'Come on. Feel it.'

Tuppe looked at Anna.

And Anna looked at Tuppe. They exchanged shrugs. Then they stretched out their hands. Then they both went, 'Ooh.'

'Something big,' said Cornelius.

'Covered by fabric,' said Anna.

'Canvas,' said Tuppe.

They traced their hands along, around and about it.

'It's quite long,' said Anna.'But not too high,' said Cornelius. 'I can feel the top of it.'

'And I can see its wheels,' declared Tuppe. 'Its wheels?' Cornelius turned around in small circles.

'Where are you, Tuppe? You've vanished.'

'I'm here.'

'You're not.'

'I am. I'm underneath. It's a car. Covered by some kind of tarpaulin. You can see it from under here. Pull it off.'

Cornelius gripped a handful of invisible tarpaulin and began to tug. The thing came away, weightlessly.

The visual effect was quite stunning. Far better, in fact, than anything you could do with the old Soft Image and Parallax Matador software, even if run on Silicon Graphics Iris 4D workstations, digitally matched and scanned into a large scale framestore. Of course you really had to be there to fully appreciate it. In the full 3D and everything.

Anna's eyes widened as the mantle of invisibility fell away.

'Beautiful,' said Cornelius Murphy. 'Beautiful.'

And it was. Cornelius had seen cars and he had seen cars. Many cars. His adoptive daddy had w.a.n.gled it for him to test drive some of the very best. But he'd never seen anything quite like this. The car was evidently of pre-war design, but with many features that looked distinctly modern. And it was silver. All over. Silver. Not as in silver paint. But as in silver. Polished, burnished silver. It was long and broad-bodied, yet the lines were sleek and aerodynamic. Flared fenders that swept into the sh.e.l.l without visible join. High b.u.mpers and trailing fins.

'What make of car is it?' Anna jigged from one foot to the other.

'I'm not sure.' Cornelius paced slowly about the marvellous automobile, peering in at the windows, lightly brushing the polished bodywork with his sensitive fingers, holding down his cap and shaking his head all the while.

Tuppe climbed to his feet and joined the tall boy in his perambulations.

'Is it real?' was his question.

Cornelius shrugged.

'It looks fresh off the production line. But it's not, is it?'

'I don't think so.' Cornelius reached out and tried a door handle. The door clicked open. Cornelius lowered his face and took a little sniff. Showroom fresh. He pulled the door wide open and prepared to climb into the car.

'Careful, Cornelius. You never know.'

'Don't be fearful.' Cornelius settled into the driving seat. It was very comfortable. Green leather upholstery squeaked in a posh, exclusive manner. The steering wheel was of shining golden wood.

Cornelius ran his hands about it. Savouring the feel. He studied the dashboard. The milometer displayed a row of seven stylized zeros.

'It's never been driven.

'Let's have a look.' Anna flung open the pa.s.senger door and dropped down next to Cornelius. 'It's booty, isn't it? What do you think it's worth?'

'A very great deal. Especially if it is what I think it is., Cornelius opened the glove compartment and scooped out a sheaf of papers. 'And I think it is.'

'What?' Anna bobbed up and down in her seat. Cornelius leafed through the papers. 'Oh yes,'

said he. 'Oh yes.'

'Come on, tell me.'

'Anna, this is the MacGregor Mathers.'

'Oh,' said Anna.

'Not Chitty Chitty Bang Bang then?' Tuppe scrambled into the car and perched himself on Anna's knee.

'Not. This is the MacGregor Mathers, you must have heard of it.' Tuppe looked at Anna.

And Anna looked at Tuppe.

And they both said, 'No.'

'If you're going to sit on my knee, then keep your hands to yourself,' said Anna.

'We give up,' said Tuppe.

Cornelius smiled. 'Then I shall tell you a little story. Are you sitting comfortably?'

'I am,' said Tuppe.

'Then I shall begin. Back in the nineteen thirties a rumour circulated in America. It concerned a Scottish inventor supposedly called MacGregor Mathers, that he had invented a car engine that ran on tap water.'

'Oh I've heard that one,' Tuppe put in. 'He tried to get it patented, but everyone laughed at him.

Then he demonstrated it to Henry Ford, or some bigwig, got tricked out of it and vanished into obscurity.

Ford, being in cahoots with the petrol industry, burned the plans. It's an FOAF.'

'A what?' Anna asked.

'A friend-of-a-friend story. An urban myth. Like the dyslexic devil worshipper who sold his soul to Santa.'

'That's not an FOAF,' Anna replied. 'That's just a duff gag.'

'Have you both quite finished?' Cornelius asked.

'I have,' said Tuppe.

