously. 'So why do you need Alby's gun?'

'It's best that you don't know.'

'Look, Ginny, I gave youz the benefit of the doubt because Rosie said you weren't bad, but . . .'

'Dotty, would you believe me if I said, "Please just trust me." What I have to do will put everything right.' Jimmy hesitated. 'Even bring Tom back from the dead.'

Dotty staggered back into the kitchen table.

'This ain't right. This just ain't right,' said Dotty struggling to catch her breath. 'I told you I would have no funny goings on under my roof.'

'What I need to do won't take place under your roof.' Jimmy held his arms out and implored her. 'Please. I need to get away before the police arrive. If I'm arrested it'll be over.'

The tractor returned to the yard. Dotty immediately fled outside. Jimmy followed.

Rosie hopped down from the tractor.

'Wow! That was a close shave with that beastly Captain Willoughby.'

Dotty rushed up to her wringing her hands. 'Rosie, I needs to talk to you. In private.'

The Major helped the volunteers off the back of the trailer.

'Fall in men,' he boomed.

Ethel was a new recruit to the work detail as was Dixon. They stood in line beside Stan who, from his previous day's experience, was now considered an old hand at this farming lark. Ethel waved at Jimmy.

Ridden with guilty anxiety, Jimmy could only offer a half-hearted smile in return. Dear Ethel, who only thought good of him, would be appalled if she knew what he was planning to do.

Dotty pulled Rosie into the farmhouse. Jimmy didn't attempt to follow. If they decided he couldn't have the gun, he would have to find another way. A farm is never short of a lethal implement or two, although turning up with an axe to meet Metcalfe might raise an eyebrow or two. His primary concern now was time and how long he had before Willoughby returned with the police.

Ethel took Jimmy to one side. She kept her voice low.

'Alice says she knows Jacko's injury wasn't your fault.'

Jimmy gave a single nod of the head, but said nothing.

Ethel hovered awkwardly then said, 'We want to come with you.'

Jimmy swung round in alarm. Somehow they must have guessed what he was intending to do.

'You can't! You mustn't.'

'But you've discovered the way to return to your own time.'

'It's something I need to do myself, alone.'

The Major boomed out, 'You there. Get back in line.'

Ethel glanced round.

'Yes, you,' boomed the Major.

'Best keep the old windbag happy,' said Ethel as she wandered back to rejoined the others.

Jimmy's heart was pounding. Ethel's innocent request had made him feel worse. He still didn't even know if he had the guts to go through with it. He tried to envision pulling the trigger and shooting someone in cold blood. Yet he couldn't truly imagine it. He paced the yard waiting for Dotty and Rosie's verdict.

Within a few minutes Rosie emerged from the farmhouse followed by Dotty who was still anxiously wringing her hands. Rosie offered Jimmy a thick leather pouch.

'Ginny, I've never questioned what you did before, but you will promise me that if we give this, no harm will come of it.'

Jimmy weighed the pouch in his hand. There was no doubt of its deadly capability. He bowed his head.

'The promise I make to you is that what I must do, I believe, will be the best thing for the whole world.'

'And you just need to speak with this man?'

He forced himself to nod. He hated lying to Rosie. He wasn't worthy of her unswerving loyalty.

Jimmy gently took her hands in his. Tears welled in his eyes. Until then he hadn't truly appreciated the other consequence of setting history on its true path. That he and Rosie would never meet. They would be separated by an impossible gulf in time. She would be an old lady in his world – still as beautiful and amazing – but frail and with the aging spectre of her mortality hanging over her. He stared deep into her eyes and a tear ran down his cheek. Even if he lived for a thousand years, he couldn't imagine he would have to do anything harder than he had today. He fervently hoped that if he succeeded in his quest and got back to his own time, he would still retain at least some notion of the overwhelming love he'd had for that girl. In that, he could only pray.

39

'Right, everyone comfy?' said Rosie ready to close the back door of the ambulance.

Jimmy waited impatiently in the cab. He reiterated what he had said to Ethel that it was something he must do alone, but Rosie would have none of it. Not only did she insist she drove, but also insisted the work party from the asylum should accompany them. When Jimmy tried to overrule her it was the closest they had ever come to having a row. He thought it was a crazy idea. The added responsibility was something they could have done without.

'We can't leave them here and it's too risky to take them back to the asylum so early.'

Jimmy was resigned that his murderous mission had become some wacky charabanc to Chelmsford.

At the end of the farm track Rosie brought the ambulance to a halt.

'I'll try and keep to the back lanes, but some of those roads aren't much more than mud at this time of year.'

Jimmy looked each way. If they turned right it took them past the asylum and into the centre of Brentwood. From there, the road took them straight to Chelmsford. The back roads would have been to better option to avoid detection, but it would take only one deep mudded rut and the whole plan would be scuppered.

'I think we should keep to the main roads.'

Rosie glanced at him questioningly. 'That'll take us past the police station.'

'It will be quicker. I think we should chance it.'

Rosie patted Jimmy's leg affectionately. 'The main road it is then.'

When they passed the asylum gates Jimmy ducked down out of sight.

'Anything?' he asked.

'All clear,' said Rosie.

They rounded a bend and only just avoided a head-on collision with a black saloon racing towards them. The ambulance was nearly forced into a ditch, but the car sped off oblivious.

Although it all happened in a split second and the drivers face was partially hidden by a faceguard protecting his nose, there was still time enough for Jimmy to clearly see who was behind the wheel. His stomach turned over.

'Rosie, put your foot down. Quick.'

'That car – was it?'

'Yes.'

Rosie crashed the ambulance into a lower gear and hit the accelerator.

'Ring the bell.'

'I can't keep ringing it all the way to Chelmsford,' protested Jimmy.

'It'll help us get through Brentwood without a hold up.'

The ambulance hurtled down the hill towards the centre of town. The screaming exhaust note and the tinny bell warned of their rapid approach. Cars pulled over and pedestrians backed away from the kerb. Flying around bends, the ambulance was virtually cornering on two wheels. Nothing stood in her way. Soon they were out of Brentwood and back out into the country heading for Chelmsford.

Rosie's eyes flicked constantly towards the mirrors.

'Anything?' Jimmy repeatedly asked her.

Until then the answer had always been, 'No.'

'Anything?'

'A car,' said Rosie. 'A black one. Coming up from behind. It's flashing its lights.'

Jimmy grip on the hand hold tightened. A black car furiously trying to catch them up surely was no coincidence.

'I'll try and lose him,' said Rosie renewing her grip on the wheel.

They were almost upon a left turn before they saw it. Most would have considered they had passed the junction, but not Rosie. She spun the steering wheel and with a judicious use of the handbrake the ambulance slewed around the corner in a controlled four wheel drift. It had barely stopped swaying on its suspension before she hurled it around another corner. With tyres squealing, the ambulance tilted over at a precarious angle that briefly gave Jimmy a panoramic view of the sky from the side window. The ambulance then, like a hedge trimmer, sliced through a run of protruding branches from the narrow tree-lined road.

'Wow, that was close,' Rosie said calmly.

Jimmy reckoned it was a bit more than close, as a pile of woody debris cascaded off the windscreen.

'I think I've lost him.'

'Do you know where you're going?'

'Well, sort of.'

A few hairy turns later the road straightened out and Rosie eased off the gas.

'Everyone all right there in the back?' Rosie called over her shoulder.

Ethel's face appeared at the small observation window to the rear compartment. 'Oh, this is very exciting. Alice and I are having a wonderful time. Are we on the run?'

They passed through a tiny hamlet which consisted of just a smattering of houses to one side of the road and a dilapidated windmill to the other.

'What's this place?' asked Jimmy.

'Mountnessing.'

'This is the main road to Chelmsford again?'

'It's the quickest way.'

'They might have set up a road block.'

Rosie glanced at him. 'That man, Smitts won't know which way we're going. How could he?'

It was true, but clearly Smitts wasn't a man to give up easily. As it was, Jimmy was sick to the pit of his stomach with the prospect of what lay ahead without the psychotic South African hunting him down. At least for the next few miles, driving down a dead straight road courtesy of the Romans, the chances of happening upon a road block without warning were slim. Similarly, and uncomfortably, should Smitts have managed to get back on their tail, they were sitting ducks.

'Keep checking your mirrors.'

'I am. Stop worrying. I've shaken him off.'

'You'll have to take it a bit easier here,' said Jimmy as they entered Ingatestone, a narrow cobble-streeted village the layout of which was largely unchanged since medieval times. 'The road is rough.'

'Can't stop now. Ring the bell.'

With one hand covering his eyes, he tugged on the bell's pull cord.

They hit the uneven cobbles at a considerable rate of knots. The ambulance rattled and jolted violently and threatened to shake to pieces, but Rosie didn't ease up.

The sleepy village wasn't used to such excitement and an ambulance racing through it drew quite some attention. The villagers momentarily put their daily lives on hold and stood on the pavement to watch it scream up the road.

Once clear of the village, Jimmy noticed Rosie scrutinising the rear view mirror for longer than was a cursory glance.

'What's up?' he asked fearing the answer.

'Something's catching us up, but it's not a car. It's a motorbike.'

'Let it go past.'

'The rider's waving. Hang on. It's a police motorbike.'

Jimmy's stomach lurched and he glanced down at the leather pouch on his lap. He reached inside and eased out the gun. It was a Webley .455 calibre, the standard issue service revolver for the British Army, and it was heavy, much more so than Jimmy imagined. He slid it back inside the pouch, but his finger remained close to the trigger.

The motorbike drew level and the policeman waved for them to slow down.

Rosie urgently turned to Jimmy. 'What should I do – try to out run him?'

Even with Rosie's flair behind the wheel they could never have outrun a motorbike. If Jimmy had been driving, he would have considered a tiny flick on the steering wheel. Just a little nudge – enough to put the policeman into the ditch without too much harm done. But he wasn't driving, nor ultimately was he ruthless enough, unlike his brother, Delboy. If he was in Jimmy's shoes, without hesitation, the motorbike cop could have said good bye to his no claims bonus.

The policeman was waving even more furiously for them to pull over. Jimmy purposely curled a finger around the trigger.

'Ginny, we'll have to stop.'

He nodded gravely. A vague idea was forming in his head to take the policeman hostage until the terrible deed was done. Jimmy suspected that in holding one of His Majesty's constabulary at gunpoint, he would seriously go down in Ethel's estimation and perhaps enough to provoke a rebellion by those in the back. The other option was to bluff it out.

