An hour later my watch was showing the correct time. My bank re-opened for business.
The next day I was sprawling on a recliner on the patio, with Barmi sleeping warmly on my lap. The door to my office had swung closed. I was once again looking at my manuscript in progress, working on the next chapter. Jo brought me an envelope that had just arrived in the mail. It was addressed to Dr Todd Fremde. Inside was a cheque from Professor Wendow’s Revisionist History Department, for the refund of my expenses and my honorarium.
Also by Christopher Priest from Gollancz:
Indoctrinaire
Fugue for a Darkening Island
Inverted World
The Space Machine
A Dream of Wessex
The Affirmation
The Glamour
The Quiet Women
The Prestige
The Extremes
The Separation
The Dream Archipelago
The Islanders
The Adjacent
The Gradual
An American Story
Episodes
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Gollancz
an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
Copyright © Christopher Priest 2020
The moral right of Christopher Priest to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
ISBN (eBook) 978 1 473 23139 9
Typeset by Input Data Services Ltd, Somerset
www.gollancz.co.uk
Dedication
The Evidence
Snow Upon the Rails
The Mystery of the Two Keys
The Lost Two Hours
Lights in a Darkened Room
The Money Trap
Strangers in a Car
The Enigma of Change
Sad Story of the Death of Kings
Dreadful is the Checking
Presumed Guilty
Questions, Questions
The Death Club
The Riddle of the Hands
Half Answers
A Detective Inspector Calls
The Temple of Wonders
Into the Cabinets of Death
The Alleged Safeguard
The Journeying Boat
Engine of Destruction
A Parity of Arms
The Story of DI Spoder (ret’d)
The False Inspector Harsent
The Concatenated Man
Todd’s Last Case
Also by Christopher Priest from Gollancz:
Copyright