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duty is clear.’ And he had donned the black cap.
    Afterwards, at Simpson’s request, and ignoring her usual rules, she had visited him in the cell under the courtroom, where he was being held until the crowds dispersed. To her own surprise, she had felt relaxed with him, as though they were suddenly old friends.
    â€˜Won’t you tell me a little more?’ she had asked. He too seemed to have changed; for the first time she saw him smile.
    â€˜John Simpson,’ he said, and shrugged.
    â€˜No you’re not,’ she answered. ‘Who are you really?’
    â€˜It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to ask you one thing: are there grounds for an appeal?’
    She hesitated, then looked at him levelly. ‘No,’ she answered.
    â€˜All right,’ he said. ‘I expected that. But I wasn’t sure about Australian law. Thank you for being straight with me.’ He paused and then went on, ‘Ma’am, I do want to thank you for your efforts. I guess I’ve been a frustrating client, but that’s the way it goes.’ There had been a few more sentences in the same vein, before she made her excuses and left, but he had remained as controlled, as calm, as enigmatic as ever. Now she was unlikely to see him again; now there were only tracesleft; the memory of his flat New England voice and the cries of the newsboys: ‘Mystery killer to hang! Mystery killer to hang!’
    The sentence was carried out three weeks later: it was 1942 and there was no time for protracted legal affairs. He became a footnote in a dusty law book, quickly forgotten by a public which was becoming sated with headlines of spectacular catastrophes, triumphant victories, appalling disasters. Tiffany Guinness remembered him, but naturally enough her memories faded as the years went by.
    JAMES SAT IN his room. Mr Woodforde’s machine was on the desk in front of him. He was scared of it, but he played with it as though it held no particular power. He switched it on and off a few times, watching the needle on the battery indicator rise slowly from zero to nine, and even slightly beyond nine. ‘What would happen if the battery went flat while you were away?’ James wondered. He drew the machine closer to him, knowing from the burning feeling on his face that he was about to use it again. With sudden carelessness he keyed in random numbers: 45° 25’ 15” 45° 25’ 15” followed by a date and a time: 11.09. 1948, 1400 hours. Then, before he could have second thoughts, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach, he pressed ‘Enter’.
    Again came the terrible glimpse, again the disintegration,with James having time only for one desperate thought: ‘I shouldn’t have done this.’ He was starting to think, ‘Why didn’t I learn from the last time?’ when the insides of his body seemed to fall away and water engulfed him. He was hit by a wave that stung him and drenched him and threw him over. A grim struggle followed, with James’ body fighting a fight to which his mind had not adjusted. There was too much to cope with: the shock, the cold, the wet, the salt, the strength of the water. James had to separate each sensation and identify it before he could respond to it. He opened his eyes and found that he was floundering in grey water under a grey sky. Only the white flecks on the tops of the waves enabled him to separate air from water. He was tossed and rolled and knocked from trough to trough, while the cold took possession of his body as though it were a spirit.
    Only one thing could save James, and it was the thing that had brought him here. Through it all some kind of desperate reflex had kept his hand gripped around the machine. His fingers were clamped to it with a power that nothing could release. He did not know it was there but he would have known had it not been. As he came flapping and gasping to the surface,