For half an hour the two men wandered slowly round Copperfield Hall, looked in rooms, talked about toilets, finally sat in the garden drinking tea which had been brought round on a trolley. Not once had the old man acknowledged that he recognised Harry and Harry realised it was very likely he had forgotten. But Harry knew this man.

With their teacups from the trolley they sat in the warm garden and the old man talked about a life that had been. Harry, unsettled, nevertheless sat back in the garden chair, felt the sun on his face, let the old man talk on which he so obviously enjoyed doing. He shook his head once more at yet another name mentioned. ‘George Thomas, you must remember him at the old Gaiety Theatre?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Harry politely, or occasionally, ‘yes I think I’ve heard that name.’ Roger Popham was talking of people who worked in the theatre almost before Harry was born. Very occasionally he could say, ‘Yes of course I’ve heard of him,’ and once even, ‘Oh yes, Algie Twod, I worked with him in my very first musical, I remember wondering if that could possibly be his real name.’ He felt there was something infinitely sad about all the unknown names: so much for fame, he thought.

And all the time, in his mind, he saw the piece of waste ground in York, remembered the taste of blood on his lips. And then, like an odd flick of a switch, he saw the blood in the test tube.

‘All these names,’ said Roger suddenly, ‘well of course you won’t know most of them, it’s foolish of me, I lived abroad for much of my life you see, that’s why the people I talk about are from long ago. Anyway I was never a well-known actor dear boy, well, I wasn’t good enough. Pretty face, that was all. I only ever worked here occasionally, I’d come back for a while now and then but I always felt...’ the old man paused ‘...uneasy here. I was happier in the circus.’

Harry looked at him in astonishment. ‘You worked in a circus?’

‘For many years I did, yes, you’d be surprised how many actors ended up doing something like that, we travelled around France and other countries in Europe. I sometimes worked as a clown, I worked with the chimpanzees, I even, if you can believe it looking at me now, did a little trapeze work, just the simple stuff, you know?’

Harry looked again at the old man, at his thin body, that looked somehow fragile now. ‘I wonder why it is that the circus always seems so romantic,’ he said, ‘the kind of place you want to run away to and change your life.’

‘I did just that,’ murmured Roger Popham.