Plan for the Worst
Author: Jodi Taylor
Date: 2020-04-15 23:00:00+00:00
Keywords: kindle; fiction; sf; science fiction
Publisher: Headline

Copyright © 2020 Jodi Taylor

The right of Jodi Taylor to be identified as the Author of
the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

First published as an Ebook in Great Britain in 2020 by

HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

1

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may
only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior
permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in
accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical figures –
are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4722 6680 4

Ebook by CC Book Production

Cover design and illustration by zoedrawsthings.co.uk

HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

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About the Book

I would have trusted this man with my life. Until a couple of days ago, anyway.

You know what they say – hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Max is quite accustomed to everything going wrong. She’s St Mary’s, after all. Disaster is her default state. But with her family reunited and a jump to Bronze Age Crete in the works, life is getting back to normal. Well, normal for St Mary’s.

And then, following one fateful night at the Tower of London, everything Max thought she knew comes crashing down around her.

Too late for plans. The worst has happened. And who can Max trust now?

About the Author

Jodi Taylor is the internationally bestselling author of the Chronicles of St Mary’s series, the story of a bunch of disaster-prone individuals who investigate major historical events in contemporary time. Do NOT call it time travel! She is also the author of the Time Police series – a St Mary’s spinoff and gateway into the world of an all-powerful, international organisation who are NOTHING like St Mary’s. Except, when they are.

Alongside these, Jodi is known for her gripping supernatural thrillers featuring Elizabeth Cage together with the enchanting Frogmorton Farm series – a fairy story for adults.

Born in Bristol and now living in Gloucester (facts both cities vigorously deny), she spent many years with her head somewhere else, much to the dismay of family, teachers and employers, before finally deciding to put all that daydreaming to good use and write a novel. Nearly twenty books later, she still has no idea what she wants to do when she grows up.

You can sign up to the Jodi Taylor newsletter to be the first to hear about books, events and releases here: https://www.headline.co.uk/landing-page/jodi-taylor-newsletter/

And visit Jodi’s website here: www.joditaylor.online/

By Jodi Taylor and available from Headline

TIME POLICE SERIES

Doing Time

The Chronicles of St Mary’s series

Just One Damned Thing After Another

A Symphony of Echoes

A Second Chance

A Trail Through Time

No Time Like the Past

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Lies, Damned Lies, and History

And the Rest is History

An Argumentation of Historians

Hope for the Best

Plan For the Worst

Short-story collections

The Long and Short of It

Long Story Short

The Chronicles of St Mary’s digital shorts

When a Child is Born

Roman Holiday

Christmas Present

Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings

THE VERY FIRST DAMNED THING

The Great St Mary’s Day Out

My Name is Markham

A Perfect Storm

Christmas Past

Battersea Barricades

The Steam-Pump Jump

And Now For Something Completely Different

When Did You Last See Your Father?

Why is Nothing Ever Simple?

Elizabeth Cage novels

White Silence

Dark Light

Frogmorton Farm Series

The Nothing Girl

The Something Girl

Little Donkey (digital short)

A Bachelor Establishment

Contents

Title

Copyright

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Jodi Taylor

Dedication

Epigraph

Dramatis Thingummy

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

Acknowledgements

For all my lovely readers

‘Sometimes I just sit with my head in my hands and wonder why I’m not in a loony bin. Then I look around St Mary’s and realise I already am.’

Excerpt from Thoughts of an Overworked Chief Technical Officer After a Long Day

Available from any bookshop that can be persuaded to stock it.

Dramatis Thingummy

St Mary’s Personnel

Dr Bairstow

Head of St Mary’s. Always resolute in his determination to protect his people. Until now.

Mrs Partridge

PA to Dr Bairstow. Muse of History. Not above the occasional intervention herself.

Dr Peterson

Deputy Director. Inching his way towards an understanding with Miss Lingoss. Think continental drift with the brakes on.

Thirsk’s new representative

Not sure there’s any more to say.

History Department

Dr Maxwell

Head of the History Department. Hopes for the best but plans for the worst. Major protagonist in the Malevolent Mug of Tea crisis.

Mr Clerk

Senior Historian.

Miss Prentiss

Senior Historian.

Mr Sands

Newly returned historian, bestselling author, shacked up with Rosie Lee. Living dangerously.

Mr Roberts

Another newly returned historian. Victim of an unexpected passion for Miss Sykes. Another one living dangerously. What is it with historians?

Miss Sykes

Historian. Apparently no longer willing to share her man with a gender-neutral chicken and ready to move on.

Mr Atherton

Historian. Normal. A bit of a contradiction in terms but definitely normal. Within the standard St Mary’s definition of the word ‘normal’.

Miss Van Owen

Another newly returned historian. Eagle-eyed readers will have noted the absence of Miss North.

Rosie Lee

PA to Max. The other protagonist in the Malevolent Mug of Tea trauma.

Security Section

Mr Markham

Apron-wearing Head of Security. Imminent father. Might be in serious trouble. Of course he’s in serious trouble. He’s always in serious trouble. Only the depth varies.

Mr Evans

Security guard.

Mr Cox

Security guard.

Mr Keller

Security guard.

Mr Gallacio

Security guard.

Mr Scott

Security guard.

Mr Gregg

Security guard.

Mr Irving

Security guard.

Technical Section

Chief Technical

Guilty or not? He can’t remember.

Officer Farrell

Mr Dieter

Technician. Unexpectedly reunited with his soulmate. Not sure the world is quite ready for this.

Mr Lindstrom

Small, shy technician.

Adrian

New arrival. Former fugitive. Part-owner of the most dangerous piece of equipment in the universe.

Research and Development

Professor Rapson

Chicken-flinging maniac.

Miss Lingoss

The nearest thing to normal in this reality-challenged department.

Mikey

New arrival. The other owner of the most dangerous piece of equipment in the universe.

Others

Dr Dowson

Head Librarian. Reluctant chicken recipient. He’s reluctant – not the chickens. Just to be clear. The chickens’ views were never known. Earthquake enthusiast.

Mrs Mack

Kitchen Supremo.

Mrs Enderby

Head of the Wardrobe Department.

Mrs Brown

Ah yes . . . Mrs Brown.

Angus

Small brown chicken. Averse to being flung over the banisters.

Matthew Farrell

Making progress.

Professor Penrose

Utter lunatic. In an organisation famed for utter lunatics he’s up there with the utterest.

Dr Stone

Not half as green as he’s cabbage-looking. Max is beginning to listen.

Nurse Hunter

Married? Not married? Rendered moot by the end of the book. There are other things to worry about.

From the Future

M Bernard

Head concierge. Seventeen Rue St Jean.

M Caron

Another concierge.

The Time Police

Commander Hay

Head of the Time Police. Not Max’s favourite person.

Captain Farenden

Commander Hay’s adjutant.

Captain Ellis

Another unfavourite person.

Various other Time Police officers – including a probably very reluctant rescue team.

Future St Mary’s Personnel

No – that’s not clear. Personnel from a future St Mary’s.

Director

He didn’t give his name.

St Mary’s rescue team

Yes, another rescue team. There’s a lot of rescuing in this one.

Historical Persons

Eleven Vikings led by Rolf

Or possibly Hrolf. Excessive beard growth makes communication difficult.

Edward V

A prince in the Tower.

Richard, Duke of York

Another prince in the Tower.

Sundry Tower of London personnel

Sinister figures seen only after dark

Citizens of Mechelen, Burgundy

King Minos of Crete

High Priestess to the Mother

Three other priestesses

Intent on having their wicked way with a certain Head of Security.

Citizens of Knossos, Bull-leapers, bull handlers, bull worshippers, bull stable hands, escaped bulls. There’s a lot of bull in this one.

Firefighters

Magnificent in any age.

Clive Ronan

The clock is counting down . . .

1

I’ve always been vaguely aware of the existence of Duvet Days. I know Dr Bairstow ranks them alongside Atlantis, unicorns and competent politicians in the scheme of believable things, but I was believing in them now. In fact, I was on my sixth.

My recent secondment to the Time Police had left me so drained – physically and emotionally – that even the phrase ‘absolutely fine’ had failed to secure my release from Sick Bay. I’d tried to get out of bed, swayed in what Nurse Hunter had declared to be an unnecessarily dramatic manner and been commanded to climb back in again.

Dr Stone turned up with a syringe – there was a small prick – I really couldn’t be bothered to do the jokes all over again – and I suddenly felt better. Much better. Much, much better.

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That’s really good stu . . .’ and fell heavily asleep for the rest of the day. And for much of the day after that, as well. I’d opened my eyes a couple of times, looked at the rain dribbling down the windowpanes, decided I couldn’t be bothered and closed my eyes again.

Now, however, it had been more than a week. Time, in the words of Dr Stone, to take up my bed and walk.

On doctor’s orders, I took it easy to begin with, spending the mornings in our sitting room with my feet up, reading to Matthew, half-heartedly watching holos on TV and generally not doing very much at all. In the afternoons the three of us – me, Matthew and Leon – would go for a stroll around the lake, peering into the water looking for fish, avoiding the swans, and in Matthew’s case, mostly not falling in.

In the evenings, when Leon and I could finally get a moment to ourselves, there were long moments when he just held me and that was fine because he was solid and warm and I could feel his slow, steady heartbeat. We would stand for a long time, not saying anything to disturb the moment. He would rub my back, gently, up and down, and slowly my jangled nerves would subside. Occasionally I’d bring up a bit of wind, as well.

There were big meals and a lot of resting. It wasn’t unpleasant. Everything was absolutely fine. Well, they were during the day – the nights were slightly different.

We’d have our evening meal together, watch a little TV and then Matthew would get ready for bed. There would be the usual washing and brushing teeth battle – he really didn’t see the point of cleaning himself up just to go to bed – and then Leon and I would settle down, sometimes with a glass of wine. Sometimes he’d work and I’d read a book, or he’d watch the football and I’d definitely read a book, and then it was time for bed. Everything would still be absolutely fine. We’d snuggle down for the night and I’d fall asleep almost immediately.

And then it would begin. Ten minutes later and I would be awake. Wide awake. Was that a sound on the roof? Was Clive Ronan, at this very moment, creeping across the roof tiles?

Or that creaking board on the landing. Were the Time Police on their way up the stairs, heavily armed and determined to get Matthew back, at any cost? Would Leon and I go down in a hail of fire as we tried to defend our son?

St Mary’s is a noisy place at the best of times. I don’t mean just the human inhabitants – I mean the creaks and cracks of an old building. Clanking pipes, ticking radiators, rattling windows. Normally these were comforting background noises, but not any longer. Leon had stolen Matthew back from the Time Police and I was certain they’d never willingly let him go. So I would lie awake, listening for telltale signs that Matthew was in danger.

Eventually, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I’d get up, creep across our sitting room to his bedroom and check he was safely asleep. Then I’d go around checking the windows and doors. Then I’d stand in his doorway listening to him breathe in the dark. Then I’d check the doors and windows again in case I’d missed something. Then I’d go back to bed, fall asleep, and ten minutes later I’d jolt back to wakefulness, convinced I’d heard something, and the whole process would start all over again.

Two days later I was nearly dead on my feet.

On the third night, I was standing in Matthew’s doorway, staring at the dark shapes of his furniture – to check it was just furniture and not a Time Police squad lurking in the corner – when Leon came up behind me.

I didn’t jump out of my skin because he’d made sure I heard him coming. He put one arm around my waist, pulled me back into our sitting room and gently closed Matthew’s bedroom door behind me.

We sat on the sofa in the dark.

‘Max, you can’t keep doing this.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know I’m being high-maintenance again, but I can’t get these stupid thoughts out of my head. Sometimes I’m certain I can hear footsteps on the roof or coming up the stairs – but even if I can’t hear anything, I’m convinced someone’s here anyway and Matthew’s in danger.’

‘He’s not,’ Leon said gently.

‘I know. I do know that. But suppose he is. I can’t lose him again.’

‘You won’t. We won’t. He’s very safe here. I’m not worried about him at all. You, on the other hand . . .’

‘Suppose Ronan comes back and tries . . .’

‘Max, I will never let that happen. Trust me.’

‘No, I know you won’t, but suppose the Time Police . . .’

‘Edward will never let that happen. Nor Markham. Trust them.’

I drew a deep breath. ‘I know. I do know, really. I just . . .’ I was shivering with cold and . . . fear, I suppose.

He pulled the throw off the back of the sofa and wrapped it around the pair of us. We stretched out. I could feel his warmth and his slow, steady heartbeat. It felt good. I felt myself slowly relax into his arms. If Leon was here then nothing would ever get into Matthew’s room.

I touched his face. ‘Thank you for bringing him back.’

‘You and Matthew are the most important things in the world to me. I will never let anything happen to either of you.’

I closed my eyes. And opened them some hours later to find Leon smiling down at me. I snuggled closer and just as things were becoming exciting, Matthew’s bedroom door was flung open and Matthew himself, half in and half out of his dressing gown, raced in, trailing electrical cables and power leads and shouting, ‘Dad, it works.’

‘That’s good,’ Leon said vaguely, his mind and other things elsewhere. ‘You go back to bed and I’ll be in to see it in a minute.’

‘No need,’ he said. ‘I can show you now. Look.’

He clambered up on to the sofa, clutching something that looked as if a colander had mated with a calculator, and wriggled his bony, icy-footed way between us.

‘Drat,’ said Leon, mildly.

I told him he was displaying impressive restraint.

‘It wasn’t my restraint that was intended to be impressive,’ he said. I gave him a consolation kiss and took the opportunity to be the first in the bathroom that morning.

I slept better the next night, and the night after that I hardly woke at all. Slowly I began to relax. I became a little more balanced on the subject of Matthew being stolen from under my very nose, and started making every effort to get on with a normal life.

And Matthew himself?

Worryingly, he’d picked up the threads of his previous life here at St Mary’s almost as if nothing had happened. Which was both good and bad.

His calm acceptance of wherever he was, whenever he was and whoever he was with was worrying. One day I came right out with it and asked him if he missed the Time Police.

He was building something complicated with Lego and didn’t even look up.

‘I’ll see them again.’

I left it at that.

Unfortunately, before being released back into the wild, I had an appraisal with Dr Bairstow to get through. Apparently, it was felt that the last few months had been a little rough. For me, that was. A colourful kaleidoscope of fights with the Time Police, sex clubs, dinosaurs, organising the demise of Queen Jane the Bloody before she could do any real damage to the timeline and very nearly losing Matthew again. And then – the icing on the cake – my beautiful plan had worked beautifully and we’d finally, finally captured that bastard Clive Ronan and those even bigger bastards in the Time Police had let him go again. It would be fair to say I’d been a little bit put out by that. My near homicidal rage had been mitigated to some extent when Leon walked off with Matthew, right from under their stupid Time Police noses and brought him home.

There was no denying, though, that some recent events had been a teensy bit difficult and I’d had a couple of rough moments in the privacy of Sick Bay while Dr Stone kept the world away until I was ready to face it again. And now I was attempting to blag my way back on to the active list.

Before I go racing off into the story again, leaving everyone wondering what the hell’s going on – my name is Maxwell and I’m Head of the History Department here at the St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, where we investigate major historical events in contemporary time and never, under any circumstances, call it time travel. So that’s everyone clear as crystal, then. Where was I?

Yes. Sitting in Dr Bairstow’s office, watching him read through my medical file and, I have to say, making rather heavy weather of it.

He sighed. Men do that a lot, I’ve noticed. ‘Reassuringly, Dr Maxwell, Dr Stone tells me that despite recent events, your descent into madness does not appear to have accelerated. Not noticeably, anyway.’

‘Jolly good, sir.’

‘Your eccentric behaviour patterns remain unchanged.’

‘Excellent, sir.’

‘Your phobias, anxieties and irrational fears are all exactly as they were twelve months ago.’

‘Well, that’s good news, sir.’

‘The usual problems associated with your personality type have, apparently, failed to manifest themselves.’

‘That’s me, sir. Perpetual underachiever.’

‘In short, Dr Maxwell, astonishingly, you appear to be – and I hesitate to use the word normal to describe anyone in the History Department – but you appear to be no more abnormal than before you embarked upon your recent Ronan-based initiative.’

I beamed at him. ‘So, still hovering indecisively at the top of the personality disorder chart, but failing to slither down the slippery slope of insanity, sir.’

‘Astonishingly, yes.’

‘Dr Stone assures me I’ve found my sessions with him to be very beneficial, sir.’

‘In that case, and despite all my best efforts, I can find no reason not to put you back on the active list. I am, however, offering you the option of another seven days’ leave first.’

I’d have loved another seven days’ leave but sometimes you just have to get back on the horse. Or behind the desk. Or into the pod. Because it’s always best to face these things head-on and give them a good kicking.

‘Thank you, sir, but no.’

He closed my file and pushed it away from him. ‘I shall be happy to sanction your return to duty as soon as you tell me what’s really troubling you.’

I briefly considered issuing my standard blanket denial of everything that had happened since the earth cooled, but this was Dr Bairstow and I knew better than to try. I looked out of the window for a while, clasped my hands tightly together and said, ‘Sir – what the Time Police did to Clive Ronan. The smartdust in his brain. The bomb.’

He folded his hands on his desk. ‘Yes?’

I closed my eyes for a moment but it had to be said. I had to know. ‘Did they do that to me too? I was unconscious for a time.’

‘No. You were exposed to the effect of their sonic weapons but that was all. We couldn’t get to you immediately because of the floodwaters, but I assure you, Max, you were never out of my sight. Not for one moment. Nor Leon’s, of course. The Time Police scanned you in their hospital pod and I saw the results of that scan. Dr Stone tells me that smartdust is detectable in its early stages – to make sure it’s been correctly placed in the brain – and as a further precaution, we scanned you ourselves on your return to St Mary’s. I can categorically assure you – you are completely free of smartdust.’

That was good enough for me. ‘Thank you, sir.’

He shifted in his seat. ‘Max, I know you’ve had a great deal to think about recently, but have you given any consideration as to how Matthew will live here? Schooling and so on.’

‘I have, sir – on and off. I’ve been waiting to see whether the Time Police would turn up demanding his return but so far that hasn’t happened. We can’t leave it much longer, though. We’ll have to start looking at schools and things soon.’

‘I may be able to help you there,’ he said. ‘Obviously, you will want to discuss this with Leon – and if neither of you are taken with the idea, then please do not hesitate to say so – but I wondered, what would you say to private tutoring?’

‘I think it would be wonderful, sir, but probably quite costly.’

He had that smug look he gets occasionally – like an ancient vulture in sole possession of a recent battlefield. An all-you-can-eat extravaganza for one.

‘I wondered if you would consider Professor Penrose? The two of you seemed to get on rather well when you met.’

Well, that was a bit of an understatement. Professor Eddington Penrose and I had started a riot in 17th-century Cambridge when that thieving sod Isaac Newton had stolen my mirror. From there we’d gone on to melt a pod and possibly kick-start a universe – as you do.

This was such an exciting idea. I couldn’t help it – I started waving my arms around. The traditional indication of an excited historian. ‘That would be amazing, sir. Absolutely amazing. And Matthew would love him, I’m certain. I’ll speak with Leon but I’m sure he won’t have any objections. But would Eddie want to do it? Come out of retirement and return to St Mary’s to tutor a slightly unusual child, I mean.’

‘I think I could persuade him,’ he said, placidly, ‘if you would like me to try.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, please, sir. If Leon’s happy, of course.’

He put my file away in a drawer. ‘Moving on to other matters, Dr Maxwell, we begin with some bad news, I’m afraid. Dr Black has allowed herself to be tempted away from St Mary’s and has taken up a post directly with the University of Thirsk.’

I stared at him. This wasn’t bad news – this was catastrophic news. Kalinda was our representative at the University of Thirsk. She went in to bat for us. She fought our corner. She secured our funding. She defended us on the distressingly frequent occasions when we needed defending. And she was good at it. At just under six feet tall, blonde, blue-eyed and looking like a Disney princess, she could punch a man’s liver out through his ears in 0.5 seconds flat. People were terrified of her. She was terrifying. She certainly terrified the living daylights out of the Senior Faculty at Thirsk. And now she was leaving us.

I sat back to contemplate the ramifications. This was a bit of a double whammy. Because the other half of the equation, Thirsk’s representatives at St Mary’s – both of them – had turned out to be a right pair of murdering bastards. One of them had suffered a tree-related death and the other was unsuccessfully attempting to explain his actions to a group of even bigger bastards than he was – namely, the Time Police.

We’d rather been hoping that they – Thirsk – would take the hint and keep their representatives to themselves in future. Obviously, we’d been deluding ourselves and now it looked as if we were going to be in the position of having one of them here without the benefit of having one of us there. I sighed. Some days it’s just like Sisyphus and his bloody boulder.

I was about to make this observation to Dr Bairstow when it suddenly struck me that he wasn’t looking anywhere near as depressed as he should be. In fact, to anyone who knew him well, he looked very nearly cheerful.

I sat back to have a bit of a think. And then I had it.

‘Dr Black is Thirsk’s new representative here, isn’t she?’

‘She is indeed.’

‘Well, that’s good news, sir. In fact, it couldn’t be better.’

He sighed again. ‘If you say so, Dr Maxwell. I should warn you I have already been on the receiving end of half a dozen emails from her requesting – no, demanding we put together something spectacular to celebrate her new posting here.’

‘I’ll give it some thought, sir.’

I was expecting one of his don’t just sit there, Dr Maxwell, see to it looks but it didn’t happen. There must be more to come.

There was.

He shifted a couple more files. ‘Moving on. At her request, Miss North is remaining at TPHQ for a while longer.’

That didn’t come as a great surprise. I knew she’d been giving evidence against Halcombe and Sullivan after our infringement of a Triple-S site. Technically, it should have been me, but since relations between me and the Time Police were at an all-time low, I’d just been grateful North had been prepared to stand in.

‘Do we know why, sir?’

‘There appears to be a mutual attraction.’

Interesting. Actually, I could just see North doing quite well with the Time Police. Their rigid, authoritarian, do as I say and stop thinking for yourself approach would probably quite appeal to her. And her I like to do everything properly attitude would certainly appeal to them. A marriage made in heaven. However . . .

‘The only downside is that it will leave me short of female historians, sir. I’d have only Miss Sykes and Miss Prentiss. And me, of course.’

‘Allow me to present you with a very acceptable alternative. It is proposed to exchange Miss North with Miss Van Owen, who has, apparently, expressed a desire to return to St Mary’s.’

‘One for one, sir?’

‘Indeed.’

This was even better, having North safely out of the way – or transferring to a more sympathetic environment as I must remember to say in future – and Greta Van Owen, an experienced historian, returning to the nest. I couldn’t see a downside.

‘Will I need to liaise with the Time Police about this, sir? Because I think it would be fair to say I’m not their favourite person at the moment. We will almost certainly have real problems being civil to each other.’

‘I have an immediate assignment for you, Dr Maxwell, that will preclude your involvement in any way. In fact, I have appointed Dr Peterson to deal with Miss North’s transfer so there will be no need for either of us to become involved.’

That was a relief. Dr Bairstow was no more popular with the Time Police than I was. If that were even possible. Still, the possible absence of North and the reacquisition of Van Owen was such good news that I wasn’t going to do anything to prejudice it. I could safely leave everything to Peterson.

There was one thing, though.

I leaned forwards and said quietly, ‘Sir, I have to ask.’

He knew what I was going to say. ‘Yes, Dr Maxwell?’

‘The teapot, sir.’

And no, I’m not referring to the traditional tea-pouring, cosy-clad receptacle, but the time-travelling twelve-foot-high teapot belonging to a couple of naughty but rather endearing teenagers named Adrian and Mikey, which was supposed to have been destroyed as part of the deal between the Time Police and us. They’d broken their end of the deal and we’d broken ours. The teapot was currently concealed in Hawking Hangar awaiting its fate.

He seemed to become strangely reluctant. He didn’t actually say, ‘What teapot?’ but the question certainly hung in the air between us.

‘We were supposed to destroy it, sir, and while I have no qualms at all about deceiving the Time Police, I am reluctant to give them a reason for coming back here.’ I gathered myself for just the teensiest hint of criticism. ‘It does seem to be an unnecessary risk.’

We both took a moment to contemplate those unfamiliar words and then he said, ‘I find myself reluctant to part with it.’

I waited, but he said no more.

‘Sir, Clive Ronan now knows of its existence. A pod with no safety protocols built in is God’s gift to anyone who wants to plunder the past. I doubt he’ll be able to resist.’

‘Leon tells me he and Miss Perkins may be able to reprogramme some of its basic protocols and if this is, in fact, the case, it would give us an additional and much needed working pod. And I am confident the removal of some of its more . . . controversial features will render it acceptable to the Time Police.’

‘Sir, it’s a twelve-foot-high teapot.’

‘I’ll admit its appearance is a little bizarre but there are any number of low-profile tasks for which it would be invaluable, don’t you think?’

I didn’t know what to think. Yes, we could do with another pod. And yes, it was a very good idea to remove what he referred to as ‘some of its more controversial features’ – its ability to remove objects from their own timeline, or the way it could override normal safety protocols – but even so . . . However, he hadn’t signed off on my appraisal yet so I was reluctant to argue.

I gathered from his silence that there was even more to come.

‘Regarding your very natural apprehensions over Ronan, Max, how are you dealing with recent events?’

‘Very well, sir,’ I said confidently. ‘I’ve talked things over with Leon and we’ve decided the worst thing we can do is let him ruin our lives. We won’t give him that power over us any more. And since it’s all out of our hands anyway, we’re just going to carry on as usual.’

‘An excellent strategy. And you might want to consider this: how many times has Ronan had a go at you? How many times has he failed? You might be angry and frustrated, but I am certain that’s nothing to the way he feels. Once again, he had you in his hands and you got away. I personally would not care to be around Clive Ronan at this very moment.’

Very true. I hadn’t thought of things that way.

He pulled out another file.

‘And as a first step towards carrying on as usual, I have a task for you. I’d like you to return to our remote site. As you know, we had to leave in rather a hurry last time and there was no opportunity to carry out a thorough FOD plod. We did what we could at the time, obviously, but anything to do with America is such a sensitive issue we must be absolutely certain we have left nothing behind. I’d like you to take a team and clear the site. There will be some equipment to dismantle, final FOD plods to carry out and so on. It’s a big area to cover thoroughly and we were there for some months. I estimate between three days to one week to get it done. By the time you return, not only should our personnel issues be resolved, but I will have spoken to Professor Penrose as well.’

Well, that all sounded good. With the added bonus of a week in the fresh air, a little gentle exercise, and no one trying to kill me or eat me. Yeah, I could do that.

It got even better.

‘Take Leon and Matthew, if you like. I think it would be good for you all to spend a little time together.’

I beamed.

He shuffled a few papers before I started embarrassing us both by thanking him. ‘Who else will you include in your team?’

I thought for a moment. ‘Markham, I think, sir, for security. Evans and Dieter for strength and any heavy lifting. Leon, obviously. Sykes, and either Bashford or Atherton from the History Department. And possibly Mikey – Miss Meiklejohn – from R&D. With your permission, sir, I’ll talk to them this afternoon and we’ll jump first thing tomorrow. We’ll take the big pod, I think – TB2.’

He signed my appraisal with a flourish and handed it back to me. ‘That all sounds quite satisfactory. See to it, please, Dr Maxwell.’

2

Well, plenty there to think about. A bit of a holiday coming up. Kal on her way back to St Mary’s. The possibility of losing North and regaining Van Owen. Professor Penrose to tutor Matthew. Yeah – all good. I was feeling quite cheerful when I left Dr Bairstow’s office.

Markham was outside, talking to Mrs Partridge. I could tell from her expression that things weren’t going well. On the other hand, this was Markham, so it wasn’t clear which of them things were going badly for. It would seem he was trying to persuade Mrs Partridge to allocate him an assistant.

I had a momentary twinge of guilt. This was all my fault. I’d packed him off on the steam-pump jump because I’d been in Sick Bay at the time and he’d been my proxy with a hidden agenda – i.e. getting Peterson and Lingoss together. Which, to be fair, he’d done – in his own peculiar fashion – but at some point, in between decking himself out from head to toe in pink and trying to drown Miss Lingoss in the moat, he’d somehow got the idea he wanted – nay, urgently required – an administrative assistant.

His argument was running thusly: ‘Max has an assistant.’ I opened my mouth to tell him he could have Rosie Lee – no problem at all, just let me nip back and break the glad tidings – but he swept on.

‘Peterson has an assistant.’ Which was true. Peterson had the lovely Mrs Shaw and they adored each other. He brought her flowers – she brought him chocolate biscuits. It was a match made in heaven and Markham’s chances of separating them from each other were non-existent.

‘It’s all the paperwork,’ he was saying to Mrs Partridge, drooping tragically and unwisely over her desk. ‘There’s watch lists and rotas and files and equipment checks and weapons logs. It just goes on and on.’

He stopped, apparently too overcome to continue.

An unmoved Mrs Partridge pointed out that Chief Farrell was assistant-free and yet he managed perfectly well.

‘Ah,’ he said, cunningly, leaning closer. ‘That’s the beauty of my scheme, Mrs Partridge. We could share him.’

‘Him?’

‘Well, I didn’t want to say “her” because that sounded a bit sexist,’ he said, grinning in what he probably thought was an ingratiating manner. ‘Although now you come to mention it,’ continued the man responsible for pursuing a member of the medical profession from the first moment she had walked through the front door, ‘if there’s a choice . . .’

Mrs Partridge shut her top drawer with a snap. ‘I regret to inform you, Mr Markham, that the chances of persuading any sentient female to venture within fifty feet of the Security Section are vanishingly small.’

He assumed his wounded face. The one that makes him look like an abandoned puppy tied up outside a fur factory. ‘Well, that’s a little unkind, but fortunately I’m not easily hurt. A bloke will be fine. In fact, he could join the football team. We could do with a new striker. Evans is rubbish. And then, when he’s not scoring the winning goal, he could do a little filing. Record-keeping. Photocopying. Tea making. That sort of thing.’

Assuming her I really don’t care face – or her normal expression, if you like – she stood up. ‘My highly qualified staff are carefully selected for their administrative skills and not their ability to pursue a pig’s bladder up and down a muddy field.’

He backed off, saying, ‘Actually, I think things might have moved on a little from pig’s . . .’ before the door closed behind her and he realised he was talking to her empty desk.

I patted him on the shoulder. ‘Do you know, I think you might be making progress. She’s definitely coming round to the idea.’

He blinked, hopefully. ‘Do you think so?’

‘I do, yes. I think you should move your campaign up a gear. You know, a constant barrage of written requests, verbal requests, telephone calls, emails. I think your problem is that she’s not taking you seriously enough. You need to convince her of your dire need.’

‘You’re right,’ he said, his face illuminated by the inner glow of enlightenment.

‘Have you considered skywriting?’ I said, which might have been a step too far.

‘Oh my God, Max, that is so brilliant.’

‘No,’ I said, alarmed.

‘I’ll have a word with Professor Rapson.’

‘No,’ I said, even more alarmed. But it was too late. He’d gone. And I’d only been back on the active list for ten minutes.

My morning ordeals continued. Returning to my office, I was faced with my assistant, Rosie Lee. Before I could say a word, she presented me with a homemade badge which read I’m not insane. Dr Stone had me tested. Results on application. Followed by a request for her to go home early, which I denied. Always start as you mean to go on.

‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’

She stared haughtily. ‘I’m far too busy at the moment.’

I sighed and sat down. Barely had my bum hit my seat than the door opened and my department surged in, every single one of them bringing me tea. I thanked them for their thoughtfulness, lined up the mugs in front of me, started with the one on the left and began to work my way across.

Rosie Lee was furious. ‘I make the tea around here.’

Rather disappointingly, no divine thunderbolt occurred, but there was a lot of human amusement.

My department had increased slightly in my absence. Actually, as Rosie Lee never failed to point out, a lot of things usually improved in my absence. Departmental efficiency . . . a massive reduction in paperwork . . . peace and quiet . . .

At Dr Bairstow’s request, David Sands had returned to the St Mary’s fold and was happily picking up where he’d left off before he resigned. He lived with Rosie Lee and her son in Rushford, but on my instructions, had applied for a bunk in the Staff Block. Officially, it was for those nights when he worked late and didn’t want to drive home, but actually was St Mary’s-speak for when he was so rat-arsed he couldn’t remember where he lived. Dr Bairstow has condoned murder before now, but anyone drinking and driving barely has time to pick up their P45 on the way out. The corridors were reverberating to Sands’ cries of, ‘Knock, knock,’ and the sound of people running away as fast as they could.

His partner in crime, Gareth Roberts, who had also resigned after the slight unpleasantness when we’d stolen Arthur’s sword – for very good reasons, let me add – had also been successfully tempted back from the real world. He’d been working at the University of Ceredigion, but was now back with us, freed from the onerous task of imparting details of the history of the EU to disbelieving ears.

Mr Roberts, however, was not quite as young and squeaky and beardless as he had been when he left. In fact, as Kal would say when she first clapped eyes on him, ‘Wow!’

I myself remarked on his newly acquired hirsuteness.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘You won’t believe this, Max, but it started to grow the day after I left St Mary’s. I reckon Dr Bairstow puts something in the water.’

‘Specifically to stop you growing a beard?’

‘Well, why not? He doesn’t have any hair so no one else is allowed to have any, either.’

I looked over his shoulder and said, ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ and he nearly wet himself.

Anyway, interestingly, no sooner had he clapped eyes on Miss Sykes than he lost all sense of personal safety, and began to pursue her in a mysterious Welsh manner that even I had to admit was a little bit sexy. Miss Sykes herself appeared very impressed. Whether she was fed up playing second fiddle to a gender-neutral chicken was unknown, but in no time at all, the two of them, Sykes and Roberts, were always together. They ate together. She laughed at his jokes. He even brought her little presents, something to which she was completely unaccustomed.

Unsurprisingly, our Mr Bashford was not happy. Man and chicken seethed. He wasn’t taking it lying down, either. Publicly enquiring of Roberts if his rash had cleared up yet was one of his favourite tactics. Strange how it keeps coming back, he would continue, as Angus nodded her own disquiet at this disturbing revelation. Ominous even, he would mutter, before marching off with his chicken, point made.

So – here we all were. Pretty much back to normal. Normal enough for Dr Bairstow to hold one of his all-staff briefings to bring everyone up to date. We’d learned by now not to sit in the first row – too public – so Peterson and I were near the back, nodding judiciously at every couple of words and actually poised to be first in the dining room as soon as Dr Bairstow wound down.

He kicked off by announcing all the staff changes, concluding with Kalinda Black’s return to St Mary’s, which was received with the sort of silence similar to that of the citizens of Moscow on hearing the news that Napoleon intended to spend a little leisure time in their midst that winter.

Clearing his throat, he continued. ‘One final item today. Chief Farrell has asked me to advise you that over the next few days, all smoke alarm batteries are being replaced by more modern Microbial Fuel Cells. This is in an effort to prevent continual battery removal by those who apparently have no objection to burning to death.’

‘Why?’ asked Bashford.

‘Who knows, Mr Bashford. Rational opinion oscillates between extraordinarily low levels of intelligence or some sort of death wish, possibly religiously based.’

‘No, sir, I mean, how will the Micro . . . bio . . . ?’

‘Microbial Fuel Cells?’

‘Yes. Them. Why exactly won’t they be removed?’

I could see he was regarding this as a direct challenge.

‘I suspect, Mr Bashford, that when the composition of MBFCs becomes widely known, it will lead to a general reluctance to handle them. Certainly without protective equipment of some kind.’

Obviously regarding that as a clincher, Dr Bairstow gathered himself for his traditional briefing finale. ‘Are there any questions?’

There never were but today was different.

‘Yes, please, sir,’ said Bashford doggedly. ‘What composition?’

‘I beg your pardon?

‘These Macrobiotic thingies – what is their main constituent?’

I thought Dr Bairstow answered with a certain relish. ‘Urine, Mr Bashford. Undiluted male urine.’

All eyes swivelled up to the three smoke detectors fitted to the ceiling a considerable distance above our heads – and then back to Leon.

‘Wow,’ said Bashford, in genuine awe. ‘How did you get it all the way up there, Chief? Did you stand on a table? That’s impressive.’

I folded my arms and scowled at my feet. No, it wasn’t impressive. Not even a little bit. Further along the row, Nurse Hunter, who also cohabited with a man on a regular basis, folded her own arms over her bump and scowled down at where she hoped her feet would be, but she hadn’t seen them for weeks and frankly they could be anywhere.

I’m not sure what it is with men. I live with two of them and while I can’t say the bathroom floor is ever actually awash, there is frequently more on the floor than any right-minded woman should have to live with. I swear if Dr Bairstow ever chucks me out of St Mary’s, I’m going to start manufacturing and selling urine-coloured toilet mats. It won’t solve the problem of their poor aim – or in Matthew’s case, talking over his shoulder when he should be concentrating on the job in hand – but it would at least be camouflage.

Considering God gifted them – men, I mean – with all the appropriate plumbing required for swift and accurate delivery, I just don’t see how they can miss. It’s typical, isn’t it – they bang on about being able to write their names in the bloody snow and yet still manage to miss a toilet bowl directly in front of them. In Peterson’s case, he doesn’t even try – frequently emptying his bladder all over me. Maybe we should just keep them in trainer pants all their lives. Or, as Kal has suggested, paint a large target on the toilet and appeal to their competitive instincts. Although according to Hunter, Markham has any number of marksmanship badges and he still can’t hit a bloody great toilet bowl from less than a foot away.

But back to the subject in hand. The Micra-bia thingies.

Leon stood up, assumed his stern face and addressed the room. ‘It is the responsibility of the Technical Section to maintain the smoke alarms as part of our fire prevention system. The instances of battery removal have soared from depressing to downright dangerous. We propose, therefore, to replace conventional batteries with Microbial Fuel Cells. This will occur over the next few days. Your cooperation is neither requested nor expected, but staying out of our way and allowing us to get on with things unhindered will be appreciated.’

‘But,’ said Bashford, quoting that poster child for Health and Safety, Professor Rapson, ‘the wretched alarms keep going off. It’s very irritating.’

‘You won’t be saying that when the flames are actually licking round your ankles. Anyway, in short, we’re fed up with saving idiots who don’t want to be saved, so we are replacing the batteries with . . .’ He paused expectantly, a primary school teacher coaxing the correct answers from a remedial class.

Sykes jumped in. ‘Microbionic . . .’

He sighed. ‘Microbial Fuel Cells.’

‘Yes. Them. But,’ she continued, obviously determined to delve to the bottom of the subject, ‘how did you manage to gather . . . ?’

‘The men’s urinals have been specially adapted to harvest . . . product.’

Everyone looked up the stairs to the gents’ toilets on the first floor and then back to the smoke detectors again. Several people began to move out of the perceived sprinkler range.

Hunter nudged me. ‘Are they insane? Someone only has to strike a match and we’ll all be inundated in a shower of Peterson’s pee.’

‘And not just his,’ said Markham proudly. ‘A substantial percentage will be mine. Especially after last Friday.’

People began to gather apprehensively around the edges of the room.

‘Please remain calm,’ said Leon, calmly. ‘Only the batteries are being replaced. The sprinkler system is still connected to the mains.’

The room gusted with sighs of relief. He smiled blandly. ‘For the time being.’

Bashford, standing with his shoulders hunched as if expecting the worst at any moment, enquired, ‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, water’s precious. Far too precious to go irresponsibly sprinkling it over this crop of lunatics. We in the Technical Section are always looking for environmentally friendly alternatives.’

I muttered to Peterson, ‘There is nothing environmentally friendly about your pee. And I speak from long experience.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you were on fire.’

Dr Bairstow cleared his throat. ‘The world’s resources are not infinite and it therefore behoves all of us to be environmentally responsible. May I suggest, given your massive aversion to the Technical Section’s efforts to preserve you from a fiery death, that all of you refrain from removing either batteries or fuel cells, and be considerably more careful in the future vis-à-vis any situation likely to burn this building to the ground. Are there any further questions?’

Sykes shot her hand in the air.

‘Are there any sensible questions?’

It would appear there were no sensible questions.

‘Chief Farrell, if you could spare me one moment, please.’

The two of them made their way upstairs but not before I heard Dr Bairstow say, ‘You were right. Most enjoyable . . .’

3

We lined up outside Tea Bag 2 – our big pod. We have eight altogether. Nine, if you count TB2. Actually, ten, if you count the teapot. They’re small, apparently stone-built huts – except for the teapot, obviously – in which we live and work. There’s a console, away from which we keep Peterson because he always bounces his pod on landing. He says he doesn’t but he does. There’s a toilet, which frequently buckles under the strain, despite the binding properties of compo rations, and various lockers to hold our bits and pieces. Our pods are not comfortable and for some reason, they always smell of cabbage.

Theoretically on the same team as me were Leon, Matthew, Dieter, Evans, Markham, Atherton, Sykes and Mikey. It should have been Bashford rather than Atherton but there had been a last-minute change of plan when Bashford fell off his wardrobe and banged his head.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t one of those type of wardrobe-related accidents involving girlfriends and athletics. This one involved his chicken, Angus – although as I say that, it does occur to me that I’m not making things any better.

It would seem that Sykes had called on him last night – at rather a late hour, I thought – but it seemed she had wanted to discuss the forthcoming assignment, so that’s all right then. Bearing in mind her frequent complaints about a third party in the room, Bashford had clambered on to a chair to lift her down from the top of the wardrobe – Angus, not Sykes, that is. For God’s sake, don’t make the same mistake I did – and he’d fallen off the chair and hurt himself. To allay any concern on the part of the reader, Angus had landed on Bashford and was completely uninjured.

Not so Bashford, escorted to Sick Bay by Sykes, which hadn’t been the point of the evening at all, as she complained to me afterwards.

‘I mean,’ she continued, saturating me with information I could really do without, ‘what is the point of wrestling myself into my new push-up bra and drenching myself in “Extasy de Passion” – which took the varnish off my dressing table when I spilled a bit, so watch yourself with that stuff, Max . . .’

