mean," said Kate.

"I'd be surprised if you did," said Standish. "Everything that Elwes said was then said just a moment later on the television by a gentleman by the name of Mr Dustin Hoffman. It seems that Mr Elwes here knows everything that this Mr Hoffman is going to say just a second or so before he says it. It is not, I have to say, something that Mr Hoffman would be very pleased about if he knew. Attempts have been made to alert the gentleman to the problem, but he has proved to be somewhat difficult to reach."

"Just what the shit is going on here?" asked Mr Elwes placidly.

"Mr Hoffman is, we believe, currently making a film on location somewhere on the west coast of America."

He looked at his watch.

"I think he has probably just woken up in his hotel and is making his early morning phone calls," he added.

Kate was gazing with astonishment between Standish and the extraordinary Mr Elwes.

"How long has the poor man been like this?"

"Oh, about five years I think. Started absolutely out of the blue. He was sitting having dinner with his family one day as usual when suddenly he started complaining about his caravan. And then shortly afterwards about how he was being shot. He then spent the entire night talking in his sleep, repeating the same apparently meaningless phrases over and over again and also saying that he didn't think much of the way they were written. It was a very trying time for his family, as you can imagine, living with such a perfectionist actor and not even realising it. It now seems very surprising how long it took them to identify what was occurring. Particularly when he once woke them all up in the early hours of the morning to thank them and the producer and the director for his Oscar."

Kate, who didn't realise that the day was still only softening her up for what was to come, made the mistake of thinking that it had just reached a climax of shock.

"The poor man," she said in a hushed voice. "What a pathetic state to be in. He's just living as someone else's shadow."

"I don't think he's in any pain."

Mr Elwes appeared to be quietly locked in a bitter argument which seemed to touch on the definitions of the words "points" "gross", "profits" and "limo".

"But the implications of this are extraordinary aren't they?" said Kate. "He's actually saying these things moments before Dustin Hoffman?"

"Well, it's all conjecture of course. We've only got a few clear instances of absolute correlation and we just haven't got the opportunity to do more thorough research. One has to recognise that those few instances of direct correlation were not rigorously documented and could more simply be explained as coincidence. The rest could be merely the product of an elaborate fantasy."

"But if you put this case next to that of the girl we just saw... "

"Ah, well we can't do that you see. We have to judge each case on its own merits."

"But they're both in the same world..."

"Yes, but there are separate issues. Obviously, if Mr Elwes here could demonstrate significant precognition of, for instance, the head of the Soviet Union or, better still, the President of the United States, then clearly there would be important defence issues involved and one might be prepared to stretch a point on the question of what is and what is not coincidence and fantasy, but for a mere screen actor - that is, a screen actor with no apparent designs on political office - I think that, no, we have to stick to the principles of rigorous science.

"So," he added, turning to leave, and drawing Kate with him, "I think that in the cases of both Mr Elwes and, er, what-was-her-name, the charming girl in the wheelchair, it may be that we are not able to be of much more help to them, and we may need the space and facilities for more deserving cases."

Kate could think of nothing to say to this and followed, seething dumbly.

"Ah, now here we have an altogether much more interesting and promising case," said Standish, forging on ahead through the next set of double doors.

Kate was trying to keep her reactions under control, but nevertheless even someone as glassy and Martian as Mr Standish could not help but detect that his audience was not absolutely with him. A little