Rosie slowed down and slid open the side window. Jimmy was unable to witness to it, but undoubtedly Rosie would have hit the policeman with one of her glorious smiles.

The policeman's commands were lost among his motorbike's loud exhaust. He heard a snatch of Rosie's reply that included, 'Chelmsford' and 'Emergency'.

The motorbike shot ahead of the ambulance. Rosie shut the window.

'He's giving us a police escort,' she said with a grin.

Jimmy blew out his cheeks. 'What did you tell him?'

'Nothing much. Said someone's had a heart attack.'

'And when he finds out they haven't?'

'Ginny, you worry too much.'

For the next few miles the helpful policeman led the way. The emergency convoy forged through the traffic and raced in tandem along the country lanes as they closed in on Chelmsford.

'He'll expect you to drive to the hospital.'

'I know, but from this direction we hit the Marconi building first. It's on the way to the hospital.'

'It might be on the way. But why would we pull over there?'

'Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I'll pretend the ambulance has broken down.'

Jimmy's stomach churned with nausea. By his reckoning the Marconi building was barely five minutes away. Once there, there was no going back. He felt the lethal hardness of the gun. He still didn't even know if he would be able to go through with it – cold calculated murder, especially as no logical argument truly banished the gnawing doubt over the absolute necessity of the evil deed.

Killing a man was tangible and real, but the future wasn't. What if Hitler was assassinated and that terrifying future he foresaw under the Nazis didn't come to pass. What if Jimmy's actions had merely stretched the fabric of time without actually breaking it, and history, as he knew it, would somehow correct itself?

With Harry Metcalfe dead, it might prevent the birth of his own killer, Eddy Purchase thereby saving himself, but what might be the wider repercussions? There would be no electronic computer to assist the code breakers at Bletchley Park – and perhaps because of it the war dragging on far longer than necessary before the final victory, or even no victory at all.

'There's the factory,' said Rosie, jolting him from his inner turmoil.

Ahead stood the grand Marconi building, the place that was called The Home of Radio.

'What if this man you need to speak to isn't working today?'

Jimmy didn't need reminding. Everything hinged on Harry Metcalfe being at his desk and available. It was a Wednesday. It was eleven-thirty; why wouldn't he be at work? There could be a host of reasons and in some ways, if Metcalfe wasn't there, it would have honourably relieved him of the burden of his murderous mission.

Rosie turned the ignition key off while they were still rolling and the ambulance hopped and shuddered to a halt.

'There. We've broken down,' said Rosie. 'Look, you jump out before the policeman turns around and comes back.'

Jimmy fumbled with the handle to open the door. He couldn't stop his hands shaking.

'Ginny, are you okay?'

'Yeah, fine.' Jimmy could barely catch his breath with the tension.

'Ginny,' Rosie asked slowly. 'The gun? Why do you need it? It's not to do something silly is it?'

Jimmy attempted a reassuring smile, but he wasn't sure it came off. 'Of course not. I need it to make sure he listens, that's all.'

Rosie winked at him anxiously. 'Good luck.'

Jimmy jumped down from the cab. The policeman was slow to turn around and hadn't seen his departure. Rosie restarted the engine and waved out of the window for the policeman to carry on. Jimmy stepped back from the road and ducked behind a bush as the ambulance drove off.

In the rear the faces of the asylum work detail were pressed to the glass unsure as to what had taken place. Ethel had a particularly pained expression; one that was both hurt and disappointment.

Jimmy slung the strap of the leather pouch over his shoulder and felt the bulging outline of the gun. He waited until the ambulance was out of sight then hesitantly made towards the main entrance of the Marconi Building.

He had no plan beyond requesting to see Metcalfe. If that was denied he had no idea what he would do. Every step forward brought him closer to the point of no return.

'Good morning, madam. Bit nippy today.'

The elderly doorman, immaculately turned-out in his brass-buttoned uniform and peaked cap, smiled welcomingly. Jimmy couldn't respond in kind. To cheerfully pass the time of day about the weather then proceed to shoot a man was something that only a psychopath was capable of.

'Are you here to see someone?'

Jimmy opened his mouth but Harry Metcalfe's name wouldn't emerge.

'Have you come about a job? Now don't you be worrying. It all looks intimidating, the place being so big and all that, but you'll soon get used to it. Now, who is it you are seeing?'

Jimmy guiltily fingered the bulging pouch. His heart was racing; a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. At that moment he still could have walked away. Nobody would have been any the wiser about his intentions. He had committed no further crime.

The kindly doorman smiled again and before he was even aware of doing it, Jimmy had blurted out the name of Harry Metcalfe.

The doorman took a step back. 'Mr Metcalfe is a very busy and important man. Are you sure you've got an appointment with him? Mr Johnny Jones, the factory floor manager is normally the person to speak to about a job.'

Jimmy hesitated summoning the courage to go through with it.

'I need to speak to Harry Metcalfe,' he said finally.

'You best come inside, my love. It's perishing cold out here.'

The doorman led Jimmy into the building. It wasn't a slick reception area that companies employed to impress and promote their financial buoyancy in his time. It was purely functional. The young receptionist sat smoking and taking a stream of phone calls, which she skilfully distributed throughout the building via an impossibly vast and incomprehensible plug-in switchboard.

The doorman approached the desk. 'This lady is to see Mr Metcalfe.'

'Is Mr Metcalfe expecting you, Mrs . . .?' asked the receptionist taking a moment's break from her frantic activity.

Jimmy wanted to confirm he had, but it would have plainly been the lie that it was. 'I need to see him.'

The receptionists smiled. 'Do you know Mr Metcalfe?'

'I know some members of his family.'

Oh, right, I'll see if he's free. What name shall I give him?'

Jimmy glanced at the genial doorman. They weren't making it easy for him by being so damned nice.

'Please tell him it's . . .' He hesitated. 'Elizabeth Bradshaw.'

The receptionist patched in a call. After a few seconds of listening and nodding she said, 'Mr Metcalfe is available in fifteen minutes. Please take a seat.' She pointed toward a pair of wooden hard back chairs by the door.

Jimmy only reluctantly sat down. He clasped his hands together to stop them shaking. He couldn't disguise his anxiety.

'Are you alright, my love,' asked the doorman.

Jimmy didn't make eye contact. 'I'm a bit cold that's all.'

'Can I get you a cup of tea? That'll warm you up.'

'No,' Jimmy said sharply. 'I'll be fine.'

'Nice hot cup of tea and biscuit. I find it works wonders.'

Jimmy dismissed the offer with a sharp wave of the hand. The doorman shrugged and returned to his of duties on the step outside.

It took every ounce of Jimmy's willpower to remain seated. His whole body shook. He desperately wanted to pace around to relieve the stress. The hands on the wall-clock behind the reception desk seemed to have frozen. He glanced at the door. He could still leave. There was nothing to stop him. Perhaps there was another way – something he hadn't thought of. Perhaps the mercurial Alice had a less murderous notion of how to put things right? He should have clarified exactly what she had in mind before setting out on this folly. There might still be time.

With doubt raining in, Jimmy could remain seated no longer. He sprung out of the chair and paced up and down the reception area. His chest had tightened – his breathing was ragged. So busy was the young switchboard operator that she barely gave Jimmy's odd behaviour a second glance. Jimmy was drawn towards the exit. He reached out and felt the cold solidity of the steel handled main door. He tensed to pull it open. One step and it would be over – relieved of his terrible burden.

'Mrs Bradshaw,' the young girl said behind him. 'Mr Metcalfe will see you now.'

40

Jimmy was led up a flight of metal stairs by someone who had introduced himself as Metcalfe's assistant, Tommy Atkins. The tweed-suited young man offered a cheerful monologue on the grim weather as they climbed up through the building.

Tommy had led Jimmy up three flights of stairs before announcing, 'Please wait in here.'

He opened the door on a small meeting room and motioned for Jimmy to step inside. The room contained a couple of filing cabinets and a large oak table which was surrounded by eight conference chairs.

'Harry won't keep you long. Is there anything I can get you? Tea?'

Jimmy shook his head.

'Well, it's been nice meeting you, Mrs Bradshaw. Cheerio then.'

Tommy closed the door behind him.

Jimmy wanted to throw the gun away and run. He felt the outline of its cold lethal hardness in the leather pouch and his mouth dried. He tried to slow his rapid breathing.

Jimmy was startled by movement outside in the corridor.

'Do it quick. Don't talk. Just do it,' he rasped under his breath.

The door handle turned.

Jimmy made a grab for the leather pouch. His hand darted inside and fumbled for the gun.

The door swung open.

A tall slim athletic figure strode into the room. He was prematurely greying on top, but his boyish face and twinkling eyes exuded charm and confidence.

He offered his hand in welcome. 'Mrs Bradshaw? Harry Metcalfe. Have we met?'

Jimmy gripped the concealed revolver, but Metcalfe's charismatic presence momentarily blinded him to his task. He instinctively withdrew his hand and met Harry Metcalfe's in a warm embrace.

With a quizzical expression, Metcalfe held the grip longer than would have been the norm. He then gestured for Jimmy to take a seat.

'So, Mrs Bradshaw, how can I help you? I understand you are acquainted with members of my family.'

Jimmy hesitantly sat down while the tall figure of Metcalfe remained standing, making him feel very small and desperately rotten inside. The leather pouch was at the centre of the table. He deliberately ignored it should it draw Metcalfe's attention. Even with a casual glance it should have been obvious that the bulky outline was due to the presence of a gun. Jimmy imagined making a lightning grab for it and loosing off a couple of rounds, but he was so tense he doubted he had the necessary coordination to do so with the speed or accuracy required. A hesitation or a fumble and Metcalfe would easily overpower him.

Metcalfe with still looking at him questioningly, he checked the time on his watch.

'Mrs Bradshaw?' Metcalfe prompted.

Jimmy hid his shaking hands from sight. Jimmy wanted to explain. He wanted to tell Metcalfe why he must forfeit his life. Why if he didn't, the future would be unthinkable. Perhaps then he would understand that he would be laying down his life for the greater good of all mankind. But Jimmy knew he could say nothing of these things. Harry Metcalfe must have no warning as to what was to befall him. Jimmy also knew the longer it went on before he acted, the more suspicious the electronic genius would become.