‘Extasy de Passion?’ I said.

‘Well, it’s a knock-off, isn’t it? I got it cheap off the market. The bloke let me sniff a sample and it seemed OK.’

I toyed with the idea of telling her that the usual trick was to squirt an infinitesimal drop of the real deal around the neck of the bottle – for the authentic smell – and fill up the rest with yellow water. And yes, the yellow water was exactly what you’re thinking, as subsequent analysis by Trading Standards had revealed. This exciting concoction would then be sold for an only slightly less exorbitant price than the original. And, I suppose, if you’ve filled a hundred bottles full of yellow water, the correct spelling of Exstasy probably wasn’t that high on your agenda. But I refrained from mentioning any of that. There was enough grief in her life without informing her she’d been dousing herself in market traders’ . . . um . . . body fluids.

Anyway, Bashford, still hors de combat, had been replaced by Atherton. Nice, normal Atherton, whose best friend wasn’t a chicken and never fell off wardrobes.

We had a fair bit of kit to take with us, as well. Metal detectors, tools, barrows, bins and rations – lots and lots of rations. Apparently, Mrs Mack had no faith in our abilities to live off the land. About which, yes, she was right, but hurtful nevertheless.

I’d been to the remote site before, albeit very briefly. I’d shot in, had a quick word with Dr Bairstow, ravaged Leon and jumped straight back out again. Now I had a chance to take in the details.

This is where we flee in the event of an emergency. It’s somewhere to hide our pods and our Archive. Especially our Archive. Which by now is quite sizeable because we’ve been doing this for some time. We visit major historical events, record what’s happening and do our very best not to die. Because it’s important. Not the not-dying bit – I mean, it’s always important to have an accurate record of what actually happened. Not the socially acceptable version, or the politically correct version – is there anyone left in the world who still believes what politicians say? – or the religious version, or the victor’s version, but a record of what did actually happen. Warts and all. Because the truth is important.

The truth is also very, very dangerous and so we take good care of our Archive because we can’t afford to have it falling into the wrong hands. Not least because if anything did happen to it, we can’t go back and do it all again. You can only be in any given time once, which means we only ever get one crack at a jump, and if we screw it up, then the opportunity is gone forever. Hence the remote site. Somewhere remote and in another time. In this case, the left-hand side of a continent that will one day be known as North America. You do realise I’m going to have to kill you now, don’t you?

I stood on flat grassland that ran down to a wide, fast-flowing river. The grass rippled silver and green in the slight wind. I turned to look at the woodland behind me, with the leaves just beginning to glow gold, at the rolling purple hills behind that, and the snowy mountains, hazy in the far, far distance behind them. The air was fresh and crisp with just enough of a bite to tell me that autumn would be here soon. The sky was a rich blue and apart from the sounds of wind and water, there was nothing but deep and peaceful silence. It was a nice spot. This was our sanctuary when, for whatever reason, Dr Bairstow judged it wise to remove all things St Mary’s out of harm’s way. A place of greater safety.

I could see evidence that we’d been here. Flattened areas of white grass where the pods had stood were just beginning to green over and stand up again. Piles of now unwanted firewood were dotted around. A homemade fishing net was spread over river boulders. Some people had started small plots – for salad or fresh veggies, I supposed – which were now filled with weeds and bolted lettuces.

I took a deep breath – which made my head spin because my lungs weren’t used to this sort of luxury – and turned to Matthew, who was looking up at me.

‘You should stay away from the river,’ he said, which, by some strange coincidence, was exactly what I’d been about to say to him.

We spent the first day carefully unloading and checking all our equipment. Well, Leon and Dieter did. Mikey and Matthew shot off to go exploring – I’d already accepted I wasn’t going to get a great deal of work out of either of them. I could hear them talking and laughing down by the river. Enjoying themselves as young people should do. And she was good for Matthew. He had made enormous strides since Leon rescued him from old Ma Scrope, but he still had occasional bad dreams from which he would wake in fear and it would take me a while to calm him down. Mikey’s cheerful, casual attitude to life was just what he needed sometimes.

Atherton and I surveyed the site, Markham and Evans did a security recce and Sykes, mercifully Extasy de Passion-free, wrecked the toilet.

To be fair, this happens quite a lot. Our chemical toilets can be a little bit fragile and do tend to stop working – or even colourfully explode – at the drop of a pair of knickers. The first we knew of this current catastrophe was the traditional yelp of alarm and Sykes backing out of the door at speed to avoid the spreading pool of rainbow fluid.

‘Shit,’ she shouted accurately. ‘The bloody thing’s gone again.’

Leon appeared, closely followed by Dieter, both wearing the traditional techie expressions of doom.

‘Mind your feet,’ I said, which, although well meant, didn’t help matters at all.

Leon folded his arms and stared down at Sykes. ‘What did you do?’

Sykes, however, was made of sterner Caledonian stuff than us English wimps. She folded her arms and stared right back. ‘I hardly had time to do anything meaningful. In fact, I had to stop in mid-flow and evacuate pretty sharpish.’

‘I meant – what did you do to the toilet?’

‘I sat on it.’

‘And . . . ?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘And . . . ?’

‘And nothing.’

‘You must have done something.’

‘Well, I didn’t,’ she said stoutly. ‘It’s always doing this.’

‘It always does it,’ said Leon, ‘because once upon a time some people went to the Pleistocene period and subjected a fragile but expensive piece of kit to stresses for which it was not designed and it’s never been the same since.’

Since one of the stresses for which the toilet had never been designed had been a small, orphaned mammoth – the introduction of which had been initiated by Sykes and her fellow trainees – she fell silent.

‘Right,’ said Leon, pursuing his advantage. ‘Latrine inspections.’ He passed Sykes a spade. ‘You remember where they were. Check nothing sinister has evolved in our absence. Or whether a family of bears has taken up residence. Or whether the contents have started to glow. Don’t just stand there.’

He picked up another spade, looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

‘Site survey,’ I said hurriedly, backing away.

‘Security check,’ said Markham, backing away even more quickly, and we left them to it.

Everything was going well. The weather was good – crisp, sparkling days with just a nip in the air. There were no further lavatory catastrophes. The work wasn’t that hard but it was meticulous. We picked up tons of debris from the site, sorting and checking as we went. Anything wooden could be left – it would happily degrade back into the soil. Anything metal was picked up and brought back to the pod for packing away.

Leon and Dieter spent a long time dismantling Professor Rapson’s Patented Making Liver into Fuel Device – don’t ask. Seriously, don’t ask. This had been one of Professor Rapson’s brilliant ideas – an attempt to turn liver into fuel. Now you know why I said don’t ask. He’d patented the process on return to St Mary’s because, he said, he had high hopes of future fame and fortune. Should he ever get it to work. Lack of liver, however, was a major factor in its current failure. Most of us had had to agree to donate the appropriate organ – ‘after death’ had been a hastily added stipulation after Dr Stone had pointed out this basic flaw – just to get him to go away.

Actually, this might be a good time to say the professor’s liver-processing machine formed the basis for one of David Sands’ more successful stories. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, he’s a writer as well. And a good one. One of his books is supposed to be turned into a movie – although given the amount of shouting and script throwing, that wasn’t going quite as well as it could.

Anyway, his story was set in the future. Oil was now a thing of the past and mankind was desperate for fuel and somehow – it wasn’t clear – had discovered fuel could be distilled from livers. The animal kingdom was happily sacrificed in the need to fuel the engines of technology and when the animals had all gone, they’d had to start on people. The undeserving were the first to go, shortly followed by the elderly, the disabled, the terminally sick, and finally, everyone else. By the end of the story, the only humans left alive were those actually servicing the liver-processing engines. The story ended with them turning on each other. Not a very cheery subject, I think you’ll agree, but he won an award for that one.

Anyway, back to the nearest any of us ever got to a holiday. The days were pleasant. We would rise early, breakfast inside because it was still nippy at that time of day, and work throughout the morning because the light was good. The work was painstaking and we couldn’t afford any shortcuts. Every inch had to be covered and certified clear.

Using canvas tape, Atherton and I had marked out ten-foot by ten-foot squares. One team would do an initial sweep, north to south, then move on to the next square, leaving a white marker to show where they’d been.

A second team would follow in their footsteps, checking east to west, and then leave a blue marker showing it was confirmed cleared. We’d discovered the fastest progress was made when we went slowly. I began to think Dr Bairstow’s estimate of a week had been overly optimistic.

We’d take a longish lunch – have a game of football, do a bit of fishing or something – and then back to work until the sun went down. It was still warm enough to eat outside and our evenings were spent around the campfire, carefully located just far enough away from TB2 to avoid setting fire to it, but close enough to get back to it should we have an emergency in this vast and apparently unpeopled landscape. Then off to bed to do it all again the next day. There were worse ways of passing the time.

And then, one evening . . .

It was getting dark. We’d eaten and we were beginning to pack up for the night, prior to moving back inside. The evening was growing chilly. Leon picked up the teapots to empty the contents into the river.

‘Careful,’ I said. ‘This will be America one day. You don’t want to set a precedent.’

Leon grinned and he and Matthew set off into the dusk.

‘Bags first in the facility,’ said Mikey, and disappeared towards the thunderbox.

Everyone else headed into the pod to lay out their sleeping modules and get ready for bed. I checked our campsite and then began to douse the fire, kicking dirt over the red embers. We never leave a campfire unattended. I heard someone shout for Mikey and what had she done with such and such. Otherwise all was silent. Life here was very peaceful.

I thought I’d also avail myself of the facility while everyone else was busy and I’d just set off latrine-wards when I thought I heard something. I don’t know what – I just know I heard something, and it wasn’t right.

I stopped, and turned a couple of times to listen, taking a few paces towards the river in case it was Matthew, but there was only silence. My heart rate kicked up a notch.

Night falls swiftly at this time of year and I really couldn’t see much at all. I stood a minute longer, turning my head this way and that and listening hard, but there were only the gentle sounds of wind in the trees and the far-off gurgle of the river.

I looked over my shoulder to TB2. They’d closed the door against the night and there were no lights showing. The pod was just a big shape in the darkness. The silence of the night closed around.

I knew – I just knew – there was something . . .

I had no earpiece and no com with me because I’d finished for the day and taken them out. Historian instinct kept me from shouting and giving away my position. Other than us, there were no people here, but it might be a bear. Or a wolf. Or a mountain lion. Or something. And if I shouted and everyone came pouring out . . . right into whatever was out here . . . I decided to head for the river where Leon and Matthew were, and set off for where I thought the river should be.

Well, that didn’t work. I walked quite a long way before I realised it wasn’t there. It seemed unlikely that some bastard would have moved it, so I was obviously heading in the wrong direction.

I stopped and stood still to listen for the sound of water, my head cocked. There was a faint . . . something. So faint, I couldn’t identify it. A rustle of clothing, perhaps? A sigh? Or was I imagining things and this was just the gentle night breeze?

Because if there was someone here, I couldn’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t speak. Unless they were up to no good, of course. I had a sudden image of someone standing stock-still, as I was, listening . . . waiting for me to give myself away.

I looked around. I’d killed the fire so there was no soft glow of firelight. Because they’d shut the pod door – as they should do during the hours of darkness – and although the sky overhead was full of stars, everything down here was as dark as something that was very dark indeed.

I had no idea where I was in relation to the river, the trees, or our campsite. Obviously, I’d got turned around somehow. It has happened before. My bump of direction had been bulldozed flat years ago. Leon has frequently commented on the ability of birds, whales, elephants, whatever, to navigate themselves from one side of the world to the other, and my complete failure to correctly obey the instruction, ‘Turn left.’

This was ridiculous. I couldn’t stumble around all night. Someone must surely have missed me by now. Trust me, the time I need to spend in a latrine can usually be measured in nanoseconds. Especially when it’s too dark to read.

I thought I heard a cry somewhere but it was far away and I couldn’t tell which direction it came from. It was the worst possible time of day to be groping my way around the landscape. Faint fingers of light lingered in the west, but they were too pale to be of any use and the moon had yet to rise. I squinted, but everything was just indeterminate patches of dark and semi-dark. Nothing was clearly defined.

For a long few seconds, there was just the night silence and then, so close that their breath was hot in my ear, a voice whispered, ‘Hello, little girl.’

There were two ways to go. Fight or flight.

I flew.

I took off into the night. I had no idea where I was going but wherever it was, it would be better than here, where something stood behind me in the dark and whispered in my ear. I could still feel the hot breath. Hear the words. ‘Hello, little girl.’

I ran, zigzagging – as if that would help. And then I stumbled because the ground was suddenly rough and uneven. I must have left the flat grassy plateau of our campsite and now I was somewhere near the woods that encircled it. Whether this was good or bad I had no idea. On the one hand, plenty of places to hide. On the other, plenty of trees to smack into.

I opened my mouth to shout for Leon or Markham and then closed it again. Did I want to give away my position? Surely someone from our campsite must be looking for me by now. Or would they? Leon would think I was in the pod. Those in the pod would think I was with Leon. And even when it was discovered I wasn’t with either, they’d all think I was in the thunderbox. It could be some time before I was missed. Should I shout and risk it?

No. Whatever was out there could get to me much more quickly than any of my colleagues.

I dropped to the ground, crouched, and had a bit of a think. In the words of the song – should I stay or should I go? Someone or something could be heading towards me at this very moment. I should move. Not very far. Certainly not far enough to lose our campsite. Or fall into an icy, fast-flowing river in the dark. Now I remembered Matthew’s warning to stay away from the river. I really have got to start listening to him – he obviously knows what he’s talking about.

I couldn’t help thinking that if there was someone out there and they had night-vision goggles then I was sunk. Because I didn’t have any of that. I didn’t even have a torch. Because we weren’t supposed to go wandering off in the dark. As I was doing.

It was time to circle back to our campsite and safety. I wheeled about and jogged back the way I’d come. This would take me back to the campsite and TB2. Also towards whatever might be lurking in the darkness, but I’d deal with that when the time came.

It came sooner than I thought. I ran into something hard, thought I’d made it back to TB2 and discovered it was a bloody tree. Where the hell was I? I was way off course. I’d run in completely the wrong direction. I rebounded off the tree, staggered, put my foot in some sort of hole or depression and fell down. Bloody bollocking hell. Why does nothing ever go right for me? And then I thought, no – stay here. You’re safe and comparatively hidden. Stay quiet and work out what’s going on.

Good idea. I let my head fall back and just as I did so, behind me, in the dark, a twig snapped.

I didn’t jump out of my skin this time. I did the other thing. I froze. The traditional response of a small mammal to an unknown peril in the dark. I lay, rigid, straining my eyes to pierce the darkness. Everything was dark with darker blobs I assumed were other trees. Nothing was moving. There was only the sound of the wind in the leaves.

I lay absolutely still apart from my hammering heart, ready to move at a moment’s notice. I held my breath, listening for snuffling, snorting, or the sounds of something pushing through the trees.

Was there really someone out there? Was someone watching me as I lay blind in the darkness? Or had it been just the night breeze tickling my ears? Doubt set in. This site was supposed to be unpopulated. Was I allowing my very well-documented paranoia to get the better of me? Was this yet another version of me lying awake at night imagining Clive Ronan coming up the stairs? Or hiding, bogeyman-like, under the bed?

On the whole, I was inclined to go for paranoia as the most likely option because I was still alive. Ronan wasn’t the gloating type. He didn’t play with his victims. He certainly wouldn’t be chasing me around the woods whispering in my ear. In fact, no one knew better than he that I wasn’t a little girl. He’d just kill me and walk away whistling. So not Ronan, then. Just paranoia. Well, that was a relief.

I’d lain here long enough. Definitely time to get back to the safety of TB2. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

Ian Guthrie trained me. He’s retired now, but he taught me a lot about Outdoor Survival. He once even managed to get me on one of his outdoor exercises. Typically, nothing in my training ever touched on how to avoid a sinister game of hide and seek in the dark, though. Historian escape strategies consist mostly of running like hell.

The wood was dark. The trees grew closely together. There was little undergrowth in which to hide but, on the other hand, nothing to rustle and give away my position. I trod slowly and carefully, ghosting from trunk to trunk, listening. Always listening.

After a while, my heart slowed. My breathing settled. All my senses were heightened. I could feel the rough bark beneath my fingertips, the faint breeze on my cheek, hear the whisper of leaves.

And then the bloody moon came out.

I was standing in a deep patch of shade at the time. No skill on my part, sadly – I was just lucky. I froze. The only things moving were my eyes, shifting from side to side. I could see tree trunks and their shadows. But then, over there – was that a shadow and no corresponding tree? I couldn’t help it – doubt crept back in. There was something not quite right in this graphic black and silver landscape.

The secret in these situations is not to hold your breath. Holding your breath makes your heart thump. Well, it makes my heart thump, anyway. And, of course, after a minute or two, you faint. So I didn’t hold my breath. I didn’t do anything except wait.

If there was something there, it was playing exactly the same game as me. It was waiting for me to move. To make a mistake.

Clouds flitted across the moon. Trees creaked above my head. I kept my weight on both feet, ready to push off at a moment’s notice should I have to. A long, long time passed. And then I had a thought. A treacherous thought. The shadow hadn’t moved. It lay on the ground, thick and black and inhumanly still. Was it possible that something awful was happening back at our campsite while I stood here like an idiot waiting for a tree stump to make the first move? And how on earth would I explain to Leon or Markham that I’d spent the greater part of the evening hiding from a shadow?

Actually, I never found out. Not for one moment taking my eyes from the dark shape in front of me, I took a cautious step to the left. Nothing happened. And then another. I edged very carefully around a fat-trunked tree and still nothing happened. Encouraged, I began to move further to my left. And then the ground gave way beneath me. I twisted my foot quite badly, lost my balance, tumbled head over heels and slammed into soft soil. Rolling over, I struggled to my knees and found myself looking at a dragon.

4

Sometimes something so startling, so disorienting, so utterly bewildering happens that our brains are completely unable to process the information our eyes are sending them. Something like that was happening now. I forgot to move. Forgot to take cover. Forgot to try to escape. I just stared.

There was lots of good news. I hadn’t fallen off a cliff – I’d simply rolled down a steep bank. Apart from a twisted foot, I hadn’t injured myself. And I’d found the river – inadvertently, yes, but nevertheless here it was and all I had to do was follow it back to our campsite and Leon – who was probably not the happiest person on the planet at this moment.

On the other hand – there was the dragon. Which was more good news, actually, because there’s nothing like unexpectedly encountering a dragon to relegate your previous concerns re any sinister strangers creeping around in the shadows to complete obscurity.

I stood up slowly. Very slowly. I didn’t want to frighten it into doing something stupid.

The moonlight carved a wavering white path across the river and there it was, caught motionless in its beam. There was the great curving neck, the tiny head, the fierce eyes. Stark black and white in the moonlight, it stared down at me. The river parted and flowed past as it swayed gently in the current, creaking slightly at its moorings.

Right. OK. There was a dragon and it was a big bugger but, believe it or not, not my biggest problem at the moment. Because at this precise moment my biggest problem was the dozen or so well-armed giants standing around a small fire, weapons in their hands, and regarding me with nearly as much astonishment as I was regarding them.

Everyone looked at everyone else. I’d disturbed them at some sort of meal. Bowls and spoons lay where they had been dropped. The little fire crackled merrily. And still we all stared.

There was a movement above us. Among the trees. Somehow, I must warn them there might be something out there. I speak a few languages and I suspected none of them were about to be of any use at all. I pointed dramatically back the way I’d come and said, ‘Danger.’ In English. Well, why not? At least one of us here would be able to understand me. And it was the tone of voice that was important. I said urgently, ‘Danger. Danger,’ and made stabbing gestures into the trees.

I was wasting my time. They were already moving. At a grunt from the man I assumed to be their leader, the two nearest men scrambled up the bank and disappeared into the shadows in one direction, followed by two more in another. The rest gathered in a tight ring around the fire facing outwards. And presumably the dragon would eat anyone approaching from the river.

I watched anxiously. I wasn’t too sure whether I was any better off here. My status had yet to be defined. Prisoner? Guest? Potential murder victim? The evening’s entertainment? Although I doubted that last one. I’m not as young as I was. These days the only way I can stop traffic is by standing in the middle of the road. On the other hand, these guys had the look of men who hadn’t seen a woman for years.

My heart was still pounding away and now for a completely different reason. I had only the light of the moon and their campfire, but if there’s one group of people in all the world it’s impossible to mistake . . .

Brace yourselves.

I was looking at Vikings. Thousands and thousands of miles from where they should be. There was no way I could be seeing this. I was on the wrong side of the continent that would one day be North America and I was looking at Vikings.

What were they doing here? How could they be here, on the western side of America? How did they get here? What did they want? And probably the question I should have led with – what would they do to me?

I braced myself for all sorts of violent cinematic Viking clichés, and they took the wind completely out of my sails by feeding me. A bit of an anti-climax, I know.

The four men had returned, shaking their heads. If there had been anyone or anything lurking around, sensibly they weren’t lurking now. Slowly, swords and axes were laid down again, men reseated themselves – although I noticed two remained standing, just in case, presumably – and resumed their meal. A man picked up a bowl, spooned something from a pot standing at the edge of the fire and passed it to me.

We’ve all heard the tales of Viking ferocity. Indeed, the word Viking means ‘raider’, but I think sometimes we forget they were an ordered and structured society, and vital to their society was the tradition of hospitality. Rules were important for both the host and the guest.

A guest must be led to the fire and made comfortable. Food must be provided. The guest must be gracious and appreciative. Courtesy and respect must be shown at all times. By both sides. A hearth guest was sacred. Unless these guys had been away from home for so long that they were lost to the basic rules of their fathers, I was safe. You didn’t murder your guest and your guest didn’t murder you. They were safe from me, as well. They shunted up to make room around the fire. Not without an anxious glance or two at the surrounding woodland, I sat down. Someone passed me a wooden spoon. The chances were that it had already been used by someone else but I had more to worry about than oral herpes. I nodded my thanks and got stuck in.

Bloody porridge. Yes, I know, it’s good for you. It lowers cholesterol. It’s high in fibre. It tastes like wet cardboard. Unless you have Caledonian ancestry, of course, in which case you fall upon it with cries of appreciation and enjoyment and then ask for more.

I took a mouthful, swallowed carefully and nodded at the man I guessed was their chief. He wore a torque and some sort of arm ring. I doubted they’d have Latin so I stuck to English, putting my trust in my tone of voice and body language.

‘Mm. Sir, I thank you for your hospitality tonight and your gracious bounty.’

He got the message, inclining his head and rumbling something I didn’t catch. Not only did his voice seem to emanate from deep within his chest but it then had to fight its way through a lifetime’s beard growth. I listened for familiar words or sentence structure but there was nothing I recognised.

They watched me eat. I think my clothing was causing comment. I was in woodland camouflage – combats, T-shirt and woolly pully. Whether it was the design, the colours, or the trousers, I wasn’t quite sure. My boots came in for some scrutiny as well. I’m proud of my boots. I’ve had them a long time and they and I have kicked the living shit out of any number of people. I always think my boots give me credibility in an uncertain world.

I didn’t stare back because it’s rude, so I didn’t watch them watching me, but I did peer at them through my eyelashes as I consumed the bowl of porridge with wonderfully simulated enjoyment.

The chief, a really big man – as opposed to just the ordinarily big ones – gestured at his men around the fire, then at his boat and then back down the river. He was telling me they’d come upriver on their boat.

Everyone looked expectantly at me. There not being a gesture equivalent to five thousand miles and one thousand years away, I put down my spoon and gestured upriver. They nodded wisely then the chief pointed at each man individually, then they all looked at me again.

I was dubious. If I said there were only nine of us, would they see us as easy meat? If I said there were twenty of us, would they regard us as a challenge or a threat? In the end I went with the truth and held up nine fingers and pointed upriver again.

They nodded again but no one looked particularly panic-stricken. Well, they might have, but studying the postage-stamp sized piece of face visible between their hair, their eyebrows and their beards, I rather thought not.

And that pretty much concluded the sparkling dialogue for the evening.

There were about eleven of them as far as I could see. Unless there were more on the ship or in the woods that were hidden for some reason. They wore tunics – some were sleeveless, some had linen undershirts – and trousers. It was too dark to make out any colours, but all their gear looked old and well used. As, frankly, did they. Their hair was long and fell way past their shoulders, and their beards were practically felted. For any beard owners out there – not a good look, guys. I must remember to have a word with proud beard owner Mr Roberts. If I lived that long.

They were all armed and as befitted life in a strange place, every man ensured his weapon was easily to hand, managing to be both relaxed and vigilant at the same time.

I glanced over to the longship, securely moored midstream. Interesting. So they didn’t beach their boat at night; they left it safely in midstream in case of trouble and waded ashore. But then they ate onshore, so they weren’t expecting that much trouble.

I finished eating and scraped my bowl clean, as was only polite. Then I got to my feet, limped to the river’s edge and washed both the bowl and the spoon, which seemed to cause some amusement. Shaking them dry, I returned to the fire and, with a bow, offered them back to the chief.

He gestured with his head to another man who took them from me.

I remained standing, wondering what to do next. I should go. Leon would be frantic. I stepped back from the fire, meaning to risk the woods, follow the river and work my way back to our campsite. At once they all stirred, shaking their heads and gesturing for me to sit down again. I hesitated, unsure whether I was better off down here or out there.

The decision was taken from me. With a surprisingly graceful gesture, the chief indicated I should sit again. There were eleven of them and I was one small historian and there were countless perils out there. Snakes, bears and wolves, certainly. And until I got up, I hadn’t realised how much my foot hurt. Decision made. I sat down again, warming my hands at the fire because the night had grown chilly.

We sat, staring into the flames. A million stars hung in the sky. One by one, my hosts stretched out, pulling cloaks or blankets around them. I had nothing and I was cold but I wouldn’t have slept anyway.

I watched two men – on guard duty, clearly – walk around the camp, disappear into the trees occasionally, meet up again, lean on their spears and talk quietly and then do it all again. There were nightly noises and the river gurgling past but otherwise all was peaceful and quiet. Occasionally one would tend the fire. After a couple of hours, they were relieved and the whole process started all over again. Finally, just as the sky was beginning to lighten in the east, they put more wood on the fire and refilled the magic porridge pot. The portions were larger for breakfast. Presumably because they had a day’s rowing ahead of them.

The rising sun allowed me to study them more closely. I have to say they were a battered-looking lot. Their clothes, possibly quite brightly coloured a long time ago, were now sun- and sea-faded to an indeterminate grey colour. Everything was grey, including the boat. The paint had long since gone from the dragon prow. And from many of the shields that hung along the sides. Even the furled sail, once red- and white-striped, was now just a faint brown and cream.

Looking around, everything was old and much repaired. They’d been travelling for a long time. A very long time. Where had they come from? And where could they possibly be going? The whole thing was a complete mystery. There are no records of these men – whoever they were. Nothing in the History books, no stories, no legends. It must have taken a mighty voyage to get them here – you’d have thought the sagas would have been full of their adventures.

Unless they never got home. So obvious when you think about it. They never got home. They died here, unknown and unrecorded and no one ever knew of their achievements. Until now.

I squatted on the bank and thought about it as they moved around the camp, sorting out themselves and their gear.

Let’s use our imaginations a little. How could this have happened? At this time there were, or soon would be, newly founded Viking settlements in North America, or Vinland as they called it, but that was thousands of miles away. As was Greenland. And Iceland. And Scotland. And Scandinavia.

Suppose, just suppose . . . suppose these men, intentionally or otherwise, found a way through the northern ice. The Northwest Passage. Climates change, as we know only too well these days. There was the Medieval Warming Period from about 950 to 1250AD. Suppose this had caused the ice to break up sufficiently for them to find a way through. They’d have emerged somewhere around Alaska and turned south, heading down the west coast – although they wouldn’t have had much choice because that’s the way the current flows.

It’s rude to stare, so I sat cross-legged and stared into the dying fire. Picking up a stick, I drew a square in the sandy soil, carefully filled it in and began to think. Hugging the coast, they’d work their way south until . . . until they reached that narrow spit of land off the west coast and the Gulf of California. There they could have turned north, hoping to return back the way they’d come. Except they weren’t in open sea as they thought – they were in the Gulf. They wouldn’t know that – it was too wide for them to see the other shore. Did they think they were retracing their steps? Sailing back the way they’d come?

At some point they must have realised they couldn’t go any further. That they weren’t in open sea after all. What would they do then?

I stole a glance. I was looking at men who had travelled further than any of their kin. Whose exploits deserved an entire saga. Several sagas. Whose names should be as known and revered as those of Erik the Red. Or his son, Leif Erikson. Or Ragnar Hairy Breeks. Here they sat, occasionally muttering something among themselves. One or two were cleaning their swords. One seemed to be mending a strap of some kind.

My brain was racing. Once they’d realised they were trapped, what would they have done next? A river. They’d leave the gulf with no exit, choose a promising river mouth and strike out upriver. It’s what they did.

Vikings travelled from Scandinavia all the way down to the Black Sea and Constantinople simply by following the major European river systems. There’s Viking graffiti in Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. When they ran out of river, they would pick up their boats and carry them to the next one. Their boats were shallow enough for river travel and light enough to be carried.

How far could these men go on this continent? I stared at my feet, picked up my twig and scratched little rivers in the sandy soil. There was the Colorado, of course, that restless, constantly moving river, which in those days flowed into the Gulf of California. And the Mississippi River system was massive. If they could get themselves from the Colorado into one of the Mississippi’s tributaries . . . then into the Mississippi itself . . . they could travel north from there, up to the Great Lakes or Cahokia. Or turn south and sail downriver, out into the Gulf of . . . Something-or-other . . . yes, Mexico, then around Florida and from there, eventually, back across the Atlantic . . . Was that even possible? How far could their boat carry them? How long had they been travelling?

I was so excited. This was so exciting. My mind began to race as I tried to piece together the events that could have brought them here – to this place – where I could accidentally fall over them. They could have no idea where they were. No idea how vast was the land in which they now found themselves. There were no maps, no charts. Every day brought new sights and sounds and every day took them further from their homeland. Did they know this?

I looked at them. Big, strong, silent men who, every day, turned their boat and their faces north. Did they hope that one day they would burst forth into the Atlantic Ocean and find their way home? Or that they would find the ice again and their cousins in Newfoundland? Or did they know, secretly in their hearts, that they were about as lost as anyone could be. And yet they had never given up.

They must have reached native settlements and traded with them. Put in for repairs. Sought shelter in bad weather. There must have been any number of opportunities to settle down and yet they hadn’t. Every day they loaded their boat – their one fixed point in this unknown world – pushed themselves out into the water and set off again. Was it the urge to return home that drove them? Or simply the desire to see what was around the next corner? They were true explorers. I looked at them and knew in my heart that these men would never get home.

I considered their boat. Some shields hung on the side but there were empty spaces. I suspected there had once been many more than eleven. These were not young men any longer. There would be fewer of them year by year. What would it be like to be the last one? Sitting alongside the beached boat that had been his home for so long and now would never move again. Or would he and the boat go together? A Viking funeral. He and his ship, blazing orange flames, sailing slowly but surely into the bigger fire of the setting sun.

I gave myself a shake. Their fate was their own. They wouldn’t thank me for my sympathy. They probably wouldn’t even understand it.

I stood a little apart on the bank and prepared to wave them off but it would seem they had other ideas. While his men cleared the camp, the chief placed himself before me, pointed at me and then the boat.

Ah.

I shook my head, pointed at myself and then back into the woods whence I’d come.

He shook his head.

I shook mine and gestured at the woods again.

He shook his head. Not allowing myself to become alarmed, I tried to step around him. That didn’t happen. I was getting mixed messages here. There was no force but I wasn’t being allowed to leave. No – wrong. I wasn’t being allowed back into the woods. He was pointing at his ship. Boat. Whatever. Ask Peterson. That’s just the sort of useless stuff he crams his head with.

I smiled politely because I was outnumbered eleven to one by the eleven biggest men on the planet and again indicated my intention of returning back the way I’d come. Not least because St Mary’s must be looking for me by now and while I was just one person and completely harmless, the Vikings might not feel the same way if confronted by half a dozen of St Mary’s finest. It was definitely time for me to go.

There was no chance. The chief sighed – why do men do that? – picked me up and stuffed me under his arm where I hung like an old pillow. I didn’t struggle. For one thing I had my dignity to think of and for another, he had arms like iron bars.

He waded out into the water, which wasn’t deep. From what I remembered, Viking longships were flat-bottomed and had a shallow draught. Did I get that expression right? I made a note to ask Peterson. If, of course, I ever saw him again. There was a very good chance I was being hauled off to perform housekeeping – and other – tasks for eleven directionally challenged Northmen – not a particularly attractive prospect. To say nothing of a lifetime of porridge.

The chief passed me up to someone. I was seized around the waist and hauled on board. Like ballast. I folded my arms and prepared to become vociferously indignant. And then I looked around. I was on a longship. I was standing on a Viking longship. Not a replica. A real Viking longship. Right here. Right now. I could organise my escape or rescue later on. After I’d had a chance to see a real Viking longship in action. This was not an opportunity to be wasted. Escape could come later. Always deal with the now.

5

Typically, I was so busy dealing with the now that I missed us casting off. Or upping anchor. Or whatever the correct expression is. I’m utterly at sea in all this mystique concerning boats. Or ships. Whatever.

I was nudged gently but firmly towards the back bit where the steersman stood grasping the large oar. I would imagine he was a bit underemployed these days. They were on a river, for heaven’s sake. You could go upriver or downriver or waggle about a bit in the middle but that was it.

I watched him with great interest. There was a dragon’s head at the back of the boat, as well, so it could travel in either direction. Neat. You didn’t have to do a three-point turn or whatever. When faced with peril you simply stood up, turned around and rowed hell for leather back the way you’d come.

The steerboard was to the right of the rear dragon – hence the expression ‘starboard side’. The steersman rested his hand lightly on the big, flat oar, staring ahead, apparently in some sort of trance. I suspected the river was talking to him.

The chief roamed up and down, standing at the front bit and surveying the river ahead of them or exchanging a word or two with his men as they pulled on their oars. No one was straining away. They rowed with the minimum of effort. Enough to make headway against the current but not enough to wear themselves out. There was a peaceful rhythm to it. We weren’t moving very quickly – although I suspected we could, should we need to – but we were making steady progress.

The morning wore on. The sun rose higher and the river mist burned away. One or two men pulled their tunics over their heads and rowed bare-chested.

I stationed myself against the side, well out of the way and looked around, wondering how far we’d come as the crow flew. I had no idea how far I’d strayed from our campsite. There had been a lot of running, but in which direction I had no idea. However, our camp had been within sight of the river. This river. Yes, there were a lot of bends and meanders, but sooner or later we had to come across our campsite.

If we were rowing the right way. I was almost certain I’d run downstream so we were heading in the right direction. Almost certain. I think we’ve already established my bump of direction is not the most reliable organ in my body. Along with my bladder and my brain. It could well be that every pull of the oars took me further away from Leon and Matthew. To an uncertain future and . . .

I pulled myself together. I was tagged. Leon knew to within a couple of miles where I was likely to be. He’d find me, eventually. Or if not him, then Markham. Everything would be fine. I should relax and enjoy this once in a lifetime opportunity.

So I did. I watched the bank slide by. Once or twice we disturbed animals who’d come down to drink. They threw up their heads and fled back into the trees. I wish I could tell you what they were. Brown and with four legs. Not horses and probably not cows is the best I can do.

The steersman grunted at me and nodded towards the water barrel. I filled a big jug, picked up the wooden cup and took a cup of water to each of our rowers. Each man grunted his thanks and drank deeply. They leaned on their oars, resting, but keeping enough speed to avoid being washed back downriver again. When the last man had drunk, the chief shouted something and they picked up the stroke again. In perfect unison. As if they’d been doing this almost every day of their lives. Which they probably had been.

Another hour passed. I began to twitch. This river meandered all over the place but surely I hadn’t run this far. Had I got it wrong?

And then we swept around a big, wide bend and there was a familiar tree hanging over the water, where Leon and Matthew had tried their luck at fishing every afternoon. And over there was TB2, looking suddenly very big and unfamiliar when seen from the perspective of a Viking longship.

Sykes was standing on the bank. Waiting? Yes, of course she was. They’d picked up my tag and were waiting for me.

Sadly, I don’t think she saw me. She saw only the boat. Shouting a warning, she disappeared. I didn’t really blame her.

I shouted to the chief and gave him a these are my people gesture. I ran to the rail and jumped up and down shouting, ‘Leon! Leon! I’m here. It’s me,’ and other intelligent remarks.

Markham and Evans appeared from behind the trees. Very cautiously. They said nothing, just standing, looking, their blasters pointing downwards.

It suddenly dawned on me that because they’d treated me well – apart from the porridge – their intentions were friendly. Suppose they weren’t. Suppose they’d scooped me up and then decided to see if there were any more like me. To trade. Not to trade with . . . but just to trade. Because if Vikings weren’t raiding, then they were trading, and depending on how you do it, there’s sometimes very little difference between the two.

And Markham and Evans had no idea how I’d been treated. I was on a Viking ship that had come out of nowhere. They might assume these giants were the reason I didn’t return to the pod last night. That I’d been captured and was being held against my will – and all this jumping up and down was me shouting to be rescued. Actions can easily be misinterpreted when people are nervous.

I stopped jumping up and down and stood still. Around me, the men stopped rowing and picked up their weapons.

Shit. Shitty shit shit. Now what?

There was no sign of Matthew. If Markham hadn’t had him straight inside TB2 as soon as we heaved around the bend, then he and I would be having words later on. If we both survived.

I didn’t know what to do. If I shouted, ‘Friends, friends,’ to Markham and he laid down his weapon and the Vikings suddenly attacked . . .

If I gestured ‘friends, friends’ to the Vikings . . .

I stood by the steerboard, under the great dragon head, where all parties could see me, and made ‘lay down your weapons’ gestures. I held out my hands, palms down and gestured towards the ground. Or in this case, the deck. Everyone stood stock-still.

Markham turned his head and spoke to Evans, who melted back into the trees. Markham himself walked slowly towards the riverbank, very ostentatiously laid down his blaster, held up his hands and stepped back.

I looked behind me. No one moved. I wondered what would happen if I just jumped overboard. I could swim to shore and they could row on and . . . and come back in the night, was the nasty thought running through my mind. And I couldn’t expect Markham to do any more. His job was to protect my team and he’d do it. He was risking himself but he wouldn’t risk anyone else.

I turned to the chief, a hairy pillar of still watchfulness. I mimed eating, spooning something into my mouth and gestured to the bank. I made all-encompassing ‘everyone’ gestures. In other words, I invited them to lunch.

Markham was shouting from the bank. ‘Hey, Max.’

‘Hey, yourself. I’ve found some friends. I’m trying to persuade them to eat with us.’

‘You all right?’

‘Fine. They’ve treated me very well.’

‘I can’t make the same promise. Leon says he’s going to kill you when he gets his hands on you.’

I turned back to the chief. I should jump. Interaction with these people probably wasn’t a good idea. And anything that could impact on the fabric of time in America is too dodgy to risk. It was time to go. I pointed to myself and then mimed jumping over the rail.

He grunted his ‘no’ grunt – I was beginning to pick up the language – and shook his head. He barked out an order – probably using up all his day’s word quota in one go – and there was a big splash as someone chucked the anchor overboard. Deliberately, I hoped, and not some shipboard mishap.

The boat inched closer to the shore. Nice bit of boat handling. We drew ever closer. As did Markham. I wondered if it was going to be like a hostage handover and I’d walk from one to the other, and just as I thought I was safe I’d get an arrow through the shoulder blades. Which was ridiculous – why would they do that? There was a slight bump and the rowers on the right-hand side – sorry, steerboard side, pulled in their oars. We’d landed.

Markham waded into the water. It only came up just past his knees. They must have a really shallow keel.

Someone picked me up and I was dangled over the side. The water was very cold. And then there was a splash as the chief jumped in after me. We waded to the shore. I pointed to Markham and said, ‘Markham.’

I pointed to me and said, ‘Max.’

I pointed to him.

He rumbled his name. Either Hrolf or Rolf – sound still didn’t always emerge very clearly from his massive beard. Markham held out his hand and Hrolf grasped it firmly. Markham said afterwards it took everything he had to maintain his manly composure and not yelp in pain.

Now St Mary’s began to emerge. No sign of Matthew, I was pleased to note. And Sykes and Mikey stayed well back as well. The men exchanged hand clasps which was obviously some sort of test because having done that, the chief shouted over his shoulder and his men jumped from the boat and waded ashore. There was a whole orgy of manly hand clasping, under cover of which Leon put his hand on my shoulder and said amiably, ‘Want to tell me what happened?’

Under cover of all the male bonding around us, I said, ‘The official story is that I got lost on my way to the latrine, but actually I think there might have been someone or something here last night.’

‘If there was, it’s gone now. We’ve been combing the woods quite thoroughly while looking for you and there’s definitely no one there.’

Markham appeared. ‘Who are these people and why have you brought them home with you?’

‘Vikings,’ I said. ‘They shouldn’t be here. We always thought they only settled in Newfoundland. This is incredibly exciting.’

He rolled his eyes.

Sykes was still staying well back. I was about to commend her discretion – a bit of a first for both of us – when I realised she had her recorder going. That’s my girl.

Markham hadn’t finished. ‘Whatever are we going to do with them?’

‘Feed them,’ I said. ‘They’ve been living on some sort of grey goo usually referred to as porridge.’

He looked the nearest one up and down. ‘Good God. How big do you think they’d grow on a meat diet? But yes, we can feed them.’

So we did.

6

I think our guests thought we’d have to go off, hunt and kill something, drag it back, skin and gut it, joint it, chuck it on the fire and wait for it to cook, so we sat them down and prepared to show off.

