But Dad wasn’t laughing. He replied with some surprise: ‘Harold? Killed? How?’

‘An arrow, Dad. In his eye.’

‘English or French?’

‘History doesn’t relate,’ I replied, annoyed at his bizarre line of questioning.

‘In his eye, you say—? Time is out of joint,’ he muttered, scribbling another note.

‘What’s out of joint?’ I asked, not quite hearing him. ‘Nothing, nothing. Good job I was born to set it right—‘

‘Hamlet?’ I asked, recognising the quotation. He ignored me, finished writing and snapped the notebook shut, then placed his fingertips on his temples and rubbed them absently for a moment. The world joggled forward a second and refroze as he did so. He looked about nervously.

‘They’re on to me. Thanks for your help, Sweetpea. When you see your mother, tell her she makes the torches burn brighter—and don’t forget to try and dissuade her from painting the bedroom.’

‘Any colour but mauve, right?’

‘Right.’ He smiled at me and touched my face. I felt my eyes moisten; these visits were all too short. He sensed my sadness and smiled the sort of smile any child would want to receive from their father. Then he spoke:

‘For I dipped into the past, far as SpecOps twelve could see–‘

He paused and I finished the quote, part of an old ChronoGuard song Dad used to sing to me when I was a child.

‘—saw a vision of the world and all the options there could be!’

And then he was gone. The world rippled as the clock started again. The barman finished his sentence, the birds flew on to their nests, the television came back on with a nauseating ad for SmileyBurgers, and over the road the cyclist met the asphalt with a thud.

Everything carried on as normal. No one except myself had seen Dad come or go.

I ordered a crab sandwich and munched on it absently while sipping from a Mocha that seemed to be taking an age to cool down. There weren’t a lot of customers and Stanford, the owner, was busy washing up some cups. I put down my paper to watch the TV when the Toad News Network logo came up.