May 1994, UEA campus, Norwich

Opening the portal in the university’s swimming pool after closing time had seemed a good idea to Maddy back in the archway. They’d arrive wet, but there’d be changing facilities, and hopefully a blow-dryer or towel or something. But now, floundering beneath the water in total darkness, not knowing which way was up and which way was down, she realized it ranked pretty high on her own Not To Be Tried Again list.

Suddenly Maddy felt Becks’s hand grasping her, followed by a hearty yank and her face breaking the surface. She coughed, retched and spluttered as Becks swam to the side of the pool, pulling her after.

‘Recommendation: this was not a good idea.’

‘No, really?’ she gasped.

Becks nodded firmly, not yet a master of irony. ‘Yes, you could have drowned.’

Maddy eased herself out of the cold water and flopped exhausted on to the side. She looked around. The university’s sports centre was closed now, the swimming pool dark, lit only by the dim amber glow of street lights outside, strips of orange light leaking through the drawn and turned-down blinds along the racing-lane side of the pool.

‘All right, well … so we’re here now. We’ve got four hours. So let’s get dry and changed. And then we’ll go find this Adam Lewis.’

Adam’s nerves were getting the better of him. He needed to get a grip.

‘Get a grip,’ he uttered to the face in his mirror. A lean face of freckles and acne, framed by the pitifully feeble sprouting of an auburn beard. Auburn – not ginger. Auburn. That’s what he kept telling everyone. And the tatty twists and turns of greasy hair tied back in a ponytail, they were flippin’ well auburn too.

His eyes looked back at him through round-framed ‘Lennon’ specs.

‘You look terrible,’ he told himself.

Well, why not? he argued back. I’ve got every right to look terrible.

Why not indeed. He was scared. Really scared. He’d not stepped out of his room now for what? … Four, five days? Missed half a dozen study periods and lectures and his flatmates were beginning to mutter about him in the hallway outside his door. They’d already thought he was a bit of an oddball before … well, before … this.

Outside it was dark. Eleven. He could hear the thud of music coming from the floor below. He recognized it: Chili Peppers. His flatmates were playing Mario on the SNES; there was a lot of noise, the clack-fissss of cans of beer being popped open, and laughing, lots of laughing … most probably about him.

Not so big a deal to him now. A week ago stuff like that got him down a bit, being a loner, being perceived as the resident freak. But he brushed off the quips and sniggering at his expense the way every hardened geek does it, by acting as if far greater matters were on his mind, matters these beer-swilling oiks wouldn’t even begin to understand.

One day I’ll be flying business class … and, you idiots, you’ll be serving fries somewhere.

That’s the sort of thing he usually said aloud. The lads laughed and shook their heads at his lame and faltering comeback. But he quietly smiled because he knew it was undoubtedly going to be true. And that, he figured, was how he and every other geek coped with being the frozen-out loner – the certainty that there’d come a day of mega payback for all the jibes and the sniggering.

But right now he really did have far, far greater matters on his mind.

Why me? How do they know my name? Oh God … who are ‘they’?

All of a sudden the throbbing music and the drunken guffawing stopped. He realized the front doorbell to their digs had just gone. He licked dry, cracked lips and realized he was holding his ragged breath to hear better who was down there at the door; to hear who’d come knocking at so late an hour.

He could hear Lance’s Glaswegian accent … and who else? Another murmuring voice. Quiet, polite, businesslike. Female.

Lance was trying it on, some witty banter, loosened up by the beer. His easy Celtic charm usually worked flawlessly on the ‘freshers’, first-year girls looking for an older, wiser university boyfriend. But, from the murmuring tone of this female visitor, she seemed wholly uninterested.

He heard Lance’s attitude suddenly change. Clearly facing a rejection for the first time in his life. He sounded like a petulant child. ‘Well, if you really want to see the freak … he’s up the stairs. Second on the right.’

Adam heard footsteps on the uncarpeted hallway and up the wooden stairs.

His heart was pounding in his chest, his stomach suddenly churning like a spin dryer.

‘Oh G-God … it’s …’

Them.

His mind spun between two options: to go for the window, clamber out, drop down outside and run for his life. Or to stay put and meet them. See what they wanted from him.

Oh God, oh God, oh God …

Maddy stood outside the door. She turned to look at Becks before gently rapping on it with her knuckles. ‘Adam Lewis?’

There was no answer. But she heard something stirring inside, the clunk and scrape of footsteps.

‘Adam?’ she called softly. ‘Can we talk to you?’

A long pause. Downstairs she could hear the murmur of male voices, no doubt talking about her and Becks. Actually, probably just Becks. She was well aware the support unit tended to attract the gaze of excitable testosterone-fuelled young men. Finally she heard a shuffling sound from just beyond the door.

‘Who … who are y-you?’ a voice came through the keyhole.

‘My name’s Maddy.’

‘Are … y-you … h-here to g-get me?’ The voice sounded pitiful, thin with fear.

‘No. I’m not here to get you. I just want to talk to you.’

‘I … did … what I was told. I d-did exactly … w-what it told me to d-do …’

Maddy had no idea what he was talking about. But she decided the only way she was going to get him to open the door was to mention something very specific.

‘Adam … I’m here about a particular word.’

Silence.

‘I’m here to talk about Pandora.’

She heard the dull click of the lock turning and the door cracked open an inch. A pale face dotted with spots and the glint of spectacles appeared in the space between the door and frame. ‘Are y-you … are you … the one?’

Go on, Maddy, play along with him. She offered him a reassuring smile. ‘Sure, I’m the one.’

‘The … the one who w-will explain? B-because I n-need to know … I … I …’

‘I’ll do my very best, Adam … if you’ll just let us in.’

The crack widened another half-inch as the glinting of spectacles shifted to study Becks. ‘And who’s she?’

‘She’s a friend. She’s no harm. Just a friend.’

‘D-does she know? A … about … P-Pandora?’

‘Yes.’

Adam studied them both for another few seconds before finally his face pulled back into the darkness and with a creak of worn hinges the door swung slowly open, inviting them in.