Then, suddenly; there was a van. It was white, and quite big, and there seemed to be several men in it. It drove right up to the gate of the farm and the gate opened smoothly and mechanically to let it drive in. Ann was sure it was a modern mechanism, much more modern than the peeling state of the gate suggested. It looked as if her gangster theory might be right! There was a blue trade logo on the van and, underneath that, blue writing. It was small lettering, kind of chaste and tasteful, and of course in the mirror it was back to front. She had no idea what it said.
Ann just had to see. She flopped out of bed with a groan and tottered to the window where she was just in time to see the old black gate closing smoothly behind the van.
Oh bother! she said to the King. I bet that was the latest load of drugs!
Wait till it comes out again, he told her. When you see the gate open, you should have time to get to the window and see the men drive the vehicle away.
So Ann went back to bed and waited. And waited. But she never saw the van come out. By that evening, she was convinced that she had looked away, or dropped asleep, or gone tottering to the toilet at the moment the gate had opened to let the van out. I missed it, she told the King. All I know is the logo.
And what was that? he asked.
Oh, just a weighing scale one of those old-fashioned kinds you know with two sort of pans hanging from a handle in the middle.
To her surprise, not only the King but the Slave and the Prisoner too all came alert and alive in her mind. Are you sure? they asked in a sharp chorus.
Yes, of course, Ann said. Why?
Be very careful, said the Prisoner. Those are the people who put me in prison.
In my time and place, said the King, those are the arms of a very powerful and very corrupt organisation. They have subverted people in my court and tried to buy my army, and Im very much afraid
that in the end they are going to overthrow me.
The Slave said nothing, but he gave Ann a strong feeling that he knew even more about the organisation than the others did. But they could all be thinking about something else, Ann decided. After all, they came from another time and place from hers. And there were thousands of firms on Earth inventing logos all the time.
I think its an accident, she said to the Boy. She could feel him hovering, listening wistfully.
You think that because no one on Earth really believes there are any other worlds but Earth, he said.
True. But you read my mind to know that. I told you not to! Ann said.
I cant help it, said the Boy. You think we dont exist either. But we do you know we do really.
Ann forgot about the van. A fortnight passed, during which she got up again and went to school for half a day, and was sent home at lunchtime with a temperature, and read another stack of library books, and lay watching people coming to the shops in her mirror.
Like the Lady of Shallott! she said disgustedly. Fool woman in that fool poem we learnt last term! She was under a curse and she had to watch everything through a mirror too.
Oh, stop grumbling, do! said Anns mum. Itll go. Give it time.
But I want it to go now! said Ann. Im an active adolescent, not a bedridden invalid! Im climbing the walls here!
Just shut up and Ill get Martin to lend you his Walkman, said Mum.
Thatll be the day! said Ann. Hed rather lend me his cut-off fingers!
But Martin did, entirely unexpectedly, make a brotherly appearance in her room next morning. You look awful, he said. Like a Guy made of putty. He followed this compliment up by dropping Walkman and tapes on her bed and leaving for school at once. Ann was quite touched.
That day she lay and listened to the only three tapes she could bear Martins taste in music matched his love of dinosaurs and kept an eye on Hexwood Farm merely for something to look at. Young Harrison appeared once, much as usual, except that he bought a great deal of bread. Could it be, Ann wondered, that he was really having to feed a vanload of men still inside there? She did not believe this. By now, she had decided, in a bored, gloomy, virusish way, that her exciting theory about gangsters was just silly romancing. The whole world was grey the virus had probably got into the universe and even the daffodils in front of the house opposite looked bleak and dull to her.
Someone who looked like a Lord Mayor walked across the road in her mirror.
A Lord Mayor? Ann tore the earphones off and sat up for a closer look. Appa-dappa-dappa-dah, went the music in a tinny whisper. She clicked it off impatiently. A Lord Mayor with a suitcase, hurrying towards the peeling black gate of Hexwood Farm, in a way that was well sort of doubtful but determined too. Like someone going to the dentist, Ann thought. And was it a coincidence that the Lord Mayor had appeared just in that early-afternoon lull, when there was never anyone much about in Wood Street? Did Lord Mayors wear green velvet gowns? Or such very pointed boots? But there was definitely a gold chain round the mans neck. Was he going to the farm to ransom someone who had been kidnapped with bundles of money in that suitcase?