chapter one

There is no time, there ain’t no time. Even time ain’t got no time. Charlotte sat humming in the office trying to distract Elaine. She looked over, but Elaine continued to type intently. Charlotte tapped her desk three times with the side of her shoe and sang very quietly “What time is love?” Elaine continued to type as Charlotte continued to sing “Bring the break, what time is lunch? lunch, lunch, lunch. What time is lunch?” Charlotte sang her own words to the tune of the White Room remix. Elaine stopped typing and stood up. Charlotte stopped singing, leaned forward pretending to look at her screen whilst looking out of the corner of her eye towards Elaine.

To her annoyance, Charlotte noticed that Elaine had not put her shoes on (they would still be under her desk, concealed behind the modesty board). This meant that she was not yet ready to go for lunch, and there was no point even thinking about how to persuade her to go to the pub. Charlotte wanted Elaine to go with her to the pub. Elaine went to the laser printer by herself. Charlotte resigned herself to another alcohol-free afternoon and started leafing through a proposal that she had put off considering.

There was the muffled sound of Elaine padding back to her desk from the printer, followed by the clear sound of Elaine swearing “Oh hot fuck, you shitting bastard-bastard” followed by a gurgling strangled screaming.

Charlotte looked up as Elaine became calm without losing her anger. She noticed Elaine unplugging her keyboard with obvious excessive force, saying “Right we’ll fucking see shall we.” and decided to act quickly.

Charlotte was not quick enough for Elaine’s first assault on the monitor with the keyboard. However, she did manage to stop Elaine doing more than breaking off the contrast knob by grabbing Elaine’s arms and moving her away from the crashed machine. Elaine allowed Charlotte to restrain her.

“Are you all right?” Charlotte held Elaine’s wrists, although it was no longer necessary for restraint. Elaine did not release herself. Charlotte secretly lusted after Elaine and hoped that she was not releasing herself because she liked the touching.

“It’s crashed and I’ve lost three fucking hours.” Elaine explained.

“Isn’t it saved?” asked Charlotte.

“If it was saved it wouldn’t be lost would it?” Elaine retorted angrily, jerking her wrists free and dropping the keyboard on her desk.

“What about the auto save?” Charlotte asked, then realising that although she was trying to help, she was also re-focusing Elaine’s anger on herself.

“I switched it off because it slows it down. It’s all lost.” Elaine replied sulkily, dropping herself heavily into her chair to sit looking past her knees into the darkness under her desk.

Charlotte turned to face the same way as Elaine, standing to her right. She placed her left hand on Elaine’s right shoulder, which was not completely covered by the summer top Elaine wore, hoping that the contact would be accepted as a friendly gesture. “I was only trying to help.” she said quietly.

“I know.” Elaine replied, her anger exhausted. “I’m sorry.” Elaine did not move her shoulder as she spoke - Charlotte hoped it was deliberate.

Charlotte reached her right arm forward for a printout on Elaine’s desk just to bring herself closer. Suddenly Elaine jerked forward and snatched the sheets of paper from Charlotte’s hand. She quickly flicked to the last page.

“I forgot the printout.” she exclaimed. Elaine read quickly, flicked to another page then smiled. “It’s all here. Ha-ha.” She sobered slightly as she leafed through the pages.

“I’ll have to re-type it all in.” Elaine stared at the first page, thinking, then said “There’s too much of it. It’ll take ages.”

Charlotte half-remembered something, frowned to conjure the rest. “Wasn’t Imogen talking about an OCR scanner the other day?”

Elaine went quiet, staring at the printout, on the boundary between accepting help from another person and resigning herself to doing all the re-typing herself.

“It’s got to be worth a try hasn’t it?” asked Charlotte, treading with care. “Let’s show it to her. She may not be able to help anyway.” she added, aware that she was creating an escape route, thus making it easier for Elaine to agree.

Elaine shrugged and made non-committal noises.

Charlotte picked up Elaine’s telephone and dialled Imogen’s extension. After two rings a man answered.

“Workstation support. Ben speaking.”

“Hi Ben, it’s Charlotte. Is Imogen there?”

“Hi Charlotte. She’s at lunch, I think”

“Maybe you can help me anyway. Do you know anything about the OCR stuff she’s got in?”

“No sorry it’s Imogen’s project. I can leave her a message to call you?”

Elaine, although unable to hear the conversation, guessed that there was going to be some delay. “It’ll have to be right away.” she butted in.

Charlotte felt her slipping away. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“I think about ..... hang on, now when did she go out?”