'If something . . .' The words caught in Jimmy's throat. 'If something happened to you, is there anyone who can take over?'

'Strange question.' Metcalfe laughed and turned to the window. He stood with his back turned gazing out at the aerial views over Chelmsford from the office's lofty vantage point. 'Tommy is a good man. I'm sure they'd all get by without me.'

Jimmy slid his hand towards the pouch. He reached inside and felt the solid handle of the revolver. His eyes never left Metcalfe for a second should he suddenly turn around. Jimmy eased out the gun.

There was a sharp knock from outside. Jimmy fumbled to push the gun back in the pouch just as Tommy Atkins flung the door open. He was instantly knocked aside as Smitts stormed into the room, dragging Rosie with him.

'Ginny, I'm sorry,' she cried out.

Smitts slapped her hard. 'Be quiet!'

She tried to retaliate, but he pistol-whipped her across the face sending her tumbling to the floor. Jimmy sprung out of the seat and launched himself at Smitts. The secret service man calmly swung the gun around. Jimmy froze when it was pointed directly at his chest.

'Sit down, Mrs Bradshaw,' growled Smitts. Keeping the gun trained on Jimmy, he turned to Atkins. 'You! Fetch the police and stop those 'alfwits coming up 'ere to find their pals. Go!'

Atkins closed the door and rushed off.

Metcalfe stepped up to intervene. 'Look here, old boy, I don't know what your name is or your business here, but . . .'

Smitts cut him short. 'I'm a British agent. And this does not concern you. Now keep 'art orf it.'

Metcalfe wasn't easily intimidated. 'Good God man, you struck a woman. And now you're waving a gun. You're acting like some damned Nazi thug.'

'They're dangerous spies,' snapped Smitts. 'Why do you think they are 'ere?'

'Even so, old boy, it's not cricket.'

'If you know what is good for you, you'll stay exactly where you are.'

Metcalfe's face darkened. 'Are you threatening me? You come in here with some cock-and-bull story about spies. If you ask me, the only person in here who might be a German spy, is you.'

Smitts flicked the gun towards Metcalfe. 'Don't make me use this.'

Metcalfe took half a step back. 'Good God! You – you wouldn't dare.'

Smitts cocked the hammer on the revolver.

Rosie groaned and rolled onto her knees. Jimmy reached out and helped her up. Rosie clutched the side of her face. It was swollen bright red.

'You two, move.'

Jimmy and Rosie stood defiantly holding hands.

'NOW!' screamed Smitts.

Metcalfe made his move. He threw himself at Smitts nearly knocking the psychotic agent off his feet. But the electronics genius was no match for the tough South African. He steadied himself before easily swatting Metcalfe aside. Before Jimmy could stop her, Rosie had joined in the assault on Smitts. She flew at him punching him with her tiny fists but to little effect. Smitts laughed and threw her back across the room. Jimmy reached out and made a grab for the leather pouch on the table. Then everything happened in terrifying slow motion.

Smitts raised his gun, almost robotically, and took aim at Rosie. Jimmy saw in absolute clarity, as if he was watching in close-up through a telescope, Smitts' finger tense on the trigger. A cruel smile formed on Smitts lips. Jimmy saw that far from causing Rosie to back off, the threat only spurred her on. Then there was a strangely exaggerated long boom as the revolver fired. Then there was silence. A freeze-frame: With Jimmy leaning over the table with his hand in the leather pouch. Metcalfe stood with his mouth open in horror and Smitts still in the gunslinger's stance with the smoking revolver at his hip. Then without a cry, Rosie slumped to her knees and fell forward at Smitts' feet, with a pool of blood spreading out from beneath her.

Smitts smirked. 'Self-defence. You be my witness,' he said turning to Metcalfe.

Jimmy rushed to her side and rolled her over. Her stomach was a churned mass of red tissue.

'Get help!' screamed Jimmy.

'She's dead. Now on your feet.'

Jimmy snapped, but before he could get at Smitts the door burst open. On the threshold, Ethel was standing behind the asylums very own psychopath, Dixon.

'You, move and get these 'alfwits out orf 'ere.'

Before Jimmy could retaliate, Dixon, presumably having taken umbrage at being called a 'Halfwit', swung his huge balled fist into Smitts' face. His battered nose again took the brunt of the blow, making a sickening graunching sound as once again bone and cartilage was painfully rearranged.

Smitts staggered back with his eyes rolling in the back of his head. Metcalfe made a lunge for Smitts' gun. He wrestled it away from him and hurled it across the room.

'Call an ambulance, quick,' Metcalfe shouted.

Ethel cradled Rosie's head in her lap. 'You hold on my girl, there's help on the way. We'll look after you, won't we, Alice. Now don't you do anything silly, like dying now.'

In the confusion no one noticed that Smitts had recovered and was climbing to his feet. He fished into his pocket and his fist reappeared sporting a vicious brass knuckleduster.

Dixon, with his attention drawn towards the drama on the floor, didn't see the blow coming. Dixon was six-feet tall and with a build to match, but the clean hit from the knuckleduster square on his jaw knocked him out cold. He crashed heavily to the floor sending chairs scattering around the room.

Smitts angrily pointed at Jimmy. 'You, move!'

It reignited Jimmy's rage. He grabbed the gun from the leather pouch. He shook with anger as he took aim at Smitts.

'Well, what 'ave we 'ere' sneered Smitts. 'Like a boy scout, you came prepared.'

Ethel's hand flew to her face in horror. 'Jimmy, what are you doing! Put that down at once.'

'Good, God,' cried Metcalfe. 'What is this! And who the hell is Jimmy?'

Smitts and Metcalfe stood side by side, both not daring to take their eyes off the gun.

Jimmy had to grip the revolver with both hands to keep it steady. He closed his eyes and willed himself to do it. If he killed Metcalfe everything would be put right: Churchill, the war, Tom, Dr Bloom and now especially Rosie. He was crushed by the sight of her lying there, once so perfect, but now desecrated and broken by the mindless action of that scum before him.

Jimmy hated Smitts for it, but it was true what he had said. Even if she wasn't dead already, there was no chance of her surviving a terrible injury like that. His Rosie, his gorgeous and brave Rosie had become the greatest and least deserving victim of his catastrophic presence in this world.

Jimmy's finger curled around the trigger.

He wondered if the change would be instant – transported back to his house immediately as though none of this had ever taken place – the whole terrible misadventure erased from his mind. Or would the tragedy need to be played out with him having to drop through the trapdoor of the gallows before the correction took effect. That fate once would have been the thing of nightmares, but with Rosie lying mortally wounded at his feet, he no longer cared. The sooner the better.

He took aim.

'Jimmy, no,' cried Ethel. 'It's not the way.'

'Elizabeth, make it easy on yourself. Point that gun at your 'ed and join that young friend of yours in 'eaven.'

Smitts shouldn't have smiled.

41

Jimmy knew he had done it. But the actual moment it happened, was a complete blank. The gun was still in his hand and Smitts lay on the floor. He stared down at Smitts' now inert body almost in disbelief, but felt nothing. No remorse, no jubilation in vengeance, no shock, not even contempt. He was empty inside – a mere husk of a human being.

Only slowly did Jimmy become aware that Metcalfe was speaking – talking to him. Gently trying to persuade him to put down the gun. Ethel had joined in too. Admonishing him like a mother would an errant child.

'Oh, Jimmy, you've gone and done it now. We want no more of it. Now put that thing down.'

Jimmy knelt at Rosie's side. He took her hand and put it to his cheek. It already felt cold. She was still. She had stopped breathing. With a ghost of a smile on her lips, even in death she was serenely, impossibly beautiful. Tears welled in his eyes. He brushed them away. He knew what he must do.

He rose to his feet and pointed the gun at Metcalfe.

'What the hell . . .!'

'I'm sorry,' said Jimmy as he pulled the trigger.

There was a click as the hammer fell. Jimmy pulled the trigger again. Another click. Then another. He broke open the revolver. There was just a single spent cartridge in the cylinder.

'Alice says, she thinks that Dotty was worried you'd do something silly.'

Jimmy spun round in rage, wanting to scream that they didn't understand. The last chance he had to put everything right had been taken away from him by some interfering old bat. Then he remembered Smitts' gun. Metcalfe had thrown it across the room under the table. He turned to dive after it, but Metcalfe had already read the situation. He easily pushed Jimmy's light womanly frame aside and retrieved it for himself. He waved the gun for Jimmy to back off.

'This is madness,' said Metcalfe. 'Now – let us all just calm down, sit still and wait for the police to arrive.'

'Jimmy, Alice says you must tell him.'

'What difference does it make?' snapped Jimmy.

'Tell him.'

'Tell me what exactly?' snorted Metcalfe. 'That everyone is insane. I know that already.'

'It doesn't matter now,' insisted Jimmy with inconsolable tears rolling down his face.

'Try.'

Jimmy glanced down at his beautiful fallen angel. He needed to believe that Farley was right. That Rosie wasn't gone forever and she would return, sometime, somewhere to once again spread the joy and happiness she had brought to this world.

'Mr Metcalfe . . .' Jimmy hesitated. 'Oh what the hell, it doesn't matter. Nothing does.'

Rosie's death had ripped the heart out of him. It was impossible to set that crushing loss aside in a ridiculous attempt to justify what had gone on.

'Jimmy! He must understand.'

Jimmy wasn't listening. He was crouched down next to Rosie with his head on her chest gently sobbing.

'Mr Metcalfe,' said Ethel hesitantly, 'do you believe in reincarnation?'

Metcalfe snorted, but not in derision. It was a short uneasy laugh. He replied choosing his words carefully, not wishing to inflame the situation further.

'I'm sorry, of course not. It's nonsense.'

'Well, Jimmy's has been reincarnated and it's a mistake.'

'I shouldn't be here,' Jimmy said wiping his eyes.

'I see,' said Metcalfe. He glanced nervously at the stirring form of Dixon, who was coming round on the floor. 'The damn police are taking their time. And where's Atkins?'

'I'm afraid Mr Dixon took exception to your assistant ordering him about and telling him what to do,' said Ethel.

'Took exception?' queried Metcalfe. 'But the police have been called?'

'Well,' said Ethel, 'Mr Dixon took exception to that as well and he broke your switchboard.'

'Broke it?'

'Well, you might say he smashed it up a bit. Your young telephonist wasn't pleased. She got quite upset.'

'But she's unharmed?' Metcalfe asked in alarm.

