‘No. This is not a joke. Please come with us without making a fuss. It will be much easier.’
‘I’m sure. What offences? Henry? Has Sam here lost his wits at last?’
‘If you want my opinion, I think he may have done,’ he replied. ‘But he has a small army out there and so it would be best if you did as instructed. It’s nothing to worry about. It happens to all of us sooner or later, if that’s any consolation. I was taken off and interrogated for three days back in... when was it, Sam?’
‘1954, I think.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I wish I had your confidence.’ Angela turned to Rosie, who was standing with an air of astonishment behind her. ‘More interesting than being at school, eh?’
She nodded.
‘I fear I must ask you to take over for a while. A little show and tell with Henry. Do you know what I mean? Then you have to open it at dusk. Six turns of the little saucepan from where we are. It’s really important. Dusk. Are you up to it? Can you remember?’
‘I think so,’ she said quietly.
‘Good. Rosie is an extraordinary girl, Henry. I want you to listen to her. When she is finished, I will need to see you. At your earliest convenience, please.’
She smiled at Wind. ‘Lead on, Sam Wind. If it makes you feel better.’
‘Professor Lytten, what have you done?’ Rosie exclaimed after she had watched Angela, head high, being led to a police car, put into the back and driven off. One by one the other cars and vans followed, and in a few minutes the street was its usual self once more, apart from the faces trying hard not to be noticed in the windows of every neighbouring house.
‘Rosie, you must go to school, or something. I have no time to talk to you at the moment, and it is certainly none of your business.’ Lytten seemed weary and perplexed by what had happened. She had never seen him like that before.
‘I have to show you something. It’s very important.’
‘No, Rosie. I’m sorry. Please go. You know how much I like you, but you shouldn’t be here in the first place, and I do not wish to discuss the matter.’
‘I do want to discuss it.’
‘Go away.’
‘No.’
‘I will begin to get very angry indeed with you if you—’
He didn’t get to finish what would undoubtedly have been a very pompous sentence. Rosie pressed her lips together and poked him in the chest with her finger.
‘Do not lecture me,’ she said in a furious voice. ‘This is all your fault, and Angela is trying to put it right. So you will listen.’
‘I will do no—’
‘Downstairs. Now,’ she said in a loud, authoritative voice. Lytten had not heard the like since the terrifying Miss Barton in primary school and so, naturally, he fell silent and obeyed.
‘Keep going. Right down to the bottom.’
He would give her three minutes, he thought, then he’d bring this nonsense to an end. He liked the girl but he would have to forbid her from coming to his house any more. Jenkins would miss her.
‘Right, Henry Lytten. I am going to show you something. Something Angela built. Then I will explain what it is.’
She started a sort of ridiculous dance, going down on one knee and spinning around and playing with the old kettle.
‘Rosie. Stop this now.’
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘You’ve broken my concentration. I’ll have to start again. Just shut up for a few seconds, will you?’ Giving him a ferocious glare, she began again, twirling round, kneeling down and chanting. Then she peered behind him and smiled. ‘Ha!’
‘Very funny,’ said Lytten.
‘Look,’ she said, and pointed.
Lytten scowled, turned around and stopped dead.
In front of him was the rusty old pergola that Angela had claimed was a sculpture. Except that the inside of it had started glowing, and he couldn’t see where the light was coming from. Even more strangely, the light changed colour, and then began to form into a picture. He could see a remarkably convincing image of grass and trees. There was a low stone wall, and in the far corner what seemed very like the altar in Poussin’s painting in the Louvre.
‘Now,’ Rosie said, ‘this is not a joke, not a film, not a television. Do you see those people there?’
Lytten looked carefully at a few figures who had appeared at the side.
‘Jay, Pamarchon, Henary, Catherine,’ Rosie continued. ‘All perfectly real and—’
‘That other one. She looks like you.’
‘Apparently it is me.’
‘Very clever. When did you two do this? I must say, it is very like what I had in mind. They all look remarkably as I imagined them. And that arena. Shrine of Esilio?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Wherever did you film it? Or get weather like that?’
‘You don’t listen, do you? It’s real. Angela made it. From your head.’
Lytten shook the very same head, trying to think a way round the joke. It was Rosie’s seriousness that unnerved him. He had a great deal of experience of undergraduate pranks and student acting. There was something unusually convincing about her intensity.
‘According to Angela,’ Rosie went on, ‘it’s a universe. A different one from ours. I think that’s what she said. But time is short. I certainly don’t understand enough to explain properly and I can see it’s going to be hard to convince you. So you’ll just have to go and look for yourself.’
She stopped. ‘Oh, heavens! I’m coming over. You stay there. I’d better get out of the way.’
She scuttled off to the side in a hurry, leaving Lytten looking blankly as a differently dressed Rosie appeared in the pergola. Manifestly the same person, but...
‘Professor!’ Rosalind through the pergola called. ‘I’m so glad to see you!’
‘Rosie?’ he replied carefully. ‘Is that really you?’
‘Yes, yes. It’s me. The one and only Rosie. You’ve no idea what’s been going on in the last few days. We really need your help here. Who killed Thenald?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Thenald; you must remember. Catherine marries Thenald. Thenald gets murdered, she inherits. You wrote all that.’
‘Did I? I remember killing him off, I don’t remember spelling out what happened to him.’
‘No, he was murdered. So who did it? You must tell me. It’s important.’
‘Why? It’s only a story.’
‘That’s the point. It’s not. It’s here and it’s real. The whole thing. I’m in it. Listen, I’ll come through and explain it all. It’s time I was back, anyway. They’ll be furious with me at school. Just a minute...’
‘No!’ said Rosie on Henry’s side of things. ‘She doesn’t know about me. She mustn’t. Stop her.’
Lytten didn’t know what was going on, still assumed it was some elaborate joke of unfathomable purpose, but Rosie’s tone held no joke in it. She was panicked.
‘How can I stop her?’
‘Do as I say. Walk through yourself and have a look. It’s not dangerous. I’ve done it. Well, you can see that. If I’m talking rubbish, then the only danger is that you’ll bump into the wall. When you’re through there, by the way, there’s one really important thing you have to do.’
‘What?’
‘Pretend it’s a play. You’re an actor in it. You have to get into your part. Don’t look at me like that; I know what I’m talking about. It’s the only way of not going a little bit crazy. You’ll be fine. You wrote the play, after all. Think of yourself as an actor-manager, or something.’
Lytten noticed she was looking very serious. She, evidently, didn’t need to step through a pergola to go a little crazy.
‘Ridiculous,’ he said again. Then, determined to end this nonsense once and for all, he did as instructed.