“But here a grim incident brought an unwelcome discord to the otherwise harmonious proceedings. An anarchist arose from the crowd, fought his way through the Metropolitan Police cordon and rushed at Her Majesty.

“His evil intent was however thwarted by the heroic actions of one Captain Ernest Starling of the Queen’s Own Electric Fusiliers, who, as if sensing the imminent attack, had positioned himself to receive it. Captain Starling cut down the assassin with his sabre, but was mortally wounded in the process.

“He has been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his supreme gallantry.”

Will Starling awoke from the dead.

He awoke with a terrible scream and clutched at his heart.

“Easy,” called the voice of Tim, and firm hands pressed upon Will’s shoulders. “Easy now.” These hands raised Will into the vertical plane.

“You passed out,” said Tim. “You’re all right now, I think.”

“I’m not. I’m dead. I’m—” Will clutched some more at himself and slowly opened his eyes. “Tim?” he said. “It’s you. It’s Tim.”

“It’s Tim,” said Tim. “You don’t look altogether perky.”

“Nor would you if you’d been stabbed in the chest by an anarchist.”

“Oh dear,” said Tim. “I knew you shouldn’t have had that third drink.”

“Drink?” Will blinked his eyes and stared all around and about. “Where am I?” he asked.

“Chiswick Central,” said Tim. “You said you were feeling ill, then you went to the onboard toilet. You were in there for ages, then you staggered out and fell down in the carriage. We missed our stop. I hauled you off the tram here.”

“The tram? I’m here. It wasn’t me.”

“It certainly was you. You made a right exhibition of yourself.”

“Getting stabbed. That wasn’t me.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The Retro. It worked, Tim. I can remember everything. Generations and generations of Starlings. It’s all in my head.”

“You took Retro?” Tim looked genuinely alarmed. “You took Retro? When did you take Retro?”

Will stared hard at Tim, which wasn’t easy as the world was now going in and out of focus. “You gave it to me. In the Shrunken Head.”

“We haven’t been to the Shrunken Head for weeks.”

“We were there tonight. The Slaughterhouse Five were on.”

“They’re on next week. Next Friday night.” Tim peered into the eyes of Will. “You really are on something aren’t you?”

“We need a drink,” said Will. “A big drink.”

“You’ve had enough, come on.”

“Tim,” said Will. “It’s all right. I’m all right. I’m not going to turn you in to the DOCS or anything for giving me the Retro.”

“I didn’t give you any Retro! Will you please stop this, Will.”

“You stop it,” said Will. “I’ve told you it’s all right.”

“And you’ve told me it’s next Friday night, which it’s not.”

“So much stuff,” said Will. “So much stuff.”

“Stuff?” Tim asked.

“In my head. All those memories. You were right, about the things on that website. The Nautilus. The digital watches. There was a spaceship too.”

“I really do have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will. “And it’s Thursday, not Friday.”

“Thursday, a week before the Friday you’re talking about,” Tim held out his wristwatch towards Will. “Check the day,” he said. “Check the date.”

Will checked the day and the date. “Your watch could be wrong,” he said.

“Now you’re being absurd,” Tim laughed. Heartily. “My watch, like yours, like everybody else’s, is linked to the world timepiece in Greenwich. It can’t be wrong.”

“Well, yours is.” Will flashed his own wristwatch. “Observe.”

Tim observed. “I observe,” said Tim. “Thursday.”

“It’s Friday.” Will took to observing. “It’s Thursday,” he said, and he said it in a voice of considerable surprise – and a great deal of shock too.

“No,” said Will. “Oh no no no. Then everything really happened. It wasn’t the drug. I really did go back into the past.”

“Calm down,” Tim clamped his hand over Will’s mouth. “There are people about.”

Will’s eyes flashed to the left and the right. The station was all but deserted, all but for himself and Tim and a large noble looking gentleman who sat at the end of the platform. Tramcars slowly dragged themselves by, but no one got off and the gentleman didn’t get on.

“Listen to me,” Tim whispered close at Will’s ear. “I have got a connection who said he could get me some Retro. But not until next week.”

Will tore Tim’s hand away. “But you did give it to me. At the Shrunken Head. We were there. The Slaughterhouse Five were playing.”

“That’s next week, Will. Next Friday night.”

“Then all of it is true. I really did go back physically.”

Tim laughed once again. But this time it was a humourless laugh. “Drugs don’t do that,” he said. “Drugs can’t do that. But …”

“But?” Will was very wobbly now and he leaned upon Tim for support.

“But if you did take Retro, what can you remember?”

“All of it, everything. About the things we talked about. They’re all true.”

“You’ve got me again. We didn’t talk about anything.”

“About the digital watch in the painting.”

“I’m shrugging,” said Tim. “Feel me shrug.”

“The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke.”

“Still shrugging,” said Tim. “Never heard of such a painting.”

“But you saw me on the security scan, hiding it.”

“Perhaps we should go and have a drink,” said Tim. “And you can tell me all about it. Not that I believe a word, you understand, but because, well, you know in movies and stuff, when something really weird happens to someone and no one believes them. I’ve always wondered what that would be like in real life. You know, if your best friend turned out to be an alien from outer space or something. What would you really feel, if it were really real? And I don’t have the faintest idea what is going on in your head now, and you might just be a stone-bonker. But, and this is the big but, what if it’s not? I’d hate to be the one you confided the truth to, and the one who didn’t believe you. So, what say we give it a go? Have a drink and you tell me the lot and then we try to figure out whether it’s real and if it is, what we should do about it.”

“Have you quite finished?” Will asked.

“Not sure,” said Tim. “Did you get the general gist of what I meant?”

“Vaguely,” said Will. “It’s a kind of, you-might-believe-me-if-you-fancy-the-sound-of-it, kind of jobbie, right?”

“Something along those lines. A drink?”

“A drink,” said Will. “And I’ll tell you a story that you really won’t believe is really real, but will really want to believe is really real, if you get my general gist.”

“Not really,” said Tim. “But let’s go for it.”

And so they went for it.

The pub they went for it in was known as the Flying Swan. It was a pub that Tim had never been to before. They reached it after a long and tedious walk from Chiswick. A walk necessitated by the fact that the never-ending tramcar system ran only in a clockwise direction. Which meant that had they taken it, they would have to have travelled throughout the entirety of London Central before reaching Brentford. Which was only one stop up the line.

Of the Flying Swan itself, what can be said?

Well, much actually.

The Flying Swan was a late Victorian public house which stood upon what had once been the Ealing road, but was now a paved walkway to the rear of the housing tower where Tim and Will both lived.

The Flying Swan had survived not only the “sensitive” interior decorations that twentieth-century brewery owners had meted out to it, but the seemingly inevitable destruction that awaited it in the twenty-first century, when Brentford was all but levelled for redevelopment and the great housing towers erected. The Flying Swan had survived because of an old charter lodged with the Crown Estate and given the Royal seal of approval by Queen Victoria. This charter gave the Swan a thousand years of protection against demolition. Only one other building in Brentford had similarly survived and this was a late Georgian house on what had once been Brentford’s elegant Butts Estate which belonged to a gentleman by the name of Professor Slocombe, who dwelt in it during the twentieth century, with his elderly retainer, Gammon.