'Sorry,' said the prince as I opened the garage doors, just demonstrating how that damn fool Laertes gets his comeuppance.'

I showed him how to get into the Porsche, dropped in myself, started the engine and drove off down the hill towards the Brunei Centre.

'You seem to be getting on very well with Emma.'

'Who?' asked Hamlet, unconvincingly vague.

'Lady Hamilton.'

'Oh, her. Nice girl. We have a lot in common.'

'Such as—?'

'Well,' said Hamlet, thinking hard, 'we both have a good friend called Horatio.'

We motored on down past the magic roundabout and I pointed out the new stadium with its four floodlighting towers standing tall among the low housing.

'That's our croquet stadium,' I said, 'thirty thousand seats. Home of the Swindon Mallets croquet team.'

'Croquet is a national sport out here?'

'Oh yes,' I replied, knowing a thing or two about it since I used to play myself. 'It has evolved a lot since the early days. For a start the teams are bigger – ten a side in World Croquet League. The players have to get their balls through the hoops in the quickest possible time, so it can be quite rough. A stray ball can pack a wallop and a flailing mallet is potentially lethal. The WCL insist on body armour and perspex barriers for the spectators.'

I turned left into Manchester Road and parked behind a Griffin-6 Lowrider.

'What now?'

'Haircut. You don't think I'm going to spend the next few weeks looking like Joan of Arc, do you?'

'Ah!' said Hamlet. 'You hadn't mentioned it for a while so I'd stopped noticing. If it's all right with you, I'll just stay here and write a letter to Horatio. Does "pirate" have one "t" or two?'

'One.'

I walked into Mum's hairdresser. The stylists looked at my hair with a sort of shocked numbness until Lady Volescamper, who along with her increasingly eccentric mayoral husband constituted Swindon's most visible aristocracy, suddenly pointed at me and said in a strident tone that could shatter glass:

'That's the style I want. Something new. Something retro – something to cause a sensation at the Swindon Mansion House Ball!'

Mrs Barnet, who was both the chief stylist and official gossip laureate of Swindon, kept her look of horror to herself and then said diplomatically:

'Of course. And may I say that Her Grace's boldness matches her sense of style.'

Lady Volescamper returned to her Femole magazine, appearing not to recognise me, which was just as well – the last time I went to Vole Towers a hell beast from the darkest depths of the human imagination trashed the entrance lobby.

'Hello, Thursday,' said Mrs Barnet, wrapping a sheet around me with an expert flourish, 'haven't seen you for a while.'

'I've been away.'

'In prison?'

'No – just away.'

'Ah. How would you like it? I have it on good authority that the "Joan of Arc" look is set to be quite popular this summer.'

'You know I'm not a fashion person, Gladys. Just get rid of the dopey haircut, would you?'