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eat. Then you can tell me what’s going on.’
    â€˜I’m starving,’ said Harley, which amazed David, for he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to eat anything ever again. The mere thought of meat made his stomach heave painfully. He was thirsty, but all he wanted to drink was water. More than anything else, he wanted things to be simple and ordinary once more.
    Winnie Finney led the way along the red carpet to a polished door which opened into a book-lined room, worn and homely. He had an untidy desk, an overflowing wastepaper basket, and an old-fashioned bar heater. There was a table in one corner of the room, on which sat an old electric jug. Shelves rose behind it with cups and saucers and a tin that looked as if it might hold biscuits.
    â€˜Sit!’ said Winnie Finney, as if they were dogs. ‘Just for a moment. Are you cold?’ He leaned behind his desk to turn on the heater. ‘We’ll be warm as toast in a minute.’
    David slumped gratefully into a cane chair filled with soft, floppy cushions.
    â€˜I’ll lock the door,’ said Winnie Finney. ‘Then no one will be able to burst in on us.’ And he did.
    â€˜Now tell me everything,’ he said to David, ‘while I make coffee.’
    â€˜Well,’ David began, ‘we were walking home ... hours ago, it was –’
    â€˜Last night,’ Harley put in. ‘Or maybe it was tonight. Weird. Time seems to have stretched out or collapsed or something.’
    â€˜Whichever it was,’ said David, looking at the windows. Between a slit in the drawn curtains he saw what looked like a genuine night-time darkness, and, slightly darker and thicker than that darkness, branching fingers ... part of a tree. They must be close to ground level once more.
    Between them they told Winnie Finney about finding the car with the winking, seductive key, and the way they had been carried along the motorway and over the hill. As they talked, Winnie Finney made the coffee, and set the low table with biscuits and three wide, flowery cups. He poured coffee into the cups, then, with a roguish look, took a silver hip flask from his pocket and added a slug of ginger-coloured liquid to each.
    â€˜We’re all men of the world,’ he said. ‘We need something for shock. Help yourselves to milk and sugar.’
    He sat back in what was obviously his special chair. It had lions’ heads on the arms, and he hung his hands across them so that the lions seemed to be snarling out from between his wide fingers.
    By now Harley and David were talking about Quinta, the ghost in dark glasses, interrupting one another as they talked, filled with the relief of passing on their fears, and the pleasure of being in an ordinary room filled with ordinary things. In between talking, Harley took his first sips of coffee quite greedily, evidently enjoying it, relaxing with feeling of grown-up, manly fellowship. David, too, took a sip of the coffee, but thought it tasted unpleasant.
    Too strong , he thought. Too much of something . He stood, wriggling his shoulders, and began moving restlessly around the room. Winnie Finney watched him curiously.
    â€˜I feel a bit too screwed-up about things,’ David said. ‘I can’t just sit there! But can you tell me ... this isn’t just a forestry place, is it? I mean it might be, but there’s something else going on here.’ He held his coffee cup in both hands, as if he were enjoying its warmth and comfort.
    â€˜Transplants!’ announced Harley, as proudly as if he had worked it out for himself. David looked over at him in surprise, for he didn’t think Harley had even listened to his theory. ‘They pick up people on the streets, and David thinks they use them for spare parts. I mean, sometimes people just vanish, don’t they? And no one’s going to report that car missing. In a way, it doesn’t exist. In an official way that is. It won’t be