2. Trouble brewing
…BANG. A fist slammed on to my desk for a third time.
“Harker! Harker, my boy! Rise and shine.”
I opened my eyes, and then immediately shut them again, realising I had been asleep. I gradually opened first my left eye and then my right, taking in my surroundings. I was in the newsroom of the Evening Inquirer, my head resting on my notepad. Around me was the din of two-dozen clacking typewriters as busy journalists frantically recorded the day’s news.
Through a rain-splattered window I could see a brown smudge of smoggy sky. Below, men in top hats and frock coats made their way along Fleet Street, with the occasion-al cloth-capped copy boy running alongside them.
I was at my workplace in London.
There was no train, no secret mission, and no Petunia. I had been drea
