‘These belonged to my mum,’ he said. ‘She was going to throw ’em out, but I said, there’s still some good leather on them—’

Mrs Tachyon snatched them out of his hand. In seconds they were somewhere in the pile of bags on the trolley.

‘It’s a small step for a man,’ said Mrs Tachyon.

‘Yes, they’re size sixes,’ said the sergeant.

‘Ah, Bisto. It’s a great life if yer don’t weaken, but of course they’ve put a bridge there now.’

The sergeant looked down at the trolley.

‘Dunno where you get this stuff from,’ he said. ‘What’re these bags made of, love? Looks like rubber or something.’

‘Obbly Obbly Ob. Weeeed!’ said Mrs Tachyon. ‘I told them, but no one listens to a teapot. Fab!’

The sergeant sighed, put his hand in his pocket and produced a sixpence.

‘Get yourself a cup of tea and a bun,’ he said.

‘Hats. That’s what you think,’ said Mrs Tachyon, taking it.

‘Don’t mention it.’

The sergeant headed back into the police station.

He was used to Mrs Tachyon. When nights were cold you’d sometimes hear a milk bottle smash on the step outside. This was technically a crime, and it meant that Mrs Tachyon was looking for somewhere warm for the night.

Not on every cold night, though. That was a puzzler, and no mistake. Last winter it had been very nippy indeed for quite a long time and the lads had got a bit worried. It came as quite a relief when they’d heard the crash of breaking glass and the cry of ‘I told ’em! That’s what you think!’ Mrs Tachyon came and went, and no one knew where she came from, and you never found out where she’d gone …

Beam me up, Snotty? Mad as a hatter, of course.

But … strange, too. Like, after you’d given her something you ended up feeling as if she’d done you a favour.

He heard the rattle of the trolley behind him, and then a sudden silence.

He turned around. The trolley, and Mrs Tachyon, had gone.

Johnny felt the hereness of here. It’d happen here, not in some far-off country full of odd names and foreign people with thick moustaches shouting slogans.

It’d happen here, where there were public libraries and zebra crossings and people who did the football pools.

Bombs would come crashing through roofs and ceilings and down to the cellars, and turn the world white.

And it would happen, because as Yo-less said, it had happened. It was going to have happened, and he couldn’t possibly stop it, because if he did find some way of stopping it, then he wouldn’t know about it happening, would he?

Maybe Mrs Tachyon collected Time. Johnny felt in a way that he couldn’t quite put into words that Time wasn’t just something that was on clocks and calendars but lived in people’s heads, too. And if that meant you had to think like this, no wonder she sounded mad.