They were very impressed with our firelighters. Obviously they were familiar with touchwood – Viking portable fire, as once so ably demonstrated by Professor Rapson when he nearly blew up Dr Bairstow and an unknown number of urine-donating students – so they didn’t stand up and cheer, but I could see them looking sideways at each other and hear the appreciative rumble as we had a fire lit and blazing in under ten seconds.

With Markham and Evans sitting deceptively casually nearby, Atherton and I lugged out a ton of compo rations. There was no point in offering the Vikings a choice – I doubt if any of them were familiar with the concept of Thai Chicken or Spag Bol – so we just dished the trays out as they came. Like dealing a hand of poker. That done, I sat in front of them and held up my own tray. They were regarding me with quiet mystification, so, making sure they could see what I was doing, I carefully pulled the heating tab.

We didn’t want them burning themselves and they’d have no idea what a heating tab was, so I gently took someone’s calloused hand and guided it to the bottom of the tray so he could feel the heat.

He snatched his hand away and stared suspiciously.

I peeled off the lid, let the steam waft away and picked up a spoon – we weren’t going with knives and forks for obvious reasons – and tucked in. Leon and Atherton did the same and our guests still didn’t look that enthusiastic. It was only when Matthew impatiently ripped off his own lid and got stuck in that they consented to have a go themselves. After that there was no holding them. We ripped through beef and chicken stew, macaroni cheese, meatloaf, gammon and pineapple . . . you name it. I think it’s fair to say they were impressed.

From there we moved to dessert. Shamelessly, we took the opportunity to offload all our trays of the dreaded stewed apple and custard. They loved it. I could see stewed apple becoming the new Viking national dish.

Finally, we made them tea. They didn’t like that at all. They put down their mugs and stared at us as if we were trying to poison them. It was all a bit touch and go for a moment as both sides stared at each other in mutual incomprehension and then Markham upended their mugs and topped them up with water and everyone relaxed.

Matthew, impatient at all this adult sitting around, took his football off to have a bit of a kickabout. Eleven pairs of eyes lit up. Nothing changes, does it? Eventually, Leon gestured for them to join in and, without troubling to look back, followed after Matthew. As did Atherton and Dieter. Even me.

The Vikings didn’t get the idea of team goals, aiming the ball at both ends indiscriminately. They ignored the not-handling-the-ball rule, and the offside rule never got off the ground at all, but I can honestly say a great time was had by all. Evans and Markham stood on the sidelines, shouting criticism, abuse and encouragement in equal measures, but didn’t join in.

We played for about thirty minutes and then, without a word spoken, the Norsemen picked up their gear and turned towards their ship. It was time for them to go.

There was more hand clasping. Even for me. Obviously I was an honorary man. Then they splashed back into the river and climbed aboard.

I watched them go with a sad heart, not least because I knew there could be no happy ending to their story. Every day they faced the unknown. There was no rest for them. There would never be any rest for them. I wanted to say, ‘Stay. Stay with us. We’ll get you home, somehow.’ But I didn’t. I couldn’t. They had to choose their own path. Make their own mark on History, even if History never acknowledged it.

They pulled up the anchor and settled themselves at their oars. I stepped a little aside from the others and waved. The steersman nodded at me and then stared ahead. The chief – Rolf or Hrolf – raised his hand and shouted. Three or four rowers joined in. I like to think it was a friendly farewell.

I shouted back, ‘Good luck. Fare well.’

They nodded, bent to their oars, the boat pulled out into the middle of the river and within seconds they were out of sight around the bend.

I never saw them again.

Back in the pod, there was massive speculation. Sykes and Atherton were at the console, interrogating the computer before the Vikings were even completely out of sight. I made sketches and notes of their longship while it was all still fresh in my mind.

Finally, we met for a conference. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Firstly and most importantly – what became of them? What was their fate?’

Sykes was flicking through her scratchpad.

‘There are several theories, actually. That their ship sank in the Gulf and the survivors were taken in by the Mayo Indians – who to this day sometimes produce blond-haired, blue-eyed children.’

She flicked some more. ‘Or – and this is interesting, Max – the Seri Indians, who lived on Tiburon Island, tell tales of “Come from Afar Men” with yellow hair and beards. Most tellingly, they say a woman with red hair was with them.’

‘Really?’ I said, quite excited at this thought of possibly being in the History books – and for the right reason, just for once. ‘What else do they say?’

‘That’s the only mention, I’m afraid. The men hunted whales for a while and then departed, never to be seen again.’

‘So we don’t know what became of them,’ I said, disappointed.

‘Well, there’s the story of Myrtle Botts.’

‘That’s not a very Viking name,’ said Evans.

‘No, Myrtle was a librarian from California and used to venture into the desert to study the flowers there. She and her husband got talking to a prospector who, in return for a hot meal, offered to show them the remains of a ship he’d seen, high up in the mountains. According to the story, Myrtle was a little sceptical, but she and her husband went to check it out and finally, exactly where the prospector had said it would be . . .’ She paused.

Everyone was staring at her. Even Matthew.

‘Yes . . . ?’

‘High on a cliff, sticking out of the rock, was the dragon prow of a Viking longship. She said afterwards she could even make out where the shields had been.’

We gaped. ‘You’re kidding,’ I said, astounded. ‘Why has no one ever heard of this? Why didn’t they follow it up?’

‘Well, they decided to return the next day with proper equipment and so on . . . but they never did.’

She paused to drink her tea. She’s a born storyteller.

‘Why?’ demanded Evans. ‘Why didn’t they?’

She sighed. ‘Friday, 10th March 1933.’

He stared at her. ‘Yes?’

‘That was the night of the Long Beach earthquake – one of the worst in Californian history. When the Bottses went back the next day, the cliff had collapsed. They couldn’t get anywhere near it.’

‘No,’ I cried and I wasn’t the only one.

‘’Fraid so. And no one’s seen it since. It was probably completely destroyed.’

I slapped the console in frustration. So near and yet so far.

‘Or,’ said Atherton, consulting his own scratchpad, ‘they reached Lake Cahuilla. Sea levels are about forty feet higher in this time so it’s perfectly possible.’

I frowned. ‘And where would they go from there?’

‘Nowhere,’ he said. ‘That’s just it. Having got in, they couldn’t get out. The Colorado changed its course and the entrance silted up.’

‘But that wouldn’t happen overnight, surely.’

‘No, I suspect they circumnavigated the lake, perhaps taking time to trade, repair their boat and so on, and when they eventually returned to their starting point, they found they were trapped.’

I stared into my tea. So much for my theory of them finding Cahokia and a happy ending. I wondered how long they had spent, rowing around an increasingly shrinking lake. How many times had they had to dig themselves out, until the day finally came when even they could go no further? The day they abandoned the boat that had served them so faithfully and walked out of History. My heart was so sad for them. Those big men whose eyes continually looked towards the north. How and where did they end their days? We’d probably never know.

Possibly because of the excitement of that really ground-breaking encounter, we didn’t pay quite as much attention to the circumstances of my nocturnal adventures as we might have done. I mean, I mentioned it, of course, but when Markham and I actually got down to it, I had to admit I hadn’t seen anything specific. Only a shadow that had probably been a tree. Markham didn’t actually dismiss ‘Hello, little girl’ as just the wind, but I could see what he was thinking. Especially since I so very obviously wasn’t a little girl. They’d all searched the entire area very thoroughly and found absolutely nothing. I was pretty sure the general consensus was that recent Ronan-based events had rendered me even more unstable than usual, and I couldn’t argue with that.

‘Don’t go anywhere alone though,’ Markham said. ‘In fact, none of us should.’

I nodded because that was sensible advice and enthusiastically resumed the discussion on everything Viking. We reviewed Sykes’ tapes and I wrote my report on the longship there and then.

No one else had seen or heard anything suspicious that night. I suppose the wind could have played tricks on my ears, and my overactive imagination had done all the rest. I mentioned it to Dr Bairstow on my return but nothing showed on any of the cameras and, on his advice, I quietly forgot the whole thing.

7

I gently requested everyone write their reports – standing over them until they complied – and handed everything over to Dr Bairstow for him to sign off and forward to Thirsk for them to make of it what they wanted.

I had a long hot bath, a good night’s sleep and picked up the threads of my life. The department was running well. R&D hadn’t blown anything up for nearly a whole week now. Everything was absolutely fine.

And then Kalinda came back.

I try and keep myself neat. I wipe other people off my boots quite regularly. My jumpsuit starts each day clean and fresh. My hair is kept under control by what sometimes feels like every hairpin in the northern hemisphere. But the years were beginning to take their toll on me and do what I might, I couldn’t deny I was looking more and more dishevelled with every passing season.

Kalinda, on the other hand, hadn’t changed one bit. She swept into my office wearing an Italian trouser suit, crisp white shirt and four-inch scarlet Manolo Blahniks, which put her well over six feet.

‘What ho,’ she said cheerily, breezing in through the door. ‘How’s it going, kiddo? Still going slowly round the bend?’

‘Not so slowly,’ I said.

She threw herself into a chair and put her feet up on my desk so I could better admire her shoes. ‘I read your report on that Viking ship. Wow!’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and if you’d stayed at Thirsk where you belong, then you’d have the pleasure of participating in further investigations. Instead of which, you’re trapped here in this backwater where nothing ever happens.’

‘That’ll all change now I’m here,’ she said smugly. ‘Dr Bairstow says you’re putting together something spectacular to celebrate my return, so – what have you got for me?’

‘Aha – you’ll love this.’ I yanked out the Carthage file and tossed it over.

She pulled a face and tossed it back. ‘I want Crete.’

I tossed it over again. ‘What? No. Carthage.’

She shoved it back again. ‘Crete is better.’

‘No, it’s not. Carthage has elephants. What could be better than a fleet of war elephants?’ I made war elephant gestures with the file.

‘Volcanoes!’ she said, triumphantly, using the file to demonstrate basic volcanic principles.

‘Complete annihilation of a city!’ I cried, sweeping the volcanoes aside.

‘Bull-leaping!’ she shouted, mounting a full-scale attack on the Carthage file. Papers began to drift gently around the room.

I tried to get the file back. ‘End of the entire Carthaginian civilisation!’

She wasn’t having any of it. ‘End of the Minoan civilisation! Worldwide weather disruption. Destruction of Thera.’

The file was not benefitting from this conversation.

Rosie Lee got to her feet. ‘I think I’ll take myself off to lunch now. Back at half past two.’

I really appreciated her tact until I looked at the clock and saw it was barely ten to twelve. Too late. She was already out of the door.

I sighed. ‘Don’t I get any say in this?’

‘You can have as much say as you like, kiddo, but when I applied for the job here, there was considerable doubt as to whose agenda I’d be pushing. I told Thirsk we needed something spectacular for all our sakes and that you’d be putty in my hands. As proof of that improbable statement, I told them I’d get St Mary’s to Crete at the earliest opportunity. They said that was unlikely, given St Mary’s current state of disarray. I said watch and learn, busters. So, unless you deliberately want to scupper my credibility with my new employers, it has to be Crete. To make me look good. After that, unlike my predecessors, I don’t much care where you go or what you do. Or even how you do it.’

Good enough for me. I chucked the sad remnants of the Carthage file back in the drawer. ‘Crete it is.’

‘Excellent. And I shall come with you.’

‘Oh, great. A pain in my backside.’

‘You underestimate me. I intend to be a pain in everyone’s backside.’

All sorts of people were turning up these days. Barely had I got rid of Kal – and only by promising that Leon and I would join her and Dieter at the Falconburg Arms that evening – than my phone rang. I had to answer it myself since Rosie Lee had pushed off for her standard two-hour lunch break. I really didn’t know why Markham was so keen on getting himself an assistant – it’s not as if they ever do anything. Again, I wondered if I could palm her off on the Security Section – and was so entranced by the prospect of a Rosie Lee-free future that I forgot to say hello.

There was a longish pause and then a voice said, ‘The correct procedure is for you to utter some form of greeting, Dr Maxwell. After which I reciprocate and then we begin a conversation.’

‘Sorry, sir, I was thinking about something else.’

‘While your levels of concentration are impressive, I would be grateful if you could spare me a few moments. In my office.’

‘On my way, sir.’

I trotted around the gallery and Mrs Partridge waved me straight in without even looking up. Not a word was uttered but I had the distinct impression it would not be wise to linger.

Dr Bairstow had a guest. He bounded to his feet, radiating his usual enthusiasm for everything that crossed his path. The guest, I mean. I can state with certainty that not only does Dr Bairstow not do bounding, but enthusiasm is something that only happens to other people.

‘Max!’

‘Eddie!’

Professor Eddington Penrose was one of my favourite people. He was short and round and his bright blue eyes perpetually sparkled with excitement and anticipation. His enthusiasm for life was infectious. You actually felt better by just looking at him, although since he was a bit of a disaster magnet, subsequent events usually put a stop to such foolishness.

He shook hands, nearly wrenching my shoulder out of its socket. ‘My dear Max, it’s so good to see you again. And looking so well. Is it possible – dare I hope – you’re no longer married to Leon? No, don’t answer that. Just tell me you’ll allow me to whisk you away on clouds of happiness and the Number 98 bus.’

‘Oh, Eddie, I don’t know how to break it to you . . .’

‘My heart is broken,’ he said, looking extremely cheerful about it. ‘My world is dark. All hope is gone.’

All of which would have been much more convincing if he hadn’t bounded across the room to greet Leon, who entered at that moment.

‘Leon, my boy. How are you?’ He shook his hand vigorously.

Leon smiled. He likes Professor Penrose too. Everyone does. He’s real St Mary’s material. I took him on a jump once – Dr Bairstow’s retirement gift to him – and you wouldn’t believe the trouble we got into. It was as if he’d worked at St Mary’s all his life.

‘I thought,’ said Dr Bairstow, picking up his stick, ‘that I could leave you for a brief discussion while I go and collect young Matthew.’

He began to limp towards the door.

‘There’s no need, sir,’ I said. ‘I can shoot off and get him.’

He waved that aside. ‘I do not often get the opportunity to walk around my unit and see how others are spending their working days.’

We have an informal arrangement at St Mary’s. The Boss stays in his office and doesn’t interfere, and we do our level best to ensure he never has to interfere. Walking around the building brings him into contact with all sorts of things it’s really better he doesn’t know anything about. Usually he’s very appreciative of our consideration towards him, but every now and then a devil of mischief seizes him and sallies forth to cause alarm and consternation in the ranks.

I tried to remember what the History Department was up to that afternoon and failed. I consoled myself with the thought it couldn’t be anything very terrible and if it was, then I’d hear about it soon enough, so just concentrate on the job in hand.

‘I’ve read the report Edward has sent me,’ said Eddie, seating himself again. ‘A bright boy, by all accounts, but with rather an unconventional upbringing, it would seem. How is he coping with his sudden removal from the Time Police?’

‘He appears to be fine,’ I said. ‘Although he seems content wherever he is, which is sometimes a little worrying.’

He nodded. ‘I think, after his recent adventures, we need to cultivate a sense of stability for him. I don’t mean initiating a dull, boring routine – I don’t think that would work at all – but focusing his thoughts on what’s happening around him, here and now. Filling his days. And I don’t just want to make him work – I want to make him think.’

I looked at Leon, who nodded. All this sounded good.

The door opened and Dr Bairstow reappeared with a slightly apprehensive-looking Matthew. I nodded at Leon, who stepped forwards.

‘Matthew, this is a friend of St Mary’s – Professor Penrose. He will be your new tutor.’

Eddie was on his feet again and shaking hands. ‘Matthew, my boy, I’m very pleased to meet you. Dr Bairstow has told me a great deal about you. How is the work on your dirigible progressing?’

Matthew shrugged. He’s not always good with talking and he’s definitely not good at talking to people he doesn’t know. Eddie didn’t seem to notice, which surprised me. He wasn’t usually so insensitive.

Reseating himself, he said, ‘I’m to be your new teacher. Dr Bairstow has set aside a room for us to use as your classroom. At the moment it’s full of horrible, boring stuff like whiteboards and world maps and periodic tables, but we’ll soon put a stop to that. The good news is that we’re quite close to R&D, which means there’ll be all sorts of exciting things happening around us.’

Matthew’s face had no expression. Eddie still didn’t seem to notice.

‘There will be the normal subjects, of course,’ he continued. ‘Maths, English, geography, and so on. Sadly, we have to do those or we’ll be in trouble, but I thought we could embark on some sort of long-term project. Something that will tie them all together.’

He sat forwards in his chair, radiating excitement. ‘Now, Dr Bairstow has been telling me that your Mr Markham has been pressing for a personal assistant. Someone to deal with paperwork, office routine, simple tasks, that sort of thing.’

Matthew knew all about this. The whole building had been on the receiving end of Markham’s ceaseless campaign for administrative assistance. Rumour had it he’d been attempting to bribe various members of the Admin Department to defect, all of whom had accepted the bribes with enthusiasm and then refused to move.

Slowly, Matthew nodded.

Eddie lowered his voice. ‘Well, I’ve had a brilliant idea. Together, Matthew, you and I will build him one.’

Leon found his voice first. ‘You’re going to build Markham a woman?’

The professor regarded him severely. ‘I don’t think we should automatically assume every personal assistant is a woman, do you? Not a good example to set.’

Having successfully thrown Leon off balance, he turned to Matthew. ‘What I’m thinking, Matthew, is that this will be a multi-disciplinary project. Firstly, we will need to question Mr Markham regarding his exact requirements.’

‘Um . . .’ said Leon, who had a pretty good idea of the form Markham’s exact requirements would take.

Matthew, who would happily spend hours in Security with Uncle Markham, nodded again.

Eddie rattled on regardless. A good move. He was making Matthew work to keep up. ‘For instance, do you think Mr Markham would want his assistant to be able to fly?’

Well, I think we all knew the answer to that one. I certainly did.

‘Will he want it to make tea? To be able to speak – to answer the phone, for example, relay simple messages, that sort of thing? Would it need arms or appendages of some kind for handling paperwork? Will he want a static unit or one that could move around? How will it get up the stairs? Or go outside? We need to know all this and much more. Then, having gathered this information, Matthew, you and I will need to sit down and pull it all together. How are your writing skills?’

Matthew nodded.

The professor cupped a hand around his ear. ‘Sorry, you’ll have to speak up a little. Can’t always hear that well these days.’

There was a short pause and then Matthew said, ‘I can write. Not very fast.’

‘Not important. You’ll soon get faster.’ Eddie began to pace around the office, enveloping us all in clouds of enthusiasm. Even I felt the urge to seize a screwdriver. I couldn’t imagine how Leon was managing to rein himself in.

The professor clasped his hands behind his back, under his jacket, striding up and down, vibrating with energy. ‘From there, we’ll start drawing up plans. I’m hoping the Technical Section will be able to help us there, Leon. We’ll build it in R&D, of course. Professor Rapson will be very excited to assist, I think. And we’ll need to involve Dr Dowson, too. He can help with our research. No point in reinventing the wheel, eh, Matthew?’

Matthew shook his head, remembered and said, ‘No.’

‘And then, after we’ve built it, there will be field-testing, of course. You’ll need to be able to keep accurate records for that. You’ll have to know how to build a data stack, of course, and we’ll need spreadsheets to record our successes, failures, rethinking, redesigning and so on. We’ll have to problem-solve, talk to people, listen to their answers, manage our time – and lots more.’

Oh my God, Eddie was right. This was brilliant. He’ll be acquiring new skills without even being aware of it.

He turned to me. ‘He’d have to continue with his usual academic subjects, of course, but he’ll soon see the value of those subjects once he’s putting them to practical use. What do you think?’

Leon stood up and shook his hand. ‘An excellent plan.’

I smiled. ‘Brilliant, professor. I really think it will work.’

‘This is a great relief,’ said Dr Bairstow. ‘I do not wish to alarm anyone, but Mrs Partridge advises me she has spent some considerable time in a heated argument with the council this morning. It would seem they were expressing grave concern over a request, originating from this unit, to hire a small aircraft for the purpose of skywriting. Followed by a similar conversation with the CAA and then another with the local airport authority. I should say that at the time she appeared to be quite considerably incensed and I would not recommend anyone approaching her today for anything less than a major emergency.’ He turned to me. ‘I was wondering, Dr Maxwell, if you could shed any light on this mystery?’

He was wasting his time. I had my innocent expression and blanket denial all ready. ‘Skywriting, sir? How strange. Nothing to do with me.’

8

So there we were – problems sorted. Life resumed. The occasional shouting match in the History Department. The occasional explosion from R&D. Everything normal.

Matthew settled well. With the proviso that if he and Eddie were anywhere near the lake then he was to wear a life jacket, or if they were anywhere near machinery then he was to wear a hard hat, I left them to get on with it. Matthew would race off after a bolted breakfast. I’d catch an occasional glimpse of him through the open classroom door, writing at a table or staring at something on the whiteboard, and in the afternoons, I’d see him trotting around the building – wearing a Roundhead helmet because he’d taken a shine to it and wouldn’t take it off – and clutching a clipboard while he and Eddie interviewed people. His vocabulary improved. He looked busy and happy. And incredibly dirty. I would send him out in the morning, neat and clean, and you wouldn’t believe the state of him when he came back in the evening.

Eddie would wink whenever he saw me and gradually, I settled down as well. Tension I hadn’t known I’d been carrying slowly dropped away. The weather improved. Everything got better.

I spent most of my time pulling together material for the Crete assignment, putting in long hours in the Library, assisted by Dr Dowson, which had the added bonus of taking his mind off whatever was noisily going on in R&D above his head.

Speaking of R&D . . . Professor Rapson collared me one morning as I was walking past.

‘Max, I’ve been giving some thought to protective headgear.’

I was polite because I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about. The accepted procedure is to acquire information without, in any way, admitting ignorance. ‘Sounds interesting. Tell me more, professor?’

‘Crete, Max,’ he said, patiently. ‘Volcanic eruptions, rocks raining down on unprotected heads. All that sort of thing.’

‘Oh. Yes. Well, I appreciate the thought, professor, but the plan is to evacuate long before things get really dodgy.’

‘Yes, I’m sure, but it strikes me that by donning suitable headgear, we could extend our operating time by ten or fifteen minutes, and you know as well as I that fifteen minutes can make all the difference when salvaging valuable items in exciting circumstances.’

I stopped. On one hand, he had a point. On the other hand, this was Professor Rapson and we could end up encased in full armour. On the other hand – yes, I know, but only pedants are counting – it would keep him out of mischief for a day or two.

‘Excellent idea, professor. Go for it. See what you can come up with.’

He beamed. ‘I know we could all just don hard hats at the appropriate moment, but I was wondering if I couldn’t come up with something fairly contemporary-looking.’

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘The design is not a problem and I have one or two ideas regarding specially strengthened leather, but I’m having a problem testing it. It’s too dangerous to use a real person. Even Mr Bashford is reluctant to have rocks hurled at him. So we’ve had a brilliant idea. Instead of firing the rocks at the subject, we simulate the impact by firing the victim instead – I mean, the subject – and measure the impact on both.’

I didn’t like the sound of this. ‘I’m really not sure how that would help.’

‘Well, not the actual victim – I mean, the subject – obviously. We simulate the victim.’

‘How?’

‘Chickens.’

A terrible fear gripped me.

‘Not . . . ?’

‘No, of course not Angus.’

‘Not . . . ?’

‘No, of course not. No live chickens at all, Max. All safely dead.’

‘You won’t be . . . ?’

‘No, of course not. They’ll be dead when we get them. Trust me, Max, no chickens will be harmed during the course of these simulations.’

I had another nasty thought. One that involved local chicken farmers. ‘From where are you getting these chickens?’

‘Mrs Mack, of course. I’ve placed an order for two dozen. I do assure you, Max, everything is legal and above board.’

I dismissed images of him leading a team of camouflage-clad R&D personnel on midnight chicken raids. ‘So how exactly is this going to work, then?’

‘Oh, this is so exciting, Max. We’ve built a rapid chicken-firing gun.’

Oh God. ‘A . . . ?’

‘A rapid chicken-firing gun. To fire the chickens in quick succession. Firing rocks is a little irresponsible, I think everyone will agree, and so – and this is the brilliant part, Max – we’re giving the rocks a miss completely and doing it the other way around. We’ll fire the chickens instead. And, when we’ve finished our simulations, we’ll also have a useful rocket gun.’

My head was beginning to spin. ‘Professor, to what use could we possibly put a rocket gun?’

‘Guy Fawkes. To launch our fireworks on Bonfire Night.’

I’d worry about that nearer November. Time to pin him down re more imminent events.

‘So you’ll be firing chickens – already dead chickens?’

‘Yes.’

‘And where does the leather come in?’

‘We encase the chickens in my special leather and fire them.’

‘The chickens?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘With my rapid chicken-firing gun, of course.’

‘No,’ I said, gritting my teeth. ‘How will you encase the chickens.’

‘Oh, that’s easy. We’re going to pop them into little leather bags.’

‘Leather bags?’

‘Yes, Mrs Enderby is kindly knocking some up for us as we speak.’

‘At what, exactly?’

‘What?’

I began to lose the will to live. ‘At what will you be firing leather-encased chickens?’

‘A large area of blank wall. We will have leather-protected flesh impacting simulated rocks. Same thing as on Crete, but there it will be real rocks impacting leather-protected flesh. The other way around. Do you see? Quite brilliant, I thought. I have very high hopes the leather will survive the onslaught. And if it does, then we can adapt it into the appropriate headgear for historians on Crete.’

I needed to get this absolutely clear. ‘But no humans are involved?’

‘No.’

‘At all.’

‘Only in an observer’s capacity. This afternoon. I hope you’ll be there, Max.’

Just for once, the god of historians was on my side. ‘I’m so sorry, professor, I have a meeting with Dr Dowson in the Library. But do please send me a copy of your report.’

‘Of course.’

‘So where is all this taking place?’ I said, looking round his cluttered kingdom. I had fears for the windows. And the walls. And the ceiling . . .

‘Oh, outside, obviously.’

‘Where?’

‘I thought on the South Lawn.’

I shook my head. ‘Too public, professor. I don’t want the world watching us shooting chickens around the landscape. Not after that business with the sheep’s heads last year.’

‘Good point, Max. We’ll do it down by the lake.’

‘Away from the lake, please, professor. I don’t want you alarming or endangering our swans who will, in revenge, alarm and endanger us.’

‘Another good point, Max.’

‘And if you’re anywhere near the building, then put up some screens to protect the windows.’

He beamed again. ‘Already ahead of you on that one; we’ve borrowed a couple of screens from the local cricket club.’

I took a moment to think. Had I missed anything? Venue, personnel, safety precautions, swans, Angus. No, I couldn’t think of anything else. ‘Well, all right then, professor. Good luck.’

‘Thank you, Max. It’s going to be great.’

An hour later, I was in the Library with Dr Dowson.

We’d had to switch on the lights because the professor had been as good as his word and the borrowed cricket screens were not only making a good job of protecting the windows but also obscuring the light.

Dr Dowson and I were discussing all things Crete. I was head down, concentrating hard as we went through all the material and making copious notes on my scratchpad.

My first thought was that a bomb had gone off.

The window to my left shattered into a million fragments and a second later, a massive impact to the opposite wall brought down two rather nice engravings of the Bodleian, took out the entire Egyptian Middle Kingdom section and gouged a six-inch crater in the wall. Giant spider cracks radiated outwards. Huge pieces of plaster dropped to the floor.

Before I could take it all in, it happened again. Only it was the Renaissance Costume in Northern Europe section that suffered this time. Books exploded off the shelves and fluttered to the floor. One of the bookcases sagged badly, bringing its neighbours down with it.

And then, faster than it takes to describe, it happened again. Another massive impact in the wall – taking out one of the light fittings this time. The room grew suddenly darker.

We were under some sort of military bombardment. The Time Police were here. It was the only explanation.

I rolled under the table, colliding with Dr Dowson who, having better reactions than me, was already there. The air was full of plaster dust and slowly drifting pieces of paper.

Where was Matthew?

I wriggled around. He and Professor Penrose were crouched behind two armchairs at the far end of the room by the fireplace. Well out of the bombardment area.

The alarms went off. I could hear people shouting, inside and out.

Another missile whizzed through the gap where the windows used to be, whistled across the room, through the open door and into the Great Hall beyond. There was the sound of an enormous crash, shattering crockery and a great deal of screaming.

In the distance, I could hear Mrs Mack arming the kitchen staff. I wasn’t going quietly either. I looked for something with which to defend myself and struggled out from under the table.

Outside I could hear people shrieking, ‘Shut it down. Shut it down. For God’s sake, shut it down.’

Behind me, coughing and waving his arms, came Dr Dowson.

I felt so sorry for him. He was staring around at what had once been his beloved Library. The entire far wall was badly damaged. Shelves had been demolished or hung sadly from their fixings. The books were everywhere. Anything made of glass was in a million pieces all over the floor. Just for the purposes of comparison, I was there when the Christians set fire to the Library at Alexandria and I swear it wasn’t anything like as bad as this.

The bombardment appeared to have ceased, so I set off for the Great Hall. The missile had brought down a couple of trestle tables and scattered files to the four corners of the room but fortunately failed to injure anyone.

‘What the hell?’ shouted Sykes, who appeared to have been taking shelter behind David Sands.

He grinned at me. ‘I’ve missed this, Max. This sort of thing hardly ever happens to me outside St Mary’s.’

‘Anyone hurt?’ I said.

Everyone looked down at themselves, then at each other, then round the room. ‘No. No one.’

Mrs Mack stood in the kitchen doorway, battle ladle tucked in her tabard and clutching a rapid-fire crossbow I was pretty sure Markham didn’t know she had. ‘Are we under attack?’

I shook my head. ‘Unknown.’

She nodded to me. ‘I’ve got this, Max. You check outside.’

I ran back into the Library.

Dr Dowson was bending over something on the floor. He straightened up, clutching . . . clutching a drumstick.

He tapped it gently on a table, gazed at it, bemused, and then, suddenly, enlightenment dawned. Uttering a shriek of rage, he rummaged furiously in the remains of a cupboard, pulled out a portable megaphone – why would anyone have a megaphone in a library? How loudly do you need to shout ‘shush’? – and switched it on, ignoring the ear-bleeding screech of feedback. Kicking his way out through the remains of the windows like a professional, he emerged outside. I followed him. Things weren’t much better out here. Fragments of what I took to be the professor’s reinforced leather lay everywhere and the cricket screens were just a mixture of memory and matchwood.

I was looking around to see if anyone was hurt when Dr Bairstow’s voice in my ear requested the pleasure of my company at my earliest convenience. Just for once, however, he wasn’t my immediate priority.

Professor Rapson and his team were standing by the now inactive rapid chicken-firing gun, staring around, apparently stunned. Here at St Mary’s, the collective noun for R&D is a bickering. They were bickering now.

‘Not my fault.’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. How should I know?’

‘I don’t understand what went wrong.’

And all the other well-known R&D phrases and sayings. No one appeared to be hurt out here, either. Although not for much longer because Dr Dowson was a man on a mission.

Sands and Atherton had followed me outside. As Dr Dowson set off, seeking what he might devour, Sands had the presence of mind to grab one arm, Atherton the other. They stood no chance. Dr Dowson was off. Towing two historians as if they were paper streamers, he confronted the professor, still standing, bemused, like Dido among the ruins of Carthage.

From a distance of considerably less than eight feet away, he raised the megaphone. His words reverberated around three counties and caused the professor to stagger backwards in shock.

‘ANDREW, YOU OLD FOOL. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DEFROST THE BLOODY CHICKENS FIRST.’

In my ear, Dr Bairstow said, ‘Ah. Mystery solved. As you were, Dr Maxwell.’

9

It took some time to put that little mishap behind us. The cricket club were, not unnaturally, slightly displeased and I believe sizeable sums of money had to change hands.

Placating a thoroughly distressed Dr Dowson took considerably longer, but after visits by what seemed like every glazier, joiner and plasterer in the county and beyond, the dust, literally, settled. He requested – and was granted – a considerable increase in that year’s book budget and cheered up immediately. I do sometimes wonder if, unknown to the rest of us, he and the professor aren’t working quietly together to achieve their own ends. God help us all if they are. Work on the reinforced leather helmets was discontinued by order of Dr Bairstow and everyone’s life expectancy increased accordingly.

About a week later I was leaning on the banisters looking down into the Great Hall, watching the History Department playing nicely with itself, when I became aware of Peterson standing next to me.

I said, ‘Good afternoon,’ and waited for his breezy, ‘What ho.’

It never came. He said nothing – nothing at all – but put his hand on my forearm. Not a casual gesture. His hand closed around my wrist. My spidey-senses tingled.

‘What’s going on?’

He didn’t look at me. To all intents and purposes, we were just two senior officers indulging in the traditional senior officer pastime of watching the lesser ranks do all the work.

‘Max – don’t move. Don’t say a word. Stay still and listen. We have a problem.’

Something in his voice kept me still and listening.

Markham appeared on my other side. He too stood very close, resting his forearms casually on the banisters, staring down into the Great Hall, and spoke without looking at me. ‘Max – you need to stay calm.’

Apprehension seized me. I said again, ‘What’s going on?’

Peterson tightened his grip on my forearm. ‘The Time Police are here.’

I wheeled on Markham. ‘Why aren’t you shooting them? Dr Bairstow gave instructions . . . I was there . . .’

‘They’re here officially. They have all the correct paperwork. And they’ve sent Ellis so they obviously don’t want trouble.’

I went cold all over. I thought everything had been going too well. Of course the Time Police were never going to let Matthew go that easily. They’d given everything time to settle down, for us to drop our guard, and then hit us with this surprise attack.

I tried to pull my arm away but Peterson wasn’t letting go. I said fiercely, ‘Let me go. I have to find Matthew.’

‘He’s in R&D,’ said Markham quietly. ‘With Lingoss on one side of him and Evans on the other. Professor Penrose is there as well. He’s being kept busy and doesn’t even know the Time Police are here.’

I was slightly reassured. Lingoss is one of the most resourceful people I know. Anyone who dyes her hair blue to make a point to her teacher isn’t going to be easily thrown off her stride. And Evans is built like a tank. Matthew was probably safer with them than with me. Although that didn’t mean I shouldn’t get myself into R&D as quickly as possible.

‘I should go to him,’ I said.

Not looking at me, Markham said, ‘It’s not Matthew they want.’

What? I stopped to think. Why wouldn’t they want Matthew? And then I had it. It was me who had defied the Time Police. It was me they wanted.

‘It’s me, isn’t it? They want me?’

‘No – not you.’

I was baffled. ‘So – who then?’

The pressure on my arm increased. ‘It’s Leon. They’ve come for Leon.’

For a moment I couldn’t take it in. Leon? Why would they want Leon? Of all of us – why on earth would they want Leon? Yes, it had been Leon who removed Matthew, but in that case, why not Dr Bairstow, who actually gave the order, as well?

I tried to twist my arm free. ‘What’s going on? Let me go.’

‘Hush, Max,’ said Peterson. ‘Say nothing. Don’t make things any worse.’

I was still pulling angrily at my arm but he wasn’t letting go. ‘How could they be any worse?’

Markham shook his head. ‘Don’t know yet. Stay here, now.’

Dr Bairstow emerged from his office, paused on the gallery and stared around for a moment. His gaze passed over me with no change of expression but he knew I was there. Standing alongside him was Captain Ellis of the Time Police. I’d last seen him when he dumped Dr Bairstow and me back at St Mary’s while Leon quietly stole Matthew out from under their noses. It would be fair to say there had been some bad feeling between us.

I was all set to pick up where Ellis and I had left off when Markham said quietly, ‘Stand still, Max. Don’t give the bastards any cause,’ and went to join them. They spoke for a moment and then the three of them passed us in silence. In equal silence we watched them make their way downstairs into the Hall.

Peterson was still pinning my arm to the banister. ‘Say nothing, Max. Just watch.’

I was quietly frantic. ‘Watch what?’

‘I don’t know. Listen. They’re coming now.’

Work had ground to a halt in the Hall. Well, it doesn’t take much. In the silence we could hear marching feet drawing closer. Heads lifted. People looked around, trying to identify the source of the sound, not knowing what was going on. Just like me. I had no idea what was going on, either.

The marching footsteps were almost upon us.

Four men – no, five men – appeared. Four Time Police officers and Leon. He was handcuffed with one officer on each side of him, their hands on his shoulders, with another two bringing up the rear, weapons drawn. I couldn’t believe it.

They halted in the middle of the Hall. More silence fell. The moment dragged on and on.

I remember that Leon never looked at me once. Not once. I wasn’t sure he even knew I was there. All his attention was on Dr Bairstow who stood silently nearby. No one moved. Even the kitchen noises had ceased. Staff from Wardrobe and R&D stood in their doorways, silently watching. Everyone was watching and waiting.

Captain Ellis moved to stand in front of Leon and cleared his throat. Whatever it was – this was serious. Ellis’s voice echoed around the Hall.

‘Leon Farrell. You are charged with gross misconduct while holding the office of Chief Technical Officer within the organisation known as the Institute of Historical Research at St Mary’s Priory, in that, further to the murder of Monique de Maupassant, and contrary to specific legislation prohibiting the same, that with intent to escape the consequences of a crime – namely the murder of Monique de Maupassant – you concealed yourself in a time other than your own.’

His words dropped into a dark hole of incomprehension. Everyone was staring at Leon, who was whiter than I’d ever seen him. He kept his eyes on Dr Bairstow.

Both Markham and Peterson had counselled me to say nothing but I couldn’t have spoken anyway. My mouth was dry. My heart was hurting me. I can’t remember if I was breathing. It was as if the ground had opened beneath my feet. The bedrock of my life had crumbled away and I was tumbling into the dark. Leon was not a murderer. He couldn’t be.

I knew he’d been married before. To Monique de Maupassant. And she’d left him. Abruptly and without warning. He’d come home from work one day to find her gone. He never spoke of it. They’d had two children – both boys, Alex and Stevie – and both had died tragically in an epidemic a long time ago in the future. Leon had told me this just after I first came to St Mary’s. What had he said? I wracked my brains for the words he had used.

He’d admitted he’d gone looking for her – something that probably, in the white-hot grief of losing his sons, hadn’t been a good idea. He’d told me he’d nearly torn France apart in his search for Monique but fortunately never found her. He’d said that given the combination of alcohol and the boiling rage inside him, that had been just as well. Other than that, he never talked about it and I’d never asked any questions. Never probed any further. I’d taken everything he said as the truth. And now they were telling me that Monique had been murdered and that Leon had done it and then hidden in this time to escape the consequences. That he was a criminal. A murderer.

Suddenly, a whole lot of things looked different. Leon and Dr Bairstow are from the future. Leon had joined St Mary’s after the death of his family. He’d volunteered to jump back in time to help found St Mary’s. He’d admitted he had nothing left to live for in his own time. That this was a new start for him. A new life. A chance to begin again. The thought shouldered itself to the front of my brain. Had it also been an ideal hiding place?

Leon has a temper. He has it under control these days, but when he was younger . . . his emotions raw from the loss of his sons – who turned out not to be his sons because, not to put too fine a point on it, our Monique had been a bit of a tramp – and the death of his adored mother . . . and he’d been drinking . . . massively . . . He admitted he’d gone looking for Monique. He’d told me he never found her. But suppose . . . just suppose . . . he had . . .

And then I shook my head. That was rubbish. Utter rubbish. This was Leon. Damaged? Yes, a little bit. Hot-tempered? Yes, a little bit. A murderer? No. Never. Not in a million years. I was ashamed of myself for even thinking it.

Down in the Hall, a shocked silence had fallen. People were looking at each other. I don’t think anyone knew what to do and then Dr Bairstow said, ‘Your warrant, Captain, if you please.’

Ellis had obviously expected this because he’d brought a file with him. He held it out to Dr Bairstow, who stared at it for a moment and then indicated he should pass it to Markham.

Every eye in the place was on him but he took the file, walked a few paces apart, propped his bum against a table, opened it up and began to read. He took his time. He wouldn’t be rushed. He started at the beginning and he read every page. Occasionally he flicked back to refer to something on previous pages. It took him a while. It was a fat file and he was thorough. There were photographs and reports and diagrams, all of which, one by one, he carefully scanned. He made everyone wait, reading the whole thing from beginning to end, before closing it up and nodding to Dr Bairstow.

‘Everything appears to be in order, sir.’

‘Thank you, Mr Markham. Very well, Captain. Carry on.’ Dr Bairstow stepped back.

I couldn’t believe it. He was letting them take Leon away. Why would he do that? And so was Markham. This was Leon. What was the matter with these people?

I tried to gather myself to get away from Peterson but he had hold of my wrist, pinning it to the banisters, and he wasn’t letting go. A weak arm he might have, but he wasn’t having any difficulty holding me in place. I wriggled and tried to pull away again.

‘Quiet,’ he said, his mouth to my ear.

Down in the Hall they were marching Leon towards the front doors. He still hadn’t looked up at me. They were taking him away. They’d take him back to TPHQ and they’d execute him because the penalty for hiding in time is death. Obviously, they’d have to wait until he was found guilty of Monique’s murder although they didn’t seem to be in any doubt about that. I wondered what was in that file. The evidence must be overwhelming for Dr Bairstow and Markham to let them take Leon away without a fight. I didn’t know whether murder was still a capital crime in the future, but that wasn’t important. Under Time Police jurisdiction, hiding in time to escape the consequences of an illegal act certainly was.

Leon was nearly at the doors. I tried to dig Peterson’s fingers off my wrist. I wasn’t gentle. It would have hurt him.

‘Wait,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s see what happens.’

I turned on him, silently conveying scorching rage, impatience, panic, fear and any other emotion you care to name. He ignored all of it, whispering in my ear, ‘I want to see what happens to that file Captain Ellis appears to have so carefully forgotten all about.’

I went rigid. He had, hadn’t he. Markham had casually laid it down on the table and was watching Ellis issue instructions to his men. It lay now, one file among many, next to Markham, who’d folded his arms and wasn’t even looking at it. No one appeared to be taking any notice of it at all, even though to me it was glowing like a beacon on a dark night. How could anyone not notice that big black folder? I looked away quickly before anyone saw me staring at it.

