In a world where time stood still he had delayed too long; now he sped earthwards, a hurtling speck that could have been a hunting hawk, becoming a jinking, twisting bat as he flitted past the ivy-covered vicarage and honed towards that open square in the overgrown, disused adjoining graveyard?

'You should've come down when I was nearer the front of the queue, you should,' he told them! Now watch. He polished the bottom of the pan on his sleeve, then turned it towards the sun.