As if by way of confirmation, my heart blips again as Peter Stemp tries his time-stopping trick once too often for good taste. The applause for Stemp’s encore is tepid, and I catch a couple of withering glances from the professors. As they troop off for dinner, I stay behind to gather strength and thoughts.

‘You all right, Mr Sim?’ asks Sandra Adams, with endearing familiarity.

‘Yes, yes, go in, be with you in a minute,’ I reply, burying my head beneath the green-baize tabletop as if searching for something I have dropped on the floor. The truth is, I am not all right, not even slightly all right, and there is nothing Sandra or whoever she is can do to put me right. I am either dying or reviving, and I’m not at all sure which is the better option.

A man I have long given up for dead is apparently still alive, and I am consumed by thoughts of finding him – as well as by the awful realisation that he has been deliberately hiding from me all these years. Long-dead parts of my past are stirring from sedation. Common sense urges me to suppress them and catch the next train back to London. Vengeance summons me to set out on a man-hunt and pursue it to the mortal end. A civil war erupts inside my control tower, desk-bound caution fighting off wave upon wave of violent adventure. The outcome could go either way. If caution gets blown to the winds, I might be about to expose myself to risk, to ridicule – worst of all, to the possibility of love. I don’t think I can cope with love. ‘Help me,’ I childishly implore, ‘please, Dovidl, tell me what to do.’

The utterance of his name – Dovidl – precipitates a violent flush of palpitations. He can still unsettle me like nothing on earth. This cannot continue: get a grip, stay cool. I need to get through tonight’s business alive before setting out to track him down.

In pursuit of instant calm, I ransack my pockets for pharmaceutical remedies, discovering – too late – that I have forgotten to transfer the pack of Valium from my day jacket to my dress suit. Panic rising, palms sweating, my fingertips claw the bottom of an outer pocket for bits and bobs that may have survived a recent trip to the dry-cleaner’s. Into my parched mouth go: two loose Nurofens, a mild laxative and a confectioner’s cough lozenge, still in its waxed-paper wrapper. Dear Dovidl, I pray. Let me live just long enough to look you in the eye and reclaim the part of me that is rightly mine.

Chapter 3

3

Out of Time