Rob Wallet had just woken up. He slept better in the isolation of the farmhouse near Rotterdam. Yvoire was a stunning place to be, but it was busy. A tourist beehive, buzzing all day with the ever present threat of distant voices and accidental trespassers. The band had been back at the farmhouse for a week and were almost entering a state of idleness following the hysteria of New York. Things were happening, but nothing he was being made aware of. Susan kept telling him be patient, we'll explain when there's something to explain and he was starting to feel like a turkey who had been promised better things to come once December arrived.
Now he could hear the television in the lounge as he dozily wandered into the kitchen to make breakfast. Seeing the empty fridge he remembered he hadn't eaten a breakfast since staying in the motel just outside Obergrau. And then he remembered you don't have breakfast at twenty past ten at night. He joined Elaine in front of the television and saw Jonathan Knight sitting next to Lance Beauly.
"What channel's this?"
"BBC2, I think. What did we do before internet streaming?"
"What did we do before BBC2?" asked Wallet. Sat in front of the telly all afternoon waiting for the test films to come on about building Liverpool Cathedral and power boat racing.
"Recognise any of them?" said Elaine.
Wallet studied the line up. "I've met him there, Jonathan Knight, and Lance Beauly and I know Mark Lawson, but never met him. Her face looks familiar."
"And the other guy?"
"Is that Terence, what was it, Terence Pearl?"
"Yep. The guy in the bookshop when Peter Miles's doppelganger appeared in the background."
Wallet remembered the ghostly response from the band the last time Pearl was on the box. Coincidence? What was he up to now?
"How long you been up?" asked Wallet.
"Half hour. Others have gone out, but I'm already full. I saw this advertised on a forum so thought someone should stay in and watch it."