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Captain Peacock. I could probably stick it anywhere and nobody would notice.
    MRS SLOCOMBE: Well I hope you don’t try sticking it under my ladies’ counter, Mr Humphreys!
I’d
certainly notice! There’s no room down there to accommodate your helmet.
    MR HUMPHREYS: Are you giving me backchat, you orange-haired bitch? Jesus Christ, you need to learn some bloody manners!
    Since when did Quentin Tarantino start directing
Are You Being Served?, Sam thought. He forced his eyes open and looked at the TV screen, and was disturbed to see Mr Humphreys stride furiously across to Mrs Slocombe’s counter and lay into her with both fists. As Mrs Slocombe went down, curling into a foetal position, Mr Humphreys slammed his foot into her, over and over again, aiming kicks at her back, her legs, her head.
    MR HUMPHREYS: Still feel like showing me up in front of people, do you? I can’t hear you, you cheap little bitch! Do you still feel like showing me up! Answer me, you filthy whore!
    I don’t remember this episode,
Sam thought dopily.
I must be dreaming. This can’t be real – this must all be some sort of—
    ‘No, Sam – it’s very real,’ said a horribly familiar voice. The Test Card Girl was standing right beside his chair, clutching her blank-eyed dolly. ‘Can’t you see who the lady is – the one lying on the ground, being hurt?’
    His voice thick and slow with sleep, Sam muttered, ‘It’s Mrs Slocombe.’
    ‘Is it, Sam? Or is it really somebody else …?’
    Forcing his eyelids apart, Sam peered at the screen. Mr Humphreys – not that it looked at all like Mr Humphreys any more – was still kicking the hell out of a woman on the ground. But, where there had been orange hair and a frilly blouse and frumpy shoes, there was a much younger woman, with dark hair and a paisley-pattern one-piece jumpsuit and platform boots.
    ‘I – can’t see her face …’ Sam slurred sleepily.
    ‘She keeps it covered when he beats her,’ the Test Card Girl said. ‘But you don’t need to see her face to know who she is. Come on, Sam – you’re asleep, but you’re still a policeman. Work it out. The answer’s obvious.’
    Sam felt ice run through his veins. Sleep fell away. He sat bolt upright, fully awake, fully alert.
    ‘Make it stop,’ he ordered.
    ‘You can’t change the past, Sam,’ the Girl said.
    On the screen, the appalling beating continued.
    ‘I said make it stop!’
    The Test Card Girl gently touched Sam’s sleeve, as if to console him. ‘He’s a horrid man, isn’t he. She should never have married him.’
    Sam leapt to his feet, crazily lunging at the TV set to save the girl on the floor. He’d grab that evil, bullying bastard – he’d grab him and give
him
a beating – the biggest damned beating of his life! He’d batter him to a pulp! He’d stamp him into the ground! He’d kill him! He would really
kill him
!
    But all at once, Sam found himself standing alone, in silence. Wherever he was, it wasn’t his flat. He looked about him, saw drab, brown walls and a set of flimsy and quite obviously fake lift doors. To either side of him stood a couple of small shop counters with an array of suits and trousers behind one of them, a selection of ladies’ undergarments behind the other.
    ‘It’s Grace Brothers …’ Sam muttered in disbelief. ‘I’m actually
in
Grace Brothers.’
    It was as rickety and unconvincing in reality as it looked on TV. A cheap set, pieced together and dressed courtesy of the BBC scenery department.
    ‘Just a set,’ Sam said to himself. ‘A set – with three walls …’
    He turned slowly towards the non-existent fourth wall. What would he see? An array of huge old BBC cameras, and the seats for the studio audience behind them? Or would there actually be another wall there, enclosing him, sealing him in?
    Sam turned – and gasped. There was no fourth wall, but neither were there cameras or an auditorium. Instead, there was the universe. Stars – billions of them –