'Then allow me to continue. MacGregor Mathers did not exactly vanish into obscurity. He returned to England where he found a wealthy backer. A member of the British aristocracy. Mathers rebuilt his engine and demonstrated it before a group of scientists. The engine ran like a dream. A consortium was formed in secret and the prototype car was built.'

'And?' Tuppe waggled his b.u.m.

'Careful,' said Anna. 'And?'

'And it would seem that we are sitting in it.' Cornelius made a flourishing gesture. Spilling papers to the floor.

'Er no,' Tuppe put up his hand to speak. 'There would appear to be a bit more between then and now.'

'The prototype was built, as I said. Put on a lorry to be transported to Brooklands for a test drive.

But the lorry never got there. There was this big storm. Just like tonight. They say the driver got lost, or something.'

'Or something.' Tuppe raised an eyebrow. 'What about MacGregor Mathers?'

'Vanished once more into obscurity,' Anna suggested.

'Or sold his soul to Santa and is now living at the North Pole,' Tuppe t.i.ttered.

'No.' Cornelius gathered up the papers and shuffled them between his fingers. 'He vanished all right.

Vanished off the face of the earth. But not into obscurity. You see MacGregor Mathers wasn't his real name. It was an alias. His real name is right here on the car's doc.u.ments. This car was invented by my father. Hugo Rune.'

7.

Coincidence? Synchronicity? The unplucked nasal hair of destiny?

'The way I see it,' said Cornelius Murphy, 'this is now my car.

'Oh it's definitely you.' Tuppe was all smiles. 'Understated elegance. Cla.s.sic refinement. Top of the range.

Anna opened her mouth to voice her opinions, but Cornelius went on. 'I think we should take it out for a spin.'

'What?' Anna now found her moment. 'If this car has been standing here for the last sixty years, you don't really expect it to work, do you?'

'Of course it will work.' Cornelius made little pointing motions towards the ignition key that dangled from the dashboard. 'Brrm brrrm,' said he.

'Get real.' Anna found she couldn't fold her arms, so she duffed Tuppe on the head for good measure. 'Ouch,' said Tuppe. 'Trust him,' he said also.

'Right then. Hold on to your hats.' The ignition key was an elegant thing in itself. Silver and shaped as a dolphin. Cornelius gave it a bit of a turn. Something made a bit of a click. But that was about all.

That was completely all, in fact.

'Well?' asked Anna.

'Engine's a bit cold probably.'

'A bit cold? If this thing really runs on water, which I seriously doubt, the water will all have evaporated decades ago. This is very sad.'

'Take no notice.' Tuppe mimed encouraging key twists. 'Give it another go.

'I will.' Cornelius gave it another go. Not a whisper. 'Needs a bit of choke perhaps.' He tweaked several enigmatic organ-stop sort of arrangements on the dashboard. 'Brrrm brrrm,' he said once more, as he once more turned the key.

'I felt something.' Tuppe bobbed up and down. 'I felt something.

'Feel it again and you're a dead boy.' Anna bopped him on the ear.

'Do it again, Cornelius.' And Cornelius did it again. And this time, a shiver ran through the silver car.

A swift vibration. And then a purr and a whisper and a long low note.

Gurgling noises issued from the bonnet region. Cornelius ma.s.saged the accelerator pedal. The gurgling increased to become a throbbing rush. 'There we go,' said the tall boy, fingers dancing on the dashboard. 'Like a dream.'

'A wet dream?' Anna suggested.

Cornelius raised the eyebrow of admonishment, pressed forward the gearstick of hope, and let out the clutch of, well, just the clutch, really.

The dream car moved forward without a shake, a rattle, or a roll. Magic.

Cornelius steered it around Mulligan's ice-cream van, through the portal and out into the night. As they left the cul-de-sac, Tuppe even managed to locate the switch for the headlights.

Anna glanced back over her shoulder. 'What about the portal, Cornelius? Shouldn't we have tried to close it, or something?'

'Certainly not. Tuppe and I are sworn to expose the blighters in the Forbidden Zones. We won't be closing any doors after us. We'll be leaving them open, for all the world to see.'

'Fair enough. This car drives beautifully, doesn't it?'

'Certainly does.'

And it certainly did. They cruised through the backstreets and off towards the main road. As they approached this, they were forced to slow down. A car ahead was waiting to turn right. Its indicator was jammed on. The driver did not appear to be in any hurry.

Cornelius pulled up behind him. 'Go on then,' he muttered. 'There's nothing coming. Get a move on.

The car didn't move.

'Meep your horn,' said Tuppe.

'I don't think it would be wise to draw too much attention to ourselves right now. Not in this car.Perhaps he's just stalled or something. We'll give him a moment.