All of a sudden I get that funny feeling. It reminds me of something and it almost comes into my head, then escapes again. I concentrate on the writing, hoping it will come back but it doesn’t. Footsteps along the hall. I turn around to see Le Temps. He’s still dressed in his tracksuit from earlier, still smelling of sweat.

‘Terribly sorry about your boyfriend, Elle.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend. Why are YOU sorry? Did you make him steal the car?’

Nigerians say they’re sorry when they’ve done nothing wrong. They say sorry to show that they feel sad like you do. But Le Temps isn’t Nigerian. He’s English pretending to be French, with his clever-clever name.

‘No. He stole it of his own free will. I’m sorry he made a wrong decision. Still,’ he smiles, ‘better than rearranging the furniture.’

As Le Temps is speaking, I’m reading his name on his office door like the words have come up as the caption ‘LE TEMPS, Eco-landscaper’ and Le Temps is a talking head. And there’s something about the order. Something familiar. I play the film over in my head and I focus in on the words ‘LE TEMPS’ on the screen. Then I look back at LE TEMPS on the door. And I focus again on the film, rewind to the letters flying all over the screen like insects and I look back at the letters on the door, focus until the letters leap out of place: LETEMPS, LTMSEEP, LSM PTEE, the letters rearrange and rearrange until they stop. PETE LMS. Le Temps is an anagram of Pete LMS.

Le Temps = Pete LMS.

Chapter 20:00: The Predictive

Chapter 20:00

THE PREDICTIVE

‘You’re Pete LMS grown up!’ ‘Bravo, Elle. Pure genius.’ He clicks his Chronophone, his office door opens and he guides me inside. ‘After you. Was wondering when you’d work that out.’

His office is as large as our flat. It has a desk with a green computer on it, two comfy armchairs and a round rug based on an old-fashioned clock with roman numerals. On the wall is a large whiteboard with strings of letters on it, like someone fell onto a keyboard, and various dates, all of them leap years in the mid-21st century. And 2100.

‘Welcome to The Time Machine. Do take a seat. D’you think I did a good job on the anagram? Reinventing myself. We Annuals like wordplay too, you know. Ah, you thought I was a Leapling. The name fools everyone. Can’t leap to save my life. You won’t tell on me, will you? Our little secret?’

He sits down in one of the armchairs but I don’t sit down. I stand near the door, staring at him in his tracksuit with his bald head. He looks nothing like his younger self. I can’t believe Le Temps is Pete LMS. But he is. He is.