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had frowned. That was like poetry, James had said, but it was not real, just as a talking detective dog was not real on the television. They passed the iron gates to Besley Hill where the mad people lived. As the wheels of the Jaguar rumbled over the cattle grid, Byron breathed a sigh of relief. Then, approaching the town, they turned a corner and braked hard.
    ‘Oh no,’ he said, sitting tall. ‘What’s happened now?’
    ‘I don’t know. A traffic jam.’ It was the last thing they needed.
    His mother lifted her fingers to her teeth and ripped off a shred of her nail.
    ‘Is it because of the mist?’
    Again, ‘I don’t know.’ She pulled at the handbrake.
    ‘I think the sun is up there somewhere,’ he said brightly. ‘It will burn this off soon.’
    There were cars blocking the road as far as they could see; all the way into the veil of cloud. To their left the dull silhouette of a burnt-out vehicle marked the entrance to the Digby Road Estate. They never went that way. Byron saw his mother glance over.
    ‘We’re going to be late,’ wailed Lucy.
    Snapping down the handbrake, Diana pushed the car into first gear with a crunch, yanked at the wheel and accelerated towards the left. They were heading straight for Digby Road. She didn’t even mirror, signal, manoeuvre.
    At first the children were too stunned to speak. They passed the burnt-out car. The glass at the windows was smashed and the wheels, doors and engine were gone so that it was like a charred skeleton and Byron hummed gently because he didn’t want to think about that.
    ‘Father says we must never go this way,’ said Lucy. She smothered her face with her hands.
    ‘It’s a short cut through council housing,’ said their mother. ‘I’ve been this way before.’ She eased her foot down on the accelerator.
    There was no time to consider what she had said; that, despite their father’s rule, she had been this way before. Digby Road was worse than Byron had imagined. It wasn’t even tarmacked in places. The mist was glued to the rows of houses so that they reached ahead, dull and indistinct, and then appeared to disintegrate. Pieces of rubbish choked the gutters; rubble, bags, blankets, boxes, it was hard to tell what it was. Occasionallywashing lines appeared, strung with sheets and clothes that held no colour.
    ‘I’m not looking,’ said Lucy, sliding down her seat to hide.
    Byron tried to find something that wouldn’t cause alarm. Something that he might recognize and feel good about in Digby Road. He worried too much; his mother had told him many times. And then suddenly there it was. One beautiful thing: a tree that glowed through the fog. It presented wide arching branches that appeared festooned with bubblegum-pink flowers, although the fruit blossom at Cranham House was long since over. Byron felt a surge of relief as if he had witnessed a small miracle, or an act of kindness, at the moment he least believed in the existence of either. Beneath the tree came a moving silhouette. It was small; the size of a child. It was spinning towards the road and had wheels. It was a girl on a red bicycle.
    ‘What time is it?’ said Lucy. ‘Are we late?’
    Byron glanced at his watch and then he froze. The second hand was moving backwards. His voice sliced at his throat and he realized it was a scream.
    ‘Mummy, it’s happening. Stop.’ He grabbed her shoulder. He pulled hard.
    He couldn’t make sense of what came next. It was so fast. While he tried to poke his watch, or more specifically the adjusted second hand, in front of his mother’s face, he was also aware of the miracle tree and the little girl bicycling into the road. They were all part of the same thing. All of them shooting out of nowhere, out of the dense mist, out of time. The Jaguar swerved and his hands smacked into the mahogany dashboard to brace himself. As the car slammed to a halt there was a sound like a metallic whisper, and then there was silence.
    In the beats that