The Time Police were at the doors to the vestibule. In a moment Leon would be gone. Possibly forever and no one was doing anything.

I looked back. Markham hadn’t moved but the file had disappeared. No one’s ever worked out how he does that.

‘Now,’ said Peterson, finally releasing me – we had a long talk about the bruises afterwards – ‘make it look good.’

I didn’t have to try. ‘No! Leon! You can’t do this. Wait!’

Not one of them looked back. Not even Leon. Ellis held open the doors. They marched him through. Ellis let the door close and Leon was gone.

Back in the Hall, complete silence reigned. No one even moved. No one looked at anyone else. We stood like statues. As if we were all under a spell. Then Markham nodded to Cox and Gallacio, two members of the Security Section, who silently followed the Time Police and their prisoner out of the door. To check they were safely off the premises, I suspected.

I raced down the stairs, still shouting, and Markham fielded me neatly as I went past. He’s much stronger than he looks. I went from flat out to dead stop in a second. I swear I actually felt my spleen bounce.

Dr Bairstow held up his hand. No one moved. Including me. My mind was in turmoil. What was going on? In less than fifteen minutes the Time Police had breezed in, arrested Leon and taken him away to an uncertain future. And we’d done nothing. Nothing at all.

The doors opened again and Cox entered, located Markham and said, ‘Just the one pod, sir, and they’ve gone.’

Dr Bairstow began to limp towards the stairs. ‘Mr Markham, Dr Peterson, Dr Maxwell, my office, please.’

Markham had reacquired the file. I honestly didn’t see where he got it from. One minute the only thing he was clutching was me and the next minute it was safely tucked under his arm.

Once in his office, Dr Bairstow wasted no time. ‘Well, Mr Markham?’

Markham had already seated himself at Dr Bairstow’s briefing table, and was slowly working his way through the file again, laying the sheets out neatly across the table.

‘If I could have a moment, please, sir.’ And again, he took his time, scanning every piece of paper and laying them on the table in front of him. Every image, every report, every photograph.

We waited in silence.

Eventually, he looked up. ‘It’s genuine and it’s legitimate, sir. As I thought, we have no grounds to challenge the arrest. The Time Police have acted within the limits of their authority.’

Dr Bairstow nodded. ‘I never doubted it. They would take extra care over a matter this sensitive. To be successfully challenged by St Mary’s would do their authority no good at all.’

Markham was reassembling the file. ‘Sir, according to their paperwork, it is not the murder of Monique de Maupassant for which Leon has been arrested. The charge is that of attempting to escape justice by concealing himself in time. Always a big no-no, as they frequently tell us.’

‘Wait,’ said Peterson. ‘Are you saying that the murder is . . . unimportant?’

Still tidying the file, Markham nodded. ‘From their point of view – yes.’

I was trying to lash my brain into some sort of activity again. ‘So,’ I said slowly, ‘if he’s found innocent of the murder, then they can’t hold him. He hasn’t broken Time Police law.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. If he’s innocent of murder then he’s innocent of hiding himself in time to avoid the consequences of that murder. Unless the Time Police move the goalposts, of course. You’re never really sure with those buggers, are you?’ he finished vaguely, his attention still on the documents in front of him.

‘Who is investigating the murder?’ enquired Dr Bairstow. ‘Surely not the Time Police themselves?’

‘The local police force, sir. It’s all here. Hello – what’s this?’

He was examining a pocket on the inside of the back cover and pulled out some kind of a data stick which he regarded thoughtfully. ‘I wonder what’s on you.’

‘That’s not a standard TP data stick,’ I said.

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘But I bet it’s compatible with our system.’

‘Play it,’ I said. ‘Let’s have a look.’

Markham looked at me pityingly and then opened his com. ‘Polly? Yes, can you bring me up an air-gapped laptop, please? Yes, a standalone with all your best firewalls. Yes. Quick as you can, please. Dr Bairstow’s office.’

We waited in silence. Minutes ticked by. Markham stared back at the file. I wondered what the Time Police would be doing to Leon. They had no cause to love him.

Eventually, the door opened and Polly Perkins – plump, bespectacled and Head of IT – entered, carrying an old laptop.

‘Will this do you, sir? There’s only a basic operating system on it so it can’t do any harm.’ She flipped open the lid as she spoke and fired it up. The screen showed only the St Mary’s logo.

Dr Bairstow came around his desk. ‘Thank you, Miss Perkins.’

She nodded, stifled what must have been massive curiosity, and left.

Markham held up the data stick. ‘Are you certain, sir?’

‘I think so, Mr Markham. It’s always better to know, don’t you think?’

‘And if it shows Leon Farrell murdering Monique de Maupassant?’

‘Then we will have to revise our plans accordingly,’ he said, calmly. ‘Whenever you’re ready, please.’

Markham shoved the stick into a port.

I thrust my hands into my pockets so no one could see them shaking and clenched my fists, feeling my nails digging into my palms.

The quality wasn’t good. Either the original had been poor or this had been copied so many times that the quality had become degraded, but, poor or not, it was clear enough for our purposes. Too bloody clear.

The picture showed an entrance foyer. A very nice entrance foyer. A smart wooden counter stood off to the left with the latest in data tables built in. The wall behind was filled with pigeonholes for deliveries and messages. To the right of the foyer, glass security doors opened into another small hall containing a lift and a flight of stairs curving out of sight.

The legend at the bottom of the screen read: 17 rue St Jean, caméra 001, together with the date and time.

Markham was flicking through the file again. ‘This is the entrance to her apartment block. Manned twenty-four hours a day. Security doors. If you’re a resident, you can use your personal code; if you’re an authorised visitor, then the concierge lets you in. According to the log, this is . . .’ he paused, rummaging, ‘. . . the last person to visit de Maupassant. Actually, the last person to visit anyone that day. This takes place at . . . just after half past eleven at night. 23:34, to be precise. The concierge who let him in said in her statement that she thought it was an odd time for someone to call, but Monique said to let him in and so she did. And here he comes now.’

On the screen, a familiar figure pushed his way through the outer doors and spoke to someone out of camera. The unseen concierge must be telephoning to Monique for her permission to admit him. The man waited quietly, his hands pushed into his coat pockets. He stood with his back to the camera, and his stocky build was emphasised by the padded coat he was wearing.

‘It was a cold night,’ said Markham, apparently reading my thoughts.

‘It could still be anyone,’ I said, hopefully dismissive. ‘We can’t see his face.’

As if he could hear me, the figure nodded his thanks at the concierge, turned and headed towards the lift. As he walked away, he turned his head full on to the camera. I felt all the blood drain from my face. We all saw it. Clear as day. There could be no doubt. It was Leon. There in Monique’s apartment block. On the night of her murder.

Leon had lied to me.

10

You hear it all the time. People say, ‘Oh, so and so would never lie to me. We trust each other implicitly.’

You know it’s not true, of course. People lie all the time. Deliberately or inadvertently, people lie. But I’d thought Leon and I were different. No matter how difficult the truth was to speak – we spoke it. We never lied to each other. But I’d been wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I turned away so no one could see my face. I don’t know how I must have looked. Not good, I suspect. I dropped into a chair to try and gather my thoughts. Tactfully, the three of them moved away to give me a little space, which I appreciated. I sat and stared at nothing. To compensate for my brain being full of everything. Fragmented thoughts. Pictures and pieces of pictures. In one single moment my world had shattered. Everything I knew or thought I knew . . . just gone. I’d built my house on shifting sands and those sands had well and truly shifted.

Dr Bairstow limped to the window and frowned at the outside world. His face showed no emotion. I wondered what he was thinking. He’d known Leon a long time. It was he who had picked Leon up out of the gutter and recruited him to St Mary’s. What was he thinking now? Did he feel as I did?

After a minute or so, and still staring out of the window, he said, ‘Mr Markham. I wish you to carry out your own investigation into this matter. You have a completely free hand. You may select your own team.’

‘My resources, sir?’

He turned from the window. ‘Take whatever you need. Do whatever you think necessary. Assume whatever authority you need. You will have my full support.’

Markham nodded slowly. ‘I understand, sir.’

‘Then see to it, please, Mr Markham.’

Markham got to his feet, picked up the file and tucked it under one arm. I don’t know how – he didn’t do anything, but suddenly, he was different. He seemed taller. There was an air of authority about him. And at what point had the Bristol accent disappeared?

‘With your permission then, Dr Bairstow . . .’ He turned to me. ‘Max – are you up for this? Can I rely on you?’

About to say, indignantly, of course he could, I hesitated. Markham was taking a risk by including me. My presence could throw into doubt any evidence we might uncover pointing to Leon’s innocence. You see it all the time in police shows on TV. The hero’s wife is killed and he insists on joining the investigation. Everyone somehow glosses over the fact that anything he discovers can be successfully challenged in court. Naturally, he tracks down the perpetrator all by himself and then beats him to a pulp in an alleyway to ensure a confession. Which is unhesitatingly accepted by all. Just to add a sense of realism to the series, the dead wife, of whom we were unaware before this episode, is never mentioned again.

Markham was taking me along as a courtesy. The least I could do was respond in kind.

I nodded. ‘I understand what you are saying. Yes. You may rely on me.’

‘And me,’ said Peterson.

Markham nodded. ‘In that case, I want both of you, formally dressed in civilian clothes, in Hawking Hangar in twenty minutes. Dr Bairstow, if you could speak to Dr Dowson on my behalf, please. One Time Police-style ID badge for each of us. It needn’t be elaborate. Or even accurate. Just something to flash in front of people.’

‘Weapons?’ asked Peterson.

‘No. They won’t help in this case. Bring scratchpads – or if you prefer, a notebook and pen. I shall want to see both of you ostentatiously taking notes. Your demeanour will be quiet and efficient. Speak if spoken to, but please initiate no conversation. Make no comment unless called for. Our role will be that of auditors, checking up on Time Police procedures. Impersonating a police officer is an offence but, I suspect, impersonating an auditor – less so. Whatever happens – take your cues from me. If you’ll excuse us now, sir . . .’

Dr Bairstow nodded and somehow, we were on the other side of the door.

Twenty minutes later we were in Hawking, outside Number Eight. I was wearing a black trouser suit, one of Leon’s white shirts and a smart black and white scarf borrowed from Kal, who’d clapped me on the shoulder, told me to trust Markham and to behave myself. Which was about as sympathetic as she ever got. I’d shoved my hair in a slightly neater bun than usual and rammed it through with hairpins because I didn’t share Markham’s optimism re weapons. I also wore my specs. The ones that not only make me look both intelligent and sexy, but enable me to see, as well.

Tim wore his only suit and a white shirt.

‘Tie?’ said Markham.

‘In my pocket,’ he said. ‘Ready to be worn at a moment’s notice or serve as a garrotte. Whichever seems most appropriate at the time.’

Markham wore a dark suit I’d never seen before. We looked like a bunch of smartly dressed penguins.

‘Everyone got everything?’ he said, hanging his newly minted ID around his neck.

We nodded. I examined my own ID. Underneath the Time Police logo, I was 8046305 Maxwell L, Assistant Investigator in the Monitoring and Oversight Section, part of the Administrative Department, itself a part of the Time Police. It was a large badge. It had to be to get all that lot on. I’ve never had such an impressive job title. There was even an image of me looking less scatterbrained than usual. Dr Dowson’s usual good work.

Markham drew me to one side. ‘Max, I’m taking you because you’ve worked for the Time Police and you’re familiar with that environment. Can I trust you to keep a lid on your feelings for this one?’

‘Yes.’

‘You will take your instructions from me.’

‘I will.’

‘And if I tell you to return to the pod? With no questions asked?’

Opening my mouth to say ‘of course’, I had second thoughts, hesitated and then, very reluctantly, said, ‘Yes.’

‘Good. If you hadn’t hesitated then I wouldn’t have taken you. All right, people, let’s get going.’

We filed into the pod. Peterson sat at the console. Markham sat beside him and opened the Time Police file.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got, shall we?’ he said. ‘Yes, here we are. Dates, times and location. Everything we could possibly need. How extraordinarily helpful of the Time Police.’

‘It is, isn’t it,’ said Peterson. ‘Not like them at all.’ He looked over at me. ‘I suspect our Captain Ellis might be trying to make amends. He’ll be in trouble if they find out.’

I had nothing to say to that. Ellis and I had not parted as friends.

‘All right,’ said Markham. ‘Listen up, both of you.’

His voice was quiet, clipped and accentless. If I wasn’t looking at him, I don’t think I would have known it was him.

I wondered if this was the real Markham. Not the clown. Or the one-time bad boy. He was a chameleon, adapting himself to whatever the situation demanded. He was a survivor. I remembered Major Guthrie once telling me he’d spoken with a Geordie accent in the army. Had we ever seen the real Markham? Now there was a thought. And he possessed the gift of command. It struck me suddenly – might he, one day, be a future Dr Bairstow?

He was speaking. ‘I’ll say this once. This is my assignment. I’m in charge. I’m not sure what we’ll find when we get there or how we’ll deal with it, so be very clear on this. You take your instructions from me. I’ll get us in – I’ll get what we need – I’ll get us back out again. You do as I tell you at all times.’

‘Understood,’ I said and Peterson nodded.

‘In your own time then, please.’

Peterson was laying in the coordinates. ‘Computer, initiate jump.’

‘Jump initiated.’

And my already considerably shaken world went white.

11

We landed in the middle of what appeared to be some sort of building site. A tall, narrow, plastic- and scaffolding-encased structure stood to our left, abandoned for quite some time by the looks of it. A battered sign on the site office door informed visitors – in French, English and what looked like Russian – that they should sign in here. Another sign warned employees that no hat, no high-vis vest and no boots meant no job.

Peterson angled all the cameras until we were certain we were alone.

‘It’s Sunday,’ said Markham, consulting the file again. ‘No one is working.’

‘I don’t think anyone’s worked here for some time, anyway,’ said Peterson.

‘No,’ I said, slowly. ‘There’s been a major flu epidemic. A lot of people have died.’

I toyed with the idea of giving them more details about Leon’s first family but decided against it. I’d mention things if they came up, but otherwise, I’d keep quiet. I didn’t want to do anything to strengthen the case against Leon. Especially since he seemed to have done such a good job of that himself.

Peterson continued. ‘And there’s no materials, plant or machinery left on site which means very little security. In fact,’ he angled the camera again, ‘not only have they left the gate open for us, there is no gate.’

‘We should go before anything changes,’ said Markham. ‘Or they install a night watchman. Or something. Has everyone got everything?’

We nodded.

‘Then let’s go.’

We were meticulous in our decontamination, standing under the cold blue lamp and making sure to wipe our feet on the decon strip before leaving the pod. The last thing anyone needed was us starting another epidemic.

We exited the pod to a crisp autumn afternoon. The sun was going down and there was a chill in the air. It would be dark soon.

‘Do we know where we’re going?’ I said.

Markham nodded. ‘This way. About half a mile.’

The pavements were wet. Street lights made them glisten. The town was Sunday-afternoon quiet. Very few people were around and those that were about were sombrely dressed. Many wore black armbands – a sad reminder of the recent tragedy.

I could smell coffee somewhere. It always beats me how something that smells so good can taste so awful.

We were making our way through a residential area and the streets were a picturesque mixture of old and new. Older buildings, six storeys high with wrought-iron Juliet balconies, stood alongside modern concrete and glass units. There were plenty of street lights and most buildings had porch lights, too. Occasionally a snatch of music or conversation drifted through a doorway but mostly everything was very quiet. Twilight was falling – the temperature was dropping – it was a miserable day. Sensible people were inside. Even the café on the corner had its sign switched off and the blinds drawn.

We walked briskly, Markham slightly in the lead, Peterson and me behind him. Our steps sounded loud in the quiet streets.

‘Here we are,’ said Markham, abruptly turning right into a narrow, cobbled street. ‘Rue St Jean.’

There were no modern buildings in this tiny cul-de-sac. All the houses were tall and narrow, approached by a flight of five or six steep steps leading up from the street. Curly iron railings decorated each frontage. Lights showed in one or two windows and the whole effect was one of quiet respectability. It seemed hard to believe that anyone could ever be murdered here.

We halted at the bottom of the steps and looked up.

‘OK,’ said Markham. ‘Everyone take their cue from me.’

We climbed the steps, pushed open the immaculately painted front doors and entered the reception area.

I recognised it instantly from the recording. There was the long wooden counter, gleaming softly in the overhead lights. There were the pigeonholes for residents’ mail. There were the glass doors leading to the lift and stairs. Everything was quiet, well maintained, warm, welcoming.

The concierge, sitting behind the counter, rose to his feet as we entered, saying – in French, obviously – ‘Good evening, madame, messieurs. May I be of assistance?’

I saw a man of about fifty years old, with grey hair and a white moustache. He wore a crimson jacket and a crimson and gold tie with some sort of emblem. The building management company’s logo, presumably. His smart turnout made me wonder if he was ex-military.

‘Bonsoir,’ said Markham. I had forgotten he spoke excellent French. Better than mine or Peterson’s, anyway. ‘You are . . .’ he opened the file and rifled the pages, ‘. . . Monsieur Caron?’

He stiffened suspiciously. ‘I am, sir. And you?’

‘We are with the Time Police.’

He flourished his Dr Dowson-produced ID. Peterson and I did the same. The concierge did as everyone does – glanced at them briefly – and then back to Markham.

‘Is there a problem, m’sieur? I was given to understand the Time Police had finished their investigations.’

Markham smiled reassuringly. ‘We have, m’sieur. We are here this evening to confirm all our procedures were correctly adhered to.’ He smiled again. ‘Think of us as auditors.’

A clever ploy. Asking direct questions might arouse suspicions – after all, the civilian police and the Time Police must have gone over everything very thoroughly at the time of the investigation – but everyone is familiar with those irritating bastards who come sniffing around afterwards looking to stitch up some poor sod for a broken rule or bent regulation.

‘May we have your permission for my colleagues to take notes?’

Thus reminded, I pulled out my notepad and smiled at the concierge, who nodded. ‘You may.’

‘Thank you, m’sieur. Now, on their arrival, did the officers attending identify themselves? As we did?’ Clever Markham, strengthening the supposed link between us and the Time Police.

M Caron nodded.

I made a tick in my notebook.

‘Did they state the purpose of their investigation?’

He nodded again.

I made another tick in my notebook and Peterson nodded approvingly; whether at me or M Caron was unclear.

‘You gave a statement, I believe.’

‘I did, m’sieur,’ he said, feelingly. ‘I gave several.’

‘Were you given copies of these statements for you or your legal representatives to hold? Were you informed you could have a legal representative present whenever you so desired?’

He nodded. I made another tick. And then, feeling something more might be required, I underlined it.

‘Were you the only person interviewed by the Time Police?’

‘Oh, no, m’sieur. We all were. I was interviewed because I was on duty when the body was discovered. Mademoiselle Duval was the concierge on duty on the night of . . . of . . .’

‘We understand,’ said Markham. ‘There are five of you altogether, I believe, providing a twenty-four-hour service.’

M Caron nodded again.

‘Is Mademoiselle Duval here now?’ asked Markham.

He shook his head. ‘When the police – the civilian police, you understand – told her that she had been the one to let the murderer into the building, she was, naturally, most upset.’

Peterson made a sympathetic noise.

‘Mademoiselle de Maupassant was very much liked within the building. By everyone. This is such a tragedy.’

‘I understand,’ said Markham.

‘Mademoiselle Duval has not been into work since the night of . . . that night . . . but the police have interviewed her at her home, I believe.’

‘And as far as you know, again, all the correct procedures were adhered to throughout the investigation?’

M Caron nodded again. He was answering Markham’s questions much more readily now and having got him in the habit of responding, Markham veered off into the investigation itself.

‘So – just to clarify: Mademoiselle Odette Duval was on duty that night when, at approximately half past eleven, a man entered the building and requested admittance to the apartment of Mademoiselle de Maupassant.’

‘Yes. Odette rang through and Mademoiselle de Maupassant herself authorised her to let him in. This is a very respectable block, you understand. We have several single ladies here – and families, too. Security is very important. If Mademoiselle de Maupassant had not given permission, we would not have opened the inner doors and the man could not have gained access.’

‘There is no other entrance?’ asked Markham, who knew very well there was.

‘A back door, m’sieur, opening on to a small yard at the rear. There is, however, no access to the yard from the street. The gate is always locked.’

‘I understand completely,’ said Markham. ‘In fact, there is a note here from the investigating officer remarking on the effectiveness of the security procedures in this building.’

Another good move. Some of M Caron’s anxiety faded away. He smiled tentatively. Markham smiled back again.

‘So, the . . . intruder . . . gained access to her apartment in the normal manner?’

‘Yes, yes. Other than the lateness of the hour, there was no indication that anything was out of the ordinary.’

‘Had he been here before?’

‘Not that any of us could recall, m’sieur, and nothing was discovered from the security tapes. This appeared to have been his only visit.’

‘Hmm,’ said Markham, and I made another squiggly note in my pad. ‘And then?’

M Caron swallowed. ‘And then he went upstairs.’

‘Obviously you have discussed this among yourselves, Monsieur Caron, so perhaps you can tell me – I do not want to disturb Mademoiselle Duval any more than necessary, you understand – was the intruder showing signs of . . . anxiety? Or anger? Or strong emotion of any kind?’

‘No. Odette was very positive. He entered, apologised for the lateness of the hour and politely asked if Mademoiselle de Maupassant would see him. He said he had urgent personal news for her.’

My stomach clenched. That would be exactly right. Leon could easily have been bringing news of the boys’ illness. Had he come to plead with her to return with him to the hospital? Because, sometimes, he had told me, some sort of serum could be manufactured using the parent’s blood. Which was when Leon had discovered he was not their father. Or had he been here to tell her they were dead and to exact his revenge? I remembered Leon had said that after the boys’ deaths he had scoured France looking for her. He’d also said he never found her. He’d lied to me. I thrust that thought away.

‘I have a copy of the relevant page here,’ said Markham, indicating the file, ‘but may I see your book of visitors, please?’

Silently, M Caron pulled it out from under the counter, found the correct page and passed it over.

Another hope faded. There was Leon’s familiar signature.

I made a note in my pad. Why would he sign his own name? Was he required to show ID?

I cleared my throat.

‘Mademoiselle Maxwell has a question,’ said Markham.

‘Are visitors required to show their ID, m’sieur?’

‘Of course.’ He peered at the register. ‘Driving licence. See the initials here. He showed Mademoiselle Duval his driving licence.’

‘Excellent,’ said Markham, even though it wasn’t. ‘So, having passed your stringent security procedures, the man took the lift to the fifth floor where resides the abode of Mademoiselle de Maupassant?’

M Caron nodded again.

‘And no one heard or saw anything unusual until the body was discovered by the cleaners, one day later?’

‘Correct.’

Markham frowned and leafed through the file. ‘I do not seem able to find a copy of the tape showing the intruder leaving the building.’ He assumed a stern expression. ‘Did they forget to take it with them?’ The implication being that heads would roll for this.

‘There is an image, m’sieur, but his face is not clear. I believe, from what they said, that the tape has been sent off to a specialist laboratory to see if it can be cleaned up in some way and better images obtained.’

Markham nodded. ‘Ah. I see. All this seems quite satisfactory. Do you have any comments to make regarding the professional standards of the Time Police?’

I lifted my pen and waited hopefully.

He shook his head. ‘No. They were very polite throughout. And I believe they treated poor Odette with great compassion.’

Markham nodded. ‘I am very glad to hear it. And now, it remains only for us to see the apartment of Mademoiselle de Maupassant itself. Could you let us in, please, m’sieur?’

‘I cannot leave the desk,’ he said, so quickly that I wondered if he thought it was some sort of trap. To see if there were any circumstances under which the desk would be left unmanned and someone could have got in from the outside.

‘Perhaps then,’ suggested Markham, ‘you would entrust us with your pass key for a few minutes. If it amuses you, I could leave one of my colleagues here as a deposit.’

M Caron chose to regard that as M Markham’s little joke. M Markham’s colleagues were less amused.

The lift was smooth and silent. We regarded our reflections in the mirror without speaking. Peterson tried to smooth his hair.

The corridor ahead of us was heavily carpeted and very quiet. Not a sound drifted in from outside. Two doors opened off, one on the left and one on the right. Monique’s was the door on the left.

The flat was still sealed with black and yellow police tape. A large sign fixed neatly to the door read – SCÈNE DE CRIME. NE PAS TRAVERSER.

Markham gently peeled the tape away and we traversed.

‘Right,’ said Markham, handing them out. ‘Gloves on, everyone. If you touch something, be certain you put it back exactly as it was. Peterson and I will search the flat. I’ll go right – you go left.’ Peterson nodded. ‘Max, I just want you to have a general look around.’

‘What am I looking for?’

‘No idea. Anything that strikes you as not quite right. Hurry now. I don’t want our good friend M Caron becoming suspicious.’

It was a very nice flat. Plenty big enough for one which made me wonder if there had often been more than one person here. Given her history as described by Leon, that was perfectly possible. Although, now, treacherously, I couldn’t help wondering how much of what Leon had told me was actually true.

The front door opened into a tiny hall, with a built-in cupboard for coats and shoes.

Ahead of us, an ornate archway led into a bright, square sitting room with honey-coloured floors and two large floor-to-ceiling windows, one on the wall ahead of us and the other to the right, looking out over the street.

An empty desk stood next to the window on the far wall, its drawers pulled out to show the contents had been taken away. On either side of the desk, bookcases had been built against the walls. I drifted over to have a look.

I don’t read French as well as I speak it but here were novels in several languages; books on art, history, travel and politics. Some of them looked quite interesting. I made myself move away and came face to face with a photograph of a vivacious young woman, muffled against the cold wind, standing with an enormous dog on top of a hill somewhere. The dog’s tongue was hanging out and she was laughing as the wind whipped her hair around her head. And no – before anyone asks – she didn’t look anything like me. Her hair was dark and her eyes darker. Her cheeks were as red as her cagoule. She looked happy and full of life. And now she wasn’t.

I pushed the thought away.

In front of the desk stood a large, comfortable sofa facing a home entertainment wall. It was all here. All the very latest equipment. She had good art on the walls, as well. The general colour scheme was fairly neutral, but several large canvases in brilliant metallic colours grabbed and held my attention.

And yet, the effect was oddly impersonal. I stared around, thoughtfully, trying to put my finger on it. And then I had it. There were no other photos. None of Monique as a child. None of her parents. None of Leon. And none of the boys. I used to be like that too. Until Leon gave me a photograph of the two of us, laughing at something.

Everything in Monique’s apartment was neat, clean – albeit slightly dusty from fingerprint powder – and smelled as any room did where the windows hadn’t been opened for some time. That was a point – did the windows this high up even open?

No. There were vents behind the wooden shutters but the windows couldn’t be opened. No one had got in this way. Not that I thought they had.

I glanced out of the back window. As M Caron had said, there was no access to the tiny yard. Refuse bins stood neatly along the back wall. A locked gate barred entrance from the street.

A well-managed, slightly old-fashioned building with contented tenants and staff, all of whom got on well together. There would be gifts exchanged at Christmas and on birthdays. One big, happy family. And then a murderer came to call.

From the sitting room, I went to have a look at the bedroom. No, she didn’t have satin sheets or erotic pictures around the place. The bedding was good quality Egyptian cotton and plain white. A white dressing table stood under the window. There were a few cosmetics in the top drawer but nothing major. Her moisturiser was run-of-the-mill department store stuff as well. She didn’t have enormous numbers of clothes in the wardrobe. Nor was there anything interesting under the bed. In fact, there wasn’t anything under the bed. Not even the obligatory single shoe.

Her bathroom was gleaming white and chrome – modern but still in keeping with the flat. The towels were dry. I don’t know why I thought they wouldn’t be. It occurred to me that I wasn’t being a great deal of help. Certainly nothing was leaping out at me.

I wandered back into the living room. The other two were still circling the room, picking things up, opening drawers, feeling down the back of the sofa and so on. I picked up the file, took myself to the desk and sat down.

I didn’t bother comparing the photos to the apartment – Peterson and Markham had done that. I pulled out the photos of the contents of the desk and laid them out in front of me.

My heart stopped. Such a cliché but it’s the only way to describe it. My heart stopped. The very first image showed the contents of the top drawer and there, right on the very top – travel tickets. To England. From France to England. Monique had been planning to travel to England and there could be only one reason for that. Somehow, she had found out her boys were ill and had been planning to go to them.

What did this mean? Was it good or bad? Did it mean that Leon had no motive for killing her? In fact, if her blood could be used as part of an antidote, he had every reason for keeping her alive.

Unless she had refused to go – in which case, what were the tickets for? Had she said she’d go and then changed her mind? Or had she said she’d go and Leon had arrived to escort her to England? No – that wasn’t right. He wouldn’t have left the boys.

Were the boys already dead and Monique travelling to England wouldn’t have made the slightest difference and he’d come seeking revenge?

I stared again. The top right-hand corner of the ticket had curled a little and the date wasn’t quite clear – not important if you had access to the originals as the police would have – but quite frustrating for those working from the copies.

It was the tiniest thing. Just something that didn’t add up. If she wasn’t going to use the tickets, why hadn’t she cashed them in? If she was, then why had Leon killed her?

I pulled myself up short. Leon hadn’t killed her. Someone else had killed her. Who and why was unknown at the moment but these tickets meant something, I was sure of it.

Whatever their significance, no one else appeared to have picked up on it either. I stared thoughtfully at Markham, just emerging from the bedroom. Peterson was in the hall going through her coat pockets.

They were wasting their time. The police would have anything of value. Or if not them then the Time Police. There was nothing here that pointed to Leon’s innocence. In fact, I rather thought the tickets made things worse. Should I say anything?

No – not here or now. Perhaps when we got back to the pod and I could pull my scattered thoughts together and have a proper think.

I picked up the papers and images and carefully began to sort them back into order. It gave me something on which to concentrate and helped calm my thoughts. I made sure everything was completely in order and then handed the file to Markham.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said.

I looked up. ‘What?’

‘Well, I’ve seen you hand me files that look as if they’ve been involved in a major RTA. In fact, the Doggerland file was actually soaking wet, and your equipment requisition looked as if it had been eaten by mice. And here you are handing me this nice, clean, tidy, perfect file.’

I smiled and shook my head. ‘New Year’s resolution. Be nicer to Markham.’

‘And not a second before time,’ he said, taking the file off me. ‘Was it the tickets that upset you?’

I don’t know why I bother. I nodded and went to look out of the window. I stared out over the dark, wet rooftops for a moment and then turned back into the room, trying to picture the scene.

Monique is here, alone, perhaps just on her way to bed since – per the report – she’d been in nightclothes but the bed unslept in. The concierge buzzes her – she has a visitor. Leon. No one knows if she was expecting him or not.

She lets Leon in and brings him in through the hall into her sitting room. What did they talk about? Did they talk at all? Did they sit down? At some point she is strangled.

I looked down at the floor. At the spot where she’d been found, midway between the sofa and the entertainment wall.

According to the police report she’d fought back. Her knuckles and forearms were badly bruised. She was a pilot in the armed forces – she would have known how to defend herself. Surely she would have left marks on her attacker. Perhaps even hurt him badly. And then I remembered – no one had seen him leave and the tape was of poor quality.

And then what? What do you do after you’ve just murdered someone? Having strangled her, did he just step back and let her fall? In the photographs, her body had a crumpled look to it. As if she’d dropped where she stood.

Again, then what? Had he stepped over her, quietly let himself out of the front door, entered the lift, exited into the reception area, said goodnight to the unsuspecting Mlle Duval and walked away into the night?

And done what? Gone where? Interestingly, there were no CCTV camera images – or the equivalent – of him leaving the scene. He would have been on foot. The street was too narrow for a car. Not that there were many around these days.

‘Are there any CCTV cameras in this street?’

Markham shook his head. ‘The residents objected.’

Oh, well. It was just a thought.

How would he have felt afterwards? Would he have got away as quickly as possible? Fled back to England? Or had he stayed in France, found the nearest bar and drowned himself in alcohol in an effort to forget? To forget everything?

A few months later, he would be tracked down by Dr Bairstow, who would take him off to St Mary’s. And from there he’d volunteered for an assignment in a different time and place. Somewhere completely safe. He’d got away with it. Or so he’d thought.

Mentally, I shook myself. No – I didn’t believe any of that. But there was no getting away from the fact that there wasn’t a shred of evidence in favour of Leon anywhere.

I spent a few minutes trying to imagine a scenario where Leon entered the lift on the ground floor and someone else exited on the fifth floor, made their way to Monique’s flat and killed her. Someone who got in and out of the building completely undetected.

‘The fire escape,’ I said suddenly.

Markham shook his head. ‘Can only be opened from the inside and once opened, it can’t be locked behind you. Everything was in order. The police checked.’

‘What about the other flat opposite?’

Markham flicked through the file. ‘M Henri Pichon. Moved in two years ago and was away at the time in question, visiting family in Paris. Alibi sound. All checked and verified. They even checked the flat below this one. The whole fourth floor is taken by one family. A very large and noisy family who are all accounted for. There’s Dad, who’s rather small and skinny – they have six kids, so no wonder. Unlikely he had the strength to have strangled a woman so easily able to defend herself. Madame is enceinte again. No, I’m sorry, people. We’re looking for a man. A powerful man. Possibly with military experience himself. And the only person to enter the apartment block that night.’

Leon, in other words.

No one said anything. There wasn’t anything to say. I’d thought there would be something. Something that would raise even the tiniest shadow of doubt. Something we could latch on to, pursue, chase down – and there was nothing.

We pulled the door to behind us. Markham locked the door and while he and Peterson replaced the police tape as best they could, I walked ahead and summoned the lift. The doors opened with a musical ping and we rode downstairs in silence.

M Caron was waiting for us. He’d made us coffee, bless him, with the good crockery all laid out on a tray. There were even biscuits.

I took a sip because I was in desperate need of something hot. As coffee went, it wasn’t bad. I’d mostly learned to tolerate it during the mercifully short period I worked for the Time Police. I spooned in some sugar to make it more palatable and took another sip.

M Caron was enquiring whether we required anything else. The polite way of getting us off the premises before any of the residents noticed. He’d been helpful – now it was time for us to go.

Markham shook his head. ‘Thank you, Monsieur Caron. I think we have finished here. And thank you for your assistance.’

A blast of chilly air made me turn around. A man was pushing through the doors, bringing the outside in with him.

‘Ah, Georges,’ M Caron greeted him.

I recognised the name from the file. Monsieur Georges Bernard, the senior concierge. About the same age as Monsieur Caron, he was taller, slimmer and with a neatly trimmed beard.

‘We are with the Time Police,’ said Markham cheerfully. ‘Just checking a few small details. Monsieur Caron has been most helpful.’

M Bernard nodded, heading towards a door behind the counter. I assumed this was their private room. I shifted my position slightly for a better view just in case, but there was no window and no other door. No separate access of any kind. There were a couple of armchairs, a low table, a sink, a set of lockers, a fridge and a coffee machine. Just a normal staffroom.

M Bernard opened a locker, took off his overcoat and carefully placed it on a hanger. Equally carefully he took out the familiar crimson blazer, meticulously brushed the shoulders and put it on. Emerging back into the reception area, he pulled open a drawer apparently full of staff and visitor ID badges and began to rummage through them, looking for his own.

I sometimes wake up at night thinking how nearly I missed it. I was actually turning away, looking for somewhere discreet to put my coffee cup so as not to give offence when I thought I saw something.

Much more sharply than I intended, I said, ‘Arrêtez.’

He froze. Everyone froze.

M Bernard raised his eyebrows. ‘Madame?’

I didn’t move. I very carefully stayed exactly where I was, in full view of everyone, clutching my cup and saucer with both hands. I didn’t want anyone accusing me of planting evidence.

‘Monsieur Bernard, please, what is that?’

He seemed surprised. ‘This?’

‘Yes, that. That there.’

Markham appeared at my shoulder, saying in English, ‘What is it, Max?’

‘That.’ I pointed.

My hand was shaking. Because, there, in the drawer, tangled among the others, and partly concealed beneath an ID card for one Georges Bernard, lay another ID card. The name was printed quite clearly. Odette Duval.

But the picture was that of Isabella Barclay.

12

Markham was amazing. I mean, he’d been astonishing throughout. He’d been authoritative, calm, professional and so on. You could say almost like another person. He even seemed more imposing physically – don’t ask me how. His voice was different. He moved differently. Again, I thought – this is the real Markham. Carefully hidden beneath layers of something else. Someone else. Someone with . . . I don’t know . . . I was overwhelmed by the implications of the ID card, but typically, while I was struggling, he was acting.

‘Monsieur Caron, do you have an envelope, please?’

Wordlessly, M Caron fiddled under the counter, pulling out a brown A4 envelope.

‘Monsieur Bernard, it is very important that neither I nor my colleagues touch this in any way, and so I will ask you to place the badge in the envelope, please.’

M Bernard was no fool. Taking a pen from his top pocket, he hooked the lanyard, pulled out the badge and dropped it into the envelope.

‘Could you seal it, please, and you and Monsieur Caron write your names across the flap. Thank you. And the date, please. Thank you. And if you have a safe here . . . ?’

M Bernard nodded wordlessly.

‘If you could place it in the safe, please. Thank you.’

M Bernard spun the handle and turned back to us. ‘What is the meaning of this, m’sieur? Why is the badge so important?’

Markham said quietly, ‘Messieurs, that is the most valuable piece of evidence in this sad case. I hope you will feel able to testify that none of us have approached that drawer and that none of us could possibly have tampered with the badge.’

‘Of course, but why? Is Odette in some trouble?’

His concern for his colleague was commendable and none of us felt like saying it was extremely unlikely they would ever see Odette Duval again.

‘I am afraid I cannot comment further. My colleagues and I are not part of the investigative arm of the Time Police and our task here is finished. Someone will contact you very shortly about that badge. Please keep it safe until that moment.’

‘Of course,’ said M Bernard again.

‘And now,’ said Markham, ‘I think we are finished here. Thank you, messieurs, for your cooperation.’

They murmured something.

Markham picked up his file. We all said goodnight and headed for the door.

Outside seemed very cold after the warmth of the apartment block and I shivered as we strode down the pavement.

‘They’ll call her,’ I said, panicking. ‘They’ll tell her what just happened.’

‘She won’t be there,’ said Markham with confidence. ‘I suspect she was gone ten minutes after she gave her last statement.’

‘Wouldn’t she want to see it through, though? You know, make sure Leon is convicted?’

‘And stand up in court as Odette Duval with Leon in the dock telling everyone she’s Isabella Barclay?’

‘They might not believe him.’

‘Why would she take the risk? She’s given her statements. There’s still enough evidence to convict him.’

‘What do we do now?’ said Peterson. ‘Do we take this to the civilian police or the Time Police?’

‘Sadly, the Time Police,’ said Markham. ‘They have more clout.’

I stopped.

‘Max? What’s up?’

‘I’m very happy to go with you, but it does occur to me that my presence might not be . . . conducive to an amicable transaction.’

‘Well,’ said Markham, comfortably, ‘as long as you don’t actually set fire to anyone, I’m sure we’ll be fine.’

The building site was dark. Security didn’t seem to be an issue at all. The plastic flapped and rustled in the chilly breeze. Apart from that, everything was very quiet. Deserted. Peterson remarked on it. ‘It’s so quiet, Max. I know the weather’s not that good, but even so . . .’

I stopped and looked around. ‘It’s the aftermath of a massive catastrophe. People are still in shock. I know we have flu epidemics regularly but this one was a bastard. Mostly it took the very old and the very young. Think of the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 and double the death toll. Then add a bit more.’

‘Well,’ said Markham, ‘if we get a move on, we can save one life anyway. Inside, everyone.’

I left Peterson to do the coordinates and get us to TPHQ. I was exhausted. I was cold, thirsty and my mouth tasted of coffee. And I was off to visit the Time Police who might well shoot me on sight.

Markham came to sit beside me. ‘All right?’

I nodded. ‘I’m worried they’re executing Leon at this very moment.’

‘That won’t be happening, Max. We’ll be in plenty of time.’

Peterson appeared with a mug of tea. ‘Here. Warm your hands on this.’

‘Shouldn’t we be going now?’

‘Ten minutes won’t make any difference. Drink your tea.’

I curled my hands around the mug and thought.

Bloody Isabella Barclay. Bitchface Barclay herself. Back from the dead to cause trouble. I knew she was dead. I was there when Van Owen had shot her. In our barn, back at St Mary’s. Right in the middle of our fête. Yes, I’d been injured myself and was face down on the ground slowly bleeding to death, but I’d seen her die. She’d fallen to the ground alongside me. I was the last thing she’d ever seen. I’d watched her eyes close. I’d heard her last breath.

But sometime before that happened – before Leon and I were together – she’d done this. Somehow, she’d got herself here. She’d looked much, much younger in her photograph. She’d done this in her youth. This was her revenge. She’d wanted Leon. Wanted him badly and he hadn’t returned her love. At some point she’d hacked his personal file. She’d been Head of IT; it wouldn’t have been difficult for her – and then she’d come here – and done this. Killed Monique de Maupassant. An innocent woman had died in Bitchface Barclay’s quest for revenge.

And the tragedy was bigger than anyone thought. Monique could have been on her way to England. She could have given her blood. There might have been a chance to save the boys’ lives. Had they also died because of Isabella Barclay?

How Isabella must have hated Leon. With what patience she must have planned this. To come here – take a job as concierge – work normally for months – certainly long enough to avoid being the newcomer on whom suspicion would automatically fall – and then, when the moment was right . . .

And the images of Leon entering the block. She’d been our IT expert. Somehow, she’d got hold of an image of Leon from somewhere and she’d cut and spliced it so expertly that even the Time Police hadn’t been able to spot the join. Although now I came to think of it, it was only his entrance that had been closely examined. I could well imagine the glee with which the Time Police had jumped on the image of Leon entering the building. The perfect suspect in the right place at the right time.

