‘The cage itself takes the charge and will distribute it evenly around me, creating a space big enough for me to — ’

‘To what? Make you vanish?’ called out someone from the row behind. ‘My kid can do that trick with his old Chuckle Cheese magic set.’

Someone snorted coffee into their styrofoam cup.

‘No,’ said the man on the stage. Anna had forgotten his name again. She looked down at the scribbled notes on her T-Pad.

Waldstein. Even the name sounded corny.

‘No!’ he snapped, silencing a ripple of laughter. ‘This isn’t a party trick!’

Anna raised her hand. ‘Mr Waldstein?’

‘Uhh … yes?’

‘You say you’re going to vanish?’

Waldstein nodded. ‘I will be transported elsewhere for a period of no more than a minute.’

‘Uh-huh, transported.’ She nodded. ‘Where, exactly?’

He grinned, pushing frizzy coils of salt-and-pepper-coloured hair out of his face to reveal eyes as wide as a child’s behind the glint of his glasses. ‘Another moment in time,’ he announced theatrically.

Behind her she heard a chair scrape the cold concrete floor and someone mutter, ‘Idiot,’ and the receding clack of footsteps. Either side of her she could hear and see the other journalists shuffle awkwardly.

Time? The poor deluded old fool seemed to be talking about time travel. She decided he was clearly in need of some sort of help; perhaps he needed to be in a place with padded mint-green walls and soothing music. Other chairs began to scrape noisily. It looked like this madman’s pitiful little charade was over already. She almost felt sorry for him.

‘Don’t go!’ Waldstein shouted. ‘Please! Stop right there!’ The footsteps stopped. ‘I’ll show you right now!’

Anna watched him huddle over a wobbly picnic table on his makeshift stage of stacked wooden pallets.