I had an idea. I grasped the footnoterphone and asked to be put through to Mr Toad from Wind in the Willows. He wasn't in but Ratty was; and after I had explained who I was and what I wanted, he gave me the information I needed. Havisham and Mr Toad were racing on Pendine Sands, in the Socialist Republic of Wales.

I ran up the stairs and to the works of Dylan Thomas, picked up a slim volume of poetry and concentrated on my exit point in the Outland. To my delight it worked and I was catapulted out of fiction and into an untidy heap in a small bookshop in Laugharne, Thomas's old village in South Wales. Now a shrine for Welsh and non-Welsh visitors alike, the bookshop was one of eight in the village selling nothing but Welsh literature and Thomas memorabilia.

There was a scream from a startled book-buyer as I appeared and I stepped backwards in alarm only to fall over a pile of Welsh cookery books. I got up and ran from the shop as a car screeched to a halt in front of me. Pendine Sands with its ten miles of flat beach was down the coast from Laugharne and I would need transport to get me there.

I showed the driver my Jurisfiction badge, which looked official even if it meant nothing, and said, in my very best Welsh:

'Esgipysgod fi ond ble mae bws i Pendine?'

She got the message and drove me along the road towards Pendine. Before we arrived I could see Bluebird on the sands, together with Mr Toad's car and a small group of people. The tide was out and a broad expanse of inviting smooth sand greeted Miss Havisham; as I watched, my pulse racing, two plumes of black smoke erupted from the back of the record-breaker as the engines fired up. Even through the window I could hear the guttural cry of the engines.

'Dewch ymlaen!' I urged the driver, and we swerved on to the car park just near the statue of John Parry Thomas. I ran down on to the beach, waving my arms and yelling, but no one heard me above the roar of the engines, and even if they had, there was little reason for them to take any notice.

'Hi!' I shouted. 'Miss Havisham!'

I ran as fast as I could but only exhausted myself so that I ran more slowly with every passing step.

'Stop!' I yelled, getting weaker and breathless. 'For pity's sake—!'