Charlotte pursed her lips and exhaled through her nose, her eyes rolled up to look at the ceiling in irritation.

Ben interrupted his own rumination. “Oh here she is now. Imogen, it’s Charlotte.” There was a pause.

Charlotte turned to Elaine, who was waiting for her computer to boot. “She’s there now.” Elaine did not even look up, Charlotte was becoming desperate.

“Hi Charlotte?”

“Imogen. It’s about the OCR scanner.”

Imogen stopped unwrapping the sandwich she had bought. The scanner was her pet project of the moment.

Five minutes later Charlotte had persuaded Elaine to go for lunch with her while Imogen scanned and spell-checked the printout.

chapter two

“So what is the piece about?” Charlotte asked, thinking about how much she wanted to have sex with Elaine.

“It’s part of SGM.” Elaine raised her voice over the sound of the traffic as they made the short walk to the wine bar Elaine had chosen over the pub.

“Seeing Jim?” Charlotte queried, having misheard.

“Single General Model.” Elaine clarified as they arrived.

Charlotte went to order the drinks, Elaine found a table. Charlotte found Elaine’s table and set down her G&T and her own B&C. “So?” she said, sitting down and noting the small lipstick mark made by Elaine’s first sip.

“So what?” Elaine replied as Charlotte made her own mark, similar but pinker.

“What are you doing on S G M?” Charlotte expanded, putting her glass down.

“Oh. Time.” Elaine prodded her glass to make the ice move. Charlotte looked at the length of Elaine’s extended elegant finger and thought of ways to get the conversation going.

“So why was this morning’s work so important?”

“Because there’s a deadline and ” Elaine paused to sip “because yesterday morning there was a meeting.”

Charlotte murmured interestedly as she watched Elaine’s neck’s swallowing action.

“James and me and the other James.”

“The boys’ club.” Charlotte muttered.

“Everything I’d done this week.” Elaine’s tone changed, showing emotion, which Charlotte liked. “‘Oh it’s really good and everything, but it should be part of language.’ they decided.” Elaine made a spreading wave with both hands, exposing the inside of her wrists to Charlotte’s gaze. “Great. ‘I should think I can incorporate it quite easily.’” Elaine’s head bobbed from side to side as she quoted James, but Charlotte was still looking at the clear skin on the ridges formed by the tendons over Elaine’s left wrist. “He can incorporate it easily because he hasn’t written anything himself.” Elaine tapped the table sharply with her right hand, then took a long sip on her drink as she realised she had raised her voice. Charlotte drank too. Elaine began talking again, quieter this time.

“So I had to find a new angle. God I racked my brains.” Elaine paused, aware that she was talking because she was drinking and had not eaten. “I really liked that time-as-a-social-construct stuff.” She wondered if Charlotte was bored by this and check she was not looking away before continuing. “Last night it came to me. Time as a fourth space dimension.”

This phrase was not meaningful to Charlotte - not as meaningful as the roundness of Elaine’s breasts anyway - yet she knew she must make a response. She decided that encouragement to explain was her best tactic, rather than appearing too stupid to understand and shifting the topic of conversation to something of more common interest. The key word in Elaine’s last sentence was “space”, Charlotte decided. “But how is time a space dimension?” was the question she formulated and spoke.

It had the desired effect of making Elaine pause for thought and Charlotte rewarded herself with another sip, using the movement involved in taking it to disguise a shift of position to give her a view of Elaine’s legs.

“Well ..... umm ..... let’s start with a two-dimensional world.” Elaine paused and made eye contact with Charlotte. As soon as Elaine spoke again Charlotte shifted her attention back under the table. “OK the surface of this table is two-dimensional. Flat. Suppose it’s populated by two-dimensional things like squares and circles.” Elaine’s left foot was flat on the floor, but her right lay lazily on its side, tilted away from her left. The ankle was only slightly bent. “Suppose we overlay a grid and co-ordinate system on it and plot where the centre of a specific circle is. So we’ve got this circle and it’s here, this far from the right hand edge of the table, this far from the bottom of the table.” Elaine’s hands were moving around the table, but her legs remained stationary. The left was upright, the right leant away from it, giving Charlotte a view of just a small part of Elaine’s upper left thigh inside her skirt. “What if we make another dimension perpendicular to the surface of the table and take it to be time. The further up we go, the further back in time.” Elaine’s hands now moved up and down above the table, necessitating some shifting lower in her body. Charlotte watched Elaine’s skirt stretching over her twisting waist and thighs. “Supposing the circle doesn’t move, then through time it appears as a cylinder, straight up vertical.” Elaine’s hands encircled the hypothetical cylinder and she ran them up it, back in time, raising her weight slightly and causing her above the knee skirt to ride slightly higher. “But what if it’s moving?”

