“Good-bye.”

“So long.”

“Cheerio,” said a timid-sounding voice from the back. We both turned and looked into the rear of the car. Mr. Meakle had changed back. A thin, rather pathetic-looking man was sitting in the back seat, completely naked and very muddy. His hands were clasped modestly over his genitals.

“Mr. Meakle! Welcome back!” said Spike, grinning broadly as he added in a scolding tone: “You didn’t take your tablets, did you?”

Mr. Meakle shook his head miserably.

I thanked Spike again. As he drove off I could see Mr. Meakle waving to me a bit stupidly through the rear window. Spike did another U-turn, causing a second car to brake hard, and was gone.

I stared at the sports car on the front row of the lot under a banner marked BARGAIN. There could be no mistake. The car was definitely the one that had appeared before me in my hospital room. And I had been driving it. It was me who had told me to come to Swindon. It was me who had told me that Acheron wasn’t dead. If I hadn’t come to Swindon then I wouldn’t have seen the car and wouldn’t have been able to buy it. It didn’t make a great deal of sense, but what little I did know was that I had to have it.

“Can I help you, madam?” asked an oily salesman who had appeared almost from nowhere, rubbing his hands nervously and sweating profusely in the heat.

“This car. How long have you had it?”

“The 356 Speedster? About six months.”

“Has it ever been up to London in that time?”

“London?” repeated the salesman, slightly puzzled. “Not at all. Why?”

“No reason. I’ll take it.”

The salesman looked slightly shocked.

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t you like something a little more practical? I have a good selection of Buicks which have just come in. Ex-Goliath but with low mileage, you know—”

“This one,” I said firmly.

The salesman smiled uneasily. The car was obviously at a giveaway price and they didn’t stand to make a bean on it. He muttered something feeble and hurried off to get the keys.

I sat inside. The interior was spartan in the extreme. I had never thought myself very interested in cars, but this one was different. It was outrageously conspicuous with curious paintwork in red, blue and green, but I liked it immediately. The salesman returned with the keys and it started on the second turn. He did the necessary paperwork and half an hour later I drove out of the lot into the road. The car accelerated rapidly with a rasping note from the tailpipe. Within a couple of hundred yards the two of us were inseparable.

9.
The Next Family

. . . I was born on a Thursday, hence the name. My brother was born on a Monday and they called him Anton—go figure. My mother was called Wednesday but was born on a Sunday—I don’t know why—and my father had no name at all—his identity and existence had been scrubbed by the ChronoGuard after he went rogue. To all intents and purposes he didn’t exist at all. It didn’t matter. He was always Dad to me . . .