'Of course,' replied Ethel. 'Mr Dixon's a proper gent with women. It is men who tell him what to do that he doesn't like.'

'Frank, the doorman?'

'Mr Dixon locked him in a cupboard. And, oh, there was another man, well two actually, that tried to stop him.'

Dixon had rolled onto his knees and climbed groggily to his feet clinging onto the table for support.

Metcalfe edged towards the door now keeping the gun firmly trained on Dixon.

'Look, I really don't understand what's been going on here. There are two people lying dead in my office. I am very sorry your young friend here has been killed. ' Metcalfe turned to Jimmy. 'Why are you here, Mrs Whoever-You-Are? You claimed to know my family.'

Jimmy gently stroked Rosie's face. 'I do. And that's why I'm here, Mr Metcalfe to put things right.' He took a deep breath. 'To kill you.'

Ethel gasped. 'Oh, Jimmy! You're such a naughty boy.'

'I'm very sorry, Ethel, but is the only way.'

Metcalfe, not daring to take his eyes off the deranged ensemble, blindly fumbled for the door handle.

'Mr Dixon,' said Jimmy. 'Would you care to prevent Mr Metcalfe from leaving us?'

Dixon spat out a globule of blood onto the floor which was accompanied by his front two teeth courtesy of Smitts' knuckleduster. Metcalfe lunged at the door to escape, but Dixon was on him. He easily disarmed the engineer and shoved him back into the middle of the room.

'No, no, please. There must be another way,' said Metcalfe.

Jimmy took the gun off Dixon. 'Mr Metcalfe, I shouldn't be here. And the only reason I am is because of your grandson.'

'Grandson! At my age? I'm not even married. You've got the wrong chap.'

'Not now, but you will have.'

'What are you talking about – this is nonsense. I tell you, you've got the wrong man.'

'You will have a daughter called, Jackie, who will marry Johnny Purchase. And they will have two sons, one of which will be called Eddy.'

'Purchase?' queried Metcalfe. 'I know that name. My brother, Morris hangs around with a chap called Archie Purchase. It's a big family around here, but I've never heard of Johnny. I tell you, you've got the wrong man.'

'Please understand – this is what will happen in the future, Mr Metcalfe.'

The engineer backed away. 'Oh my God, you're all completely insane.'

Jimmy smiled wistfully. 'Probably. But you must believe me, Mr Metcalfe that this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do – to kill an innocent man.'

'Look, you don't want it to happen and I don't want it to happen. Can't we just talk about this?'

'In my time, Mr Metcalfe, your grandson, Eddy shoots and kills me. Then by some means I am reincarnated into the body you see before you. My presence in this world has changed everything. Winston Churchill was forced to resign because of me. If Eddy isn't born, I won't end up here in this world to change the course of history.'

Metcalfe eyes were darting everywhere desperately formulating a means of escape – any escape. He even glanced momentarily at the window. Five floors up and a forty foot drop would have been a measure of last resort but seemingly not totally unthinkable.

'Don't you see, Mr Metcalfe, this is the only way.'

From the terror in the engineer's eye it was obvious Jimmy hadn't completely sold him on the high-minded ideals of self-sacrifice.

'Look,' said Metcalfe. 'Please believe me, I won't be marrying. I am a confirmed bachelor.'

'You think that now. And even if you don't officially marry, you will have a daughter, and you will call her Jackie.

'You don't understand,' Metcalfe said hesitantly. 'I am a confirmed bachelor. Do I have to spell it out for you?'

'I think he is saying, he bats for the other side,' interrupted Ethel.

'Uh, what do you mean . . .?'

Metcalfe nodded. 'One can't be too open about these things.'

'But how then can he be Eddy's grandfather?'

Metcalfe smiled hesitantly. 'Perhaps now you'll put down that gun, please.'

'This doesn't make sense,' protested Jimmy. 'Eddy and Frank were always going on about their grandfather who won the war. And about their grandmother, Joan.'

'Joan? Morris was seeing a girl called Joan.'

'Your brother? Is he an electronics engineer too?'

'I'm afraid not. He joined the navy. He's a stoker.'

Jimmy paced the floor – his head spinning.

It didn't make any sense until the shocking truth fell into place. What Eddy and Frank had always claimed was complete bullshit. It wasn't their grandfather who was the genius that built the world's first computer – their real grandfather was a mere stoker in the navy. Jimmy lowered the gun and placed it on the table.

He stared down at Rosie's lifeless body and took her hand. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything.'

Metcalfe nervously took the weapon and slung it across the table out of reach.

'Perhaps I'd better call the police,' said Metcalfe edging his way towards the door.

Dixon bristled and balled his fists.

Jimmy held up his hand. 'No, it's okay.'

'Does that mean you can't go back home, Jimmy?' Ethel asked gently.

He offered her a wry smile. He felt so utterly foolish. He hadn't thought to question what that stupid lying bastard, Eddy Purchase had always claimed. Eddy's Grandfather, in reality, was just a humble stoker, literally the lowest of the low within the ship's company – selected not for their brains, but for their brawn.

'I don't think so, Ethel. Not now. I believed an idiot grandson of a Stoker.'

Metcalfe bristled at that. 'I have you know, Morris is a Stoker First Class. And I can't say too much, walls have ears and all that, but he has just earned a promotion to the finest fighting ship in the Royal Navy. This country needs men like Morris. Without them we're finished.'

Jimmy recalled the reference regarding Belle's brother, Richard. 'The finest ship in the navy? Would that be HMS Hood?'

'I can't say,' said Metcalfe.

He didn't have to. The answer was written all over his face. Stoker Morris Metcalfe had been transferred to the Hood – the mighty British battleship that will be sunk in May 1941 by the Bismarck with the loss of fifteen-hundred lives.

Jimmy then had a cruel, but exhilarating thought. Had Stoker Morris replaced Belle's brother, Richard? If so, it would mean poor Morris now dies in his place – No Morris, means no Eddy. If Jimmy isn't murdered by that retard, the world is then put to rights. Could it be that simple? Could there still be hope? Or would the war be over before that event came to pass and Morris survives?

There was a knock at the door. It burst open and two policemen bundled into the room waving truncheons.

'Grab them, officer,' Metcalfe cried out. 'They're all mad.'

'We know, sir. They've escaped from the asylum.'

Dixon stiffened, set to make a fight of it. Jimmy gently held his hands down. 'No more fighting. It's over.'

One of the policemen held out a set of handcuffs. 'Right, Lady on your feet, we'll deal with the body.'

Jimmy was reluctant to leave Rosie's side but he stood up enraged. It wasn't a body, it was the most beautiful person he had ever known and now she was dead.

'Hands out,' demanded the policeman.

In the confusion, no one had noticed an arm reaching up toward the table top. It felt for the gun.

'Jimmy! – Watch out!'

Ethel's warning came too late. With his dying breath Smitts aimed at Jimmy and fired. The bullet struck Jimmy between the shoulder blades shattering his spine. The force of the impact made him lurch forward. In a deliberate last act he fell to the ground to die beside his beloved Rosie. As his life slipped away he slid his arm around her in a final embrace.

There was a new sensation of urgency. Darkness and pressure and sounds from afar were the victors in expelling him from the place of timeless serenity. His lungs filled with air and he cried out his disapproval of the forced separation in shuddering waves of anguish.

'It's a boy, Mrs Delahoy. Have you a name yet?'

'James; after my father.'

'I sincerely wish you and young Jimmy here the best of luck in this God awful world.'

Twenty-Five Years Later.

The doctor stubbed out his cigarette. 'I'm not sure what advice I can give you, Mr Delahoy. We have no training in these things. As you must understand this field of study is strictly prohibited. You understand there are possible criminal ramifications if there is so much as a hint of the supernatural or witchcraft involved.'

Jimmy understood the subtext of the statement. 'It is safe in here though?'

The doctor smiled. 'We can speak freely, yes. It is one thing we do insist upon.'

Jimmy couldn't help run his eyes around the room looking in the recesses for obvious monitoring devices. None were evident. Not that he had been in many PDP's surgeries before – the queues were always too long with hours of waiting to be seen – but the doctor's surgery was typical of a People's Dispensary Physician – drab and ill-equipped. The worst of the decor was hidden behind the array of dated posters that warned against the spread of the TB and diphtheria of which there seemed a permanent epidemic. Only the rich elite with their vast sums of money got access to clean and modern medical facilities to vaccinate their children.

Reasonably confident that the conversation wouldn't be eaves dropped, Jimmy said, 'It's the flashbacks. They seem so real.'

'The conflict in thirty-nine – forty-one?'

'I feel I lived them, but I know I can't have.'

The doctor leaned over the desk with his hands clasped together and said in a low voice, 'Before we start, you are here for headache pills if anyone asks. PDP has a tiny budget, but I think we can run to that. And it shouldn't arouse any suspicion. In fact they might actually do you some good. We can't be too careful when it comes to discussing these so called psychological matters.'

Jimmy nodded.

The doctor relaxed back into his chair. 'Do you read, Mr Delahoy?'

'I try to, but the stock in the library is very limited.'

'Where else might this feeling for that time come from? Do your parents, grandparents discuss it? Might they have talked about it while you were a small impressionable child and you have retained those memories unaware?'

Jimmy chose his next statement carefully. 'They weren't really exposed to the conflict.'

The doctor's head snapped up. 'Foreigners?'

'Irish,' Jimmy said hiding his discomfort.

'Never mind. But you are English?'

'Absolutely. To the core.'

Satisfied, the doctor reached for another cigarette and lit up. He drew on it deeply and pulled a face. 'This tobacco is disgusting. Anyway, so tell me what form do these flashbacks take? Places? People? Events?'

'I visit places and I feel – no – I actually know I've been there before.'

'Such as?'

'When I was younger the school took us to what used to be the old prime minister's house in Downing Street. I walked through the door and knew with an absolute certainty that I'd been in that building before.'

'It's quite famous. In all likelihood you'd read or seen pictures about it prior to your visit.'

'But I knew my way around.'

'I say again – books, pictures?'

Jimmy thought hard for a more concrete example. Yet each déjà vu moment he'd experienced could be explained in the same way, but he knew for certain that wasn't the answer.

Exasperated, he said, 'Look, doctor, if I can describe it to you perhaps that would help.'

The doctor made a point of glancing at his watch then nodded for him to proceed.