Elaine sat down fully, her left hand tugged at the hem of her skirt almost subconsciously as her right hand traced the hypothetical circle’s movement along the table to the bottom edge. “So it was over here, and it moves to here. But we’re representing the past by the third dimension so when it was back here it was in the past and therefore we would plot it up here.” Elaine raised herself again. This time Charlotte concentrated on the point just below the lowest button on Elaine’s top, which was slightly too small for her. As Elaine stretched up a small triangle of skin was exposed by the pulling of her shoulders against the garment - untucking it from the waistband of her skirt. “So plotting it through time gives an oblique cylinder, whereas the stationary circle gave a plain straight vertical cylinder.” Elaine had finished her explanation but not her drink, quite. She sat and looked Charlotte in the eye for her conclusion.

“From one perspective there are three space dimensions, but the two-dimensional inhabitants see it - no wait sorry.” Elaine paused, breaking eye contact. Charlotte liked Elaine’s eyes, they were hazel, and hoped that contact would resume. It did, as Elaine corrected herself. “From one perspective there are three space dimensions, but from another there are two space dimensions and one time dimension.” Elaine was happy with this and finished her drink. She offered to buy more drinks and Charlotte agreed.

Charlotte watched the button and zip on the back of Elaine’s skirt and tried to grasp the idea of a fourth space dimension being time. She had not attained a total understanding by the time Elaine returned just minutes later.

Elaine placed the drinks on the table and noticed that Charlotte was deep in thought. She wondered again whether she was talking too much. She was justified, she decided, since she was the one who had been dragged out.

“I think I understand. Thanks.” Charlotte took some of her drink. “So what about our experience of time?” This got Elaine thinking very hard and started a whole new discussion.

Forty minutes into the discussion Charlotte interrupted “What time is it? Shouldn’t we head back?”

Elaine smiled at this question. She explained why as they left the bar. “When you say ‘What time is it?’ in a way you’re really asking ‘Where are we?’ or ‘Where is the Sun in relation to us?’ because time is measured in terms of the Earth’s rotation.” Elaine held her hand up in a formation suggesting holding a large ball and illustrated the rotating. Charlotte looked at the hand invoking roundness and started thinking about Elaine’s breasts again.

“Yes but it’s where we are now so it’s still time isn’t it.”

Elaine’s reply was lost in the noise of traffic. It is not possible to have a detailed conceptual discussion when walking down a busy road. Charlotte and Elaine passed the journey back to the office with few words.

chapter three

Elaine wanted to pick up her file from Imogen so she went to Workstation Support directly. Charlotte went with her to be in her presence. Imogen was not at her desk so they went to Ben’s to enquire. Ben was on the telephone.

“..... well if you want them to feel caring put ‘Thank you for taking time’ but if you want them to feel thrusting put ‘Thank you for making time’. Oh, and if you want them to feel clever put ‘Thank you for finding time’ ..... OK ..... you’re welcome. See you later.” Ben put the phone down and turned to Charlotte and Elaine with his eyebrows raised.

“Yes?”

“Do you know where Imogen is Ben?”

Ben frowned at Imogen’s empty chair. “She must have popped out.” He got up and went to the desk. As he leaned on it he put his hand on something hard. “Funny. She’s left her watch.” He held it up to show the two women who had followed him over. “I suppose you want that document she was scanning” he said, touching Imogen’s mouse to clear the screen saver.

“Requested task is complete.” Ben read from the screen. “Is this it?”

Elaine stepped around the desk to peer at the screen. Charlotte looked at the slight swell just visible through the arm of Elaine’s top as she moved the mouse to view the file. “Yes. That’s it.”

Ben found a diskette, copied the file, and gave it to Elaine with the original printout which he pulled from the scanner’s sheet feeder.

“Tell her thanks very much.” Elaine said to Ben. “I hate losing time.”

chapter four

The clock on Charlotte’s screen showed 17:00hrs. She stole a quick glance at Elaine. Elaine was oblivious, typing and thinking. Lunch that day had been the first really long conversation between just the two of them. Charlotte felt quite close to Elaine now and wanted to capitalise. She had no plans for the evening, but was forming one rapidly. Charlotte decided to work late that evening.

