‘Well, libations at least, and you will have to pay as I am wageless, as ever.’

‘We’ll take a drink,’ said Hugo Rune, rising and stretching and smiling as he did so. ‘But as to actually paying, that would be a matter for discussion.’

There were many cardboard boxes upon Fangio’s bar counter. These were stamped with numbers and symbols suggestive of a military origin.

‘Fell off the back of a tank?’ I enquired when Mr Rune and I had reached the counter.

‘Gremlins,’ said Fangio, bobbing up and down behind the boxes.

‘Two pints of that guest ale, Sans Serif,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And then you might explain about the gremlins.’

Fangio pulled pints, cleared boxes to the right and left of him, then pushed these pints across his counter towards our hands.

‘Gremlins,’ he said once more. ‘You must surely have heard the term used. It’s a military term – when the mechanical gubbins of something go all to pot, the military folk say “it’s got gremlins”.’

‘That is just a term, Fange,’ I said, ‘like saying “there is a spanner in the works”.’

‘And I’ve got those spanners too,’ said Fangio. And he hoisted one up from behind the bar and banged it down on the counter.

‘That is a big one,’ I said to Fange.

‘It’s size that matters,’ said the barlord. ‘Or at least that’s what Squadron Leader Lancaster is always saying in his sleep. Did you hear that he got a knighthood? Solved some murder at somewhere called Station X, apparently.’

I looked at Hugo Rune.

He looked at me.

And our looks were far from pleasing.

‘So,’ said the Magus, tasting ale, ‘regarding these gremlins. What do they look like and what do they do and how much are they by the gross?’

‘I cannot answer those questions with any degree of precision as of yet,’ said Fangio, his face like a cloudy autumn sky. ‘I can’t seem to get the tops off the boxes.’

Oh how we laughed.

’Til we stopped.

‘But I will,’ said the publican. ‘And when I do, you will be the first to have first dibs, as I live and breathe.’

We took ourselves away from the counter to Mr Rune’s private corner.

‘Gremlins indeed,’ said I.

‘Are you expressing some doubts regarding our black-marketeering barlord’s latest acquisitions, young Rizla?’

I shrugged and said, ‘I suppose not.’

‘You should know now never to favour the natural over the supernatural. An illogical explanation will forever trounce its logical counterpart.’

‘I am not altogether sure about that.’

‘Then what about this?’ And Hugo Rune fished the morning’s paper from his pocket and tossed it onto the table before me.

‘More toot and propaganda?’ I queried.

‘That and more. You will notice that certain military campaigns have proved most successful. Campaigns that you saw represented by flag-pins on a wall map at Bletchley Park.’

I perused the front page of the paper and mouthed the word impressive. ‘So Colossus is back on line and all is hopefully well,’ I said.

Himself nodded, then prodded at the paper. ‘It is this article that interests me,’ he said. ‘Read it and tell me what you think.’

The article was ringed in pencil.

I read it aloud.

SIGNS AND PORTENTS IN THE HEAVENS

A BRENTFORD shopkeeper, Mr Norman Hartnel, telephoned our offices to report an extraordinary phenomenon in the sky above the borough last night. Mr Hartnel (27) said that he had witnessed a huge wheeled craft apparently pulled by flying horses. Mr Hartnel is teetotal. Did other readers witness this?

‘Norman Hartnel,’ I said. ‘The father of one of my bestest friends. But wheeled craft, pulled by flying horses, what of this?’

‘What of this indeed, young Rizla. Have you the tarot cards about you?’

‘Yes, as ever,’ I said. And I patted my pocket.

‘Then dip your hand in and pull out a single one.’

I dipped my hand in and did as I was bid.

Examined the card and said, ‘It is called THE CHARIOT.’

‘With winged horses and all?’ asked the Magus.

‘With winged horses and all,’ I said. But there were no winged horses.

‘Then that would seem about right. Drink up, Rizla, and then we’ll take luncheon and then we’ll see what we’ll see.’

I was really rather looking forward to meeting up again with Old Mr Hartnel. Or Young Mr Hartnel, as he was now.

Mr Rune still maintained his vigilance when it came to me wandering alone upon the streets of Brentford. He hinted that dire consequences could result. And these hints included the hint that I might somehow create a quantum paradox which would bring about the destruction of the universe by triggering a transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter. Although personally I felt that he was over-buttering the curate’s egg.

But wander I did not. And my only strollings through Brentford were done in the company of Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune.

And, after considerable lunchings and liberal quaffings of guest ales with names such as Caslon Old Face and Baskerville Bold, we said our farewells to those at The Purple Princess and took ourselves down the road a piece to Norman Hartnel’s corner shop.

Oh yes indeed, and I gazed in through the windows, which then were most clean and most polished. Oh yes, there the Wild Woodbine flowered upon colourful show cards and stand-up displays. And there too were many other products of the tobacconist’s and confectioner’s persuasion. Products that I had no knowledge of. Which had clearly never made it through to the nineteen fifties and sixties.

I spied Atomic Tipped, ‘a brand-new concept in smoking pleasure, containing 15% strontium 90’. Also lead-flavoured crisps. Tiger-eye toffees (containing real toffee). And X-Ray Gums, each gum ‘bathed in the health-giving rays of the X’.

And I felt somewhat cheated. We never got to taste such goodies in the austere fifties. These people of the nineteen forties never knew quite how lucky they were.

A doodlebug whistled overhead.

And I choked on my thoughts.

‘Right, now,’ said Hugo Rune, bringing my progress towards the shop door of Mr Hartnel to a halt with his brand-new smart stout stick. ‘Just a minor matter or two before we proceed. You have previously entered this establishment, have you not?’

I nodded that I had. Previously, in the future.

‘And so you have met Mr Hartnel?’

I nodded that this was the case.

‘Then I want none of it,’ Hugo Rune said.

‘None of what?’ I asked, most baffled.

‘None of your jiggery-pokery, my fine fellow. It might just cross your mind, in the spirit of mischievousness, to impart something to Mr Hartnel in the hope that he might act upon it. So that, when we return to the future, you can check whether he did and if he has, then do some more of that foolish nail-buffing buffoonery that you have become so fond of.’

‘Such a thing has never crossed my mind,’ I said, although I suppose my thoughts had indeed been moving in this, or a somewhat similar, direction. I had been thinking that I could perhaps make some prediction that Mr Hartnel would pass on to his son. One that I could then take the credit for. Because, and I did know this well enough, no one was ever going to believe that I had travelled into the past with Hugo Rune. So – perhaps-

‘No!’ said Hugo Rune. ‘It is one of the reasons that I keep you from wandering the streets alone. It can do great harm. Swear to me that you will do no such thing, nor any other such thing. Now swear.’

And I spat onto my finger and said, ‘See this wet, see this dry, cut my throat if I tell a lie.’ Though frankly it pained me to do it.

‘Good enough,’ said Hugo Rune and led the way inside.

And it smelled the same! It actually did. Although the last time I had smelled it, it bore the taint of the Bottomless Pit that Norman junior had uncovered in the kitchenette. But now the shop smelled as it should and looked as it should. And it looked and it smelled wonderfully.