'It is as though there is a great ball in my head, which is part of who I am, but is hidden and inaccessible. It feels like a forgotten word on the tip of your tongue, but this is so much more. It is like another complete world of memories that I know exists yet can't bring to the front of my mind. I get these occasional flashbacks like a flash of lightning. Then it's gone again. Even though these flashbacks are brief, I know they are real. But what is weird is that sometimes the same event seems to comprise two different memories – each slightly different from each other, but they both seem real.'

'How long has this been going on?'

'All my life.'

'Have you spoken to anyone else about such things?'

'No. Obviously.'

The doctor made a resigned gesture with his hands. 'There are many things we do not understand with the function of the human brain. Some scientists once theorised that we all contain specific memories inherited from the genes of our forebears. It isn't such a radical suggestion. We accept that different breeds of dogs behave according to type, so why not humans?'

'But my parents, or even theirs, weren't directly exposed to events from that time.'

'Perhaps,' the doctor replied slowly. 'But they would have had access to newspapers and read accounts of the conflict themselves, even in Ireland?'

Jimmy wasn't so sure. Rural Ireland was a very backward place at that time. Even if the local inhabitants had been taught to read, the availability of London newspapers on the west coast would have been almost non-existent. Of course his grandparents would have known Britain and Germany were briefly at war, but the vague details of the conflict that would have filtered through bore no comparison to Jimmy's vivid sense of having actually witnessed the events first hand.

Jimmy held back. The doctor had been recommended to him as being safe, but he was still reluctant to completely open up to him.

'Doctor, I tried a technique to retrieve the information. My brother helped. I say helped – he ended up by making me eat an onion.'

The doctor eyed him with concern.

Jimmy bowed his head. 'I know we shouldn't have done – it's against the law – but . . .'

'I believe I am aware of the practice you are referring to, which is a craze among the younger members of our society – until they're caught and severely punished. You know I should report you? Never mind. But your point is?'

'Well,' said Jimmy as he shifted nervously in the chair. 'It there anyone you can, you know – a name. I think it might be the key to unlocking what's in my head.'

The doctor shook his head. 'I'm afraid not. I never recommend.'

Jimmy offered a wry smile. He understood. Mistrust worked both ways. Who was to say Jimmy wasn't a police informer trying to entrap the doctor.

The doctor bounced out of his chair to announce the consultation was over. 'Here's your prescription for the headache pills. And as for the flashbacks – I think I'd diagnose wishful thinking. Deep down we all want to be a hero.'

Jimmy knew it wasn't wishful thinking. Those moments of insight hadn't made him feel in anyway heroic. If anything they filled him with an overwhelming sense of melancholy. It was true he liked history even if there was so little information available anywhere, libraries, bookstores of world events before 1941. He had often pondered what that world would be like now if Britain had fought on in the conflict regardless, and if Winston Churchill, the only politician as far as he could make out that had any backbone, hadn't been forced to resign by those desperate for peace. That was actually the weird thing about his flashes of déjà vu – they sometimes seemed a momentary insight into a different world, a better world, or was it as the doctor suggested, pure wishful thinking on his part.

Jimmy took the prescription, but he had no intention of collecting the pills from the dispensary. As a scarce resource, he would leave them for someone whose need was real.

He trudged the half-a-mile or so to his lodging. The flat wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't have to constantly share it with strangers. He barely got a chance to get to know the varied flatmates he'd had over the months, before they moved on, or were forcibly resettled.

His brother, Delboy should have been the obvious choice to cohabit with, but Delboy hadn't qualified for housing due to his numerous indiscretions over the years. With both his mum and dad no longer alive, to keep a roof over his head, Delboy had taken advantage of acquaintances' sofas all over London. It was one, if not the only one of the perks that came from meeting fellow convicts in prison.

A car with a loudspeaker on top drove past. The shrill message on a tape loop repeatedly urged everyone to vote for Duncan in the general election next week.

Why a poor country like Britain wasted so much time, effort and money on electioneering was a question that never seemed to be raised – especially as the results appeared to be a forgone conclusion.

Jimmy glanced up as the Volkswagen trundled by. He hadn't paid any real attention to them before, but on the other side of the street he saw another waste of money. On almost every one of the half-a-dozen massive billboards, which hid from view the embarrassment of the bomb-damaged houses that had stood unrepaired and in ruins for over sixty years, Nigel Duncan's smiling face could be seen. An advert for Fairy Liquid was the only exception. Below Duncan's perfect smile, on each hoarding was a different political campaign slogan: "Closer Ties with the GDDR? – We'd All Be Better Off", "British National Socialism Will Make Britain Great Again – Vote Duncan" – "Support The PUBLIC WORKS PROJECT – Work Brings Freedom".

The British National Socialist Party, the BNSP as it was always referred to had ruled in government on and off for the last fifty-years. It was rare for the Liberals to get into power. Perhaps only two or three brief spells in that period, during the better times when the shortages weren't as bad. The return of the shortages saw the return of the BNSP and their empty promises.

Nigel Duncan was the current leader of the BNSP. He was the latest in a long line of political leaders who were deemed acceptable to the powers that be in Berlin. They were safe in the knowledge that he would blindly follow the diktats from the Grober (Greater) Deutschland Democratic Republic, the GDDR. Most sane people were aware that the general election was the sham-face of democracy.

Yet that democratic process was enforced with ruthless efficiency upon the country. Every eligible person had to vote or face the threat of imprisonment for political subversion. Anyone with half a brain knew it was only because the political classes could crow from their ivory towers that their mandate to rule was sanctioned by truly democratic means, by a free democratic vote, in a free country.

Jimmy sneered as he walked past. It was a joke. He hated this country. If he had the money to immigrate to Australia he would do it instantly. He stopped in mid-stride and glanced back. He'd just had another of his déjà vu moments. A fleeting recognition, which, like all those before it, was gone again in an instant.

"Work Brings Freedom"

He knew it meant something, something sinister, something frightening. Strangely it was the phrase translated back into its original German that produced the greatest sense of unease.

Like most today, switching between English and German was done almost without thought. For more than two generations the peoples within the GDDR's dominant sphere of influence had been forced to be bi-lingual.

By law, British school children were taught all their lessons in German. To earn their Leaving Certificate and to stand any chance of getting decent job, they had to speak it word perfectly as if it were their native language. Failure meant likely candidature for one of the Public Works Projects and a life with zero possibility of advancement and almost guaranteed poverty. In some circles, especially in the nobility, the mega-rich and those aspiring to get their snout in the GDDR's trough, it was now in vogue to speak exclusively in German abandoning their mother tongue altogether.

"Arbeit Macht Frei"

Jimmy punched his forehead in frustration. He knew the answer was somewhere inside his brain, but like so much else, it was hidden, sealed away in a seemingly impregnable vault within his memory. Perhaps he was just crazy. Perhaps that was how mental illness first declared itself. But he must make no mention of that concern to anyone. Even discussing it with the PDP had been a risk.

The sudden ringing of a hand bell made him swing round.

A horse and cart lazily trudged past him along the street.

'Rag-a-bone,' the driver sang out.

As the nag plodded by it deposited a huge dollop of horse shit directly below the hoarding from which Duncan's face beamed. Jimmy laughed. An astute animal if there ever was one.

Hanging around outside the main entrance to his apartment block was a friend of Delboy's, a misguided young follower named Wayne. It seemed he had anxiously been waiting for Jimmy's return. He rushed over as soon as Jimmy appeared around the corner.

'Jimmy, Delboy sent me.'

Jimmy had a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

'Not again,' he mouthed under his breath and not for anything like the first time he silently cursed his brother.

'He needs your help,' said Wayne.

Wayne was barely out of his teens, yet he appeared completely bald. His hair was so closely cropped to his head as to leave but a faint shadow. Jimmy had never seen it any other way. Delboy once told him that it was because Wayne's natural hair was dark and curly like a Negro's, which would have attracted constant hassle from the police.

'How much?' asked Jimmy clenching his fists into balls of anger.

'Del's Brief says a thousand.'

'What about some of his mates?' It was a rhetorical question posed in a mocking tone. Delboy's so-called "good mates" were associates at best and accomplices in crime at worst. It always fell to Jimmy to literally bail him out.

The law had been changed. To stand bail for someone no longer meant standing as guarantor to ensure the accused attended court. It was now simply a pay-off to the police – an on-the-spot fine, the 'Victim Compensation Scheme', the authorities called it for anything they deemed a 'Minor Misdemeanour'. To save wasting the courts time they said. Everyone else called it what it was: a bung. The rich could even get away with the 'Minor Misdemeanour' of murder if they were prepared to stump-up the necessary amount, which some said was as little as one-hundred thousand.

It was at times like this that Jimmy just wanted to walk away and have nothing to do with his brother. But it had been his mother's dying wish that she made Jimmy promise to look after him. The sensible little brother looks after the big, stupid, irresponsible older brother. Not the deal most siblings settle upon as they grow up. He pays to keep him out of jail, to prevent his transportation, to put him back on the streets, to do it all over again, all at the cost of Jimmy's new life in Australia.

The Justice System, which was in itself an ironic title, had a 'three-strikes-and-you're-out' policy. Three prison terms handed down and that was it. Delboy had already been sent to jail twice when Jimmy hadn't been around to pay his Compensation.

'I'll need to get to a bank for the money.' It was a lie. The money was hidden in the apartment.

'He's only got until six-o'clock. After that they say he'll be put in the System.'

The System

The phrase struck hard. Any thoughts he had to abandoning his brother were rocked by it. Entering the System was like having a door slammed against the prying eyes of the outside world. Compared to it, prison was a holiday camp.

Jimmy had known lots of families whose wayward members had entered the System and had heard nothing until a letter arrived weeks later to say their son, daughter, father, had been transported. That was it, no appeal, no details of any court case, no lawyers lobbying on their behalf, no visitation rights. Transported. Final. Never seen again. Most believed they were conscripted into the army. There might have been a ceasefire with America that had held more-or-less without too much in the way of serious hostilities for over half-a-century, but the million-strong GDDR army had to be maintained from somewhere. There were also darker rumours surrounding their fate, but it wasn't wise to discuss it.

'Which police station?'

'Barkingside.'

Without further acknowledgement Jimmy turned away and entered the dilapidated tenement. He didn't need a key to the outer street door. The 'security' lock had been smashed off ages ago. With little enthusiasm Jimmy trudged up the two flights of concrete stairs. He dodged the odd lumps of excrement deposited on the steps by animal and human alike while holding his nose against the acrid stench of stale piss.

