Aluminium foil – as brown and sticky-looking as if it had been used to cook a roast – clung in ragged strips to the inside of the nearest window. Peering anxiously between them, Anna made out the dining room. No improvements were ongoing there; nor was there much furniture or ornament. Two upright chairs. A gateleg table fifty years old. Green linoleum caught the dim light in ripples. On the table stood a pressed-tin box with a glass front, about eight inches by four, someone’s small prize brought back from Mexico during the cheap air-travel decades, in which was displayed the following peculiar diorama: an object the size and shape of a child’s skull, nestled on a bed of red lace like offcuts from cheap lingerie and set against a black background (scattered with sequins and meant, perhaps, to represent Night). Otherwise nothing, except the rolled-up carpet propped in the corner opposite the door. Though the telephone seemed close, Anna couldn’t see it. It continued to ring for a minute or two. Then came a loud, amplified click succeeded by the impure electronic silence of the open connection, and a clear voice that said:

‘My name is Pearlant and I come from the future.’