over and drew the bottle sticking up out of the sand on a beach (he drew a sandcastle to make it clear where it was supposed to be). The idea was that someone, typically a poor but deserving fisherman, would come along and give the bottle a brisk rub, at which point the genie would come whooshing out and solve all his problems –
At this point he paused and wondered if he’d finally flipped, or whether this was an Einstein’s tramcar moment, the point at which a homely analogy floodlit the runway on which divine inspiration could touch down and taxi smoothly to a halt. Six minutes later, he folded the paper into an aeroplane and sent it sailing gracefully across the room. He then spent two hours reading up the lives of great scientists on Wikipedia. That didn’t help much, either. Then he turned off the screen and sat in his chair, pretending to be dead. Death, he reflected, was probably like playing the piano; the only way to get really good at it is to practise extensively beforehand.
He’d got to the stage where he couldn’t feel his toes when a tiny noise made him look up. It had come from the direction of the door, which he’d locked to avoid interruption. The key was turning in the keyhole.
Keys don’t usually do that, except in Spielberg films. He’d just made up his mind to go and investigate when the door opened and two men burst in. One of them was short and very old. The other was young, tall, blond, windmill-eared and eating a sandwich.
“You two,” Theo said. “What—?”
The old man gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry about this,” he said, then nodded to his grandson, who grabbed Theo by the lapels and lifted him up so violently that his head banged hard on the ceiling. There was a beautiful firework display that nobody else could see, followed by –
Theo opened his eyes and groaned. “Lunchbox,” he said.
The young man gave him a shy smile, then took another bite of his individual pork pie. There was a sharp jolt, as the van went over a pothole.
“You awake, Mr Bernstein?” The old man turned round in the driving seat to look at him. Theo, who could see past him and through the windscreen, yelled, “Look out!” The old man waggled the steering wheel, the van lurched, and a lorry horn dopplered past over to their left. “You feeling OK, Mr Bernstein? Sorry about this.”
“Keep your eyes on the road!”
“No worries, Mr Bernstein, I been driving fifty years, never had an” – the van swerved so ferociously that for a moment it flexed like a drawn bow – “accident. It’s all right, you’re perfectly safe.”
By now, Theo was painfully aware of the handcuffs and the rope around his ankles. “No I’m not,” he shouted back. “Stop the van now. I mean it.”
The young man was peeling the foil lid off a yoghurt. “Sorry,” the old man said, “but we got our instructions. Your sister wants to see you. Urgent.” “Fine. Tell me when and where, and I’ll take the bus.”
“Don’t you worry, Mr Bernstein, we’ll be there in an hour or so. How’s the head?”
“Hurts like hell.”
“Sorry about that. I told the lad, there was no call for him knocking you out like that. Trouble is, he don’t know his own strength. Say sorry to Mr Bernstein, Art.”
The young man took the plastic spoon out of his mouth and made a noise like a bumblebee in a padded box. “He says he’s sorry,” the old man said. “He’s a good lad really, and, anyhow, I promised his mother. You just lie still and relax, Mr Bernstein. Rest your head.”
The old man must have stood on the brake at this point, because the van compressed like a spring. Theo slid forward until his feet collided with the back of the passenger seat; then his unsupported head bumped against the hard floor. The fireworks display started up again, but he wasn’t in the mood. There’s a time and a place for whooshing red rockets and swirly purple and green Catherine wheels, and this was neither. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see a way of getting the old man to stop without getting all of them killed. Unless –
“Excuse me.”
“Hm?”
“Would you mind very much slowing down a bit? Only, I get travel sick, you see, and—”
“What? Oh, right.” The van slowed down (a horn blared behind and to the side, but all in a good cause