By the time her clock showed 18:30hrs, the proposal she had been working on had every possible spelling error, typing error, grammatical error, factual error and example of poor style marked in red, with a marginal note and two or three alternatives listed. Elaine was still typing and thinking.

By 19:30hrs Charlotte had done a complete back-up of her computer, re-arranged all her pens and pencils (discarding those which did not work and sharpening those which required it), sorted out all the paper on her desk, in her trays, in her drawers and on her shelves and finally she had even emptied her handbag and examined and ordered the contents. The cleaners had been around and remarked about how much waste paper she had. Well it had to be done sometime.

But it had all been worth it because at 19:32hrs Elaine was, at last , switching of her computer and packing up. Elaine looked at her watch and groaned.

“It’s pretty late.” Charlotte opened. “Do you want to have dinner somewhere?” She hoped it sounded casual.

“Why not.” Elaine replied, looking for her jacket, then remembering she had not worn it because of the hot weather.

They went to a nearby Chinese restaurant. Elaine was too tired to read the menu properly so they ordered set menu J for two, and a bottle of red wine. All Elaine could think about was the document she had been writing, which she had not finished. Charlotte was quite happy to let Elaine talk about it. It appeared that Elaine was less happy with the model now than when she had described it at lunch time.

“It doesn’t include any of the properties of time as we perceive it. This is interesting because it allows us to play with ideas. Unfortunately it doesn’t really constitute a model, because it’s too difficult to think about our experience of the passage of time. As an aside - one of the play ideas - this gives us a new way to look at memory. The straight view of brain function has memory as being a part of the brain that gets set, by which I mean marked or written to, by events, and which we can then examine when we want to know what happened. Rather than that, we could conjecture that there is something in the brain which literally senses backwards in time.”

Charlotte found that she was becoming genuinely interested in Elaine’s subject. Of course she still wanted to do things with her, so she turned the conversation. Charlotte did this subtly by making a response to whatever Elaine said, and then describing a trait or experience of hers which accounted for her response. This naturally led Elaine to account for her own statements. Which led them to just talking about themselves, getting to know each other very well. With the wine helping it along, Charlotte’s plan was proceeding well until coffee. Suddenly Elaine thought of something.

“Yes, like you said, everything has led us to this point.” Charlotte could have kicked herself for saying it - how could she have been so stupid as to introduce a step back? Elaine continued as Charlotte raged at herself. “Every decision in the past has led here. There’s this theory that when a decision is made this actually splits reality into several realities, one for each way the decision could have gone. Each reality then plays out separately. This means there are millions and millions of realities being created all the time. That’s something I never liked in that model - it’s too much of a cop out. But next is to ask why do realities only diverge, why not converge too? Maybe when realities are similar they tend to snap back together. Maybe the past is changing too - so long as its outcome would be the same.” Elaine seemed excited, but to Charlotte’s great annoyance seemed to have forgotten about them becoming close friends.

“I should really write this down right now. It’s too late to get back into the office.” Elaine paused. “Charlotte have you got a PC?”

Charlotte answered “Yes” automatically, she was too annoyed to think or notice where the question led.

“Could I come back to your place and use it?” Charlotte thought this sounded stupid; It was without doubt the most feeble excuse for inviting yourself back to their place she had ever heard.

“Sure Elaine.” she said, smiling. Charlotte’s plan appeared to be coming together.

At the bus stop Charlotte realised that her plan was not coming together after all.

She had sat next to Elaine on the plastic bench, then had shuffled slightly so as to be touching her. Elaine had said “Sorry” absently and moved away a fraction - as though she had unintentionally touched a stranger on the street. Charlotte realised that Elaine had meant only what she had said about using Charlotte’s PC.

The short bus ride passed in silence. Elaine thought about the changing past, memory, aging and convergent reality. Charlotte resolved that she would come-on to Elaine.

chapter five

Ten minutes after entering Charlotte’s flat Elaine was typing on a portable on a table in the living room. Charlotte had been to the lavatory and was pouring two gins and two tonics in two glasses in the kitchen.

She came into the small living room carrying a straight glass in each hand. Charlotte walked to the table smiling, but Elaine was intent on her typing and did not notice. She felt frustrated and put Elaine’s glass down heavily. Elaine’s head twitched to look at the source of the loud click, then moved back to look at the screen. Charlotte’s smile dropped, Elaine could have said “Thank you” at least. She went to the sofa and sat down in a huff.

Charlotte swallowed about half her G&T at once and shivered. Elaine started talking.