His new flatmate, Hans would probably be in slobbing-out in front of the TV. Hans Smith was Jimmy's third sharer in a year.

The first, Michael, had been a shrewd cookie. He had carefully stashed away everything he had earned. He had been hermit-like in foregoing any luxuries or social life over many years to gather together the sum needed to buy his way out of England and make it to Australia. Six months ago he succeeded. He had been the one who had planted the idea in Jimmy's head that a better life was to be had out there, and with determination, it was within his grasp.

Jimmy knocked on the front door. 'It's Jimmy. Okay.'

He then opened the door and walked in.

It was an accepted modern convention.

Identify yourself – let them hear your voice so the occupant knew it wasn't the secret police about to burst through it. It wasn't a fool proof measure if the police had forcibly coerced acquaintances into betrayal, but secret code words to raise the alarm between trusted friends were common.

Jimmy was right. Hans was sprawled out on the couch watching TV.

'You okay, Jim?'

Jimmy didn't answer. He went straight to his room. As quietly as possible, Jimmy retrieved his stash of savings from the hideaway.

It was illegal, but most people had one. Banks could no longer be trusted with protecting people's money, with accounts frozen and assets seized on a whim by the authorities. Jimmy's hidey-hole was in a tiny recess up within the chimney breast. Access was via a loose floorboard, which itself was covered by a carpet over-which a heavy chest of drawers had been placed.

By propping up one end of the unit with two thick books, he could slide his hand underneath and pull back the carpet. Using his finger nails he lifted the short length of floorboard and reached in.

The wad of cash was in a brown envelope. He counted through it. In six months he had managed to put away nearly five-thousand. Painfully, three grand of it had been frittered away in bailing-out Delboy from his previous transgressions. With another thousand set to go the same way, Jimmy wanted to cry.

He re-hid his depleted stash and hurried out of the apartment. There wasn't time to catch a bus. They were always late and overcrowded, and blitz attacks on them by organised gangs were only too frequent. Many had been murdered for refusing to handover far less cash than he had on him. Jimmy stood in-line at the cab rank. It had begun to rain. He turned up his collar and burrowed into his overcoat.

Rattling old cabs arrived at irregular intervals. He constantly checked his watch. He had half-an-hour. Finally he was at the head of the queue. A cab turned the corner and pulled onto the rank.

The young female cabbie leaned across to the passenger window. 'Where to?'

'Barkingside Police Station,' said Jimmy as he pulled open the door.

He slid into the seat and stared at the windscreen watching the metronomic wipers bat away the rain. The cab took off with a squeal of tyres.

'Trouble?' asked the girl driver.

Jimmy glanced over. It was the first time he had really taken notice of her. She was pretty, very pretty – naturally so. She had beautiful round blue eyes, shoulder-length golden hair and strikingly high cheekbones, like a photographic model. Definitely not your average London cabbie.

'You could say that. I've got to get there before six.'

'I'll see what I can do.'

She winked and offered him a glorious smile. Jimmy's heart missed a beat as his head exploded with he didn't know what. It was as though he had been punched somewhere deep in his soul. He had never ever felt such an intense and instant longing for another human being. It might have been called love at first sight, but he knew with absolute certainty that he had known this girl forever. It was a déjà vu moment that over-shadowed all his previous déjà vu moments. He sensed a timeless connection between them. He glanced at her again trying not to stare. How could he be so certain that he had known this girl all his life when he also knew with equal certainty that they had never ever met.

The young cabbie likewise seemed to look at him hesitantly, unsure if she had encountered an old friend. She smiled again. Jimmy couldn't have stopped the broad smile spreading across his face if he tried.

'Have you been in my cab before?'

Jimmy wanted to lie – to say yes. To say he had known her for all time.

'I do know you from somewhere, don't I?' she insisted.

Jimmy couldn't explain it. He tried to rationalise his feeling towards her by trawling his childhood memories for a clue. Perhaps he was wrong and they had met at some time or place.

'What's your name?' he asked hoping to retrieve a forgotten memory.

She pointed at her name tag. 'Poppy. Yours?

'I'm Jimmy.'

'Jimmy? It sounds familiar. Well, nice to meet you, Jimmy.'

She raised her hand for a high-five. Jimmy reciprocated but what should have been a quick slap of hands lingered as their fingers entwined and urgently clasped together. It was an electric moment between them before both pulled back embarrassed.

There followed an awkward silence in which they both stared firmly ahead watching the dismal rain-sodden street pass by. He had to restart a dialogue immediately if only to prove he wasn't some slimy sexual predator.

'Sorry.'

Poppy didn't look at him. 'No that's fine. Me too.'

The rain had got heavier. People were scurrying along the pavement stooped low beneath their umbrellas. The car suddenly swerved forcing Jimmy to grab the handhold.

'Sorry about that,' said Poppy. She still wouldn't look at him. 'Some of these potholes are so deep they could take a wheel off.'

'They tell us there's no cash for that sort of stuff – the government says it's skint,' said Jimmy.

'That doesn't stop the coal miners striking for more money though, does it.'

The conversation was stiff and formal and one that Jimmy didn't want to have. He was bursting to talk about how amazing it was just being close to her. To tell her he had never felt anything like this before. To say now they had met, they should never be parted, but Poppy had reverted to strict professional cabbie mode.

'Okay if I drop you here?'

'No, that's fine. Anywhere.' Jimmy didn't want it to end there. He had to make a move.

She pulled into the side of the road. 'Fifteen please.'

Jimmy slowly handed over the notes buying time to find the courage to say something. She didn't immediately pocket the fare, but glanced down at the money and then at Jimmy.

'Do you want me to wait?'

Jimmy's stomach fluttered in a hollow ache of excitement. 'It'll take a while, but please.'

'I'm in no rush. I like sitting quietly and listening to the rain. Besides, you'll never get a cab back in this weather.'

He hesitated to get out of the car. It took all his will power not to wrap his arms around her and squeeze her in an urgent embrace. He took a deep breath then from nowhere he blurted out, 'Hey, can I buy you a coffee?'

His eyes were locked on her willing her to accept.

She bit her lip.

He cringed inside. Asking her out like was sad and juvenile.

He didn't have all the chat with women like his brother. If he ever did ask a girl for a date, it was a one shot affair – all or nothing – yes or no. He had no clever or funny lines to woo them if they were hesitant. Replacing valves in knackered old TV's everyday in a small workshop full of men wasn't the place to polish his chat-up lines with the opposite sex.

There was an excruciating pause. 'I'm working.'

'No, after,' he said quickly, but inside he had already recognised the excuse as a softly disguised rejection.

'That's very sweet of you,' she said gently.

Jimmy hadn't had much experience of women, but he knew being referred to as 'sweet' wasn't the result of an electric sexual vibe.

Normally if he was turned down, he would just give up, accept the girl was too good for him, and move on. But something deep inside wouldn't let it be. He knew, with a certainty that defied logic that this was the moment he had waited for his whole life – the missing piece, which somehow finally made sense, in a way he didn't truly understand, of his glimpses into another world.

'I . . .' But Jimmy couldn't think of anything witty or clever that might sway her.

Poppy didn't look at him. 'You seem like a nice guy, but my boyfriend . . .'

Boyfriend! That wasn't in the script.

It was a hammer blow. He couldn't speak.

Stupidly, it hadn't even occurred to him that she might be involved with someone else. Why not? She was gorgeous. What on earth had made him think no one else would have snapped her up before now?

But he also knew this wasn't how it should be. She was meant to be with him – it was their fate to be together. He had felt nothing to be more right in his whole life, yet there she was slipping from his grasp. The chances of them meeting again were almost zero, unless like some creepy saddo, he stalked her on the taxi rank.

He wanted to quiz her about the relationship. Was he a casual boyfriend? Had they been together very long? And then insist that she must dump him as them being together was written in the stars.

Poppy gently encouraged Jimmy to go. 'You'd better be off – it's nearly six o'clock.'

'Yeah, nearly six,' he said distractedly as he glanced at his watch. The pressing need to go to his brother's aid had momentarily slipped his mind. 'I shouldn't be more than twenty minutes. You'll still be parked here?'

Perhaps she would reconsider and have change of heart when he got back. He sensed she was torn and she recognised something special had passed between them. Jimmy rarely invoked God's help, but he offered a silent prayer

Poppy turned away and bit her lip. 'Hey, look, Jimmy, I've just realised I can't wait. I've got another fare.'

They both knew it was a lie.

'Yes, but . . .' Jimmy said close to desperation, but he checked himself. He had his pride.

'I think it's for the best,' Poppy said. 'We're saving up to go to Australia.' She playfully flicked the small kangaroo toy dangling from the mirror. 'See.'

'Me too,' Jimmy said, but realised that sounded a bit desperate to suddenly piggyback the same goal in life.

'We can't wait. Get out of this place.'

'Me neither.'

'It's supposed to be wonderful.'

Jimmy hovered on the pavement unable to let her go.

'You've only got a few minutes. You need to hurry up,' said Poppy.

If she left now and he never saw her again, Jimmy knew even if he managed to get to Australia, life would never hold true happiness.

'Can't you wait?' He was almost begging. Not since his early teens had he lost his dignity over a girl and he hated himself for losing it now. But something deep inside drove him on.

'It's for the best.' Poppy pulled his door shut and with reluctance, the cab crawled away. Jimmy stood on the pavement staring after her, the rain running down his face mixing with the tears that were in his eyes.

Only after the car had long gone out of sight did he turn and trudge despondently toward the police station.

II

Jimmy despondently presented himself at the station desk.

'And you are?' demanded the bluff sergeant looking down at the list of names on a clipboard.

'Jimmy Delahoy, Derek Delahoy's brother. To pay a fine.'

There was a trace of a smile on the sergeant's gnarled face as he regarded Jimmy closely. The sergeant glanced at the station clock.

'Your brother's a lucky boy. Five more minutes and . . .'

The copper was right. Delboy was as lucky as Jimmy wasn't. If the situation was reversed, he couldn't have relied on Delboy being there on time to bail him out.

'Take a seat'. The policeman then leaned menacingly over the desk. 'By the way, for your information your brother isn't required to pay a fine for his criminal activity. He is making a small contribution into the 'Victim Compensation Scheme' – understand?'