Pieces began to fall into place. Mlle Duval hadn’t telephoned to Monique requesting entry. She’d let an accomplice in to the building, handed him her master key and he’d let himself into Monique’s flat. Monique would have been completely unprepared.

Barclay would be familiar with Leon’s signature. With the equipment at her disposal she could easily have doctored the visitor’s book.

And then, naturally, she’d been too upset to come into work. Markham was right. The moment suspicion fell on Leon, her job was done and she’d just disappear. They wouldn’t need her personal evidence. They had her statements. They had the tape. They had everything they needed and Bitchface Barclay would have vanished into the wind.

But – who had actually killed Monique? Well, that was easy. I was prepared to bet everything I owned that Clive Ronan was all over this. How else would Isabella have been able to jump here? She’d replaced images of Ronan entering the building with those of Leon. Unable to find anything suitable to substitute for Ronan leaving, she’d simply messed with the quality of the tape, rendering it virtually useless as identification.

And then it all came crashing down. The thought exploded into my brain, shattering all my hopes. Because I’d remembered. I’d remembered that Ellis knew Barclay. Knew her well enough to identify her. If he’d been present at the interviews or reviewed the tapes afterwards, he’d have known who she was. Why hadn’t he said anything?

The answer came almost at once – because I was wrong. It wasn’t Barclay – it was just someone who looked like her. I’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. I’d raised our hopes for nothing.

I don’t cry often but I could have cried then.

I looked up to find them both watching me.

‘What?’ said Markham.

I shook my head. Perhaps if I didn’t say anything. No – that wouldn’t work.

I took a deep breath and said, ‘There’s something wrong. Ellis knows Barclay. As the investigating officer, he would have recognised her immediately. Why didn’t he say anything?’

Markham opened the file and turned to the first page. I closed my eyes and tried to formulate plans for breaking Leon out of TPHQ. Nothing sprang to mind.

‘Because . . .’ said Markham, slowly, and stopped.

‘Yes?’ said Peterson. ‘Don’t stop. Because what?’

‘Because he wasn’t the investigating officer. According to their immaculate records here, that was a Captain Jelani.’

‘But Ellis arrested Leon.’

‘Because Ellis is the arresting officer. The two are separate. As the arresting officer, he wasn’t involved in the investigation, so he never knew Barclay was involved.’

‘So Max is right?’ said Peterson.

Markham grinned at me. ‘Well, the law of averages says she must be, sooner or later. No, I think our Max has cracked it. They need another word with Izzie Barclay.’

‘Bitch,’ I said, and meant it.

Peterson nodded. ‘Good job she’s already dead.’

I agreed. It was. It was a very good job she was already dead. She’d done this in her past and our future. Because that’s the problem with time travel. People approach the same event from different directions.

My thoughts stopped dead. Almost as if they’d run into a wall. This was exactly what Commander Hay and I had argued over. Argued bitterly. They’d let Ronan go because there were actions in his life that he hadn’t yet performed. Things he’d done in my past and his future and he’d had to be released in order to do those things. Because if he didn’t, then my past would start to unravel and that’s not good at all.

This thing with Barclay was exactly the same. This was something she’d done in her past and my future. And there’s no way of stopping it. You can only wait for events to unfold and then deal with them as best you can. Effect sometimes happens before cause. Which was exactly what Commander Hay had said. She’d been right. And somewhere, deep down inside me, I’d known she was right.

They were both looking at me.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Are you all right?’ said Peterson anxiously.

I nodded. ‘Absolutely fine.’

‘Good,’ said Markham briskly, ‘because I want to talk about our strategy at TPHQ.’

‘We tell them about Barclay,’ said Peterson. ‘Won’t that be the end of it?’

Markham frowned. ‘I don’t want you to be alarmed, Max, but we may need more. They might well claim we planted the name badge.’

‘Messrs Bernard and Caron can testify that she worked there as Odette Duval.’

‘That only makes her guilty of working under an assumed name.’

‘She has history with Leon,’ said Peterson. ‘Everyone knew it. And she’s a known associate of Clive Ronan.’

Markham nodded. ‘All true, but that only implicates her. It doesn’t exonerate Leon.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The Time Police will claim they were in it together. That she was his lover at the time and he killed his wife to make room for her. Sorry, Max.’

I waved that away. ‘I’m fine.’

‘And it was Barclay who grassed us up to the Time Police. About the incident at Troy. They’ll say this is our revenge.’

Peterson was in his traditional thinking position, his arms folded, chin sunk on his chest, long legs stretched out in front of him. He looked up. ‘Actually, Max, thinking it through, this is bloody diabolical. This is a specific attack on Leon – and through him, you, and through you, St Mary’s. There’s virtually no risk to themselves. They’ve just done it and disappeared, leaving everyone else to deal with the consequences. It’s like a . . . like a time bomb.’

Markham nodded. ‘Yes, exactly like that. A future time bomb.’

There was silence as we grappled with the implications. There could potentially be any number of these lying in wait for us. The Time Police had left Ronan at liberty so he would be free to carry out events in his future and our past, but had any of us actually given any thought to the other way around? Actions in his past that would – almost literally – blow up in our faces, and there was nothing we could do to prevent them? Just deal with them as they arose. Like this one. We’d uncovered evidence that threw huge doubt on the Time Police case but, as Markham had said, if they didn’t believe us . . . if they thought . . . if only we had something incontrovertible . . .

I always swear it was the tea. Drink coffee and it slows your brain. A couple of slurps of tea and you become a genius.

‘We do have proof it wasn’t Leon,’ I said slowly. ‘Incontrovertible proof.’

‘What proof?’ said Markham, a little startled by my certainty, I think.

‘The tape,’ I said, in gathering excitement. ‘The one showing Leon entering the building. It’s a fake.’

They stared at me. ‘You mean it’s not Leon?’

‘Oh no – it’s Leon all right. It’s just not the right Leon.’

Peterson turned to Markham. ‘Did you put something in her tea?’

‘Not intentionally. Max, explain.’

‘I met Leon in his past. Not too long after he joined St Mary’s. Just after his family died. I don’t know exactly how long after these events I saw him, but I did see him. Dr Bairstow knows about it. It was one of those things – I’d met him but he hadn’t met me yet. You know how it goes.’

They nodded.

‘He was in a terrible state. He was bitter and angry and St Mary’s had just weaned him off the booze. He hated everyone and everything. He was lashing out everywhere. He was hurting and he wanted everyone else to hurt, too.’

‘Yes. I think I should point out, Max – not helping his case here. In fact, you’re making it only too likely he . . .’

‘No,’ I said, ‘you don’t understand. He was ill. Or had been. Very ill. That figure in the tapes – yes, it’s Leon – but not Leon as he was then. I saw him as he was then – we met in the Cretaceous when Ronan tried to kill me there. Leon had been sent to rescue me. He was whip-thin. Seriously – there wasn’t an ounce of flesh on him anywhere. The figure in the tape is far too bulky to be Leon as he was then. That’s Leon as he was later. After he’d recovered. She found an old tape from somewhere – one that showed his face – and she spliced it.’

I saw doubt in their faces.

‘And it’s provable. All the Time Police have to do is call up Leon’s medical records. They’ll show the state he was in at the time. His weight will have been noted. From there they can go on to investigate the tape. I mean really investigate it. No matter how good she is, somehow they’ll find the tape is spliced. With that, with Duval’s ID card – and Ellis can verify her true identity – and with Leon’s physical state at the time – it should be enough.’ I was struck with sudden doubt. ‘Shouldn’t it?’

Peterson got to his feet. ‘Let’s go and see.’

He seated himself at the console. ‘Computer – initiate jump.’

The world went white.

13

We bounced on landing. My thoughts were elsewhere and I nearly fell out of my seat.

‘Bloody hell’s bells,’ said Markham, rubbing his elbow.

‘Sorry,’ said Peterson, peering helplessly at the console. ‘I think the Technical Section have done something to this pod. It’s not handling very well.’

I waited for the normal ‘There’s nothing wrong with the pod, it’s the handler that’s the problem’, but it never came. I think we were too on edge.

Meddling in the affairs of wizards might be dangerous for they are subtle and quick to anger, but meddling in the affairs of the Time Police is downright suicidal because they tend to shoot first and laugh about it afterwards. Even if they believed us – which they might not – they might decide to ignore anything we put in front of them simply because we were St Mary’s. They didn’t love us. And that would be mainly my fault. Something else for me to think about.

We were very careful with our decontaminations. We didn’t want to carry the pandemic with us. Peterson had the blue light on its maximum setting and made us go through the procedures twice. I actually felt a little sick afterwards.

We exited the pod into early-morning sunshine.

‘We’re in Battersea Park,’ said Peterson, looking around. ‘I’ve been here when . . . Wow! Look at the size of that zeppelin.’ Historians are easily distracted. ‘Anyway, a short stroll along the river, under Barricade Bridge and it’s on our right.’

And it was. Battersea Power Station. Stark and black against the lighter sky.

It hadn’t changed. I don’t know why I thought it would. It never did. There had been a brief flirtation with a luxury hotel and leisure complex with wildly overpriced accommodation around it, but most of it had been destroyed during the Uprisings, and no one had bothered to replace them. The site had been cleared and restored and today it looked pretty much as it always had.

‘I’m always disappointed there’s no giant inflatable pig tethered to one of the chimneys,’ said Peterson. ‘Given it’s the home of the Time Police I always think it would be amazingly appropriate.’

I stopped and stared out over the sparkling river. It was as busy as always. Lines of laden barges were being towed up- and downriver. A River Police launch raced past, blue light flashing, causing everything in its wake to bob about like little rubber ducks. A mighty airship chugged overhead. If it was nine o’clock then that was the London to Berlin service.

I turned to face them. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ I didn’t wait for any comment either of them might feel like making about that. ‘I think you two should be the ones to present our findings. I think I should distance myself from this. I’m hardly impartial and they hate me. I don’t think I can contribute anything useful. In fact, even just my presence might be counterproductive. We can’t run the risk of them taking one look at me and turfing us out of the building. Or worse – arresting us on the spot. I’ll wait in the atrium while you two sort it out.’

‘It’s a good thought,’ said Markham, and I knew from the tone of his voice that this was something he’d been considering himself. ‘But are you sure?’

‘Yes. I’m sure.’

‘OK, then.’

Remembering at the last moment to whip off our fake badges, we entered TPHQ. As always, the atrium was heaving. Full of people who’d come to grass up their friends and neighbours for building something nasty in their garden shed. Schoolchildren on guided tours with beleaguered teachers trying to keep them in line. Harassed people with paperwork requiring Time Police approval – which they were unlikely to get. It was all happening here. Those few Time Police officers who had been trained not to bite helpfully ushered people to the right places.

‘I’ll wait over there.’ I nodded towards a seat near the indoor waterfall where I could sit quietly and watch the koi carp entice small children into their clutches. Or I could have if I’d had any intention of staying put.

I watched Markham and Peterson join the queue. Markham made no attempt to conceal the file, just holding it loosely at his side. Hiding in plain sight is always best.

They spoke earnestly and at length to an officer who stepped aside and spoke into his com. After a short wait, Captain Ellis appeared. The three of them talked together and then he ushered them away. A door closed behind them. No one even looked in my direction.

I waited for a bit of a lull and then approached the nearest officer. I didn’t know him and I was certainly hoping he didn’t know me.

He looked down his nose at me. ‘Can I help you?’

I resisted the impulse to ninja him out of existence. ‘I’d like to speak to Commander Hay, please.’

‘I’m afraid the commander is in a meeting at this moment.’

I’d expected this. I wasn’t anywhere near important enough to warrant the attention of Commander Hay. Or was I?

‘Please tell her Dr Maxwell from St Mary’s is here.’

I left him standing with his mouth open and went back to my seat in the indoor garden, counting slowly in my head and wondering how long it would take. Considerably less time than I’d anticipated, actually. I’d barely had enough time to look round again before the same officer stood before me.

‘Would you come this way, please.’

Her office was unchanged. I had no idea where today was in her particular timeline but she hadn’t changed, either. To be fair, there wasn’t a lot that could change. Her face had been damaged in an accident when her pod door blew off.

Her adjutant, Captain Farenden, was with her, standing behind her chair, his hand resting very casually near his weapon.

Her voice was neutral. ‘Dr Maxwell. How can I help you?’

I hadn’t actually considered how I would begin. The typical Maxwell failure to plan ahead. I opened my mouth and waited for words to emerge.

‘I’ve come to apologise.’

I think she was too startled to speak.

I forged on. ‘I’ve left my colleagues downstairs proving Leon’s innocence of the charges you’ve brought against him. No blame attaches to you. You had a strong case which, fortunately, we’ve been able to disprove. Mr Markham has discovered evidence showing what really happened.’

‘And this is what you’ve come to tell me?’

‘No. That was context. I’ve come to say that you released Clive Ronan because you had to. I knew that at the time although I didn’t want to admit it. Especially to myself.’

I had to tread very carefully here. ‘Monique’s murderer was probably Clive Ronan – that part is still unclear – but his accomplice was definitely Isabella Barclay, otherwise known as Odette Duval – the concierge who gave him access to the apartment block and spliced the security tape, subsequently commandeered by you. It’s not the Time Police’s fault. She’s good – she was Head of IT at St Mary’s – but I think, now that you know what you’re looking for, your people will find it.’

Now for the difficult bit. Because Barclay had been murdered by Miss Van Owen, who herself had been invited to join the unknowing Time Police. She’d been right here under their noses and I didn’t want them looking too deeply into that. Van Owen couldn’t afford any sort of investigation.

I ploughed on. ‘I now see the force of the argument you made for releasing Clive Ronan and I apologise. You were right and I was wrong.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, surprised. ‘I am happy to accept your apology.’

There was a short silence and then she said, ‘How is Matthew?’

I think I’ve already mentioned Matthew’s occasionally worrying ability to adapt to any living environment in which he found himself. Given some of the things that had happened to him, this was an advantage, but the one thing that did worry me – the one thing we couldn’t give him at St Mary’s – was the company of his own kind. Other kids his own age. Yes, I suspected he had a higher mental age than many at St Mary’s and could happily mix with adults, but that private teenage language kids have, the constant obsession with phones, holos, celebrities, sport, music, slang, what’s hot and what’s not – all that had been the one thing the Time Police had provided, and we couldn’t, because they’d sent him to school. He’d spent his mornings at a conventional school just across the river. We couldn’t do that. Not with Clive Ronan still around somewhere. Matthew himself didn’t seem concerned about this, but I was. Which was another of the reasons I was here.

I kept my voice calm and neutral. ‘He’s in good health, thank you. He is receiving one-to-one tutoring which is working very well. His tutor tells me he has an excellent foundation on which to build and for that I thank you. He does occasionally ask after Captain Ellis.’

Ellis had been Matthew’s mentor during his time with the Time Police.

She nodded.

I forged on. ‘I wanted to say . . . perhaps it would be possible – even if Ronan is never captured – which is something I must accept – when Matthew’s old enough to understand the risk – I could talk to Leon – perhaps Matthew could return here – if you agree, of course – to do his 6th-form work.’

I think we were all taken aback at that. I pushed on. ‘And should Captain Ellis so wish, Leon and I would be happy to welcome him to St Mary’s for a visit in the meantime.’

I kept my voice as steady as I could. ‘I know that to lose someone to whom you have become close – to lose them suddenly and without warning – is not pleasant. Knowing that, it was wrong of me to do the same to Captain Ellis. I am certain he and Matthew must miss each other.’

I couldn’t think of anything else to say so I shut up.

It was good to know I could still surprise the hell out of the Time Police. I’d done quite a good job of surprising myself as well.

Eventually, she said, ‘Thank you. I shall pass along your message. I’m sure Captain Ellis will be happy to take you up on your invitation. He has never mentioned it but I think he misses . . .’ She stopped. I think we were both slightly adrift in the murky waters of gracious apology and even more gracious acceptance.

I nodded and got up to go.

‘Just one moment,’ she said, and I panicked she was going to have me arrested for something or other.

‘I too should apologise. We . . . I . . . should have done more to prepare you for what must have been the shock of Ronan’s release. You invested a great deal of yourself in that assignment and we could have handled things better. We . . . I . . . was remiss. I apologise.’

Well, look at us. It only needed a flower-bedecked Officer Grint – in full Time Police combat gear – to dance in warbling a madrigal to complete the unlikeliness of the scene. I should get out of here before I did or said something to ruin everything. I thanked her and headed towards the door.

‘I’ll walk you down,’ she said, reverting to normal because that’s Time Police speak for, ‘I’ll make sure you don’t set fire to anything on your way out.’

We emerged back into the atrium. The day was progressing and the crowds had subsided a little. There was no waiting to go through security if you were with the commander of the Time Police and Captain Farenden had obviously called ahead. An officer waved us through the security barriers. We found a quiet seat among all the landscaping and sat down to await the return of Peterson and Markham.

She turned to me. ‘And how are you, Max?’

‘Absolutely fine,’ I said. ‘Apart from my all-consuming and ever-present irrational fears that someone’s coming over the roof to steal Matthew away.’

‘Well, I can’t speak for the rest of the world – and you know how you make friends wherever you go – but I can safely promise you anyone coming over the roof won’t be Time Police.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, considerably relieved, because I believed her.

‘No – we’ll be the ones blowing the front doors off and mounting a full-frontal assault.’

I had no idea if she was joking or not. Fortunately, before we could really get down to antagonising each other, Captain Ellis appeared in a doorway across the hall. Peterson was with him. They were halfway across the atrium when someone called them back. Markham appeared in the doorway and trotted towards them. ‘You left your file in the interview room, Captain.’

There was an infinitesimal pause. ‘Ah yes,’ said Ellis. ‘Thank you.’ He took the file and tucked it under his arm. ‘That could have been embarrassing.’ He turned to me. ‘We will, of course, thoroughly investigate this information . . .’

‘When will Leon be released?’

There was a pause. I got all set to bring the building down around their ears. The expression ‘fight like a girl’ takes on a whole new meaning when the girl is from St Mary’s, and then Commander Hay said, ‘Well, if everything checks out – a couple of days. Yes, I know,’ she added before I could say anything, ‘but you must see we can’t just take your word for it. You’re hardly a disinterested party.’

‘Can I see him?’

‘Not at the moment,’ she said.

‘Because?’

‘Because I say so,’ she said gently.

I shifted my stance. Just ever so slightly. Peterson and Markham lined up behind me. I wouldn’t put it past these buggers to execute him and then plead ‘friendly fire’ afterwards.

She sighed. ‘Because Chief Farrell is cooperating fully and while he’s being interrogated, I don’t want that interrogation contaminated by any outside sources. Chief Farrell’s evidence will be so much more valuable if he can corroborate your information entirely independently.’

‘Understood,’ said Markham and I nodded a complicated nod indicating I didn’t want to upset our shiny new relationship while still giving the impression that everything had better pan out – or else.

We were politely offered refreshments before we left.

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Peterson, greatly surprising me. He looked at Markham. ‘We’d love a coffee, wouldn’t we?’

Markham nodded. Commander Hay glanced from me to Ellis.

‘Of course. Please come this way.’

They walked away and I was alone with Ellis.

We sat down. I looked at the landscaping. He looked at his feet. Voices echoed around us but we were silent.

‘Well,’ he said, eventually. ‘I’d better be off.’

I swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry.’

He said nothing.

‘I was angry.’

We both knew what I was talking about. Years ago, we’d both been to Pompeii on the most exciting – and coincidentally the last – day of its existence. Ellis had been trapped under a street cart, slowly suffocating under the volcanic ash as his legs burned. I’d pulled him out. Without me he would have died.

At TPHQ, when we’d parted on such bad terms, I’d told him I wished I’d left him in Pompeii to die there. It had been a dreadful thing to say. He’d saved me more times than I’d saved him. And he’d been Matthew’s mentor. Under his care, Matthew had made enormous strides, socially and educationally.

I said again, ‘I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry.’

He cleared his throat. ‘So am I, Max.’

‘I owe you a lot.’

‘Friends owe each other nothing.’

‘You’re Matthew’s mentor. He’s named after you.’

‘He doesn’t need me now. He has his parents back.’

‘Do you miss him?’

Ellis was a captain in the Time Police. His face showed nothing he didn’t want it to but the emotion was there just the same. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s well. And busy. He and his tutor are building a robot to Markham’s specifications.’

He managed to laugh. ‘That’s never going to end well.’

‘Yes, the whole building is braced for imminent catastrophe.’

‘I thought that was St Mary’s default state.’

‘Matthew . . .’

‘Max, there’s no need to say any more.’

‘No.’ I took a breath. ‘If you would like to, Leon and I would be happy to welcome you to St Mary’s to spend some time with Matthew. You know . . . if you would like to.’

‘Yes. Yes, I would like that very much.’

I nodded. ‘How is Leon doing?’

‘He is being surprisingly cooperative.’

‘He didn’t do it.’

‘I never thought he did.’

I looked around. There were cameras but the atrium was noisy. We should be safe.

‘Is that why you left the file?’

‘What file?’

‘No idea.’

He stood up. ‘It is good to see you again, Max.’

‘You too.’

‘My best to Matthew.’

I got up to go, too. ‘How’s North?’

‘Taking the place by storm.’

‘I thought she might.’

‘She’s not a secret weapon, is she? Because I could so completely see that.’

I laughed. We were walking towards the exit when I remembered something.

‘What happened to Donald and her egg?’

Donald was half of Donald and Hillary, the two dodos we’d used as bait for a very greedy man when I was seconded to the Time Police. Hillary had not survived. He’d been killed to make a point.

‘We managed to save the egg.’

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if they’d made an omelette out of it but remembered just in time that this was the new, nice me.

‘What happened to it?’

‘We returned it to Director Pinkerton who received both it and Donald in frosty silence.’

‘I can imagine.’

He sighed. ‘Yet another incarnation of St Mary’s that thinks badly of the Time Police.’

‘Never mind. A man – or an organisation – is known by the quality of their enemies. You can be quietly proud.’

‘As indeed we are. Anyway, when last heard of, Donald and Hillary 2 were both doing well.’

We halted and faced each other.

I said, ‘Take care.’

‘You too, Max.’

He hesitated and then put out his hand. I took it and then he walked away.

Returning to St Mary’s, we decontaminated all over again and then spent the traditional twelve hours in Sick Bay. None of us died of anything. Peterson caused some minor consternation with a small sneezing fit but it turned out he’d simply been too free with the black pepper.

We were released the next morning and then it was straight off to Dr Bairstow.

‘Interesting,’ was all he said at the end of our reports, and that was all we got. I thought at least we might rate a ‘satisfactory’, but obviously not.

‘We’ll give them . . .’ he paused, considering, ‘. . . five days to produce Leon.’

‘They will release him?’ I said anxiously.

‘I think so. If not, we’ll have to pop back and have another word with them, but I don’t think there’s any great will to keep him there. Remember it was Captain Ellis who left the file behind in the first place. The one that gave us all the information we needed to carry out our own enquiry.’

‘We didn’t find the killer though,’ I said, gloomily.

‘We don’t have to, Max. All we had to do was prove Leon’s innocence. Whoever did kill Monique is not our business.’

‘How did the Time Police even find out about Monique?’

‘Ah,’ said Peterson. ‘I think I can help you there. I asked Ellis and he said there had been a public tip-off.’ He considered that sentence. ‘I mean a tip-off from a member of the public.’

We thought about that in silence. We all knew who the killer was. Clive Ronan. In partnership with Izzie Barclay. Kill Leon’s first wife and tip off the Time Police that her murderous husband is hiding at St Mary’s in another time.

And it was worse than that. I hadn’t forgotten the tickets. If Monique had been killed before she could travel to England – before she could donate her blood – then Ronan hadn’t just killed Monique, he’d killed her children as well. If Leon ever found out . . .

And that’s how I came to lie to Leon.

He was returned to us – surprisingly intact – some three days later. Being the Time Police, they just dropped him on the South Lawn and pushed off again. I met him in Sick Bay where Dr Stone was checking him out.

‘No,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Nothing wrong with you at all, Chief. They appear to have treated you quite well. I hope you reciprocated.’

‘No comment,’ said Leon.

‘Please don’t tell me you’ve been channelling your wife again because that never ends well.’

‘No, both sides regarded each other with mutual distrust and suspicion. However, having nothing to hide, I answered all their questions fully and I think they were surprised by my cooperation.’

Dr Stone sighed wistfully. ‘Cooperation – I wonder what that’s like.’

‘Well, you won’t find out here,’ I said. ‘Can I take him away now?’

‘I’d have half an hour’s peace before facing the world if I were you. I’ll send in some tea.’ He disappeared.

Leon took my hand. ‘Max . . .’

‘Now don’t get all sloppy and sentimental, Leon. I’m always telling you, no matter what sort of trouble you manage to get yourself into, I will always come for you. No matter when or where – I will always come for you.’

He was silent.

‘What? What’s the matter?’

He took a deep breath. ‘I cooperated.’

‘Yes, you said.’

‘I answered their questions because I couldn’t afford for them to use the truth cuff.’

My blood turned cold. The truth cuff was a nasty piece of Time Police kit. A cross between a lie detector and a torture device. Tell the truth and you’d be fine. Deviate even a fraction from the virtue of veracity and you’d be experiencing pain. The more you lied – the worse the pain got. That’s putting it simply but to be fair, simple is about all the Time Police can manage.

It was a struggle but I kept my voice steady. ‘Why couldn’t you afford for them to use the truth cuff?’

‘For the same reason I couldn’t look at you when they took me away. Max – I have to tell you this. There are some huge gaps in my life around that time. Long periods when I don’t remember anything. I’ve always assumed I never found her because I didn’t remember finding her. As soon as they read the charge I thought – what if I did do it? What if I had killed her in some sort of alcoholic rage and didn’t remember it?’

‘You didn’t,’ I said. ‘And I say that with complete confidence. The concierge who said you visited the building that night – Odette Duval – was Izzie Barclay. She spliced the tape. You were framed.’

‘Yes, so they said. But why would she do that?’

I shrugged. ‘Jealousy. Revenge. You name it.’

He shook his head. ‘But it can’t have been her. Monique kept herself fit. Barclay wasn’t much bigger than you. Monique would have flattened her.’

I said quietly, ‘Didn’t they tell you? We think she was working with Ronan. That he actually – did the deed.’

He was quiet for a long time, thinking about it. ‘Tell me everything you did.’

I nodded. ‘OK.’

But I didn’t. I never mentioned the tickets. Not a word. Leon didn’t need the tragedy of knowing that Ronan’s intervention might have been responsible for his boys’ deaths. That Monique might have been on her way and Ronan killed her before she could leave France. That Leon’s whole life could have been different. I knew him well. He’d be out of the door and he wouldn’t rest until he’d tracked Ronan down. No matter if it took him the rest of his life. We’d said we wouldn’t allow Ronan to impact our lives any longer – although, to be fair, we’d never imagined anything like this – and he didn’t need to know, so I didn’t tell him. For the first and last time in my life, I deliberately lied to Leon.

And chalked up another reason to see Clive Ronan dead at my feet.

14

And so, after that small hiccup, back to work. All the Crete stuff was still strewn across my briefing table, just where I’d left it. As was the mug of cold tea squatting unpleasantly in the middle of it. Why the hell Markham wanted an assistant was beyond me. I lowered myself into my seat and began to hatch dark plans for swapping Rosie Lee with Mrs Shaw without either of them – or Peterson – actually noticing.

I said abruptly, ‘Are you pregnant?’

She looked up from her desk where she was pretending to do something. ‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Completely sure.’

‘Only I wondered if you’d been forbidden to lift heavy objects.’

‘What heavy objects?’

‘Like that mug of tea on the table over there.’

‘That’s a mug of tea? I thought you were using it as a paperweight. You always say don’t touch your paperwork unless I want to lose the use of my fingers so I didn’t.’

‘There’s something growing on the surface.’

‘Don’t be such a baby. That’s a slice of lemon.’

I prayed for patience. ‘Could you make some tea, please?’

‘I have to catch the post.’

‘It’s a quarter past eleven. The post doesn’t go till four.’

‘Mrs Partridge likes it delivered in good time.’

‘You’re practically in time to catch yesterday’s.’

Sarcasm doesn’t work well on Rosie Lee. ‘No, I’m not. Yesterday’s post went at four. Yesterday.’

‘Where’s my tea?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Right – that’s it. I’m trafficking you to Markham. I shall tell Mrs Partridge you’ve requested a transfer to the Security Section. She’ll be thrilled because it’ll get Markham off her back.’

She rose to her feet. We glared at each other. Showdown. This was it.

The phone rang.

We both looked at it.

‘Leave it,’ I said, waving her away. ‘You don’t work here any longer. I’ll answer my own phone.’

She snatched it up, listened for a moment. ‘Now? All right.’ She put the phone down. ‘Dr Bairstow wants you.’

She paused before the coup de grace. ‘Shall I bring your tea to his office?’

Mrs Partridge wasn’t in the outer office and I paused, uncertain whether to go in or not. His door was ajar and I could hear voices. He had a visitor.

I tapped gently on the door, all ready to go away again but a voice instructed me to come in so I did.

Dr Bairstow was Entertaining a Stranger. Not exactly a First, but certainly a Fourth or a Fifth. And the stranger was . . . ta-dah . . . female.

I knew he sometimes had the Chancellor of Thirsk University over and the two of them would share something potent from his bottom drawer and gossip over the old days, but I couldn’t think of any other non-St Mary’s-related female who’d ever been in here. You can disregard the Parish Council because he doesn’t actually regard them as members of the human race. Especially Mrs Huntley-Palmer.

And we had the best cups out as well. Mrs Partridge was laying them out on the briefing table. I counted them. Yes, there was one for me. It would appear I was to be included in this debauch.

He looked up as I entered. ‘Ah, Dr Maxwell, come in, please.’

He now had three women in his room. A bit of a record for him. And he looked reasonably happy about it.

‘Good morning, sir.’ I nodded to his guest. ‘Ma’am.’

He turned to his guest. ‘How would you like me to introduce you?’

She didn’t need introducing. The resemblance was astonishing. I was looking at Celia North as she would be in another thirty years. It wasn’t North, though – this must be her mother.

I knew her name wasn’t Mrs North because North was actually Lady Celia North, although to be fair to her, she never mentioned it. Which made her mother the . . . hang on . . . Dowager Countess of Blackbourne. Mother of the current Earl of Blackbourne.

She smiled. ‘I can be whatever you find easiest. I do sometimes go by Mrs North. Or Lady Blackbourne, if it seems expedient. Professionally. . .’ and here she glanced mischievously at Dr Bairstow, ‘. . . professionally, I am known as Mrs Brown.’

For the first time ever, I saw the Boss stuck for words. There was a long moment and then he said politely, ‘I beg your pardon? You are Brown?’

‘Yes. I am the new Brown.’

No – I was lost, too.

‘What happened to . . . ?’

‘To the former Brown? Please do not be alarmed – he is alive, well and retired. And making his wife’s life a living hell, judging by her frequent requests for us to take him back.’

Dr Bairstow smiled. One of his genuine ones. Not one of the won’t you walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly ones. ‘Please, if you have the opportunity, give him my regards. Does he know you are here today?’

‘He does. He says he hasn’t bothered to ask me to remember him to you because he’s convinced you won’t have forgotten him. He certainly hasn’t forgotten you.’

He said with some difficulty, ‘I know that Mrs Green . . . died.’

‘Yes, that was very sad. There was a new Green appointed, of course. I don’t think you have ever met him.’

‘No, these days, most of my communications go through the Chancellor at Thirsk. I tend to stay away from London. To mutual relief, I suspect.’

No, I still didn’t have a clue.

Mrs Partridge passed around the tea, looked at me and then shook her head severely at the biscuits which I took to be either a warning to them to behave themselves or gentle hint to me not to eat them all myself.

I was at rather a loss as to why I was here and what was going on, but the tea was good, the biscuits were better and it’s always fascinating to see Dr Bairstow interacting with a member of the opposite sex, so I thought I’d sit back, sip and wait.

Mrs Brown smiled at me and there was more than a hint of steel behind it. ‘So, Dr Maxwell, if you would be so good, tell me exactly what happened during your jump to Jerusalem.’

I hope I didn’t look surprised, but I did look to Dr Bairstow for guidance. That she knew we jumped at all was worrying. That she knew we’d been to Jerusalem was very worrying. I didn’t know what to say.

‘Mrs Brown is a member of the government department which supervises our activities, Dr Maxwell. You may speak without reserve.’

So I did. I told her everything. I explained the importance of avoiding Triple-S sites and how the idiot Halcombe had forced me to make the jump to witness the crucifixion. How North had been the hostage. How we’d honestly expected to die there. I emphasised how important it had been not to allow the pod to fall into Halcombe’s hands – although I did try to tone down the humane killer bit. Mrs Brown looked as tough as they come but it’s not a picture every parent would be comfortable with. That big, ugly bolt rammed into North’s eye as the computer counted down to our destruction.

I did, however, emphasise her courage. Because she’d been bloody brilliant.

‘To tell the truth, ma’am, I was looking for a way out but Celia was adamant. She was doing her duty and I must do mine.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that sounds very like Celia.’ She put down her cup and saucer. ‘She admires you very much, you know.’

‘No,’ I said honestly, ‘I didn’t.’

‘Oh yes. She frequently spoke of you. And not just in terms of wanting your job.’

I couldn’t help smiling. ‘I can’t believe it was anything other than to criticise my decisions and imply how much better she could have handled things.’

‘If you substitute the word differently for better, then yes, that’s spot on.’ She paused and turned her cup in the saucer. ‘And now, she tells me she wants to work for the Time Police.’

There was no clue as to how she felt about this.

‘There was a mutual attraction, ma’am. As an organisation, they were crying out for someone like her and I certainly think Celia will benefit from . . . more . . . structure . . . than she experienced here at St Mary’s. Having said that, she is missed a great deal. She made her own unique contribution to our organisation. She was competent, reliable and she always did her duty. Yes, I find myself missing her very much.’

She smiled. ‘I am immensely proud to hear you say so. Thank you.’

Dr Bairstow stirred. ‘Thank you, Dr Maxwell.’

I was dismissed. I stood up to go. Mrs Brown stood as well, and to my surprise, offered her hand.

‘I am very pleased to have met you at last, Dr Maxwell. I hope we shall meet again.’

‘As do I, ma’am. Good afternoon.’

Well, that was a bit of a turn up for the books. I mean firstly that North actually had had parents and not sprung, fully formed, from Zeus’s head. Or, if not his head, then some other part of him, although now I come to think of it, I couldn’t imagine North springing from anyone’s anything. Possibly more like Aphrodite, she’d beached herself in a giant shell on the shores of somewhere or other. I was so busy trying to remember where – Cyprus? Crete? No, Cyprus – that I was back at my office before I realised it. The mug of cold tea was still there. Rosie Lee, however, was not. Probably off catching next Wednesday’s post.

I shot down the corridor to Peterson’s office.

‘Quick, lend me a mug.’

He has the reactions of a somnolent sloth. It was pitiful. ‘What?’

‘Give me a mug. Now.’

He tossed one over. Empty, fortunately. I caught it and trotted back to my own office and made myself a quick cup of tea.

I was feet up on the desk, reading a file when she came back. Her eyes lit up with triumph when she saw me drinking. She thought I’d caved and washed the mug. Then her eyes flitted to the cup of cold comfort still in pole position on the briefing table.

She glared.

I raised an eyebrow. The very epitome of cool smugness. Or possibly smug coolness. And then the phone rang and I remembered I’d forgotten to speak to Mrs Partridge about foisting Miss Lee on to someone else. Bollocks.

It was Peterson – always ten minutes behind the rest of the world, bless him. ‘What are you doing with my mug?’

‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Partridge. That’s very accommodating of you.’

‘What?’ he said, baffled.

‘When can she start?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Oh no, she’s really looking forward to it.’

‘Looking forward to what? Have you been inhaling something in R&D again? You remember what happened last time.’

‘Yes, if you could let me know as soon as possible. I know she’s eager to take up her new position . . . Yes . . . Yes, of course, Mrs Partridge. Thank you very much.’

I put the phone down on a squawking Peterson and picked up my tea again.

Silence settled in the office and then she said, ‘I don’t know who you were talking to just now but I can see Mrs Partridge in the car park talking to Dr Bairstow and another woman.’

I sighed. Bloody bollocking hell.

An hour later, the phone rang again. This time it really was Mrs Partridge. I panicked utterly. Had she heard I’d been taking her name in vain? I said cautiously, ‘Hello?’

‘Dr Bairstow would like to see you again, Dr Maxwell.’ She put the phone down.

I walked very slowly around the gallery, analysing the words and tone of voice. Had she sounded hostile? Threatening? Judgemental? Well, yes – she always sounded judgemental.

I entered her office with no little trepidation. In fact, I think I once faced down a T-rex with less trepid.

She waved me through. I gathered my courage. ‘Mrs Partridge, I don’t know if Miss Lee has been to see you, but I’ve been wondering if she wouldn’t be happier in another section. I know Mr Markham is requesting additional clerical assistance of some kind and I thought . . .’

‘Yes, she has,’ said Mrs Partridge, flipping through her scratchpad. ‘In fact, during her personal appraisal last week, I asked if she would be prepared to consider a change of scenery and she quite vehemently assured me that she very much enjoyed being a part of the History Department.’ She looked up at me and frowned. ‘Is there something I should know about? Has something occurred to change her mind?’

‘No,’ I said, backing away. Outgunned. Outmanoeuvred. Outwitted. Stitched up by the entire Admin Department.

‘You can go in now.’

I escaped into Dr Bairstow’s office where things didn’t get any better.

‘Ah, Dr Maxwell,’ he said, as if I hadn’t seen him only an hour ago. ‘The Tower of London, 1483. The princes.’

The correct response should have been a crisp, ‘Yes, sir,’ followed by my speedy exit, so I stood like an idiot and gawped at him.

‘The princes, sir?’

‘Mrs Brown has expressed an interest. Their last public appearance, I think. In June or July, perhaps.’

My heart was thumping so fast I could hardly answer him and a cold feeling was gathering around my feet. ‘Who exactly will be taking part in this jump?’

‘Oh,’ he said, very casually. ‘A small party, I think. A very small party. We don’t want to cause any fuss.’

I persevered. ‘How small a party, sir?’

He ventured further into the unfamiliar realm of casual. ‘Oh . . . just two people, I think.’

I gritted my teeth and prepared to jeopardise what is laughingly known as my career.

‘I cannot permit that, sir.’

The temperature plummeted faster than the pound every time the government announces their plans for a strong and stable economic future. Frost gathered on the furniture.

I stood my ground. ‘If, as I understand it, Lady . . . Mrs Brown is a member of the . . . let’s call it the Civil Service, sir, then the possible risks are too great to even contemplate . . .’

‘Dr Maxwell, I once swept up three members of the Civil Service and dropped them into the middle of Waterloo.’

‘To be accurate, sir, you were not actually representing St Mary’s at the time. St Mary’s didn’t exist. I admit, as a sales pitch, it was spectacular, but . . .’

‘Are you arguing with me, Dr Maxwell?’

‘Of course not, sir. I’m simply pointing out why I’m right.’

Icicles formed on the ceiling. What a shit morning this was turning out to be. I stepped in with my master plan. Always ensure that after highlighting the problem you hit your boss with the solution. Works every time.

‘If I might suggest, sir – the addition of Mr Markham to the party would go a great deal towards setting my mind at rest.’

‘I am not sure that would have the same effect on mine.’

But he was coming around. I could see it. Of course Security had to be involved. We would have a guest. A member of the government and one of our employers to boot. I know Dr Bairstow does have the occasional frivolous moment – he really had once dropped three important Civil Servants right in the middle of Waterloo. I’d met them there and trust me, they were having a great time – but that wasn’t the point. There was no way I was allowing him to canter off all on his own. I was right and he was wrong. And he knew it. And he knew I knew he knew I knew it.

‘And sir, I must insist on accompanying you.’ As if anyone was going off to see the Princes in the Tower without me. Never going to happen, people. ‘That way I can take charge of the pod and deal with all the other minor issues. Mr Markham can handle the security, which will leave you and Mrs Brown free to enjoy yourselves.’

I tried to remember if, in the 15th century, the Tower had a moat for Markham to fall into – I was pretty sure it did, although given 15th-century sanitation it would probably be easier and more accurate to refer to it as an open sewer – but it did have wild animals, so there would be every opportunity for him to have ‘eaten by drunken elephant’ or ‘savaged by irritated bear’ on his death certificate. A challenge he would certainly do his best to rise to.

Dr Bairstow was silent for a few seconds while I waited, Titanic-like, for the next iceberg – then he drew breath and said, ‘An excellent stratagem, Dr Maxwell. See to it, please.’

15

I called into the Library on the way back to my office, had a quick word with Dr Dowson and we called up everything on London, 1483. The climate – both political and meteorological – street maps, costume, everything I could think of. I needed to be completely on top of this one. It would be bad enough having the Boss with me, but having a senior government official as well was worse, and that that senior official was Celia North’s mother was terrifying. This assignment would be by the book. Absolutely perfect. Flawless in design and execution.

Speaking of execution . . . I called up Markham.

‘Can we have a word?’

‘Of course,’ he said easily. I noticed the Bristol accent was back. ‘Which word would you like?’

‘Panic is a good one,’ I said. ‘Followed by disaster, catastrophe and the end of the world.’

‘Oh dear,’ he said, maddeningly unalarmed. ‘Has someone in the History Department broken a fingernail again? Where are you?’

I thought suddenly of my office with that single, sinister mug of cold tea and had a brilliant idea.

‘I’m in the Library,’ I said. ‘I’ve got the Crete stuff all over my office so I thought I’d work in here.’ And then, feeling that perhaps this wasn’t a big enough incentive, ‘And it’s closer to the kitchen.’

‘On my way,’ he said.

The needs of the Security Section are very basic.

I bagged one of the tables by the recently repaired windows and Dr Dowson started to bring the stuff over.

‘So, what’s all this about?’ said Markham, sliding into place opposite me. And, for some reason, he’d brought Peterson.