“The problem with the space dimension model was that it was too simple. You say that time is just another dimension, like the first three, but then you have to explain how come this dimension is so different to the others. You end up putting it all down to perception and that’s not good enough. Or rather it’s not enough, not enough model.” Charlotte stopped listening.

She eased her shoes off, put her legs up on the sofa, lay back and closed her eyes. The sonics of Elaine’s voice were pleasant to her and it was to that, rather than the content to which she paid attention as she finished her G&T.

Charlotte awoke and opened her eyes, wondering how long she had been asleep. The main lights were off. Elaine was standing by the table where an angle poise lamp was switched on. Elaine stood with her back to her. Elaine had untucked her top from her skirt, presumably for comfort, and had taken off her shoes.

As Charlotte blinked, Elaine pulled her skirt up all the way to her waist. Elaine bent forwards and pulled her tights down both legs. Charlotte watched Elaine’s hands running over the surface of her legs. Elaine turned slightly, steadied herself on the table and removed the tights from one foot and then the other. Charlotte half closed her eyes, afraid that Elaine might notice, even in the dim light, that she was watching. Elaine hung her tights on a chair and rubbed her thighs and buttocks before pulling her skirt back down. She was about to sit back down when she thought of something.

If Elaine was feeling uncomfortable from wearing the same clothes all day, all evening, and now into the night, then probably so was Charlotte. As Elaine turned to look Charlotte quickly closed her eyes.

“Charlotte, are you awake?” Elaine whispered.

Charlotte played asleep.

Elaine took two steps and stood by Charlotte’s feet.

“Charlotte?” Elaine looked down at the trousered legs, then at the waist fastening. “Not very comfortable for sleeping” she mumbled to herself. Elaine knelt by the sofa. Charlotte kept up her pretence as she felt Elaine gently undo the button and pull apart the fly zipper. She could feel Elaine’s staring presence.

Charlotte lay still, willing Elaine to touch her, maybe just to see what it was like, or perhaps to give her a friends peck on the cheek, or perhaps to undress her a little more. A long second passed as Charlotte listened to her own breathing. Then she heard Elaine’s clothes rustle. Elaine was moving!

Her heart sank as she heard Elaine stand up, walk back to the table and sit down. Charlotte shifted and made noises in her throat, pretending to have just awoken. She felt she could get away with a certain amount of noise and squirmed up the sofa until her trousers had been worked down far enough for her to feel the fabric of the sofa under her thighs. She was propped against one arm of the sofa, undoing the cuffs of her shirt before she spoke.

“Hi Elaine, what time is it? Or should I say where are we in relation to the Sun?”

Elaine laughed a quiet snort and picked up her wristwatch from the table. “It’s five past one.” she said, looking at Charlotte’s shadowed form.

“Well I’m going to bed.” Charlotte stood up and pretended to be surprised as her trousers slid to the floor. She stepped out of them and walked towards Elaine, undoing her shirt. She noticed that Elaine watched her coming, but could not see her expression clearly. By the time she had reached the table, Charlotte’s shirt hung open. She was vaguely aware of Elaine’s eyes flicking from her face to her breasts to her groin.

“Are you going to work on this all night?” Charlotte asked leaning forward to look at the screen and to allow her to steady herself by leaning her left hand on Elaine’s right shoulder. The movement also brought their legs into contact.

“We cannot talk about a frame, moving through this fourth dimension, as being the now, because by making time to be a fourth dimension we have written out slash denied slash undefined slash made meaningless the concept of movement.” Charlotte read from the screen, becoming aware that Elaine’s hand was touching the back of her left leg.

It was a gentle, tentative touch. Charlotte moved the fingers of her left hand against the skin on Elaine’s shoulder to show that she welcomed the touch. She did this without taking her eyes from the screen.

“Furthermore, where is consciousness? If we suppose that the passage of time is a product of our perception of the fourth dimension, just as perspective is a product of our perception of three space dimensions.” Charlotte paused. Elaine’s hand was now holding her left leg, about half way between the knee and the buttock. “This sentence isn’t right.” Charlotte tapped the screen with her right index finger.

Elaine removed her hand from Charlotte’s leg with a stroking motion and leaned closer to the screen. Charlotte maintained the contact of her left hand by allowing it to slide across Elaine’s shoulder and neck as she leaned.

“It starts ‘If we’ but has no ‘then’ part.” Charlotte’s left hand slid inside Elaine’s top and down her back a little way. Elaine sat back, saying nothing. Charlotte looked down at her. Their eyes met.

“I’ve never done this before. With a woman I mean.” Elaine said quietly, fingering the hem of Charlotte’s hanging shirt.