Jimmy understood. Fines were legitimate and only levied by courts. VCS went straight into the pockets of the police with no trial, paperwork and no accountability.

There were two chairs in the station reception area. One was occupied by a woman who sat quietly waiting. Her hands were in her lap clutching a purse. Likely as not, she was another desperate relative set to give away a sizable chunk of their life's savings to prevent a loved one from disappearing into the System. She was smartly dressed in a simple but elegant overcoat and had a calm serenity about her that created a dignified air. Jimmy guessed she was around fifty from her the way she dressed, but her face was unlined with a sense of timelessness that meant her true age could have been anything from thirty to seventy.

He sat in the chair next to her. The woman didn't acknowledge his presence, which suited him fine. Police stations didn't encourage social interaction between friends or strangers alike. Every word and deed was picked up by secret microphones and hidden cameras. The police no longer had to read you your Rights for you to be under caution. On police premises or in the presence of a police officer it was deemed anything said was considered 'Under Caution', and therefore even a private, unguarded remark could and would be used against you.

He sat with his back half turned to her. He glanced up at the station clock. It was two minutes to six. His arrival should have been registered and easily beat the six o'clock cut-off, but until Delboy walked out of the police station a free man, he took nothing for granted. The police were literally a law unto themselves.

Nowadays few people had ever met a poor policeman, even though theoretically they were paid only a modest salary comparable with other low ranking civil servants.

It wasn't unknown for them to demand an arbitrary late payment charge on top of the standard VCS tariff if it had been a lean week or Christmas was on the horizon. But there was nothing that could be done about it. No one to complain to. You just had to pay it or accept the consequences.

Jimmy rocked anxiously in his chair. The duty sergeant had been gone an age.

'This is not right, is it – all this?'

Jimmy swung round surprised to hear the woman openly express such an indiscreet opinion. He remained silent. Of course it wasn't right. The whole system was corrupt. The world had taken the wrong turn. But blabbing your mouth off was dangerous at any time, let alone under the noses of the police.

'This is not how it should be.'

Jimmy turned his back on her making it obvious he wasn't prepared to enter into any such conversation.

'We've met before.'

'Don't think so,' Jimmy said sharply.

'You won't remember. It was a long time ago. You also knew my sister.'

Jimmy wanted to shut her out and keep the bitter-sweet thoughts of Poppy foremost in his head, but like a mind-worm eating away at him he couldn't help trying to place the woman in his past.

Nothing. She wasn't there. Nor this sister of hers. He was pretty sure he'd have remembered her, even if she had only been a neighbour or just a friend of the family when he was young. That's one thing he had better than most, a good memory.

'Not me,' he said flatly.

'Sometimes things don't turn out as you expect. You try to do right, yet seemingly only do wrong. But you mustn't give up. You can change all of this.'

Jimmy made a deliberate show of further turning his back on her to disassociated himself for the sake of the cameras and the consequences if her comments were picked-up.

'You have a good heart. You know this is not right. You know things which are just beyond your grasp. You see things others don't. Glimpses of another world.'

'Sorry, lady. Wrong bloke,' Jimmy snorted.

Everyone was aware, the PDP he saw earlier more than most, that any suggestion of mental illness, however innocent, was treated with deep suspicion and likely to buy him a one-way ticket to an asylum. But a worse fate was to be accused of dabbling in anything that was deemed the 'Occult'. The state regularly denounced those who they said were performing witchcraft and meted out harsh punishments including, in some rare instances, for the poor wretches, execution by hanging. That was something else the people this country had to thank the GDDR for.

Jimmy rose from his seat and walked to the far side of the room hoping she would take the hint and stop trying to implicate him in her lunatic conversation.

'Can I give you a piece of advice, Jimmy?'

For a brief moment he was stunned then with thin smile, he realised who she was – a police stooge. It was a set up. It was a well-known tactic.

Informers were sent to prey on the weak, encouraging them to rat on those under arrest for a modest advantage or financial reward.

Anger welled-up inside. In part, it was against the whole corrupt system and the way people were forced to eke out their pathetic existence in constant fear of the State and in part, it was anger was directed at Delboy who always brought his plans crashing down. But beneath it all, he recognised much of that anger related to the chance meeting with Poppy. It was the anger of someone who had found what they had searched for all their life only to have it tantalisingly snatched away again, forever.

'Listen to me, Jimmy. Sometimes it is hard to do the right thing. You may hesitate. You may be inclined to act hastily out of self-interest which you would only regret later. You must trust your inner voice and be true to the person you really are.'

Jimmy gave a hollow laugh. It was pathetic. Did she really expect that he would grass on his brother? He hated those state-funded blood-suckers, who fed on poverty and misery of the underclass's, offering their pathetic rewards to those who would be Judas.

'Hey, I'm not interested – understand!'

'Jimmy, not long from now you will have a choice to make. Remember, you must do the right thing. Sometimes it is necessary to go back and try again until you succeed with what you must do. Believe, and you can change all this. Think of Rosie.'

The name resonated deep inside – a joyous, but painful memory, fogged by the recesses of time. Jimmy spun round and looked at her curiously. 'What's your name?'

The woman smiled. It was a benign and warm smile, even loving – like that perhaps of a doting parent having just observed their child reaching another milestone in their life.

'My name's Alice,' the woman said slowly. 'Do you remember me now?'

'No,' he said, turning away.

A policeman appeared in the front desk office from a side door. He was younger than the desk sergeant with an air that was hungrier to wield the authority invested by his sinister paramilitary uniform.

'The person designated responsible for Derek Delahoy?' The copper's gaze fell upon Jimmy. 'Come forward.'

Jimmy stepped up the desk.

The copper eyed Jimmy intently for a moment. 'Were you just talking to me, sonny?' he demanded.

Jimmy shook his head. 'No.'

'Just watch your step, son. Talking to yourself like that could get you into a lot of trouble – understand.' The young copper jabbed the clipboard with his pen. 'Delahoy? That's not an English name.'

'My dad was Irish,' Jimmy said quickly, carefully leaving out the fact that his mother was too.

'That's all we need - another fucking, thieving Mick!' He exhaled wearily and ran his finger down the clipboard. 'The VCS tariff for Derek Delahoy's 'Minor Misdemeanour' – handling stolen goods, is a thousand marks.'

Jimmy pulled the cash from his jacket pocket and set the thick bundle upon the counter.

'So, there's definitely a thousand here, yeah?'

Jimmy nodded.

With slow deliberation, the young copper exaggeratedly counted the notes perhaps in the hope that it was going to be short and therefore enable him to gleefully charge Jimmy with: 'Making a false statement under caution' and 'Wasting police time.' It was pathetic, but they cruelly savoured their authority, the hold they had over people and the potential to impose further fines to fill their coffers.

The young copper squared-up the bundle and deposited it below the counter into a safe. He kicked the safe door shut. 'Wait here.'

He departed to a room at rear of the custody suite.

It was a tense moment. With the cash gone and no evidence by the way of a receipt that it had been paid, Jimmy had to rely on the coppers keeping to their side of the bargain. But that was how it always was. It was all a game to them; creating fear and uncertainty.

Jimmy stood at the counter and waited nervously. Five-minutes became ten. His eyes remained fixed on the door through which the policeman had left. He considered calling out, but immediately thought better of it. The Police didn't take kindly to being taken to task. He also realised that Alice, the pathetic police stooge, the pond life of humanity, had also given up pestering him.

He glanced around to see what she was doing, but she had vanished. The room had four windowless walls with nowhere to hide, but she had gone. Unless there was a secret door, somehow she had got up and left without Jimmy noticing. He knew his attention had been focused on what might be happening in the cells at the back of the police station, but there was only one exit to the room and Jimmy was standing right beside it.

He wasn't allowed to dwell upon her mysterious disappearance before the young copper returned with Del in tow. Del gave Jimmy a discreet thumbs-up as the copper released the handcuffs. Jimmy closed his eyes and sighed. Not only was it a sigh of relief, but also of resignation knowing that it wouldn't be long before the whole thing was repeated over. And yet again, the mug that Jimmy was would be there to bail him out with more of his precious savings for Australia.

Del arm's was slung around Jimmy's shoulder as they trotted out of the police station.

'Well done, Jimbo. I owe yer. When I get some money I'll pay you back every penny.'

That Jimmy didn't get too excited by the proposal was understandable. It had become Del's mantra. He probably even meant it, but it had never happened so far and there was little prospect of it ever happening in the future.

'Do us a favour, Del – just keep out of trouble. Get a proper job and keep your head down.'

'I'm trying to go straight, Jimbo, but I've got certain obligations to me mates – you know what I mean?'

'I might not always be around to bail you out.'

'You know what I tell me mates – I tell them you're the best kid brother a bloke can have. You are top-notch – solid. We're blood, Jimbo – I know I can always rely on you – one-hundred percent.'

Jimmy had shut out Del's usual old flannel. He was scanning up and down the rain-sodden street in the desperate hope that Poppy had had second thought. But there was no sign of her. The only car in the street was a black Austin 24 that was parked further down the road. Jimmy was gutted, but didn't let it show. Delboy was never the most sympathetic of shoulders to cry on. He would only have taken the piss at Jimmy getting yet another knock-back from a random girl.

Jimmy nodded towards the luxury Austin saloon. It was odd that it was parked with its engine running and headlights on full.

'That car – have you arranged to be picked up?'

Del stared into the gloom. 'Nah, nothin' to do with me. I've gonna have to get the bus. Jimbo, I don't suppose you've got change?'

Del's charm, if that's what it was, was irresistible even to Jimmy, who had been the victim of it all his life. Jimmy dipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. 'It's all I've got.'

'Cheers, bro. Catcha later.' Del stepped off the pavement and casually strode across the road towards the bus stop opposite.

Jimmy had made up his mind to walk home anyway. It wasn't that far and the crap weather just about mirrored his mood. He had gone barely three paces when the big Austin startled him as the engine note rose to a great roar. With a squeal of tyres it accelerated hard towards them. Del seemed oblivious as two-tons of metal bore down upon him. From Jimmy's vantage point there was no doubt about the driver's intention. He was going to take Del out. Instantly, Jimmy understood what might be going on. Probably a stolen car driven by someone with a score to settle against his brother. Del had as many enemies as acquaintances'. The word on the street was that most recently it was the Purchase brothers, who he'd stiffed out of a big deal.