‘Why have you brought him?’ I said, scowling at Peterson.

‘I am the Deputy Director of this organisation,’ he said haughtily. ‘I can go wherever I please. And when I come across the missing link here knuckling his way around the building without his handler, I follow him accordingly. What’s up?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m putting together a jump.’

‘Great. I’ll come too.’

‘No, you won’t, actually,’ I said. ‘It’s for Dr Bairstow and protocol says you can’t both go.’

‘Damn.’ He sulked.

‘So where are we off to?’ enquired Markham.

‘London, 1483,’ I said, and left it at that because Markham’s historical knowledge is suspiciously extensive. Peterson has never yet managed to catch him out, muttering, ‘Sinister’ every time Markham manages to know as much as we do. I waited, confident he was probably better informed about the Princes in the Tower than both of us put together.

After a long pause, he said, ‘Yes? What about London, 1483?’

‘You know,’ I said, surprised that he didn’t. ‘The Princes in the Tower?’

‘What princes?’

Peterson regarded him with some disbelief. ‘You’re pulling my plonker, aren’t you?’

‘Wouldn’t touch your plonker with oven gloves, mate. What happened to these princes, then?’

‘That’s what we’re going to find out,’ I said.

‘No,’ cried Peterson, in anguish. ‘Not without me.’

‘Of course you can come,’ I said soothingly. ‘Just pop upstairs and tell Dr Bairstow he can’t go because you want to. We’ll wait quietly here and see what happens, shall we?’

Peterson unleashed some ghastly medieval curse that caused birds to drop from the sky and stomped off, hands in pockets, enveloped in a major sulk.

Markham was frowning at the table. ‘Actually, I don’t think I can go, either. In fact, I’m sure I can’t.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I’m not sure I can spare myself. Scott and Gregg are off to 19th-century China with Van Owen and Sykes, and Keller and Cox are going to Olympia with Sands, Atherton and Roberts. And Clerk and Prentiss are off to Ghent with Gallacio. I have to keep at least a skeleton staff here to maintain building security. Standing orders.’

I thought for a bit. ‘I’ll push the Ghent jump back three days. We’ll be there and back in plenty of time.’

He thought about that for a long while, frowning and drumming his fingers on the table, and finally nodded. ‘OK – as long as I can leave a minimum crew here at St Mary’s, I’m your man.’

‘Thank you.’

I fired up the data table, all ready to begin building my data stack. ‘I know you were pulling Peterson’s plonker,’ I said, ‘oven gloves or no oven gloves. Tell me all about the Princes in the Tower.’

‘What all of it?’ he said. ‘Legends, rumours, half-truths, propaganda?’

‘Just the facts, ma’am.’

‘OK, then.’ He sat back, staring out of the window. ‘The Yorkists won the Wars of the Roses. Temporarily. Edward IV is king. Handsome – just like me. Popular – just like me. A big hit with the ladies – coincidentally, just like me. Has loads of kids but only two are important for our purposes – the two eldest boys – Edward and . . . Richard. Everything’s fine – happy family, peaceful country at long last – and then the king dies in . . . don’t tell me . . . 1483.’

‘April 1483,’ I said, although I’d had to look up the exact date.

‘Young Edward is carted off to the Tower – nothing unusual there – all kings traditionally spent the period before their coronation in the Tower – where he’s joined by his younger brother, Richard. Except the coronation never takes place. The boys are seen less and less frequently until, by the summer, they’ve disappeared completely, never to be seen again. Uncle Richard proclaims himself king and goes on to get the old heave-ho two years later at Bosworth. Remember that?’

‘Vividly,’ I said. And it was a vivid memory. Richard’s desperate face as he fought his way closer and closer to Henry Tudor – memorably described by North as a man who would drink his own bathwater.

Markham continued. ‘Henry Tudor – a Lancastrian – seizes the throne, marries the Yorkist Princess Elizabeth and that’s the end of the Plantagenets, the Wars of the Roses, the Middle Ages – pretty much everything, really – and the beginning of the Tudors.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘Do I gather we’re off to suss things out?’

‘It’s just a quick jump. Straight in and straight back out again. Quite straightforward.’

Do I never learn?

‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s the where and when and why. Now on to the who?’

‘Who?’

‘Who’s going?’

‘You. Me. Dr Bairstow and . . . one other.’ I stopped, not quite sure how to proceed.

‘And this person doesn’t have a name?’

‘Au contraire,’ I said. ‘This person has many names.’

He cocked an eye at me. ‘It’s not Lady Blackbourne, is it? Or Mrs North, to use her domestic name.’

I don’t know why I bother. ‘Er . . . yes.’

He sat back, his face suddenly in shadow. ‘Well, this is going to be interesting. Just the four of us, then?’

I nodded. ‘A small, discreet party.’

‘Quick and quiet.’

‘Exactly.’

He shook his head, staring out of the window but saying nothing. It crossed my mind he looked very pale.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Everything’s absolutely fine.’

I spent the day on practicalities. I needed to organise costumes so I fired off a message to the Boss asking him to obtain Mrs Brown’s measurements. I had no idea how he would manage that and I offered no suggestions.

For once, the landing site would be easy. I pulled up Tower schematics for the 15th century. The Bloody Tower – or the Garden Tower as it was called then – was easy to locate. Loads of people lived and worked in the Tower itself and a row of six tiny cottages, their backs to a high wall, ran in a line between the Wakefield Tower and the White Tower. I planned to plonk our pod discreetly on the end. We’d have the White Tower at our backs and command a view over the garden where the boys were last seen playing. We couldn’t be better placed. We might not even have to leave the pod. It was perfect.

I don’t know where I get all this optimism from.

I nipped off to have a word with Mrs Enderby. We agreed it would be a good idea to move up-market a little. Minor nobility, perhaps. Respectable enough not to be clapped in prison but not powerful enough to arouse suspicion. Or so I hoped.

This was going well. I was moving smoothly through my to-do list. Personnel sorted. Landing site sorted. Costumes started. Next was choosing the pod. Consulting the rota, I decided on Number Four and wandered down to Hawking to have a word with Leon.

I was picking my way carefully across the hangar, not tripping over odd bits of equipment or any of the umbilicals snaking across the floor, when I bumped into Adrian, doing something to the door of Number Five.

‘Try it now,’ he shouted to someone unseen.

The door jerked once, stopped, jerked again, and stopped again.

‘Hang on. Hang on,’ he shouted. He rummaged carefully through a toolkit, eventually selecting a lump hammer. He hefted it carefully, seemed to consider for a moment, and then replaced it with a larger one. Peering closely at the door, he selected his spot and fetched it an almighty whack. The door jerked once and then opened smoothly. Problem solved. As any techie will always tell you: if in doubt – give it a clout. As true today as it’s always been.

Leon looked up, saw me and waved. He and Dieter were inspecting something that looked as if a hairdryer had attempted to hump two spark plugs and failed, and was probably the most important piece of equipment in the entire pod. They both wore the traditional techie expressions of gloom and despondency. It was noticeable their expressions did not lighten as I approached.

‘Any chance of Number Four?’ I said to Leon, who was poking away at the part, but, as he explained later, poking it in a technical manner as opposed to just poking it any old how as, for example, an historian would do. Always supposing an historian would be allowed near it in the first place, given that it was a hideously expensive piece of kit and easily worth at least half a dozen of the aforementioned historians.

He frowned and pulled out his scratchpad. ‘I don’t have anything on the schedule.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Last-minute jump.’

‘Does Dr Bairstow know?’

‘It’s his jump. London 1483.’

‘Oh. OK. Yes, I can have it ready by tomorrow. Is that all right?’

‘I don’t think we’ll be ready to go before next week anyway.’

‘We?’

‘Me. Markham. The Boss and the Boss’s plus-one.’ And waited for the inevitable question.

He was maddeningly incurious. ‘Anything else? Only we’re quite busy, you know.’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘How long will you be gone?’

‘Couple of hours,’ I said. ‘Maybe three. Definitely no longer. You won’t have time to miss me and Matthew won’t even notice I’ve gone.’

So there we were – everything was coming together beautifully.

And then Markham went down with something horrible.

My first fear was that he’d brought something back from our jump to France. I thought he’d looked a bit of a funny colour when we were talking in the Library. Dr Stone had him scheduled for any number of tests because Markham has been known to go down with something horrible on an almost daily basis. He’s generally reckoned to be a lightning rod for disgusting diseases. We all still have vivid memories of Oscar the Ringworm. I personally was off spaghetti hoops for weeks afterwards. But it’s Markham and it usually only takes him a day or so to return from death’s door and start getting on everyone’s nerves again.

Only this time, he didn’t.

‘Vomiting,’ said a remarkably unperturbed but very large Hunter to my anxious enquiry.

‘Really?’

‘Vomiting like Vesuvius was the medical term,’ she said. ‘He can’t stop. We’ve shoved him in the Isolation Ward because we don’t know the cause. It should stop in a day or so because there can’t be much left, but you can’t have him for the Tower jump. Sorry, Max.’

Peterson and I went to wave at him through the observation window. He was busy with a basin so we left him to it.

Returning to my office, I spent some time considering my passengers and their status. I’d be insane to continue without Markham. A point I made to Dr Bairstow, expecting to be congratulated on my common sense and regard for personal safety.

I was to be disappointed. The jump was to proceed.

I got as far as, ‘But sir . . .’ when my principles of common sense and safety were trampled by the Chariot of Seniority.

‘Mrs Brown has a very full schedule and we were lucky she could fit us in at all. Any delay could set this jump back by months. We go as planned, Dr Maxwell.’

I hesitated. I was right but so was he. And, actually, a far more important consideration than the safety of a major player at Whitehall was that if they did go at a later date, I might not be available. Suppose I was on Crete, for example. Anyone from the History Department – Peterson, e.g. – would give their right arms to be included in this jump and that was never going to happen. With just the right amount of mature reluctance, I agreed the assignment could stand. It should, after all, be a very quiet, safe jump.

I’ve never actually used those three words in the same sentence before.

I wasn’t happy but if the Boss was OK with it . . . At least the lack of a security presence would give me the authority to keep them in the pod should I consider it necessary. Which went completely tits up when we landed in the wrong place, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

16

I assume Dr Bairstow had made all the appropriate arrangements with Mrs Brown, because here we all were outside Number Four and, I have to say, a considerable step up from our usual scruffy selves.

I wore a dress of light green wool, very full and gathered under the bust. I’d particularly asked for tight sleeves. Those long angel sleeves look great in one of Calvin Cutter’s cinematic monstrosities but they’re bloody useless in day-to-day situations.

For those of you who have forgotten – Calvin Cutter produces those historical films where men are men and women’s clothes fall off in anything stronger than a light breeze. He’s supposed to be making a movie of David Sands’ bestselling time travel novel – don’t ask – and it’s not turning out to be the happiest experience of his – David Sands’ – life. I think we’re going to have to kill him. Cutter – not David Sands.

Given the fashions of the day, my headdress was really very modest – a small, close-fitting bonnet welded to the back of my head, and covered with a light froth of fine linen. Those great wire contraptions supporting a Niagara of gauze are all very well but, trust me, not when you’re running for your life. Not that I expected to be doing so on this assignment. Not with the Boss and the Boss’s plus-one coming along.

Dr Bairstow was the epitome of respectability in a full-length robe of black velvet over an under-tunic of blue. It suited him. His soft, floppy hat sat at a rakish angle. I told him he looked the dog’s bollocks – a remark he pretended not to hear.

The real star, though, was Mrs Brown. North had been the same. They both had the ability to wear any costume as though they’d been born to it, which, I suppose, they had been. She wore a dark red dress, longer and fuller than mine – she obviously didn’t expect to be doing any running. The bodice was split down to the high waist, displaying an embroidered under-tunic. She had the wider sleeves, but they were pulled back to make a cuff. Mrs Enderby had pulled out all the stops on this one and her two-horned headdress was managing to be imposing without being bovine.

In short – we looked fantastic. No one was going to object to us wandering around the Tower. You’d be proud to have us on your premises.

Obviously, we were armed. Well, I was. I had my stun gun in a concealed pocket and any number of sharpened hairpins holding my headdress on. I was certain the Boss would have a pepper spray or two somewhere about his person and I knew his cane was a swordstick. We couldn’t take the smallest risk of anything happening to Mrs Brown. For all we knew, she signed our pay cheques.

We spent a few minutes practising walking. Fortunately, the fashion for those hideous long-toed shoes was over. We all wore soft leather shoes with sensible blunt toes. Mrs Brown and I practised our fabric management skills. Walking in a straight line was OK and cornering was fine with a little care, but anyone embarking on a reckless 180-degree turn could easily end up with several hundred yards of fabric wrapped around their ankles.

Visibility was a slight problem as well. Anything stronger than a light breeze and we’d be blinded by our own veils. And if the wind got under them, they’d act as a sail and we’d be off. Unless the weight of our dresses kept us tethered to the ground. I could only hope that there wasn’t a lot of wind within the confines of the Tower.

You have to think about things like this, you know. I hoped it wasn’t raining, either. Not only is wet wool very heavy, but it smells to high heaven as well. And, of course, if the weather wasn’t good then the boys might not be allowed outside – and while I was fairly confident we could legitimately stroll around the Tower’s grounds, getting inside any of the buildings to track them down would present a problem – which, no doubt, I would be expected to overcome somehow. Sometimes I think about getting an office job.

Dr Bairstow was ushering Mrs Brown into the pod. He installed her in a seat and fumbled with the seat belt, which was a bit of a bugger because none of us ever use them and we haven’t got a clue how they work.

I ignored what was going on behind me and concentrated on the console.

‘Everything’s laid in,’ said Leon, standing at my shoulder. ‘Return coordinates, too. You know – just in case.’

We always do this. Sometimes we have to leave in a bit of a hurry and then there’s no time to mess about with laying in the returns.

I ran my eye over everything and nodded. Leon smiled for me alone, touched my shoulder and left.

I took a deep breath. ‘Everyone all set?’

Dr Bairstow assured me that they were indeed all set. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Dr Maxwell.’

‘Computer, initiate jump.’

‘Jump initiated.’

The world went white.

And here we were – the Tower of London, 1483.

Fortress. Palace. Prison.

And mint and armoury and other stuff as well, but we generally go with the Big Three. Fortress. Palace. Prison. Much more dramatic.

Before I could envelop myself in the Cloak of Congratulations, however, it was immediately apparent we had a problem. I hadn’t landed us exactly where I’d planned, which, since we had a guest on board and wanted to look good, was a bit of a bugger.

We were only about two hundred yards or so off target, but those two hundred yards made all the difference between us being inside the Tower and us being outside the Tower.

Guess on which side we were?

I suspected there were folks on the other side of the wall who would give their right arms to be on the wrong side of the wall – always supposing their right arms were still attached to their bodies – but for our purposes, we were still on the wrong side of the walls.

‘Bugger,’ I said.

‘Problem?’ enquired Dr Bairstow. Quite mildly, I thought.

‘Unfortunately, sir, yes. We’re about a couple of hundred yards adrift. On the wrong side of the curtain wall.’

I panned the camera towards the Middle Tower.

‘The gates are open, sir. People are coming and going. Quite a lot of people, actually. We could try our luck and see if they’ll let us in.’

The presence of the princes would almost certainly have led to increased security but – and it’s embarrassing for the authorities to admit – the Tower, for all its imposing appearance, wasn’t always tremendously secure. Guards can easily be bribed and medieval guards more easily than most, it would seem. Queen Isabella’s lover, Roger Mortimer, escaped with the connivance of his guards. And quite a lot of money, of course. She and he went on to depose her husband, that nitwit Edward II, the one who became more closely acquainted with a red-hot poker than might be deemed wise. There wasn’t a lot of Health and Safety around in those days.

However, the good thing about the Tower – and most other buildings, palaces, prisons and similar – is that they’re like hives. Difficult to get into but once you’re inside, everyone assumes someone else has checked you out. Something we would have been able to take full advantage of had I actually managed to land us in the right place.

I left Dr Bairstow and his plus-one scanning the Middle Tower while I checked the coordinates. If we’d laid them in wrong, transposing two of the digits, for example . . . but we hadn’t. They were spot on. It must be the original calculations that were out. Or – and this does happen sometimes – the pod had simply dumped us in the wrong place. They do occasionally show some intelligence of their own. More than can be said for some historians, according to the Technical Section. Or vice versa according to the History Department. Or perhaps some safety protocol had kicked in and rather than drop us into the festering sewer of the moat, or inside a wall, or even into the Thames itself, the pod had made a clever guess and dropped us here. I foresaw a couple of hours’ happy discussion as Leon attempted to talk his way out of this one.

‘People seem to be passing through the gate with comparative ease,’ declared Dr Bairstow. ‘I see no reason why we should not do the same.’

‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘And I have a firm belief that fortune always favours the brave.’

No, it doesn’t. Trust me – it bloody doesn’t. However, mine was not to wonder why – mine was just to do or – no, never mind the rest of that saying. I stared at the screen.

‘Problem, Dr Maxwell?’ he said again.

‘Not at all, sir,’ I said bravely, hoping fortune would favour me because, out of the three of us, I had a horrible feeling I was going to turn out to be the most sensible person here today and that was a deeply troubling thought.

The time was mid-afternoon, which was later than I had planned. My intention had been to land just before dawn, when no one would notice the sudden appearance of an extra building at the end of the short row of cottages. They’re gone today – the cottages, not the Towers, obviously – but that little row had been the perfect place to shelter a small pod. It’s not often such an ideal landing spot presents itself, and for some reason we’d landed in the wrong bloody place and at the wrong bloody time of day. Apart from that, everything was going really well.

We were on the end of quite a motley clump of shabby houses and workshops clustered along the riverbank, their backs to the river and facing the Tower over to our right. And very, very visible. I braced myself for a crowd of screaming, pointing citizens.

It didn’t happen. There was no screaming and no ring of hostile citizens armed with pitchforks surrounded the pod. Always a good sign, I think. I panned around very carefully. There were chickens, a couple of geese, an upturned boat, a stack of wood leaning against a wall, a dog asleep in the shade and a man walking away from us with a plank over his shoulder. It all seemed harmless enough and I couldn’t put it off any longer. The two of them were champing to be out there. I checked over Mrs Brown for anomalous jewellery, wristwatches or inadvertent tattoos acquired after an imperfectly remembered evening out. Dr Bairstow adjusted his hat to an even more rakish angle, gripped his stick and off we went.

Like most people, I’ve visited the Tower of London. I’ve walked the battlements, climbed the towers, admired the Crown Jewels, seen the armoury, counted the ravens, fought my way through the tourists and so on. This was entirely different.

For a start – the smell. In no particular order, there was the stench of the Thames itself – not that far away off to our right. The tide was going out and thick, smelly river mud glistened in the hot sunshine. The water was a thick, brown colour. It looked like – and possibly was – liquid shit. Fun fact – as Markham would say – the tide takes twice as long to go out than come in. Something to do with the Thames Basin, I believe. He would probably go on to explain exactly what for an hour or so. Sometimes unexplained vomiting can be a blessing in disguise.

Then there was the moat, of course, so stagnant and shallow that lush grass was actually growing on it. Not so much a moat, more everyone’s public toilet.

Then the smell of horses – so common in our working day that we at St Mary’s are nose-blind to the heady scents of horse, dung, wet straw and so forth.

Then the tang of woodsmoke – ditto with the nose-blind. Even on a hot summer’s day – and this was a very hot summer’s day – there were fires everywhere for cooking, hot water, working. I could smell hot metal somewhere and hear the incessant clang of a hammer, as some poor sod was having his manacles adjusted for maximum discomfort, perhaps.

Another fun fact – well, Markham wasn’t here and someone had to do it – prisoners had to pay for their own ‘suit of irons’ or manacles. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they were obliged to fork out for their own board and lodgings here at the Tower as well.

Fun facts finished. For the time being.

So far everything was going well. And then the lion roared.

‘It’s true,’ said Mrs Brown in delight, as we headed towards the entrance.

Dr Bairstow nodded. ‘The Tower has been famous for its menagerie since the time of King John. Lions, bears, monkeys, a polar bear, even an elephant – who lived a short but very merry life since its keepers fed it mainly on wine.’

‘Actually, sir,’ I said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you if we couldn’t do something similar with the History Department.’

‘Alas, Dr Maxwell, I fear the History Department, like elephants, does not function well on wine.’

Lest our flippancy engenders criticism – we weren’t just messing around. A casual approach is essential. Nothing stands out more than people nervously approaching a checkpoint. The correct method is to be engaged in casual conversation, break off with patient resignation to deal with the guard and then carry on exactly as before.

‘On the contrary, sir,’ I said as we approached the Middle Tower. ‘I feel that, as a plan, feeding the History Department on wine has much merit.’

‘Although a great deal would depend on the quality, of course,’ added Mrs Brown, entering into the spirit of things.

‘Are we speaking of the wine or the History Department?’ enquired Dr Bairstow. He slowed as a guard stepped forwards.

Contrary to Calvin Cutter’s cinematic catastrophes, the guard was not all decked out in colourful red- and yellow-checked medieval attire and with curly toes. None of them were. There were no pretty uniforms here. This one wore a serviceable dark tunic and scuffed but still sturdy shoes. His pike leaned against the wall behind him so he obviously wasn’t expecting any trouble – but before anyone murmurs at the apparent lack of security, two of his mates stood alongside with their own pikes very much not leaning against the wall, and watched our every move. It was well done. We were posh enough not to be jostled but strange enough to arouse mild suspicion.

Dr Bairstow greeted him in Latin and made a vague gesture that might be interpreted as a benediction. Mrs Brown and I stood quietly behind him, eyes modestly cast downwards as befitted members of the weaker sex, waiting for the men to tell us what to do next. I had my hand on my stun gun just in case, although I have to say, its range wasn’t anywhere near as great as that of a pike so I was really hoping I wouldn’t need it.

I didn’t. The guard gave us a long, long look, and then, just as I was beginning to worry, stepped back and joined his fellows in the shade of the gate. Dr Bairstow nodded with just the right mixture of arrogance and acknowledgement and we walked through the towers, out into the sunshine and across the moat.

The Byward Tower presented no problems at all – the guard, having seen us passed by his colleague, didn’t even bother to leave his patch of shade, just waving us through in a manner reminiscent of Mrs Partridge.

We were in.

17

The Tower of London was a busy place. A very busy place. And nearly everyone was male. I saw an occasional female disappear through a door with an armful of linen or a basket of greenery and that was about it.

The men all had long hair down to their shoulders and, apart from a few obviously low-ranking servants, all were clean-shaven. Everyone wore a thick, knee-length tunic, belted and flaring out from the waist. Some of the more important officials, despite the heat, sported an over-tunic that was almost a coat. They must have been baking hot.

Older men wore longer robes. I wondered how Dr Bairstow was faring in all this heat but he looked as cool as a cucumber. As did Mrs Brown, staring haughtily around, clearly conveying that she had standards and the Tower didn’t come anywhere near them.

To be fair – it was reasonably clean. Yes, there were wisps of straw caught between the paving stones and there were a few slimy places where the sun never shone and the paving was slippery, even in June, and there were some dodgy stains on some of the walls – at just below waist-height, so I think we can all guess that someone couldn’t be bothered to find a bucket. On the other hand, I was from a time when the pavements are covered in dog-ends and chewing gum and the walls sport identical stains at waist-height, so I was hardly in a position to criticise.

We turned left between the Garden and the Wakefield Towers and here we were.

It looked bigger than I remembered but that could be because there were considerably fewer stone buildings around us than I remembered from modern times, but a great many more wooden ones, mostly crowded higgledy-piggledy around the walls. Workshops, mostly, by the look of them.

I took a discreet look around. My main concern was Lord Hastings. Or rather – the late Lord Hastings. He’d been executed on 20th June – only a few days ago – outside St Peter’s Chapel. Believe it or not, he was the first person to be executed within the confines of the Tower itself. Most people were dragged outside, to be offed in public on Tower Hill. In fact, despite its fearsome reputation, until quite modern times, only seven people were ever executed inside the Tower.

The first, as I said, was William Hastings. There was no block – they’d had to use an old log from somewhere and a poleaxe. I hoped they had washed the bloodstains away.

Followed, some fifty years later, by Anne Boleyn.

Kal and I argue incessantly over Anne Boleyn. I know it’s fashionable to regard her as an innocent victim, but given that everyone agrees she was a scheming, conniving, manipulative bitch, I reckon she was guilty as hell. Failure to produce an heir meant her hold on the king was fast weakening. Her enemies – and she’d made a lot of those – were closing. Producing a boy was the only thing that would save her. Henry’s ulcerous leg was playing up. He almost certainly wasn’t as frisky as he’d once been. She’d been his mistress and then married him. Mistresses should never marry their lovers – it creates a vacancy usually filled only too quickly.

For Anne, there was only one way out. Adultery. Or even incest – I wouldn’t have put that past her, either, and I could certainly see the point of keeping it in the family, because cuckolding the king wasn’t something you’d want anyone else to know, would you?

And then there was Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury in her own right – who died in a wretchedly botched execution. There are two versions – either the executioner was appallingly incompetent and literally hacked her to death – or, since she hadn’t been charged with any specific crimes, or indeed, any crimes at all – she’d decided to put up a fight. She refused to lay her head on the block and one version says they had to chase her all around the scaffold before they could subdue her sufficiently for the sentence to be carried out. I should imagine the front rows were a bit of a splash zone.

Then there was Catherine Howard – Henry’s child bride and almost certainly guilty of adultery because that’s what happens when you’re an old, fat, diseased and impotent king and you imprudently marry a ditzy teenager to try and recapture your legendary youth.

Followed, only minutes afterwards, by Anne Boleyn’s former sister-in-law, Jane Rochford. Catherine was executed first, then Jane immediately afterwards. It might even have been that Jane had to kneel in Catherine’s blood and place her head on the still sticky block. Not a nice thought.

And then – Jane Grey. The Nine-Day Queen, according to the rest of the world, who would actually have ruled for a blood-soaked thirty-five years if we and the Time Police hadn’t stepped in. I will repeat – we didn’t change History, we simply rerouted it.

And finally, Elizabeth’s toy boy, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who honestly thought tough-as-boots-I’ve-survived-everything-the-world-can-throw-at-me Elizabeth Tudor would surrender her crown to him. Silly boy.

Anyway, to my relief, the log had been tidied away, the place was not sticky with blood and Lord Hastings’ severed head was not being used as a football.

The Garden Tower stood to our left and the Wakefield Tower to our right. Where Henry VI had been murdered while praying. Which sounds shocking, but rumour had it he was at it almost continually so the challenge would have been to catch him during the few minutes of the day when he wasn’t praying.

In front of us, diagonally opposite, the White Tower managed to both sparkle and loom at the same time.

I turned my attention back to the Garden Tower and the gardens for which it was named. Well, I say gardens – a low wall enclosed a patch of grass, several small trees and some herb borders. Neat, but unimaginative.

I’d fretted that the gardens might be enclosed by a high wall but that wouldn’t have made any sense. Not only must the boys have actually been visible as they played in the garden, but the authorities certainly wouldn’t have wanted to build high walls behind which anyone could be concealed. Looking around, everywhere was visible from somewhere else and the windows in the tall towers overlooked everything. Including us.

We didn’t approach directly. We strolled very slowly around the inner ward – although in those clothes and in that heat, it really wasn’t possible to do anything else – and gave people plenty of time to get used to us.

Dr Bairstow went first, supporting Mrs Brown, and I followed on in the position usually occupied by Markham. I tried to be vigilant but quite honestly, I was wasting my time. The bustle had died away and everyone seemed to be in some sort of midsummer stupor. Perhaps they were sleeping off lunch. There was the occasional raised voice or door banging in the distance, but otherwise an air of imminent slumber hung over everything. This might be one assignment where the presence of the Security Section would have been entirely superfluous anyway. I must remember to tell Markham so on my return. Just to hasten his recovery from whatever foul pestilence he’d managed to contract.

‘No ravens,’ murmured Mrs Brown, stopping to glance around.

‘No, ma’am,’ I said, happily seizing the opportunity to show off. ‘It’s thought the legend originated because the giant, Brân, King of the Britons, ordered his men to cut off his head and bury it under the White Hill in London. Which they did. It’s over there. Where the White Tower stands today. The head is still beneath it, facing towards France and keeping the country safe from invasion. Brân is Welsh for raven which is probably where we get the raven legend. But it was Charles II who, having heard the prophecy that England will fall if the ravens leave the Tower, ordered they have their wings clipped. Just in case.’

‘Ah.’ She nodded.

My little exposition had brought us level with the garden. Which was empty. A complete Princes in the Tower-free zone. To the right stood the little row of cottages where we should have landed. A wooden bench stood over against the wall so I steered the two of them towards it and we made ourselves comfortable. I remembered not to cross my legs.

‘Records say the princes were seen less and less frequently,’ I said. ‘I suppose we should have expected this.’

‘They were seen up until the end of June,’ said Mrs Brown, who had obviously done her homework. ‘I don’t think we should despair just yet.’

True, but I couldn’t think of any reason why two active boys would be inside on a day like this.

‘Lessons,’ said Mrs Brown, when I mentioned my misgivings.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am?’

‘They’ll be having lessons, I assume. If Richard is keeping up the pretence of a normal life for the boys then they’ll be having lessons. And then there would have been their midday meal. And then possibly more lessons. And then any other tasks they might have to perform. Or their tutors might simply feel it’s too hot. Remember, Edward was supposed to be sickly. The doctor called nearly daily.’

All quite true. We leaned back against the warm wall and waited. Gradually, people disappeared inside. Those remaining appeared to be asleep on their feet. I’m sure that there were times when the place heaved with activity, but not this afternoon.

Time wore on and still no sign of the boys. I told myself there was nothing sinister in that. They might have misbehaved and were being kept inside as a punishment. Or they might not have finished their lessons yet. Or as Mrs Brown had said – they weren’t allowed out in the heat of the day. Or they weren’t coming out because they were already under lock and key. Or they were already dead.

The sun dropped lower in the sky, taking my optimism with it. The door to the Garden Tower was open but the interior was in deep shadow and I could see nothing. I was starting to formulate plans for going inside and what to do when I got there when Mrs Brown said suddenly, ‘They’re here. Look.’

I sat up with a jerk.

Oh my God. They were. They were here. Two young boys were emerging from the Garden Tower, followed by several servants carrying a ton of stuff we couldn’t identify. They were here and we were looking directly at them. I felt Mrs Brown grip my arm with excitement and I didn’t blame her one bit. They were here. King Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York. The Princes in the Tower were not twenty yards away. I palmed my recorder and began.

The two boys and their four attendants stood in the shade of a gnarled old apple tree. Both boys had stripped down to their long linen shirts – lucky things – and carried wooden swords and small wooden shields. Two of their attendants were demonstrating – thrust and parry. Thrust and parry. A little bit of sword practice for the young king and his brother.

We could see they were both fair-haired – as their father had been. Edward, I think, had reached the growth-spurt stage. He was tall, much taller than his brother, but very thin. His hair was lighter than Richard’s – a pale flaxen colour which fell to his shoulders, long and straight. He had the long, bony Plantagenet face, all nose and chin. I wasn’t close enough to see the colour of his eyes, but I could zoom in and check that out later. I thought he seemed rather pale but that might simply have been because he didn’t get out much. On the other hand, his doctor is on record as saying Edward daily expected death. Whether at the hands of his uncle or because he was ill was unclear. Edward was the elder. Was he old enough to have some idea of the danger in which he and his brother stood? Did he actually know how precarious their position was? How aware was he of what was going on in the outside world?

Or was his pallor caused by his sickness? Was it ill-health that made his hands tremble? If he had lived – would he have died young anyway? He didn’t look particularly robust.

He rolled up his sleeves, grasped his sword tightly, made a few preliminary thrusts and stood waiting for his brother.

Richard had his back to me. I could see at once he was a different physical type to his brother. Much, much shorter, and stockier with a great bush of hair that grew in all directions. It wasn’t so much curly as just . . . haphazard. The sort of hair that, no matter how often or how thoroughly he combed it, would always look tousled. It was darker than his brother’s, too. I rather thought that while Edward might remain flaxen all his life, Richard’s hair would soon darken to a kind of dirty blond.

He was bouncing with excitement, barely able to stand still while his attendants made sure his light leather helmet was secure and he was holding his shield properly. His brother said something to him and he calmed down slightly. One of his attendants bent over him, offering words of advice, perhaps. The other one showed him how to adjust his grip, and then they stepped back into the shade and let them get on with it.

The boys practised for nearly an hour. Thrust and parry. Thrust and parry. The garden echoed with the wooden clack of sword on sword. Richard was considerably more proficient than his older brother, shouting with excitement and jumping in the air every time he scored a hit.

His energy was actually causing me some professional problems. No matter how I angled my recorder, I just couldn’t get clear shots of his face. The padded leather helmet didn’t help. And he was never still. If he’d been mine, I’d have had him on the medieval equivalent of Ritalin just for half an hour’s peace.

At the end of the session, their servants called them back into the shade. Edward went quietly, but Richard wanted to do more, slashing at the grass with his wooden sword and then stabbing at one of the apple trees.

Both boys were brought a drink. Richard talked all the while, simultaneously gesturing with his sword and gulping down his drink. Someone set a chair for Edward and he remained under the tree, sipping and watching his brother.

Obviously still eager for more, Richard took on an attendant who worked him hard. They probably had to do this for a couple of hours every day just to tire him out so they could get him to bed. But for his age, he was very proficient. There was no need for any of the attendants to pretend to stumble or trip over to let him win. No allowances were made. These boys were princes. They would be expected to fight and they would be expected to fight well. One day they would lead armies. As their ancestors had done. As their father and uncle had done. If they had lived, there would have been another Richard to defend another Edward’s throne.

The two brothers obviously got on well. Edward leaned forwards and called encouragement. He and the remaining attendants would applaud a good move.

And that was another inconsistency. Thomas More – that old hypocrite and never the most unprejudiced of sources – had reported that their regular attendants had been removed and replaced by rough men in the pay of Uncle Richard’s trusted man, James Tyrrell. I don’t know who was paying this bunch, but they weren’t rough men. They were neat and clean and obviously enjoyed an excellent relationship with their charges. Both princes obeyed them almost without question.

We watched, fascinated. It was late June and we were among the very last people to see these boys alive and I made sure I recorded every moment. Priceless, irreplaceable data for historians to fight over on our return.

I spent some time recording their shields because there was a bit of a clue there. Edward’s wooden shield bore the arms of the kingdom. Gules, three lions passant guardant or. In other words, the arms of a king of England.

His younger brother also bore the arms of the kingdom – to which he was entitled – differentiated by a label argent, on the first point a canton gules. So obviously, at this point in their lives – or at least, the point at which the shields had been made for them – they were publicly recognised as the king and his brother.

But here was the strange thing. None of the people moving around the innermost ward were taking any notice of the boys. Servants, soldiers, officials – all kept their eyes firmly ahead as they passed. I didn’t notice to begin with, so busy was I trying to pin down that dancing butterfly, Richard of York. You’d have thought the guards would have gathered to take a professional interest in the swordplay, but they didn’t. Or, human nature being what it is, that some of the Tower officials would have paused, at least for a moment, to ingratiate themselves with a future king and his brother, but apart from their attendants, no one took a blind bit of notice of them. It was as if they didn’t exist.

I remarked on this to Dr Bairstow, who nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes. I think, if you have all the material you need, Dr Maxwell, we should stop pushing our luck and start making our way back to the pod.’

He was right. The gates were ceremonially locked every night – and had been so ever since Edward III apparently turned up one night and just strolled in. Furious at this lapse of security, he instituted what became known as the Ceremony of the Keys and every night the Tower is secured. Those who are inside can’t get out and those outside can’t get in. We needed to be on the right side of the walls when dusk fell.

Dr Bairstow was continuing. ‘Once there, I think a small conference might be in order. We will review our findings with a view to determining tomorrow’s programme.’

He was talking about another day here! I could hardly believe my luck.

‘As you please, sir. I’ve managed to get footage of nearly everyone and everything. Tomorrow, if someone can persuade him to stand still for a second, I’d like to have another go at young Richard. There’ll never be another chance.’

He nodded. ‘I think that can be arranged. If Mrs Brown has no objections.’

‘I should be delighted,’ she said, rising to her feet and arranging her skirts properly. ‘Does this mean we will spend the night in a pod? How thrilling.’

I wondered if I should mention my snoring and decided against it.

She was talking about the younger prince. ‘I think in modern times he would almost certainly be diagnosed with ADHD. He simply never stops, does he? His attendants must be exhausted. And the heat is really very oppressive.’

It was. There was no wind in the inner ward and the heat was bouncing off the stones. My scalp prickled with perspiration, I had damp armpits and my linen underdress was glued to me with sweat.

We arranged ourselves as before, with me bringing up the rear, and very slowly and very casually, we retraced our steps out past the Byward Tower and over the swampy moat, where by now the smell was so strong it almost rippled the air – like a heat haze.

Dr Bairstow nodded to the guards who appeared almost comatose at this point, and then we were out into the really not much fresher air and staring across the glittering Thames.

We were downriver from London Bridge – which was about half a mile away, as far as I could tell, and the river was packed with shipping. Small boats milled around everywhere, carrying anything from passengers to cargo to – in one case – a large brown cow. It stood peacefully in the middle of the boat, regally surveying everything around it as it was transported downriver. I’ve no idea where it was going.

The smaller boats were servicing larger ships as they loaded or unloaded. I say larger ships but to my modern eyes they all looked tiny. I personally wouldn’t have crossed to the other side of the river in one of those, let alone the other side of the Channel. Many more were anchored mid-stream. Waiting for the tide, perhaps. Everything was dependent upon the wind and tide.

There were dilapidated wooden jetties at regular intervals along the foreshore. Some extended some way out into the water; others were quite short. Quite a few were just a tangled mass of rotting timbers.

I pulled out my recorder and got some good shots of the ships, wondering how I’d identify them when I got back. None of them had names painted either on their sides or their stern. Then I kicked myself. Of course they wouldn’t. There would be no point. Hardly anyone could read.

‘The world is beginning to open up,’ said Dr Bairstow. ‘Vessels are being constructed that are capable of sailing around the globe.’

Why anyone would want to do any such thing was a mystery to me. I planted my landlubberly feet firmly on solid ground and told myself I wasn’t going within a hundred yards of any ship. Especially the one directly in front of us. The vast tangle of ships’ masts was swaying to and fro in a way that made me feel green to look at them, but this one was wallowing more clumsily than most. It was very old and there were things growing all over it. Any normal person would have said it had reached the end of its useful life quite some time ago, but red-faced, heavily sweating men were swarming up and down the gangplank, quite happily, loading bundles and casks.

‘A cog,’ announced Dr Bairstow, pointing at another, slightly more seaworthy-looking vessel moored further out from the bank and surrounded by a large number of smaller boats. ‘Single-masted and clinker-built,’ he continued, incomprehensibly. ‘And over there, a hulk.’ He pointed at a truly dilapidated vessel being towed upriver by several rowing boats. Mrs Brown and I nodded politely and he sighed. ‘I used to do a lot of sailing in my youth.’

Mrs Brown enquired what the boats were likely to be carrying.

‘Wine, cloth, wool, salt, timber . . .’

Keeping the Tower on our left-hand side, we walked slowly past St Thomas’s Gate, the Cradle Tower and then the Well Tower. Here, a narrow, dusty lane turned sharp left, to follow the stagnant moat around the Tower – a route to be avoided unless you wanted to be laid low with typhoid fever before bedtime.

We followed the river along an unpaved road, past another cluster of houses, inns, chandlers, carpenters, workshops and so on. This haphazard conglomerate of buildings served both the Tower behind us and the docks ahead. Seagulls wheeled whitely, shitting on everything in sight.

There were people around, quietly getting on with their day, and everything seemed peaceful so I dropped back slightly to give them some privacy. They walked ahead of me, Dr Bairstow pointing with his stick, Mrs Brown nodding, me with my tongue hanging out and thinking of tea.

At this point in time, other than Southwark, London was mostly on this, the north side of the river. The opposite bank was still rough land with marshes, stunted willows, alders, tall reeds and the occasional wooden shack. The river itself stank to high heaven, but there was a stiffish breeze coming off it that was very welcome after the heat of the day.

There was no artificial embankment yet and the river seemed wider, somehow. And a lot more untidy. The ragged shoreline was littered with flotsam or jetsam – don’t ask me which is which because I can never remember – broken planks and spars, tangled nets, the occasional scuttling rat, bits of barrels and baskets, rotten old rope and everything else no one had any more use for.

There were plenty of people about. A lot of men were fishing – not that I’d have eaten anything that came out of the Thames. No one seemed to have caught anything. There might not be anything to catch. Perhaps even in medieval times, men escaped their households to sit on a riverbank clutching a stick with a bit of string hanging off it, to stare vacantly at the passing water for a couple of hours.

We moved out of the way for a boy leading a couple of big, brown horses. They plodded slowly past us, heads low in the heat. I could see horse-fly bites under their skin. I wondered if perhaps they were for towing some of the smaller boats upriver – like towing narrow boats on canals.

Children were everywhere, of course, impervious to the heat, running, shouting, chasing each other, throwing sticks. We were well into mid-evening by now. The sun wouldn’t set for another couple of hours and it was still hot. I knew from experience there would be no chance of getting them to bed. I bet the two princes were still up as well. I pictured Edward sitting quietly under his tree, reading perhaps, and young Richard belting around the place exhausting everyone in sight.

The light was taking on an orangey tinge. My historian instincts were telling me it was time to turn back. Obviously because I wanted Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown safely returned to the pod before dusk fell, and not in the least because my tongue was cleaving to the roof of my mouth and I was gagging for a cup of tea. But they were strolling quietly along, their heads close together, chatting away, and you’d have to be an even bigger monster than me to break that up. I wandered along behind them, out of earshot but not out of range should either of them take it into their heads to do anything daft.