“I though not.” Charlotte replied as she stepped across and then sat on Elaine’s lap, straddling her. She put her arms around Elaine’s neck and kissed her lightly on the lips. She pulled back slightly, to check Elaine.

Elaine, her eyes closed, reached forward to kiss Charlotte lightly, then heavily, openly, hungrily, passionately and deeply.

The Freemason balancing on the drainpipe outside the second floor window, with a stethoscope on the glass, activated his throat microphone.

“Sir. They’re doing it in the chair. I mean in the living room.”

His superior, waiting on the roof, acknowledged this. “OK. I’ll have Germany met by the front door. We don’t have to be in that room for another forty minutes. If they haven’t left by then, well I’m not letting the privacy of a couple of dykes get in the way of the pursuit. Keep me informed. Out.”

chapter six

On the roof were five Freemasons sitting on three mats. The three largest men sat together on the largest mat. The Freemason with the radio sat on the thickest mat. The remaining man sat nervously on the smallest mat.

Following the message from by the window, the Freemason snapped the switch on the portable radio down and off. He turned and looked at the nervous man for a moment before directing his look, and an instruction, to one of the three men sitting behind him.

“Kheb. Go and meet Germany. Wait on the street.” Then he had a better idea. “Hang on. Wait in the corridor outside the flat.”

The man replied with a bowing nod, stood and left the roof by the maintenance access door.

The nervous man turned to watch “Kheb” go, then looked at the remaining two men. Like Kheb, they wore business suits which did not conceal their burliness. Assessing them and himself he saw no possibility of overcoming even one of them. Another chance might be to persuade them to allow him to escape. In normal circumstances he outranked them, but at the moment this too was a futile hope. Also he had tried it earlier, when they had come for him. They had not even acknowledged his questions. Everything had been done by the book, even including their uniforms, of which he knew they still wore a few items under their suits.

The only person who had addressed him, at that time and since, was the man who had just switched off the radio. A man who now insisted on being called Nefer, although his name was Peter. Equally, since the arrest, Nefer had insisted on addressing the nervous man as Kepker, although his name was David. The names were chosen for a reason. Something to do with their respective rôles in the current affair.

The despatch of one “soldier” to meet Germany suddenly made the actual trial seem very close, and Kepker became desperate. He cleared his throat.

“Peter-”

“Don’t use that name.” Peter cut him off verbally, raising a hand for emphasis. “And I hope you’re not going to try and discuss the imminent proceedings.”

“I just wanted some advice about a couple of things.” Kepker pleaded.

“My advice is that you tell the whole truth when in the presence of he-who-will-judge-the-matter. You are a witness, but also on trial. Perhaps you should pray while we wait.” was the stern reply.

“But if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even know to be here. That’ll count in my favour won’t it P-” He stopped himself using his superior’s common name. “Won’t it Nefer? It will won’t it?”

“I can give you no answer.” He looked at Kepker. What he felt was not compassion, yet he could not forget that he was this man’s superior, hence responsible for him. “Compose yourself. And remember: with dignity.”

Kepker closed his eyes and tried to some to terms with his powerlessness. He could do nothing to save himself. Nor could Nefer do anything. That left only a certain man whose superior he was. This man was also the principle object of the pursuit Nefer had mentioned on the radio. And was the man to be accused in the imminent trial. No prayer he knew seemed appropriate. He opened his eyes and saw Nefer moving his head to look past him.

Nefer made a gesture of greeting and Kepker looked round. Kheb had returned with three men, all wearing suits - Italian or French tailoring Kepker guessed. Kepker surmised that one of them must be the man known as Germany. A man who had been brought in from a foreign lodge as an impartial judge - a step taken only in cases of the most serious misdemeanor.

Nefer stood up on his mat, then took a deliberate step forward off the mat. The three newcomers stood a pace from the mat on which Kheb had been sitting, Kheb stood with them. They did not put down the sports bags they carried.

Nefer introduced himself by speaking his name “Nefer” and making a gesture.

One of the three newcomers said “Germany” making the same gesture. He paused, dropping his hand, then raised the hand again to make a different gesture. “I am come to judge this matter. I am Usser.” He held the gesture until Nefer repeated the new name “Usser”. As he dropped his hand and turned around everyone began moving.

The men who had been waiting on the roof returned to their mats and sat down. The new arrivals busied themselves with their bags.

Nefer picked up the radio. “We are now in session. No more messages. I will call again when we are intending to enter the room.”

“Understood, sir.”