‘My mother’s in there. She’s a resident.’

‘She’s being looked after by a robot? How do you feel about that?’

‘I’m trying to get in and see her. Find out how she’s doing.’

‘We’ve heard they’re making unbelievable recoveries. Has your mum?’

‘Not that I know of. I’ll find out in a minute if I can get inside.’

‘And what do you think about robots taking over the world?’

Taking over the world? A care home’s an odd place to start a plan for world domination. But people used to do the jobs Winifred and Co do now. What next?

‘I want to get into the home, if you don’t mind,’ I say, and Charlotte and the kids are out the car now, and looking scared. I try to push through the crowd. It’s impossible.

I take my phone out and call the home.

I get through straight away, and ask the young woman who answers if she can somehow help us get in.

‘Of course. One moment,’ she replies.

Standing on tiptoe I can see the tops of the doors though the mass of bodies and cameras and microphones. They inch open. Good luck, whoever’s opening them.

They don’t need luck. The doors are opened gradually and inexorably by two of the care workers. Helpers, of course. The journalists pressed against the doors are moved aside, pushed into the crush of bodies, and they can do nothing to resist. Those further away then try to take advantage of the opening doors and get into the building. There they meet a line of Helpers, and it looks like they’re pushing against a steel fence.

Then the line of Helpers advances, and behind them come more, to form a clear, open corridor through the crowd. They are slow, but unstoppable. The journalists are no longer calling out questions, but shouting as they’re crushed into each other. The people at the back begin to make room. And the TV cameras mounted on high look down as the care workers in their neat uniforms effortlessly push the crowd back, and open a path, and we all pass through, into the building, and the passage closes behind us, and the doors too, and we’re inside, and safe.

If they want to take over the world, who can stop them?

‘Which one is she?’ says Charlotte.

‘Who? Winifred. That’s her over there.’

‘She doesn’t look like a robot.’

‘None of them do. Look around you.’

‘She’s the one you were touching up?’

‘I wasn’t touching her up. I told you. I felt her skin. She asked me to.’

Charlotte made a snorting noise.

‘And you touch any woman who invites you to?’

‘You should too. You won’t believe what they’ve done.’

‘I’m going to. I want to take a good look at her. See what you missed.’