I gave them another hundred yards and then cleared my throat in a meaningful manner and they were as good as gold. We ambled very casually back to the pod, enjoying this remarkably fine evening. The sunset was beautiful. All golds, oranges, crimson and purple. The Tower loomed before us, darker than everything around it now that the sun was sinking to the horizon. The sky was turning a deep, blood red.

They paused outside the pod for one last look around and I felt bad for breaking this up, but the light had gone and the rules are clear. Back in the pod before nightfall. I’m an expert on rules. I’ve ignored or broken nearly all of them at one time or another. But not today. I called for the door, saw them both inside, took one final look around at the soft twilight and then the door closed behind us.

The pod was deliciously cool after the heat of the day. Without me even mentioning it, Dr Bairstow bustled about with the kettle. Mrs Brown made herself comfortable, arranging her dress so no one would trip over it.

I gave the console a quick glance – just checking nothing had gone wrong in our absence. Nothing had. Today had been a good day. We’d got in and out of the Tower successfully, caught a glimpse of the princes, impressed one of our anonymous bosses and not only was no one dead – no one had even been hurt. It could all have been a lot worse. Mrs Brown took my tea from Dr Bairstow and passed it over. I thanked her and waited to see what Dr Bairstow had to say.

He seated himself next to Mrs Brown and said to me, ‘Are you surprised by how easy that was?’

Well, yes, was the answer to that. Although I didn’t see why we couldn’t chalk everything up to brilliant planning and flawless execution and said so.

‘You saw nothing suspicious there, Dr Maxwell?’

Mrs Brown handed him his own tea. He looked at the mug as if he’d never seen one before.

‘Well, we weren’t challenged, sir. Not once. Hardly anyone even looked at us.’

‘Or the princes,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘It was most noticeable, I thought. It was almost as if they were invisible. That they didn’t exist. And yet young Richard was such a bundle of noisy energy you couldn’t miss him.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘I wonder what orders they’ve been given.’

Dr Bairstow nodded. ‘How about, “Take no notice of anything out of the ordinary that might happen today. Or tomorrow. Or within the next few days. Turn a blind eye to everything.” Including us, it would seem.’

‘But why?’

‘Because, perhaps, something is about to occur that needs a blind eye turning to. I wondered whether they thought we were there in an observers’ capacity. As indeed we were, but a different type of observer.’

‘They’re going to kill them,’ Mrs Brown said, slowly. ‘These are the preliminaries. Getting people accustomed to ignoring possibly strange events would be the first stage to carrying out something that needs to be ignored.’

Dr Bairstow nodded. ‘It all adds up. Hastings is executed on 20th June. On the 22nd the two princes are declared illegitimate in a sermon outside Old St Paul’s. Their uncle declares himself king on the 26th. Where are we now?’

I swallowed the last of my tea. ‘Late evening of the 25th June.’

‘If Richard has them killed tonight then he really is the legitimate king tomorrow.’

We thought about that for a moment.

I looked around. This was one of the most important days in English History. There was no way I was missing this. Frankly, if we didn’t have Mrs Brown with us then, trust me, you couldn’t have dynamited me out of this place. But we did. We had a very senior member of the Civil Service with us and if anything happened to her then we would be in some very serious trouble indeed.

Normally, this wouldn’t even register on my list of things to worry about but I strongly suspected that if anything happened to her mother then North would come looking for me and I’d find myself on the receiving end of not only the brutal efficiency she brought to any task she undertook, but a couple of very nasty tricks picked up from the Time Police as well.

I began a rough calculation. I needed to get Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown back to St Mary’s as soon as was politely possible. Say goodbye. Get out of this dress, grab Peterson who would never forgive me otherwise, possibly Markham as well, if he was functioning yet, and get back here. I wondered how much of a safety margin I would need. You can’t be in the same time twice. There are no do-overs in our game. Which is a shame because our lives would be considerably easier if, after a particularly difficult and incident-heavy assignment, we could go back and have another go. But, sadly, we can’t do that. I’ve never experienced it, but I’m told the consequences of having two versions of the same person together in the same time could be quite catastrophic. I reckoned I’d need a couple of hours at least between our departure from the Tower and my subsequent return. And even then, I’d probably have to wrestle with the pod’s safety protocols because pods take a very dim view of this sort of thing.

And now we’d reached a tricky moment. I was officially in charge of this assignment. My word was law. If I said it was time to go then it was time to go. Even Dr Bairstow himself couldn’t overrule me.

‘So,’ I said casually, putting down my mug. ‘Back home in time for tea.’

I think I tend to forget Dr Bairstow is an historian as well.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Am I to understand you do not favour pursuing this matter any further, Dr Maxwell?’

Well, yes, obviously, was the answer to that, but not with you and Mrs Brown alongside me, was the complete answer that couldn’t be uttered.

I struggled to put it slightly less bluntly. ‘Sir, I don’t think . . .’ I gestured towards Mrs Brown who, as a top government official, would be completely in favour of caution and discretion, together with the need to form a steering group to consider a working party to investigate the possibility of setting up a committee or two to monitor developments and put together a set of guidelines for future discussion prior to formulating the appropriate policy.

Of course, with my usual luck, Mrs Brown hadn’t read the same 7 Habits for Highly Ineffective Government as her colleagues. ‘I think we should pursue this matter immediately,’ she said crisply. ‘To leave now and return later would be inefficient and time-consuming. We are ideally situated. It is up to us to record and document events as they arise – on the spot – for future consideration and evaluation.’

Well, bugger me.

‘As we would at this very moment be doing, ma’am,’ I said smoothly, ‘were it not for the presence of . . .’

‘Oh, I don’t think you need trouble yourself over that,’ said Dr Bairstow jovially. ‘I think we can all agree this is an excellent opportunity for us to demonstrate our modus operandi to our employers and at the same time gain an insight into one of the great mysteries of the ages. I find myself quite excited.’

I remembered again that he was responsible for picking up all three of our government overlords and depositing them in the middle of the Battle of Waterloo. Just to make a point. And right in the middle of the action. None of this girlie hanging-around-the-edges stuff. I still couldn’t believe they hadn’t all been blown to bits or crushed underfoot in the famous charge of the Scots Greys.

Well, if the Boss wasn’t worried, then neither was I. And Mrs Brown was positively sparkling with excitement. It dawned on me that if this went well then it might ensure our funding for a decade. On the other hand, if it went badly then I was off to hide in the Pleistocene period and even that might not be enough to escape Miss North.

18

Since we all appeared to be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future – however long that turned out to be – I suggested everyone eat something. We pulled out the compo rations and surveyed our resources. Quite honestly, I wasn’t expecting either of them to be impressed – the purpose of compo is to slow the passage of food through the gut rather than provide a taste experience, but Mrs Brown said, ‘Ooh – liver and bacon. Haven’t had that since I was at school.’

Note for foreigners and other normal people: the conditions in most English public schools are brutally primitive and are surpassed only by those of public schools in Scotland. Pupils sleep in dormitories on beds comprised mostly of iron spikes, the majority of lessons appear to take place out of doors in the rain, and the food is best described as nourishing. Offal, milk puddings, vast suet dumplings – often all on the same plate. Any attempts to introduce the same standards of catering into His Majesty’s Prisons would cause an international outcry. The worse the living conditions, the more exorbitant the school fees. Parents believe these schools promote fortitude and self-reliance, together with the development of a gastric tract as robustly all-encompassing as a municipal tip. Believe it or not, many ex-pupils regard their schooldays with fond nostalgia, and Mrs Brown obviously missed the good old days.

The Boss went for beef stew and I had chicken. We pulled the heating tabs and tucked in. Both of them cleaned their trays. It was as I was making tea that it all began to kick off.

‘Oh,’ said Mrs Brown, suddenly, leaning forwards and pointing at the screen. ‘Should that happen?’

I twisted to look. Night had finally fallen and the Tower was a blaze of light. The battlements were outlined by torches thrust into the walls every few yards. Braziers stood either side of the gates – which were now firmly closed against the outside world. More braziers were placed along the river in the area known as the Wharf. I suspected they were more about catching anyone behaving suspiciously than preventing people from falling in. There was a moon, obscured occasionally by the clouds that were beginning to build up. The wind was getting up, too. I wondered if we were due some rain and whether that would be a good thing or not. But what had attracted Mrs Brown’s attention was that, very slowly and very eerily, one by one, all the lights were going out. The Tower of London was fading back into the night.

I put down my mug, tea forgotten. At first, I thought the wind was blowing out the torches, but none of the flames were flickering. One minute the light would be burning strongly – the next minute it was gone. Snuffed out. A moment later – exactly the same amount of time it would take a man to move to the next one – that one was gone, too.

I followed the progress along the walls. From the Byward Tower to St Thomas’s Tower to the Cradle Tower to the Well Tower. One by one. And then around the corner and out of our view.

I panned back to the Wharf. I caught a glimpse of dark figures moving among the braziers and then they too were doused. The night suddenly seemed very dark.

‘Switching to internal night vision,’ I said, and the inside of the pod glowed greenly.

‘Something’s happening,’ said Dr Bairstow at my shoulder and indeed, we could see moving shadows but little else.

‘We’re not well situated here,’ I said, frustrated. ‘The angle’s wrong. We can’t actually see what’s going on. We need to be outside. And much closer.’

I paused in case he wanted to tell me that was impossible and we should stay where we were, but actually he seemed quite keen so I stood up, removed my headdress and placed it carefully in a locker because yes, I’ve faced monsters in my time, but Mrs Enderby in Wardrobe has a vast range of reproachful stares and you really don’t want to be on the receiving end of any of them.

There’s a method for dealing with long dresses. You simply lift the hem above your knees and pull it all forwards in a bundle. Swoosh it back between your legs, divide in two, bring both handfuls around your waist and tie firmly. Job done, ladies. Draw your sword and shed some blood.

My plan was that I would go out first to take a quick look around and the two more valuable members of the human race would remain safely inside the pod where no harm could come to them. Guess how that turned out. I was nearly trampled in the rush. Mrs Brown had her headdress off and her skirts tied up even more quickly than me. She was definitely in the wrong job.

I issued a few instructions on what to do in an emergency and how important it was they both do exactly as they were told exactly when they were told to do it and I think it would be safe to say that neither of them heard a word I said.

The darkness worked in our favour. We extinguished our night lights, slunk out of the pod and stood just outside the door for a moment, waiting for our eyes to adjust. The moon was dodging in and out of the clouds and the wind scudded off the river dragging hot, moist air with it. I wondered if there was a weather front coming through.

Hardly any lights showed in the houses around us. Most people couldn’t afford candles or lamps so they tended to get up and go to bed with the sun. The night was full of shadows and the Tower of London was just a gaping hole of blackness in the dark.

We waited quietly, pressed against the side of the pod. I’ve no idea what we were waiting for. Normally I’d have been sniffing around all over the place but since I had two VIPs with me, I rather thought it might be wise to exercise a little caution. I could hear voices in the far distance and lights were showing from the boats on the river, but gradually all sounds died away, the wind dropped and stillness fell. And the night was so muggy. It was almost as hot as during the day. There was an air of apprehension. I could feel a prickling on the back of my neck. Something was going to happen and I was right in the middle of it. It’s a great feeling.

Far off in the distance, thunder rumbled.

We stood for what seemed like hours – and might well have been – and then, just as I was beginning to wonder if we were wasting our time after all and this dousing of the lights was perfectly normal behaviour – although given the date and the location that seemed very unlikely – not far off, something sounded in the dark. Something rasped against a stone wall. Something metallic. A sword, perhaps.

I couldn’t tell from which direction it came and it struck me we had the worst of both worlds here. We were close enough to be at risk but not close enough to see what was going on. I threw caution to the winds. I would never have this chance again.

I breathed, ‘Stay behind me,’ and off we set and they did. If only I commanded such obedience from my own department.

The Wharf was scattered with all sorts of stuff. Barrels, casks, crates and so forth, some just stacked up, others covered with tarpaulins. I found a convenient heap and we crouched behind it. When trying to avoid detection, keeping above or below people’s eyeline is always a good idea.

This stack of crates wasn’t really big enough to conceal the three of us. I could only cross my fingers no one came this way. We had our backs to the river. Henry III’s Watergate – a small gate which opened out into the area between the inner and outer walls – was just opposite us. This gate had been closed during our afternoon visit because the gates in the Middle and Byward Towers seemed to be the preferred option for normal, everyday use.

We were still uncomfortably exposed. We had no night vision and no torches. Not that I would have allowed torches anyway. Too much of a giveaway. I had a nasty idea that anyone caught in the near vicinity tonight would soon find themselves in the Thames with a knife between their shoulder blades and a pocket full of rocks.

Thunder rumbled again. It seemed a little closer this time. No lightning. Not yet. I wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing. Lightning would enable us to see but also to be seen. Yes, I really wasn’t happy with our position at all.

And then, all of a sudden, I was. Because the Watergate was opening. Silently, and in the dark, the gate was opening. Whatever was kicking off, it was all going to happen right in front of us. Good luck like this doesn’t come our way very often. I could hardly believe it. Just for once, we were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

My heart was hammering away and not just because this was such an exposed, dangerous place to be. There was excitement and adrenalin as well because, if we were very, very lucky, we could be about to solve one of History’s greatest mysteries. What happened to the Princes in the Tower. Not the whole mystery, of course – if they were dead then we still wouldn’t know who had ordered their murder. King Richard himself? His friend and ally, the Duke of Buckingham? But this could give us a useful starting point for future jumps. Perhaps we would actually be able to get someone into the princes’ lodgings and once there . . .

I had my recorder. I’d shoved in new power packs and was all ready to go. Fortunately, it was soundless although I had to remember not to hold my breath because that makes my hands shake.

The sky flashed pinkly and a man’s deep voice rumbled, cut off as if someone had shushed him. Like us, they had no lights, either. Whatever they had done or were doing, it was to be performed in silent darkness.

A small boat – almost a punt – appeared. One man was standing at the rear with the pole. Two other men sat at the front. The boat nosed its way silently through the Watergate and then stopped. They were waiting to see whether the coast was clear.

Eventually, one of them climbed out, hooded and cloaked despite the heat. I could just make out a sword in one hand and what looked like a dark lantern in the other. As far as I could see, his sword was clean. No blood. He stood in the shadow of the Tower, looking out across the river. Motionless. Waiting.

Now I really did hold my breath, staring at him in the darkness, willing him not to look our way. He was closer to the river than to us but if he turned to look . . . It was very tempting to try to shuffle around our pile of crates and barrels but the slightest sound would be a disaster so I crossed my fingers and waited.

He stood, turning his head from side to side for what seemed like a very long time. There was no guilty haste here. Whatever he was up to – whatever he’d done or was about to do – he was making absolutely certain no one was around before . . .

Before what? What was he waiting for? Well, if we lived long enough, we’d find out.

Having completed a very thorough scrutiny of his immediate surroundings, he turned back to face the Tower. Head tilted back, he scanned the walls, the towers, the whole massive structure rearing up before him, dark and silent, keeping its secrets just as it’s always done. Which was all very well, but if he lit his lantern now . . . We were rather closer than was probably wise.

I froze – which was the best thing I could have done and I suspected Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown were doing a fair amount of freezing as well. And the worst thing was – if we were attacked then I’d do what I could to save them, but that was all I could do. A quick zap with my stun gun and a mad dash in the dark back to the pod. Because that would be all I was allowed to do. We’re not supposed to interfere. In any way. Because even the slightest action can have the most enormous consequences.

19

I’ll never forget that moment. For me, time had stopped. The whole world seemed still and silent. The only sound was the occasional gurgle of the river as it flowed past. For how much longer would the man with the lantern stand there – just staring into the night?

Louder and closer, thunder rumbled again. On and on as if it would never stop. The storm broke and the rain came down in stair rods, hitting the ground so violently it splashed a good twelve inches back into the air again.

Almost as if he’d been waiting for this moment, he moved. With that endless thunderclap still curdling the heavens, he gestured to the boat to follow him and strode across the Wharf to a set of rough steps leading down to the river. Uncovering his lantern, he held it high and swung it left and right. A tiny gleam of light showed through the driving rain. For a few seconds nothing happened and I wondered if his light was so weak that even if there was anyone out there then they’d miss it, but I was wrong. Out on the river, an answering beam showed. There was a boat out there. Waiting.

He set down his lantern, and holding his cloak tightly against the wind and rain, he strode back to the punt, now tentatively emerging from the Watergate. There was a murmur of voices. I rubbed the rain out of my eyes and kept recording.

The man at the back poled slowly and silently – not that I would have heard anything over the drumming rain. Was that why they’d chosen a punt? Less splash than oars? It was such a tiny thing, though. They surely weren’t proposing to set off into the night in it. Especially a night like this.

They weren’t. The tide was in and they were able to clear the gate and glide silently down towards the river. Where they stopped.

Whatever was going on here, they really had a brilliant night for it. I was only fifty feet away and I could hardly see a thing. Anyone further away than that wouldn’t have a clue. And that was supposing anyone other than villains and historians would be out on a night like this.

The first man picked up his lantern and opened it. The tiny gleam of light broadened into a golden circle. Setting it down, he assisted one of the men climbing out of the punt which I thought a very gentlemanly thing for him to do until I saw why. The other man was carrying a long, limp, closely-wrapped bundle over one shoulder.

The cloaked man held the punt steady as the second man climbed out, also with a similar bundle. And all the time, the rain was coming down in stair rods.

Job done, the punt backed silently out of the circle of light, back into the shadows of the Watergate. Within a few seconds it was completely out of sight.

Behind me I heard Mrs Brown inhale sharply. Fortunately, the rain drumming on the tarpaulin drowned all sound. The three men made their way to the steps, concentrating on finding their way through the rain and keeping their footing on suddenly greasy paving. In single file they waited at the top and stood, huddled together, shoulders hunched in the rain, under the weight of their cargo.

I never had any proof – there was absolutely nothing to identify these men – but if Peterson had been here with me, we’d have been placing bets we were looking at James Tyrrell, trusted servant of Richard III; John Dighton, a groom and generally reckoned to be a nasty piece of work; and Miles Forrest, one of the gaolers. They had their backs to us and it was too dark to see their faces anyway, but I reckoned I’d have been accepting my winnings from Peterson as soon as he could be persuaded to hand them over.

Closer this time, a light shone out again. The rain was slackening after the initial heavy downpour; enough to make out a rhythmic splashing as a largish rowing boat appeared out of the darkness. I could hear its oars creaking. It bumped against the steps with a hollow, wooden noise and two men jumped out to hold it in place.

We’re supposed to be professionals. At least, that’s what I tell everyone. We’re trained to keep recording, no matter what’s going on in front of us. Keep recording. Sort out the details later. Just get a record of everything that’s happening because you can’t come back and do it again. The urge to stop recording and watch the scene unfolding in front of me was so overwhelming. Because I wanted to see this for myself. But I couldn’t. I had to keep going. It occurred to me that this might be the most important recording I’d ever made.

The first bundle was handed over and placed in the bottom of the boat. Whatever or whoever it was – and I think we all know the answer to that one by now – was quite still. And floppy. Dead already, perhaps? I zoomed in for a close-up, looking for anything that might tell us. The only clue I had is that the bundle seemed to be laid down quite gently. It might be that they simply didn’t want to make any sort of noise, of course. The second man unhitched his bundle and as he passed it across to the boat – it jerked.

Bloody hell – it moved. It was a person and it was alive. I thought I caught a faint cry.

The men were galvanised into action. They dropped the bundle into the boat – not anywhere as gently as the first one – and again I thought I heard a cry. The two men climbed back into the boat in a hurry and the others shoved it roughly out into the river almost before they were aboard. It was lost to sight almost immediately. The remaining men hurried back towards us.

And now we had a big problem. Their lanterns, weak though they were, had lost them their night sight and they’d become disorientated. I didn’t know whether they were heading for the Byward Tower or back towards the Watergate. What they were doing was half-walking, half-running directly towards us.

I didn’t know what to do. If we moved, even in this weather, they’d both see and hear us and if ever there was a time and place in English History where witnesses were not required – this was it. We could be dead in seconds.

I didn’t know if their plan was to try to grope their way back to the Watergate, but the punt had gone, so why would they? Thunder boomed again. But no accompanying lightning flash, thank goodness. It would seem the god of historians was on the job. I could see their dark shapes working their way closer and closer to us. I could hear their panting breath and splashing footsteps in the puddles of water.

There were three of them. The one with the sword, the others almost certainly with daggers. Or cudgels, possibly, concealed under their cloaks. I could probably take out one with my stun gun. Dr Bairstow had his swordstick. Yes, we’d have the element of surprise – but I doubted we could overcome all three of them. I was certain someone would be watching from the Tower. Someone would be covering their backs as they brought the princes out. A shout – an arrow in the dark – or three – and that would be the end of us.

I had no idea what to do but, in the end, we were saved by pure luck. They were only eight or ten paces away from us. We were slightly to their right, crouching in the downpour, hardly daring to breathe, when another shadowy figure emerged from the night, shouted the medieval equivalent of, ‘Hoy, over here, idiots,’ and they veered away from us. Moments later, they were around the corner and out of sight. I have no idea if they returned to the Tower or pushed off while the going was good.

Silence fell. Well, apart from the rain. And my still thumping heart.

I got my passengers back on their feet. We needed to shift while we still could. I suspected we had only a few minutes. They would want to give the boat time to get clear before relighting the torches and braziers. If they could in this storm. What an excellent reason for all the lights going out. Had that been planned? Or just good luck?

I thought quickly. We should pull ourselves together and then make a quick dash to the pod, no more than a couple of hundred yards away, for a swift mug of tea and a conference. And a towel. I had an idea this storm hadn’t even begun to get going.

I was soaked to my skin. The rain had slowed right down but that initial downpour – in the way of summer storms – had been substantial. The night had turned cold and excitement, terror, adrenalin – all the usual stuff for a St Mary’s assignment – was coursing through my bloodstream. Still, as I said, a cup of tea would soon sort us out.

I took a quick look around and then gave them the nod. We backed away from the barrels, careful not to disturb anything and send it rolling noisily across the Wharf, and crept off through the night, back towards the pod. Not far now.

And then, just as I thought our exciting night was over, I heard a cry. From out across the river. A boy’s high voice, shrill with fear. And then a man’s shout. The boy cried out again. And then – a faint splash. And then more splashing. I knew what that was. Someone was in the river.

Somewhere out there, upriver and over to our right, there was a brief flash of light again. Someone had risked opening his lantern. I caught a glimpse of a man standing at the front of the rowboat. His arm was illuminated as he held the lantern high. I heard him shout. I saw him lean out over the boat and point and there, in the water, not too far from where we were standing, I caught a quick glimpse – no more than that – of a small white face and flailing arms, and then it was gone as the river swept it out of the beam of light.

‘Oh my God,’ breathed Mrs Brown and before I could do anything – she was off, running towards the steps.

I said, ‘Shit,’ because that’s always useful and Dr Bairstow said, ‘After her, Max.’

I shoved my recorder at him for safekeeping and took off.

She could really move. She reached the river well ahead of me, and plunged straight in. I had no choice but to follow her. Because now she was in real trouble. Not just because of the danger of her being swept away and drowned – a very real possibility and not to be completely ignored – but the much bigger and far more serious problem of her doing something that would interfere with History. I’ve said it before. You can’t interfere with History. History doesn’t like it. And before anyone says anything – yes, I know, I’ve interfered all over the place and sometimes it’s gone well and sometimes it’s been a bit of a catastrophe – but this was serious. Because this was a turning point. Whatever happened to those little boys must be allowed to happen. There was never an Edward V. He never came to the throne. He vanished from History. As did his brother. And now we had a good idea of how that had happened.

I know the bones of two children were found a couple of centuries later, buried in a box ten feet down under a staircase leading to the chapel in the White Tower, and I’ve always been a bit suspicious about that. Digging a hole that deep isn’t something that could be accomplished in ten minutes. Some people think they were the remains of the princes. Charles II chose to believe they were and had them reburied in Westminster Abbey, but I’ve always wondered. Why would anyone do that? Why go to all that fuss? Digging up stone floors isn’t something you can do quietly. You need a pickaxe to prise up the stone slabs. You need to dig the hole. You need somewhere to put the spoil. And there would be a lot of it. A ten-foot hole would produce ten feet of spoil. And were the bodies buried intact? Or were they taken away, rendered down – with all the difficulties that would entail – and just the bones buried there? It didn’t make sense. Did no one notice what would have been quite a sizeable hole being dug? Did no one say, ‘Actually, chaps, has anyone seen young Edward and his brother today? No, neither have I. Mind you don’t fall into that hole.’

I’ve often wondered if the bones didn’t belong to two other children and were buried there on Uncle Richard’s orders as part of some scheme he had, which, of course, never came to fruition because he himself was dead two years later and the bones just lay there until discovered centuries later. And we’ll never know, of course, because the establishment – for reasons it thinks are good, even if no one else does – refuses to allow any DNA testing.

But my point is – why take the risk when the Thames was not twenty yards away? Smuggle them out of the Tower, into a boat, out into the middle of the river, tip them overboard, alive or dead, problem solved. You wouldn’t even have to kill them in situ. Drug them, carry them out – having carefully turned all the lights out so no one sees you go – and throw them into the river. And then everyone involved pushes off to live abroad on their reward and thus is born the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

Except that now we had a senior member of the English Civil Service leaping into the Thames, apparently hell-bent on changing all that.

Not only could she run fast – she could swim fast, too. Of course she could. She was North’s mother. She could probably bloody fly.

I didn’t hesitate. Dr Bairstow was behind me and I could guess at his reaction if I returned without our employer. I might as well cut out the middle man and just fling myself into the Thames there and then. So I did. I went in after her.

The water was quite warm on the surface but very cold underneath. The first thing I lost was my bearings. I could just make her out. She was swimming strongly off to my right. I could hear the men in the boat shouting. Someone on land was shouting back again and suddenly, there were lights. Lights began to spring up around the Tower. They’d be relighting the braziers on the Wharf soon.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I could see better now the rain had slackened a little, but so could everyone else.

I heard that plaintive cry again. I had no idea whether Plantagenet princes were taught to swim or not. My guess would be yes. Or if not to swim, at least to stay afloat. I tried to tread water and take a look around. Sort out where everyone was. Get my bearings. Not drown.

A river is no place to be at night. You’re low down and you can’t see anything. You have no control over your direction. Although downwards would seem to be my best option. My woollen dress was heavy and pulling me down. The same would be happening to Mrs Brown. I had to find her quickly. Then I could get us both to the shore, get everyone back into the pod and back to St Mary’s. Which would also solve the problem of the little boy in the river. Either he would be rescued or he wouldn’t. But not by us.

There she was. Not that far away. I struck out towards her, trying to remember to keep my mouth closed.

Fortunately, the current was taking us both in the same direction. I struggled onwards, forgot all my good intentions, opened my mouth to call her name, got slapped in the face by a wave and swallowed a substantial amount of Old Father Thames before I could stop myself. Well, that would earn me some extra time in Sick Bay when I got back.

She heard me. I saw her head turn. Sensibly, she didn’t try to force her way towards me – she spent all her efforts keeping herself afloat. I kicked as hard as I could, feeling my dress come untied and begin to entangle itself around my legs. Which wasn’t good.

I was within an arm’s length. The current was carrying me to where I wanted to be. Another good kick and I would have had her when that cry came again. Not far away this time. Close. In fact, very close. I could see something. So could Mrs Brown. She struck out again.

Bollocks.

The sky flashed pink and white.

He’d seen her. I could see him struggling towards her. He must be tired because he was ineffectively pawing away in some kind of splashy dog-paddle that was getting him nowhere. His chin was raised in the traditional manner of someone not comfortable in water and his eyes were squeezed tight shut. He struggled and spat and struggled again. He was a game little tyke.

The boat. I’d forgotten about the boat. It was still out here, somewhere. I was sure I could hear the sounds of oars splashing but from which direction and how close, I couldn’t tell. My ears were full of what I could only hope was water. I decided to ignore the boat. My priority was Mrs Brown. Get her to safety, Maxwell. Everything else can look after itself.

Luck was with me. I hit a calmer patch of water. It was warmer, too. I kicked out towards Mrs Brown, reaching her just as she reached the little boy. I grabbed her. She grabbed him. Oh, for God’s sake. This was way above my pay grade. Grabbing her and, by extension, anyone she happened to be attached to, I kicked out for the riverbank and the safety of Dr Bairstow who could make an executive decision while I coughed up my lungs on the foreshore.

The water turned cold again closer to shore. And it seemed choppier somehow. Rougher. I couldn’t see the shoreline at all but I could see the lights of the Tower some way off to my left. We were being washed downstream. Had the tide turned? I was getting tired. Water slapped my face again, running down my throat. It burned and tasted vile. If I didn’t drown then I was going to die horribly of some ghastly waterborne disease. Or the men in the boat would find us. History didn’t actually need to do anything. There were a whole range of interesting ways to die lining up to have a go at us. History had only to bide its time.

Unexpectedly, my foot touched the bottom. I could hardly believe it. We were in the shallows. And the current was pushing me towards the shore. We were nearly there. Surely, we were nearly there. I kicked onwards, half-walking and half-swimming and hanging on to Mrs Brown. Who exactly she was hanging on to had yet to be discovered.

The sky flickered silently, turning everything pink and yellow. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The storm didn’t seem able to make up its mind.

Yes, I could feel it. There was solid ground under my feet. I heaved Mrs Brown to her feet and gave her a good push in the right direction, tried to stand up myself, failed and floundered backwards. Now the current was dragging me back into the river and the bottom was so rough I couldn’t keep my footing. Mrs Brown was ahead of me. I tried to give her one last shove and then Dr Bairstow was there, nearly up to his waist in water, his robes floating around him, holding out his stick to her. She seized the other end and he pulled her towards him, out of the water.

The river wasn’t willing to let her go. She stumbled, or tripped over her own skirts possibly, and lost her grip on the little boy. He fell backwards with a cry and disappeared beneath the dark surface. I stared around wildly, trying to see where he’d surface. If he surfaced.

The rain started up again, stinging my face.

‘Max – take my stick.’

He was leaning towards me. Mrs Brown knelt, coughing, on the shore. I reached out for his stick and just as I did so, a little head bobbed up, just to my left.

Dr Bairstow’s stick was equidistant between us.

I reached out for it and then . . . and then . . .

The little boy was just ahead of me, off to my left. Dr Bairstow was staring at him. He couldn’t take his eyes off him. I’ll never forget the look on his face. Shock. Horror. Fear. Real fear. His face was . . . I don’t know . . . as if the worst thing that could ever happen was happening right now.

He turned his head to look at me. A long, long look . . . as if he would never see me again.

I croaked, ‘Help . . .’ and used my last strength to reach out for him.

And then . . . then he turned away from me and held out his stick to the little boy.

He had a choice to make and he made it. He didn’t choose me.

He deliberately pulled his stick away and left me to drown.

My strength was gone. The water was tugging at me. My dress was wrapped around my legs. I couldn’t get out of the river without assistance and he chose to offer that assistance to someone else.

I saw him pull the little boy out of the water and then the two of them struggled together up on to the foreshore.

Behind them, back at the Tower, suddenly there were lights, blazing brightly after the darkness. The river was slapping at my ears but I thought I could hear shouting. I saw Mrs Brown stagger to her feet and she and Dr Bairstow both seized the little boy and disappeared into the dark.

That was the last I saw of them as the river whirled me away into my own darkness.

20

I lost all sense of time and space as I was carried first in one direction and then another. I gave up trying to fight my way to land. Simply staying afloat was the best I could hope for.

Without the protection of the Tower, the wind was strengthening and the water became colder and rougher, slapping me in the face with no warning as spite-filled waves buffeted me from all directions. Once, I went under completely and it seemed to take me a very long time to fight my way back to the surface. At one point I wondered if I was actually the right way up. Had I somehow managed to get myself turned upside down and was actually kicking myself ever deeper?

According to Major Guthrie, there’s a procedure for this sort of thing. If you’re buried in an avalanche and don’t know which way is up then you should dribble, because gravity will carry your dribble downwards and then you can dig yourself out accordingly. The same applies to drowning. Obviously dribbling in a river would be a bit superfluous so blowing bubbles is generally reckoned to be the right way to go. You’re supposed to blow a few bubbles and then follow them because while dribble will always go downwards, bubbles will always go upwards to the surface. Except the water here was so black I couldn’t see a thing and my lungs were bursting and there was no way I was wasting what little air remained to me by blowing bloody stupid bubbles – up or down – so I just kicked and hoped for the best.

I must have done something right though, because my head broke the surface. I opened my mouth to gasp for air and got another mouthful of river water for my pains.

As I sank again, I thought I could hear someone shouting, faint and far away, but whether it was Dr Bairstow from the riverbank or the men from the Tower, I had no idea. And the men in the rowing boat were still out there somewhere.

Somehow, I made it back up to the surface again. I was shaking with cold and my neck and shoulders ached with the strain of keeping my face out of the water. My legs were so entangled in fabric as to be useless. All I could do was concentrate on keeping myself afloat and let the current take me wherever it wanted. This was the mighty Thames. Next stop, the English Channel. I had visions of being swept all the way out to sea. Was that even possible?

Something brushed my leg. My first thought – obviously – was that some kind of submarine monster, living in the dark depths of the Thames, had awoken in the dead of night to prey on livestock, small children and the occasional drowning historian. Before going on to destroy Tokyo, presumably.

But that was a point. Not the monster destroying Tokyo bit, but stuff in the river. People had been chucking rubbish into the Thames since Roman times. Boats sank – accidentally or otherwise. Jetties collapsed. Corpses sank to the bottom, bloated and rose again. The river bed was certainly littered with more than fifteen hundred years of accumulated crap. Thick with it, probably. Even in my own time, mudlarks are always finding Roman coins, bits of pottery, nails, tools, clay pipes and so on. Even the occasional skull. In six hundred years’ time, one of those skulls might be mine. I had a sudden vision of catching a fold of my dress or my foot in something under the surface. The tide would turn again and I’d be trapped as the water began to rise, higher and higher, until it finally closed over my head and I was gone forever.

Instinctively I tried to lift my legs, which resulted in two not very good things. I sank again – which was not good – and the current whirled me even more quickly – which was worse. From the few lights I could see through the rain, I seemed to be moving at quite a lick. At this rate I’d be in France for breakfast.

The other thing I’d forgotten about – although to be fair I did have a bit on my mind at the time – was that this was a major shipping lane. There were dark ships everywhere, seemingly anchored willy-nilly around the river, although I’m sure someone had a plan. Some ships had hung a faint stern lantern as a warning but most of those had blown out in the storm. I wasn’t in mid-river so the boats swinging at their moorings weren’t a problem, but I would have to watch I didn’t collide with any of the smaller vessels parked nearer to the shore. I was willing to bet that although these boats might look tiny and fragile, in any sort of collision, I would come off considerably worse.

No sooner had I taken that particular thought on board than my face collided heavily with what felt like the medieval equivalent of a transatlantic liner.

I saw stars – which was useful because there certainly weren’t any in the sky – but instinct took over and I grabbed for whatever it was. Wide, round and slimy. Not a boat, but something solid and stationary nevertheless. A buttress or support of some kind, which was good enough for me. I wrapped both my arms around it and hung on for dear life. All around me the water slapped and splashed and gurgled. Now, the rain had a different sound to it. A hollow, drumming sound. And then I had it. I’d collided with one of the many wooden jetties constructed along the riverbank. I was underneath it and this was the rain bouncing off the decking above my head. This was a brilliant piece of luck. All I had to do was work my way from support to support, find my way back to shore, cough up a few gallons of river water and then stagger back upstream for a quick ‘What the hell?’ session with Dr Bairstow. Something to which I was quite looking forward.

It never happened.

I know that, so far, the evening had hardly been a resounding success, even by my low standards. Indeed, even I might be using the phrase disaster-magnet several times in my report, but now things were about to go really downhill.

I rather thought my first job was to ascertain where I was – especially in relation to the rowing boat and its occupants, which, now that I was safe-ish, had returned to the top of Today’s List of Things to Worry About. I crossed my fingers that it was off somewhere else continuing with its original plan for the evening. My plan was to use the cover of the jetty to ease my way through the jumble of old timbers and find myself some solid land, because I was certainly sick to death of the Thames. I couldn’t help thinking that rivers had, in one way or another, figured quite prominently in my life recently.

And then, clear as anything, I heard Matthew’s voice. ‘Stay away from the river.’ At the time I’d thought he meant the one at the remote site but it would seem that might be something else I’d got wrong. Was it this river he’d meant? Staying away from this river would certainly have been a very good idea. I made a mental note to talk to him about the importance of context. If I ever saw him again.

Clinging as tightly as I could to the slimy support, I tried to shut out the sounds of the wind and rain and listen. It was useless. The water sloshing around under the jetty and the rain hammering down made constructive listening almost impossible.

OK. Stop and think. How likely was the boat to be still out there?

Well, that rather depended, didn’t it? If they were here to kill the boys, then they weren’t going to hang around trying to rescue the one in the water. In fact, the second prince might well have been pitched overboard as well and they were rowing strongly through the rain, hell-bent on getting as far away as they could before the sun came up.

If, on the other hand, it was some kind of evacuation – if the princes were being moved somewhere else – for their own safety, say – then they were going to be rowing up and down all night looking for the one that got away. The one that had fallen into the river. Richard would be my bet. If the boys really had been drugged to make handling easier then I could easily imagine that bundle of energy overcoming the effects of whatever he’d been given and coming around at the most inconvenient moment. He’d wake, confused, struggle, unbalance the boat and the next minute he’d be in the river. They’d be tearing their hair out looking for him. And even if their motives were benign and this was just an attempt to move them to safety, they still weren’t going to want any inconvenient witnesses hanging around, were they? In fact, no one, whatever their intentions, was going to want any witnesses to anything that was happening tonight.

Or had they seen Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown pull him out? In which case, they’d be busy dealing with them right this minute. Good for me but bad for Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown. Could they have reached the pod safely? Or were they too in the river, throats cut, bobbing gently past me at this moment? I had to face the possibility that if I did get out of this then I might be going home alone.

I pushed that thought away. I needed to get out of this and back to land. If I couldn’t hear the boat then they probably couldn’t hear me. If I couldn’t see the boat then they probably couldn’t see me. And they weren’t going to be flashing their light around because there were other ships . . . boats? . . . vessels around. Some, if not all, would have crews on board. If not a full crew then at the very least a night watchman to ensure nothing tore loose from its moorings and started bouncing off its neighbours. No – the rowing boat was long gone.

I let go of the wooden support and pushed myself gently away. The current caught me immediately. I let it carry me as it wanted, fending off the great lumps of wood that medieval jetty builders appeared to have just tossed into the water at random, and tried to get myself back into shallow water.

The thunder now was very faint and far off. I wondered if the storm had taken itself off somewhere else. Gone to beat up the Cotswolds, maybe. Time to emerge . . .

. . . just as a boat appeared to my right. Frighteningly close. I knew it was them. They still had the lantern and they were leaning out of the boat, scanning the water. The only thing that saved me was that they were peering in the other direction.

I know I always say, ‘Hope for the best but plan for the worst,’ but tonight had exceeded itself. At this point I had to ask myself how much worse things could possibly get. The answer, sadly, was quite a lot.

I kept very, very still. I daren’t make even the slightest movement. They were not twenty feet away. I didn’t think they would see me as I lurked in the shadows beneath the jetty, but if they waved the lantern this way then I would be in trouble. I took a deep silent breath and dropped my head below the scummy surface until only my eyes were showing.

They were thorough. They scanned back and forth over the water. They weren’t shouting so secrecy was still paramount. Which was a sinister thing in itself. I stayed where I was, treading water and keeping myself as low as possible, holding my breath and keeping my mouth shut; the last thing I needed now was a fit of coughing as Old Father Thames tried to poison me again.

The wait seemed endless. Because it was. They scrutinised every inch of the river visible to them and they took their time. They were thorough. And then, at a word from the one with the lantern, they twisted in their seats and turned their attention to the jetty.

Without time to draw breath, I sank beneath the water. There was even more crap here. People must have been chucking things off the end of this jetty for hundreds of years.

Looking up, I could see a lighter patch in the water as they scanned for . . . for what? Bodies? Witnesses? Escaped princes? Me? None of that was good.I collided again with something that felt like an underwater tree trunk and was probably one of the pilings holding up the jetty. I caught hold of it with both hands and eased my face out of the water.

Or tried to. I could only just get my head clear. Something was tugging me back down into the depths. I resolutely closed my mind to all thoughts of bloated white corpses pulling me down to join them, because that wasn’t particularly helpful right at that moment. The most likely explanation was much more mundane. And much more serious.

My stupid skirts, now thoroughly untied and swirling uselessly around me, had caught on something in the water and were holding me down. Which could be coped with. A resourceful historian laughs in the face of trivial problems like this.

I wrapped one arm and one leg around the piling for purchase, seized a good handful of skirt with the other and yanked hard. Sadly, no happy tearing occurred. In fact, nothing occurred at all. I’d obviously been too gentle. Tightening my grip on everything, and keeping a wary eye on the flickering lantern still uncomfortably close, I gave it some welly.

Big mistake. Big, big mistake.

The wooden piling was slimy and I lost my grip. My skirts failed to tear themselves free. What I did manage to dislodge, however, was the piece of timber on which they were caught. I felt it come free and thought, yes – done it.

Yes, I had. I’d really done it. Because the river here was deep and the piece of timber, or old log, or whatever it was I’d dislodged, was very heavy and was sinking, slowly but surely, to the bottom of the river. And taking me with it.

As even Jane Austen might have said at this point, ‘Bollocks.’

21

If I was going to do anything it had to be now. Before whatever it was that was dragging me to the bottom finished the job. I kicked up as hard as I could, using my arms as well. Bugger the need for secrecy or silence. This was slightly more urgent. Always deal with the now.