Jimmy shouted a warning, but Del was lost in his own world totally unaware of the danger as the car sped towards him.

'DEL!'

Del swung round and froze.

'LOOK OUT!' screamed Jimmy.

But Del stood transfixed unable to move. Instinctively Jimmy tensed ready to rush into the road to save him, but something held him back.

Was it because part of him wanted to see Del punished – to make him realise it wasn't a game the way he carried on his life? Was it that during their childhood his brother had a total disregard for everyone except for himself? Was it because Jimmy knew that however hard he saved to go to Australia, Del would ultimately always get in the way? Was it because, Jimmy didn't believe that Del would actually lay down his life for him if the roles were reversed?

All those nebulous thoughts and emotions tumbled through Jimmy's brain in an instant. Yet he was left with one overriding impulse – to fulfil his solemn promise to his dying mother that he should look out for his brother. Yet irrationally, there was also the compulsion to heed the words of the stranger in the police station that he should do what was right regardless of the consequences.

He leapt into the road and hurled Del out of the way. Yet for Jimmy there was no time to get clear. He took the full force of the impact. The two tons of roaring steel crumpled only slightly as it smashed into him. The shards of Jimmy's shattered rib cage became lethal daggers that pierced deep into his heart. Death was instantaneous.

The momentum carried his now lifeless body up onto the bonnet where it remained momentarily before rolling off and falling into the road like a discarded rag doll.

Fishtailing under power, the Austin screeched away and hurtled off down the road. Moments later a taxi cab with a toy kangaroo hanging from the interior mirror turned into view. The cab slowed to a halt. Through the pouring rain the powerful headlights picked out a sobbing crouched figure that cradled the unnaturally twisted body lying in the road. It was like the final act of a Greek tragedy, but this desperate tableau was not make-believe. There would be no joyous curtain call for those acting out this melodrama, only forever pain and haunting sorrow.

Oblivious to the spontaneous outpouring of emotion from two people he would never have expected it from, somewhere deep within Jimmy's broken body the last spark of his being fizzled out with a great rushing sound. As he became distantly aware of a trill sound and muffled voices – a great pressure bearing down upon him a life flashed before him – not his life, but another life in another time. His life in another time. A life to be lived again to prevent an evil tyranny engulfing the entire world.

'Can you hear me, Jimmy?'

The voice was far away, not part of his dream. It was invasive and unwelcome. He wanted it to go away. But its insistence dragged him from somewhere deep within, and like a bubble of air rising to the surface from the depths of an ocean, he was ejected into another world. His eyes screwed up against the light.

'How are you feeling?' the same voice asked.

The words had no meaning. They washed over him without comprehension. Everything seemed unreal. He was awake yet at the same time not awake. He hovered uncertainly in the hinterland between a deathly dreamtime and life.

'We will try to keep you awake longer than last time. You're getting better. The longer we can prevent you from falling back unconscious the quicker you will make a full recovery.'

Jimmy had no inclination to open his eyes, but the voice, a young girl's, was soft, gentle, even loving and stirred a memory.

'You had a lucky escape. If that bullet had been a few millimetres either way, we might not be having this little chat today. The doctors say there's extensive trauma but you'll probably make a full recovery. It'll just take time and plenty of rest.'

Jimmy understood some of the words, but they seemed unrelated to him.

'Jimmy.'

The insistent voice dragged him from the creeping descent back into dreamtime.

'Do you know where you are?'

Jimmy saw the young girl's lips moving and heard the sound, but there was no connection between the two. He focused on her face. She had startling blue eyes that held him. They radiated intense warmth and kindness.

'Do you remember who I am?' The girl smiled. 'You've forgotten again, haven't you. I'm Daisy. I'm your nurse. And between us we are going to make you better.' She smiled again – a glorious smile that lit up the whole room. She was beautiful.

Another memory stirred deep from within.

'Now sit up for me. I need to take your blood pressure.'

She helped Jimmy up as the end of the remotely controlled bed rose in tandem with her effort. She removed his oxygen mask.

'That's good. Well done,' said Daisy. 'Can you try to speak for me? You tell me your name.'

Jimmy was eager to please his beautiful angel. He tried to force a recognised sound from his throat, but it only emerged as a harsh breath.

'Oh, you can do better than that. Come on, try again.'

He concentrated hard. 'Ji – immm – m – m – mee.' It was slow and slurred, it was barely audible, but, not that he knew it, but it was the first word he had spoken since he had been admitted to hospital three weeks ago.

His tortured effort had made his beautiful angel happy.

'That's brilliant. And now my name. Do you remember it?'

Jimmy hesitated as he delved inside his head for the answer.

'Dai – a – e.'

She smiled that glorious smile. 'You know what, Jimmy you will be out of here before you know it.'

She took a step back and looked at him curiously.

'Jimmy,' she said, 'now I can see your face properly without all the tubes, and the swelling's gone down, don't I know you from somewhere?'

Six Weeks Later

'Jimmy, how are we today?'

It was the moment he had been waiting for all morning – the start of Daisy's shift. He had been feeling very down about himself and about the death of his brother, but her arrival immediately cast any mournful thoughts aside.

Earlier, two hospital volunteers had appeared at his bedside. They introduced themselves as Dolly and Joan. They were spinster sisters, both retired, who gave up their free time to visit patients, bringing with them their own brand of life-affirming joy.

When they first arrived, one of them said something that resonated with him; a distant, but fond memory which he couldn't rightly place. It wasn't a phrase his mother would have used nor, as he recalled, anyone in his close family. Yet it conveyed such a strong maternal sense of love that he couldn't imagine it being said by anyone other than someone very dear to him.

'Well young man you have got yourself in a right pickle, haven't you? You don't belong here.'

They were a jolly pair with an infectious love of life, who laughed and joked the whole time, but his mood wouldn't truly be lifted until Daisy arrived. Even a visit by his girlfriend, Cheryl failed to raise his spirits. He felt guilty as she fussed around him, plumping his pillows and chatting inconsequentially to cheer him up, but he no longer had any feelings for her – not since he had met Daisy.

Daisy took gently took his arm and wrapped it in the blood pressure cuff. She saw beyond his smile.

'Thinking of your brother?'

Jimmy gazed out of the window of the hospital day room at the neatly clipped lawns beyond. 'I never thought he'd do that, you know, lay down his life for me. It makes me feel sort of ashamed. I never thought he cared about anyone else except himself. And now he's dead.'

Daisy squeezed his hand. 'It must be hard.'

'There's something else.'

'The hallucinations?'

'I know that's what they must be, but they feel like true flashbacks from my past, actual real memories. They are so powerful. The strange thing is at the beginning they seem no different, but then it is as if I have two memories one is like a terrible, terrible nightmare and the other feels like I've done something good. Put something right.'

'Dr Shukter said that the confusion is due to hypnagogic episodes with your brain playing tricks on you. He said it was only to be expected with the extensive trauma you have suffered. He says they will pass as you make a full recovery.'

He had no intention of arguing with her. He was in love. Not that he had had the guts to tell her, or found the right time to break it to Cheryl, but he also knew with absolute certainty that the memories he was experiencing weren't a crazy waking dream. The flashbacks were a real memory of his own past experiences, but events that had no place in his life. He had never told Daisy, but he also knew that somehow she, or someone impossibly like her, was central to those memories.

'Come on, cheer up, Jimmy. You know I hate seeing you like this.'

Jimmy offered a weak smile.

Daisy stroked his face. 'It was very brave what you brother did. Both of you might have been killed.'

'Eddy wanted both of us dead – no witnesses.'

'Well, he won't be troubling us when you get out of here. He'll be going away for a long time.'

Jimmy glanced round sharply. Daisy's face reddened. She quickly changed the subject.

'What are we reading today – another history book? Not about the Second World War by any chance?' she said with a teasing smile.

He was besotted with that girl. Words couldn't describe his feelings for her beyond the clichéd, 'Head over heels in love'. She was his perfect English rose. Yet he didn't dare believe that there was anything of a future for them beyond his time in the hospital.

'Um,' he said, still excitedly pondering her slip of the tongue, and also with the embarrassment of knowing that he was so predictable. 'The North Africa Campaign – Eighth Army and all that.'

'Interesting?' queried Daisy, holding out water in a cup to help swallow his morning's medication.

He gulped the pills down.

Daisy put the cup to one side. 'Turning point in the war, they say?'

'Alamein?' said Jimmy. 'It was the first real Allied victory against the Germans. They reckon the war would have gone on well past 1945 if Malta had fallen. It would have given the Germans free rein in the Med to reinforce the Afrika Korps and push back the Eighth Army to capture the Middle-Eastern oilfields. We were lucky though. The brave Maltese held on because a supply ship got though at the last moment. And against the wishes of the high command, Churchill insisted Montgomery was appointed to lead the Eighth Army in Egypt when General Gott was killed, and the rest is history as they say . . .' Jimmy stopped abruptly. Something came back to him. 'It was never revealed, but Churchill said after the war, he was swayed by the last minute intervention by an unnamed person, who urged Montgomery's appointment.' The hairs on the back of his neck rose. For a second he wasn't in the hospital, he was somewhere else, somewhere dark, somewhere frightening, somewhere entombed with a great weight pressing down upon him. There was a hellish glow and an intense pain in his thigh – there was a bloody gash, a meeting with a great man, the greatest Briton . . . and there was Rosie. His beautiful, brave Rosie whose face was the almost identical face one of another girl he knew in another time, in another terrible world, Poppy, which in turn was the same as someone in this world – a better world – Daisy.

'Jimmy! Jimmy!'

His eyes flicked open. Daisy's face was only inches from his. She had her hands at the side of his head yelling at him.

'Jimmy, are you okay! Talk to me!'

Jimmy slowly nodded. He looked up at Daisy or was she Poppy or was she once his beautiful Rosie. He eased Daisy away and pulled back the thick blanket covering his legs. He ran his fingers down his thigh. They stopped when they reached his unusual birthmark. He looked down. There were two parallel ridges of scar-like tissue that ran down the outside of his leg below his hip. Then he understood. It wasn't one birth mark, it was two.

There was a hollow feeling in his stomach.

'Daisy,' he said slowly, 'Listen. What I have to say will sound very strange, but please hear me out. It's nothing to do with my head injury, and try to not to think I'm in anyway, you know, a bit mad. But believe me, this is truly the happiest day of my life – well, all of my lives, actually.'