I heaved and struggled and it was useless. I wasn’t going down but I wasn’t going up either. My chest was hurting and I could hear my pulse pounding in my head. I was going to drown. I would sink to the bottom of the Thames, slowly decompose in the silt and that would be it. No one would ever know what became of me. Except for Dr Bairstow, whom I intended to haunt for the rest of his natural life. And beyond. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t chosen me. And yes, I know how selfish that sounds – but this wasn’t a case of me getting the hump because he’d opted to save a small child. That was understandable and in the normal scheme of things I’d have had no problem. But this was not the normal scheme of things. It was entirely possible that that little boy should have drowned and Dr Bairstow had interfered with History. History would not be happy. He might well be fending off History at this very moment. I certainly was. And I was alone. It’s our worst nightmare. To be abandoned. To be left to face our death alone.

Anger struggled with disbelief. He’d broken St Mary’s two most important rules. We don’t interfere and we don’t leave our people behind. I kicked again, knowing this would be my last chance. It was a wretched attempt. My legs were entangled in clinging wool and I didn’t go up – typically, I went sideways, smacking into another wooden piling. I grabbed at it, wrapped my arms and legs around it, and climbed. Think monkey on a stick. All the time, the dead weight of whatever I was attached to was trying to drag me down and I was fighting against the current and my own weakness, but I would not give up. I dug in my shoes, straightened my legs, pulled up with my arms, did it all again and was slightly surprised when my head broke the surface almost immediately. I hadn’t been that far down.

I wrapped arms and legs more tightly around the support, gasped for breath and just clung on for dear life. The wooden support was slimy with some kind of green weed and I had to clamp myself hard to it so as not to slither back under the water. My head was only inches clear and I could just breathe but I couldn’t climb any higher. My arms started to tremble with the strain. I was holding up both myself and what felt like a medieval telegraph pole. Or maybe a hippopotamus. I slithered down an inch, clawed it back and rested my head against the slippery piling. Death by waterborne disease no longer held any fears for me. I should live so long.

The lantern beam was still jerking around over and under the jetty. Just my luck. Why couldn’t they do a half-arsed job and then push off down the pub like normal people? And in this weather, too. Curse these efficient medieval assassins.

The feeble light wended its way around the wooden uprights. It was only a few yards away. Any second now . . . I turned my face away, screwed up my eyes to save my night vision and hoped for the best. Because that always works, doesn’t it?

Actually, this time it did. The seconds passed. No one shouted. There were no more sounds of the boat bumping around under the jetty. I risked a quick glance. They were moving towards mid-river, taking their lantern with them. I watched, hardly able to believe my luck, and a few seconds later they’d pulled away downriver.

I heaved a massive sigh, inhaled a substantial amount of water because I’d slithered down the greasy pole again, hauled myself back up and wondered what the hell to do next. I was stuck here. If I went anywhere, I’d have to take the bloody log with me and that wasn’t possible. It was just too big and heavy. It might not even be a log. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find myself attached to a sunken boat. If I let go and tried to jerk my skirts free again then the weight would pull me deeper down. The best bet seemed to be just hanging on, but for how much longer I could do that I had no idea. Dawn would be coming up soon. There would be people about then. Did I shout for help and trust them to yank me out and not kill me? Or would I be better keeping quiet? Oh, for God’s sake – this was it. I’d had enough. It was an office job for me. First thing Monday morning I was off into town to register at the Labour Exchange. With the added bonus of never again having to face the boss who’d abandoned me to a watery death. Yeah – that was the way to go. Update the CV and get an indoor job with no heavy lifting. Out of the rain. And definitely with no chance of drowning.

And, because I’d stopped concentrating and slackened my death grip, I slithered a couple more vital inches down the pole. The weight on my skirts was heavier than ever. Whatever it was seemed to be heavy enough to drown me but not heavy enough to tear itself free of the fabric. I contemplated trying to undress but even the slightest movement would cause me to slip another inch. Water was now lapping around my chin. My head, neck, shoulders and back were just one big fiery ache as I struggled to stay afloat.

The water was level with my mouth. I clenched my teeth and tried to look up. Complete darkness above me. Complete darkness all around me. When had the rain stopped? The water now covered my mouth. My whole right side was being pulled sideways off the pole. Water was filling my nostrils. I tilted my head back to give myself a little extra breathing room. I was exhausted. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold on. How much longer I wanted to hold on. The water seemed much warmer. How easy to let go and fall back into the warm darkness. So easy . . .

I thought the rain had stopped but I was wrong. Now the rain was coming down so hard I couldn’t hear even the slap of water around me. Rain drummed mercilessly on the wooden planks over my head. I thought I heard a voice. The drumming stopped. Not rain. Footsteps. Men running. Shouting.

Whoever they were, they were too late. Water filled my nose and mouth. I couldn’t utter a sound. I couldn’t pound on the planks over my head to attract anyone’s attention. If I let go, I’d sink like a stone. I was filled with a desperate, bitter rage. There were people above me and no one knew I was here.

I heard a huge splash and a tidal wave of water washed over my head. It was too much. I lost my grip, floundered desperately for my trusty piling and someone grabbed my wrist. And then the other one. They had a grip like iron. I’m sure I felt my bones bend.

I was dimly aware of being yanked through the water, log and all. Someone cursed. Quite fluently. There seemed to be a lot of groping around my legs. I could feel someone jerking at my skirt. They were nearly as strong as the person holding me up and I was bouncing around like a confused cork. And then, suddenly, the awful weight was gone. I felt it drop away. Someone had cut me free. Hands grabbed me everywhere – round my neck, wrists, legs, under my armpits – and I was heaved, shedding water all over the place, out and up and on to the jetty. I could feel the rough wood underneath my cheek.

I lay in a heap, unable to breathe. My arms and legs were curled underneath me like a drowned spider. There was a tight band around my chest and I couldn’t seem to suck in any air. I couldn’t even cough. Whoever they were, they were too late. I was dead and I hurt all over. Just leave me in peace.

They weren’t gentle. I was rolled on to my back. I could hear voices. Someone was shouting at me.

‘Max. Can you hear me? Wake up.’

I ignored him and the bugger slapped my face. Several times.

‘Wake up, Max.’

Someone else said he’d got a pulse. Well, good for him.

They stopped slapping me – for which I was grateful – what sort of a way is that to treat a casualty? – and quite roughly turned me on to my side. Water spilled out of my nose and mouth. Was that supposed to happen?

‘Is she breathing?’

‘Come on, Max. Breathe. There’s a good girl.’

I’d like to take the credit but my body did it all on its own. I dragged in an excruciating breath, convulsed, coughed, gasped again, choked and brought up more water.

It became a kind of pattern. Suck in air. Cough. Choke. More water. My throat burned with it. My chest hurt with every movement. My face hurt like hell where I’d smacked into the jetty. My eyes stung – I couldn’t see. Everything hurt and these buggers were shouting and slapping me and I just wanted to let go. Every breath was a struggle. I had to fight for each one. I was freezing cold and shivering violently.

More voices called for oxygen. For God’s sake – this was 1483 – where did they think they were going to get oxygen?

‘Is she breathing?’ enquired someone.

‘Well enough. For the time being.’

‘It’ll be light soon. We need to go.’

‘Two minutes.’

They were wrapping me in something warmish which was a waste of time because it immediately became as cold and wet as I was. I was hauled to my feet, hung limply for a moment and then was slung over someone’s shoulder.

Something stirred in the sluggish recesses of my brain. Something had been slung over someone else’s shoulder. Not that long ago. I struggled to find my place in all the things happening around me.

The upside-down-over-someone’s-shoulder bit, while undignified, was actually quite helpful because a couple more gallons of river water came up, burning deep channels in my throat as they did so. And then I vomited properly. All down his back. Whoever he was. Sometimes, I’m not a joy to be with.

And then they were running. I bounced up and down, which did my ribs, back and head no good at all. But even more water came up. I didn’t remember swallowing all this water. Where was it all coming from?

It still hurt to breathe and I’d happily have abandoned the struggle but I knew they’d only start slapping me again so I choked and coughed and shivered and spewed and wondered what would happen next.

The air changed around me. I was inside. They dropped me on to another surface. Not particularly gently. I remember my head bounced on the floor. I cried out and someone said, ‘Sorry.’

There was an oxygen mask. Someone held it in place. It hurt my face. I tried to protest but no words would form. I tried to raise a hand – any hand – but neither of them was working so I gave it all up and just let my rescuers do their best to kill me. I lay still and concentrated on breathing. Which wasn’t getting any easier.

And I was frozen. I didn’t remember being this cold when I was actually in the river. My whole body was shaking. And then suddenly . . .

No time for any warning. My whole body convulsed and I brought up a really nasty mixture of river water, sludge, scum and chicken stew. It wasn’t pleasant. It went everywhere. And I really mean everywhere.

Eventually, someone said, ‘Well, better out than in, I suppose.’

The ensuing silence spoke volumes.

I tried to say, ‘Sorry,’ but the effort brought on another fit of coughing. Everyone flinched but stoically remained at their posts. Whoever they were.

I was sodden. Inside and out. The floor on which I lay was sodden. I’d even managed to drench the people around me. With one fluid or another.

Somewhere behind me, a voice said, ‘Commence jump procedures.’

‘Commencing jump procedures.’

That sounded familiar. The Time Police were here and I could guess why. They’d be all over this particular St Mary’s cock-up. Rescuing me had simply been a by-product of their assignment that I was sure they were already regretting. I should probably do or say something but I was drifting in and out of things. Like in the old song.

In and out the bluebell windows.

In and out the bluebell windows.

In and out the bluebell windows.

A one, a two, a three

Follow me.

I hadn’t thought of that for years.

If we landed then I missed it but someone hoisted me off the floor with a grunt and I was carried off somewhere else. More comfortably this time. The right way up. Not over someone’s shoulder like a sack of old potatoes.

And then I was inside the somewhere else. More oxygen. I was quite squiffy with the stuff. And there were heat pads which were nice.

And then it was time to go to sleep.

22

It would be nice to say I awoke and remembered nothing but that didn’t happen. One moment I was asleep and the next I was wide awake and I remembered everything. I was drowning. I was being dragged down into the dark where no one would ever find me and there was nothing I could do and I couldn’t breathe and I was dying.

I flailed wildly for something solid to hold on to and two warm hands grasped mine and a familiar voice said, ‘Max, it’s all right. You’re safe.’

I tried to speak but my throat hurt so much.

‘It’s all right, Max. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Go back to sleep.’

Markham?

The last time I’d seen him he’d been lying in a stricken heap in Sick Bay which was almost certainly where I was, too. Or we were both dead, of course. The way I felt it could be either. I didn’t really care. Although – and I think everyone will agree – the thought of spending eternity with Markham was perturbing.

I tried to open my eyes but fifty per cent of them weren’t working. I squinted. We were in the isolation ward – Markham’s second home – and he was holding a sign he’d made which read, ‘Congrats – cholera at last.’

‘You see,’ he said, reproachfully. ‘This is what happens to historians who think they don’t need the Security Section. Absolute catastrophe.’

He had a point. If he’d been with us then he would have been the one to fall in the river. He would have been the one with cholera. He’s a lightning rod for disaster. It was all his fault I was in this state.

I endeavoured to convey this to him but it was all too much effort so I closed my eye again, enjoying the soft warmth of proper pillows and sheets and the complete lack of the River Thames, and tried to recapture unconsciousness. That didn’t work – thoughts were running around my head like a hamster on a wheel – so I gave that up and had a bit of a think instead.

There was a lot to try and get straight in my mind before I said anything to anyone. Most importantly – the princes, smuggled out of the Tower on the night of the 25th June: were they alive or dead? And why were they being smuggled out at the dead of night? To kill them somewhere else? A bit dodgy, surely. The risk of one of them getting away . . . which was exactly what had happened.

Or were the boys being taken to safety? King Richard was, by all reports, a kindly uncle. Elizabeth Woodville, the boys’ mother, had voluntarily handed her younger son over to him. Without a qualm, apparently. Why would she do that if she distrusted him? She and Richard were natural enemies, representing two different factions at court. And yet she entrusted her younger son to his care and protection. Did Richard suspect the two young princes would become political pawns? There was the problem of their supposed illegitimacy. Which might not have been that important had Edward been an adult, a strong king and a popular one, as his father had been. But Edward was a young boy, unable to defend himself or his kingdom from the threats his illegitimacy could pose.

And that was another thing: Edward was only twelve. A long minority lay ahead of him and from past experience, those never ended well. Take Henry VI, for example. He was a baby when his father, Henry V, died. The factions fighting over his throne had led to the Wars of the Roses.

Richard II was another who’d succeeded young and that hadn’t turned out well, either. Long minorities were rarely good news for anyone.

And one final thought: Richard III had had the boys declared illegitimate. Because, supposedly, their father had a prior attachment to another woman. But – and I’m out on a limb here – suppose it wasn’t the boys specifically whose legitimacy was in question. Suppose it was their father, Edward IV, who was illegitimate. His mother, Cecily of York, supposedly had a bit of a thing with an archer, Will Blaybourne, and she herself had declared – admittedly in a moment of fury – that Edward was his son. Her assertion was considerably strengthened by the fact that Edward was tall and blond while his official father was famously short and dark. And if Edward was illegitimate then so were his children. On that assumption, Richard was the rightful king.

So, had he removed the boys for safekeeping? Was he, even at this stage, aware of the threat Henry Tudor posed? Again – get the boys out of harm’s way. Henry went on to make it his life’s work to exterminate Plantagenets. Two young boys wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes.

And if Richard had removed them – where would he have removed them to? To his sister Margaret in Burgundy would be my bet. Intelligent and astute, she could have kept her nephews safe. But young Edward wasn’t well; suppose he died young. Before he was in a position to pursue his claim. That left that rascal, the young Prince Richard. Was Perkin Warbeck, the infamous pretender, actually who he professed to be – Richard of York? Margaret of Burgundy supported his claim. Although, to be fair, she’d have supported her dog over Henry Tudor, whom she hated with a passion. Warbeck failed in his claim and was ultimately hanged before the crowds at Tyburn. I didn’t like to think of that little boy with his wooden sword, so full of life and mischief, ending his days kicking at the end of a rope.

And now, because I couldn’t avoid thinking of it any longer – what became of the boy who was pulled out of the water? Did Dr Bairstow, having saved his life, abandon him outside the Tower and he was recaptured? And had Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown escaped to safety? Or had they been taken as well?

And – the question I really wanted answered – why did Dr Bairstow leave me to die? Why did he choose that child over me? You could argue he’d done it for humanitarian reasons, except this was Dr Bairstow and he knows better than anyone the risks involved in meddling with History. The same History who might already have taken out both boy and Bairstow and had a go at me as well. I’d been only seconds from drowning when I was pulled from the dark waters.

I opened my eyes – sorry, eye – again and was surprised to find he was still there. Markham, I mean.

I croaked, ‘You look awful. And this is me talking.’

He did. He looked terrible. Drawn and haggard with nasty, purple, shiny shadows under his eyes. I leaped to the wrong conclusion, rasping, ‘Is it Hunter? Has something happened? Is she all right?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, yes, she’s fine. As far as I know, anyway. She’s not allowed in here because some people had cholera and that’s not good for pregnant women.’

‘It’s not that good for unpregnant women, either,’ I said, and began to cough again, which activated all the aches and pains that had, until this moment, only been lurking in the background. He leaned sideways out of range. I suspected there had been copious vomiting and said so.

‘If only it was just vomiting,’ he said, sadly. ‘You wish it was just vomiting.’

‘Don’t tell me.’

‘Wasn’t going to. In fact, I don’t even want to think about it.’ He reached for something off the bedside locker. ‘Here, drink this.’

I regarded it suspiciously. ‘What is it?’

‘ORS – oral rehydration salts.’ He shook it vigorously and pulled the tab. ‘Sip, don’t gulp, or we’ll be scraping it off the walls again. I’ll just give Dr Stone a shout. Gets me out of range, just in case. Tactful, eh?’

I sipped very slowly and very cautiously as Mr Tactful tapped on the observation window and gestured in my direction. There was an intercom and I don’t know why he didn’t use it but the world is full of things I don’t know.

I finished the drink and we both waited anxiously to see what, if anything, would transpire. I think it would be hard to say which of us was most relieved when nothing did.

I asked how long I’d been in Sick Bay.

‘Two, no, three days. Two nights and three days.’

Dr Stone bustled in, checking read-outs, graphs, flashing lights, tubes and all the important stuff before finally sparing a look for his patient.

‘Well,’ he said, making a note on something. ‘No need to ask when you last opened your bowels.’

Doctors shouldn’t be allowed to talk to their patients. There should be rules.

He put the chart down. ‘All right then, Max? How are you feeling?’

‘Like shit.’

‘That’s appropriate.’

‘Have I really got cholera?’

‘Not any longer. Thanks to the ceaseless efforts of the medical profession, we’re up to date with your shots and you only had it very mildly. You didn’t even manage to give it to Markham. And he’s like a sponge for that sort of thing.’

‘Leon? Matthew? Can I see them?’

‘Not allowed in,’ he said firmly. ‘You can wave at them through the glass.’

‘When can I get up?’

‘As soon as you can stand. Do you want to give it a go now?’

I threw him another nasty look and he wandered cheerfully away, insensitivity oozing from every pore.

I turned back to Markham and asked the really important question: ‘Dr Bairstow?’

‘Back safely. And Mrs Brown. She’s gone back to London. Two days ago.’

I thought of that brief glimpse of them pulling the boy out of the river and hardly dared ask. ‘They’re all right?’

‘Yeah. They’re fine.’

I hardly dared believe it. ‘Both of them?’

‘Yep. Both fine.’

OK. Now I needed to work up to the next bit. I said, casually, ‘Has he been in at all?’

‘Once. Said to let him know when you were awake.’ He took the empty cup off me and sat down again, watching me carefully. ‘Tell me what happened. I gather you fell in the river?’

I blinked vaguely and shook my head, giving a wonderfully realistic impersonation of someone who didn’t remember a single thing. ‘Did I?’

‘Don’t you remember anything?’

‘Um . . . I vaguely remember landing outside the Tower.’

‘Did you see the princes?’

‘Um . . . I’m not sure.’ I had a clever thought. ‘What does Dr Bairstow say?’

‘He said there was a bit of an accident and you fell in the river.’

Rage is pleasantly warming. One minute you’re lying in bed, chilled and weak, and the next moment red hot rage is pumping through every vein, together with an entirely justified desire to do some damage.

I swallowed it down. ‘Did he say how I came to fall in the river?’

He shook his head.

‘And what did he do when I fell in the river?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Did he pull me out?’

‘Sorry, Max, I don’t have any details. I’ve been stuck in here, remember. Do you remember what happened?’

I lay back on the pillows and wondered what would happen if I said, ‘Actually, he endangered Mrs Brown and the entire mission, interfered with the course of History, left me to die and lied about it.’ What would Markham say? What would he do? I tried to put myself in his position. He was Head of the Security Section. Discipline and good order was his responsibility. He wouldn’t do anything. Not immediately. He would wait for the first opportunity, then he would seek out Dr Bairstow for a discreet conversation. If Dr Bairstow denied it then he probably wouldn’t do anything. What could he do? It would be one word against another and one of those words would be Dr Bairstow’s.

On the other hand, if he admitted what he’d done, again, what would Markham do? How would it help anyone to make the truth known? It’s our mantra – we don’t leave our people behind. How would it help anyone to know that, actually, we did?

I bottled it.

‘Sorry, not a thing.’

I thought he looked at me rather closely. He sat back. ‘Well, that’s a shame. It’s not every day you’re brought home by the Time Police looking slightly less appetising than something the cat’s sicked up.’

I remembered to say, ‘The Time Police?’

‘They pulled you out of the river. I have to ask: what were you doing with the Time Police?’

I shook my head again and deflected. ‘My face hurts.’

‘Yes, either someone fetched you a bit of a wallop or you ran into something really solid. You have a world class bruise and only one working eye. Probably why you don’t remember anything.’

Time to change the subject. ‘Leon?’

‘He peers through the window at you a couple of times a day. He’s not allowed in because of Matthew. They’re both fine. Speaking of which, do you want to hear about my new assistant?’

‘No,’ I said wearily. Hell is being trapped in a small space with Markham.

‘I knew you’d be interested,’ he said, drawing his chair closer. ‘Well, they’ve built the basic unit and it’s divided into three areas.’ He waved his arms to illustrate three areas. I prayed for an early death. ‘There’s the base, which is the propulsion unit. Then the mid-area – the thorax, if you like – which is hollow. For mugs of tea, ham sandwiches, files, Evans’s socks and so on. But the top bit – you’ll love this, Max – actually detaches. It’s amazing. It can fly away, carrying stuff with it. Except that one of Evans’s socks got sucked into some sort of intake, which didn’t do either of them any good. But it solves the problem of steps and stairs. I have to say, it’s not much of a looker – not that that’s important, obviously, as long as it remembers I like two sugars in my tea and brown sauce on my bacon butties. There’s been a bit of a problem with the gearing but Professor Penrose says . . .’

He went on and on and on. I closed my eye. Where’s a coma when you need one?

I graduated to sitting up and from there to a cup of tea and from there to wobbling into the bathroom by myself and from there to some very gentle toast and from there to an even gentler boiled egg, as my normally very underused colon struggled to recover from all the recent heavy traffic. Markham watched anxiously from a safe distance.

‘Why are you still here?’ I said, one morning. ‘How is opening my eyes and finding you lurking at my bedside supposed to be an aid to recovery?’

‘Waiting for my test results,’ he said.

‘They still don’t know what’s wrong with you?’

‘Nope.’

‘Really?’

‘Nope.’

‘Aren’t you worried I’ll infect you?’

‘Nope.’

‘Well, suppose you infect me?’

‘Nope – still not worried. Besides, we’ve only got one isolation ward and I was here first. They’d have to put you out in the stables with the horses.’

‘They’ve no idea what’s wrong with you?’

‘Nope, but that’s pretty much standard for the medical profession, isn’t it? They don’t have a clue most of the time, so they do lots of tests in the hope the patient will spontaneously recover and they can take the credit.’

‘Is Nurse Hunter aware of your opinion of the medical profession?’

‘Hard to say,’ he said, reflectively. ‘I tell her lots of interesting things but sometimes I wonder if she actually listens.’

‘That’s the medical profession for you.’

He nodded glumly. ‘Sometimes she just gets up and walks away. In mid-sentence.’

‘Aww,’ I said, sympathetically.

‘Sometimes she runs. Anyway – how are you feeling?’

‘Absolutely fine. A bit wobbly, but fine. Cholera’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Still, it’s going to raise my position in the Dangerous Diseases League.’

‘Yeah, but no one’s ever going to beat Peterson’s plague. About the only thing that’s going to top that is being regurgitated by a dinosaur.’

‘Or coming back from the dead.’

There was a pause. ‘As I said – Peterson’s got it nailed until the end of time. Lucky devil.’

We were still brooding on Peterson’s good fortune in contracting bubonic plague when the door opened. I looked up. Shit.

Markham twisted round to look. ‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Good morning to you both. Mr Markham, I wonder if I might have a few moments with Dr Maxwell.’

‘Of course, sir.’ He got up and left. I just had a moment to wonder how he was allowed to leave if they still weren’t sure what was wrong with him, before Dr Bairstow sat himself in the recently vacated chair, folded his hands over his stick – the very one he’d used to save someone else – and looked at me. As if nothing had happened. As if he’d never left me to die in the 15th century.

‘Dr Maxwell, how are you?’

I looked back at him. ‘Very well, thank you.’

‘Dr Stone tells me you should be released either tomorrow or the day after.’

‘I believe so.’

There was a short pause and then he said, ‘I do not appear to have received your report.’

‘I have not yet written it.’

‘In that case, a short verbal report should suffice, if you feel well enough to give it to me now.’

I made up my mind. I’d spent hours lying awake in the dark, wondering what to say to him, ricocheting from anger to hurt to anger to disbelief and back to anger again. I would have trusted this man with my life. Until a couple of days ago, anyway. I forgot to add conflict to the anger, hurt and disbelief. Because this was Dr Bairstow. The man who had calmly walked off with Mikey, Adrian and Matthew from right under the Time Police’s noses. And their illegal pod. Now, here he sat, a little pale, a little heavy-eyed, but otherwise perfectly calm, perfectly normal – as if nothing had happened. As if it wasn’t important. Perhaps he was right. It wasn’t important. Well, if it wasn’t important to him then it wasn’t important to me, either.

I held his gaze. ‘I don’t remember anything.’

He regarded me for a very long time. ‘You don’t remember anything.’

‘No.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No.’ I touched my still colourful face. ‘At some point I must have collided with something. Dr Stone says possibly a slight concussion.’

He said nothing. He knew I was lying.

I hadn’t finished. ‘Perhaps,’ I said, looking straight at him, ‘you could give me your version of events.’

We looked at each other.

‘We were able to identify the princes,’ he said, eventually. ‘Unfortunately, at some point during the assignment, you fell into the river and were swept away. Your recorder was lost.’

I’d handed him my recorder for safekeeping. I wondered if he’d deliberately destroyed it. Now there was no record of the assignment at all.

‘So we have no record of the assignment?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Just your version of events.’

‘Since Mrs Brown has returned to London, yes. And you, of course, have no memory at all.’

‘So it would seem.’

‘Allow me to fill in the few details we have. A small boy was pulled out of the River Thames.’

I remembered I wasn’t supposed to know anything. ‘What small boy? Was it one of the princes? How did he get in the river? What did you do with him?’

Typically, he chose to answer only one of my questions. ‘It seemed safe to assume, since he had come from the Tower, that he was indeed one of the princes.’

‘What did you do with him?’

‘Since we were unclear as to how he came to be found in the river, we felt that returning him to the Tower was not a safe option.’

I forced myself to breathe slowly. If he had taken the little boy somewhere else . . . If he had removed him from his own time . . . then we were in a world of trouble.

‘And what, in your opinion, Dr Bairstow, was a safe option?’

‘We took him to Burgundy.’

Ah. I was still unsure whether this was good or bad.

He continued. ‘To his aunt, the Duchess. Where he was affectionately received.’

‘When?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Did you take him there immediately?’

‘It seemed prudent to put some time between events that night and our arrival in Burgundy, so the next day.’

I tried to be cunning. ‘Which one was he?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘There were two princes. Which one was he?’

‘He was muffled in blankets and we deliberately didn’t enquire too closely.’ I bet he didn’t. Plausible deniability for when History came a-calling. Although, by not removing the lad from his own time, he had at least avoided the attentions of the Time Police. Which was good. We’d never have survived another investigation. I could feel the rage begin to boil again. The risks he had taken . . . the danger he had exposed us to. To say nothing of what he’d done – or rather, hadn’t done – for me.

And yes, I know I’m being a hypocrite. I’ve juggled with History on more than one occasion but I have never, ever, ever gone off and deliberately left one of my people behind. In fact, not just left them behind, but taken a conscious decision not to save them. You can’t do that. The one belief that keeps us going through thick and thicker is that someone will always come back for us. We never leave our people behind. Never.

I didn’t know where the Time Police had come from and so bloody-minded was I feeling at that moment that it was hard to be grateful to them. In fact, I was fast approaching the point where I thought I should have drowned and that would have served everyone right. I had a brief and very satisfying picture of everyone sobbing over my grave. And then I thought of Leon and Matthew and Peterson. Even Markham, holding my hair out of the way as I threw up, gently wiping my face afterwards and asking where the carrots had come from.

Dr Bairstow stood up. That was obviously it. As far as he was concerned, the matter was closed.

‘And the Time Police?’

‘Ah – you remember that?’

‘Markham mentioned it,’ I said.

‘It became imperative that Mrs Brown and I concentrate on the young boy. I passed a message to the Time Police outlining the situation and requesting assistance. It would appear they complied with my request.’

He paused. Was he expecting me to thank him? I was luckier than I realised. The Time Police could well have just ‘filed’ his request and left me to drown. That would certainly have solved a lot of their problems. And mine, too.

‘So,’ I said, ‘not a hugely successful assignment.’

He turned to go. ‘Well, we now know at least one of the boys found a refuge with their aunt, but perhaps we should just chalk this one up to experience.’

I’ve been winding up authority since the day I fell out of the cradle.

‘I disagree. I think something can still be salvaged from this. It’s a pivotal event in English History and I’m unwilling to let it go. I think we should consider sending in another team. We now know where and when to point them and I’m certain Mr Sands and Mr Atherton would appreciate the opportunity to investigate further.’

There was a very long silence. I looked up at him, wondering what his response would be.

Eventually, he said, ‘No, I don’t think so, Dr Maxwell. I do not agree that this is an area warranting further investigation. In fact, I think a complete embargo on that particular event would be helpful to all.’

Now what did I do? Did I protest? Or did I let it go? We were both lying to each other and we both knew it. Was he challenging me to disobey him?

I gave a one-shoulder shrug – the matter wasn’t important. ‘As you wish, Dr Bairstow,’ and picked up my book, hoping he wouldn’t notice my hands were shaking.

He stood for a moment and then limped out. I watched him go through my eyelashes. He never looked back.

23

Markham came back in and flung himself on his bed. ‘And the good news is that Dr Stone says if you can keep your dinner down this evening, they’ll let us go tomorrow.’

‘How is your release contingent on me keeping my dinner down?’

‘No idea,’ he said, rifling through his fruit bowl to stave off the pangs of hunger until lunch turned up in half an hour. ‘Perhaps they don’t want to deal with you if I’m not around to assist. Let’s face it, Max – I pulled you through.’

‘Through what?’

‘Your recovery. Who passed you your sippy cup? Who held the basin ready just in case? Who waited outside the bathroom door in case you never came out again? Who cut up your toast for you? I’ve been bloody wonderful.’

While not going quite that far, he had a point. He’d been pretty good. If I woke in the night, he helped me to the bathroom rather than bring in Nurse Fortunata. He reminded me to drink regularly. And he’d done the thing with the basin when my toast had thrown itself into reverse and I hadn’t been able to get to the bathroom in time.

‘Well, I shan’t be sorry to go. It’ll be nice to see Leon and Matthew without a pane of glass between us. Did you see the card that Matthew made me?’

We both looked at the hand-drawn and coloured card with his name carefully inscribed inside.

‘What is it?’

‘The Time Map.’

He squinted. ‘How can you tell?’

‘He never draws anything else. And we can have a proper lunch with Peterson as well.’

‘Yes, God knows what sort of bad habits he’s developed in our absence. You know what he’s like. I never say anything because I don’t want to hurt his feelings but he really needs us to keep him on the straight and narrow, you know.’

‘Can I gather then that your tests all came back negative?’

‘You can,’ he said proudly. ‘Except for the ones that were supposed to. Completely clean bill of health.’

‘Well, you look better.’

And he did. Very much better.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Just one of those things, I suppose. I think sometimes we forget not everything we catch is the result of investigating major historical events in contemporary time. Sometimes a stomach bug is just a stomach bug.’

We were released the next morning. Markham had just shot into the shower when Dr Stone turned up, clutching a sheaf of papers and a scratchpad. Markham was singing his lungs out so I was quite glad of the distraction.

Dr Stone dropped the whole lot on my bed and pulled up a chair. ‘People often get the wrong idea, you know.’

‘Do they?’ I said, baffled, although I think we’ve established it doesn’t take much.

‘Yes. People often think that in organisations where the medical services are provided by their employers, that medical confidentiality flies completely out of the window and that’s just not true.’

‘Isn’t it?’

He was rummaging through his papers, not looking at me. ‘Oh no. For instance, if someone had something that was particularly troubling them – something that related to another member of the organisation, perhaps – they sometimes feel they can’t discuss it without that something getting back to that particular member of the organisation.’

He began to divide the papers into two piles while I struggled to work out his last sentence. ‘I mean, obviously, if they were experiencing psychotic breaks or something of that nature . . .’ he paused and stared vaguely into space, ‘. . . although I’m not sure how anyone would notice that here – I certainly wouldn’t – anyway, obviously I’d have to report that, but everything else is completely confidential. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place can be a bit weird sometimes and the opportunities for someone to discuss something safely and without fear of reprisal aren’t quite the same as in the outside world. But they do exist, you know. Just saying.’

He signed something with a flourish. ‘Your release papers. Off you go and never darken my door again.’

Leon was waiting for me. And Matthew. I thought of that little boy struggling in the river and gave Matthew an extra hug, which he didn’t appreciate at all. And then an extra one for Leon as well, just in case he felt left out.

He smiled down at me. ‘I’ve heard of Typhoid Mary – should we be calling you Cholera Max?’

‘Not unless you want to be known as One-Legged Leon.’

‘So relieved to discover near-drowning has rendered you gentle and amenable.’

‘I’ve always been gentle and amenable.’

‘Should I have said “more gentle and amenable”?’

‘You could try, but it’s too little too late, buster.’

He smiled again and dropped a kiss on top of my head. ‘Welcome back.’

We had a nice quiet lunch with Markham – because, as he said, you couldn’t have too much of a good thing – and Peterson. The conversation mostly revolved around what Markham persisted in referring to as the Grand Project – or Uncle Markham’s robot, as Matthew referred to it.

Matthew, who obviously gets his single-mindedness from his father, chattered and ate simultaneously. Markham revised his spec every other sentence and Leon intervened occasionally in his role as person with the strongest grip on reality. Peterson made the occasional unhelpful contribution and I concentrated on my lunch. It was good to be back.

I took the rest of the afternoon off, doing not very much at all, and returned to work the next day. I sat in my office, surrounded by all the Crete stuff – which I could and should now get on with – and had a bit of a think. Rosie Lee bustled about. I ignored her which really got on her nerves. At 11:30 she requested a lunch break and I said yes, go, and don’t come back before 2:00 p.m. She immediately sat back down again and glared at me.

I sighed. She was never going to go now, was she?

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘while you’re here, can you wash that mug of . . .’

The door slammed behind her.

I swivelled my seat, put my feet up on the radiator and stared out of the window. For a long time.

Then I got up and wandered down to the Library, spoke briefly to Dr Dowson, and wandered back out again with pretty much everything he had on the Duchy of Burgundy, the Palace of Mechelen and Margaret of Burgundy.

Most people are aware of Burgundy as a part of France, but in the 15th century, the independent Duchy of Burgundy was an extensive area in its own right and the Duke of Burgundy was a force to be reckoned with. In 1477, however, the last Duke, Charles the Bold, had died, and the Duchy was annexed by the King of France. Charles left a widow, Margaret of York, sister to Edward IV and aunt to the Princes in the Tower.

Margaret, an intelligent and attractive woman, played an active role in the politics of the time, safeguarding Burgundy’s interests as best she could. There had always been rumours that her nephews had been sent to her for safekeeping. At the time in question, she was living in the political and administrative city of Mechelen in what is today’s Belgium. Under her husband, Charles, the city had flourished, becoming a centre for the cloth trade. She’d moved into the former bishop’s palace and was still a person of considerable influence.

I studied such medieval maps as I and Dr Dowson had been able to find. Between the former palace and the cathedral of St Rumbold’s lay a tangled maze of little streets and alleyways. The sort of place where they’d never notice a small, apparently stone-built hut suddenly appearing overnight. I sat and calculated the coordinates, double-checking all the way, because if this went wrong there would be no one to bail me out.

So that was the where. Now how about the who?

I would be a solitary woman and a stranger, which was certainly not ideal, but there was one role that not only covered that but would give me a certain authority into the bargain.

I collected up the Burgundy material, shredded my notes, returned everything to the Library and then wandered off to see Mrs Enderby.

I crossed my fingers, requested a nun’s habit and she didn’t bat an eyelid.

‘Yes, I think I can help you, Max. Come back in . . .’ she looked at the clock on the wall, ‘. . . two hours.’

‘So soon?’

‘Well, I assumed time was important.’

‘There’s one other thing, Mrs Enderby.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you have an altar cloth? Or something similar?’

‘I have several altar cloths. From the chapel. We repair and store them here.’

‘I’d like your biggest and best.’

‘I have one in the finest linen and embroidered with gold silk.’

‘May I borrow it, please?’

‘Borrow is the word on which I would like you to focus, Max.’

‘I shall do my best.’

She looked at me closely. ‘Seven o’clock, then. Early enough for you still to be working late. Not so late that wandering around the corridors will arouse suspicions. Now let me get on.’

Not for the first time I pondered on the rumour that Wardrobe recruits its personnel from the criminal classes.

I told Leon I would be late for lunch because I had a lot of catching up to do – which was true – and set off for the paint store to make my preparations for stealing a pod. I rehearsed my story as I went, just in case anyone should stop me, and tried to remember if there was anyone I wasn’t lying to these days.

Fortunately, I met no one in the Long Corridor because everyone was at lunch – seriously, if you ever want to invade St Mary’s, any meal time would be your best bet – and slipped into the paint store.

A word of explanation here, I think, before anyone thinks I was planning to paint my way out of the situation.

Leon has his own pod. It’s a tiny affair – a single-seater. It’s not part of our official . . . I suppose fleet is the word I’m looking for. I don’t know what the collective noun for pods would be. In fact, I think pod is a collective noun but pod of pods doesn’t sound right, so we’ll go with fleet.

Anyway, back to Leon’s pod, which lives an independent life of its own, concealed in the paint store. And before anyone says, ‘Well, that’s not much of a disguise,’ it has the best disguise of all. It can’t be seen. It’s not invisible – apparently that’s impossible – but thanks to a number of high-def cameras and a pretty sophisticated computer programme, it can just . . . merge . . . into the background. Plain backgrounds are best, obviously, deserts or grasslands or similar. According to Leon, leafy jungles can be a bit of a challenge.

We don’t have this camouflage system installed in our own pods. There are enough challenges during our working day without a bunch of panic-stricken historians racing around in circles, shouting, ‘Where is it? I know I left it here somewhere,’ as the crowd closes in for the kill, or the volcano erupts, or whatever. To say nothing of the hazards of a contemporary unknowingly walking into it and knocking themselves out cold. Trust me – that has happened, although I’m not allowed to mention it.

I checked up and down the corridor. No one was in sight. I squeezed in through the door. Leon’s pod was in the back corner, behind the shelves of Battleship Grey and Sunshine Yellow.

It only took me a moment to check over the power levels, the console and so on. Not that I was worried. This was Leon’s pod and everything would be in tip-top working order. And it was. There were rations in the lockers, the water tanks were nearly full and the batteries charged. I could ask no more. I let myself out, shot off to a late lunch and then to spend what was left of the afternoon in my office complaining about the amount of work I had to do and being completely normal.

At ten to seven I shut down my data stack, switched out the light and closed my office door behind me. Peterson’s office was empty. Everywhere was empty. I didn’t see a soul.

For those who are thinking things were going unusually well – they were. Right up until I crept into Wardrobe. The place was deserted. Half completed Cretan costumes littered the place but squarely in the middle of Mrs Enderby’s work table lay a neatly folded nun’s habit. The altar cloth lay alongside. This was great. I could grab and go.

I had to be careful crossing the room – there was stuff everywhere and I didn’t want to knock anything over. I squeezed between the tables and was just about to lean over and grab the costume when Mrs Partridge said, ‘Dr Maxwell?’

I did not jump, scream, faint or run away – although it was close. Slowly straightening up, I said, ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Partridge. What brings you down here?’

When there are awkward questions being asked, always get your own in first. Of course, that doesn’t always work. She said, ‘I am surprised to see you here, Dr Maxwell.’

‘Just picking something up,’ I said, full of the righteous glow of truth-telling. Of course, if she asked what, I’d be stuck because I could just feel the ingenious-excuses area of my brain shutting down.

‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long day for someone only just back to work.’

Have you ever noticed whenever someone says, ‘You look tired,’ you immediately just want to lie down and go to sleep? I fought off a yawn. ‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’

She pulled out a chair. ‘Why don’t you take a moment to sit down?’

‘No, I’m fine. I’ve actually just finished up and I’m on my way back to my room and then it’s an early night for me.’

‘In that case, Dr Maxwell, you should sleep well.’

I changed in the pod because although it was just after seven in the evening and most people were in their rooms having had dinner, and were thinking about what to do next, someone would have been bound to notice a short nun wandering the corridors.

I had a bit of a struggle with the robes. I can only assume nuns dress in pairs. Mrs Enderby had added one or two small pieces of Velcro which were a big help – do modern nuns know about Velcro, do you think? – but there seemed to be a lot of strings to tie and the headdress was particularly complicated.

I started with the underskirts, two of them, followed by the tunic – black, obviously – waving my arms around until I found the head hole, followed by the scapular, the long apron thing that hangs front and back. I tied the scapular round my waist with a cord. Some orders tie the tunic under the scapular but I’d opted for the other way because it provided a useful storage pouch.

I’d asked for tight sleeves in this get-up too. Traditionally, there are two sets of sleeves and although the larger outer ones can be folded back out of the way, I’d dispensed with those. My sleeves were a little more practical.

I pulled the mirror off the bathroom wall and got to work on the headdress. A white cotton cap first, then the white wimple, struggling to tuck all my hair inside. I covered everything with the white under-veil and finally, the long black one over that. Velcro strips were a massive help here too.

I draped a wooden pectoral cross round my neck – which I really should have done before putting on the veils because that was another struggle – and hung a rosary from my belt.

When I finally had everything hanging more or less front and centre, I sat at the console and stared at nothing.

You don’t live long in this job if you don’t develop some sort of feeling for when things aren’t quite right and things definitely weren’t quite right. In fact – things were wrong. Very, very wrong. Every instinct I had was telling me not to do this. And considering that most of my instincts don’t even bother getting out of bed for anything less than an apocalypse, I really should have been listening to them.

I wasn’t. I wasn’t listening. I watched my hands do all the right things while the greater part of my brain was screaming, ‘Stop. For God’s sake, don’t do this,’ and I didn’t listen to that either. Whatever was driving me – betrayal, conflict, a hot, deep, unexpressed fury, whatever – it was overriding all my safety protocols.

I told myself not to panic because I could stop this any moment I wanted to. It wasn’t too late to call it all off and go back to my room and spend the evening with Leon and Matthew. I took my hands off the console and sat back. Why did I want to know? Suppose I got to Burgundy and there was no sign of the prince. What would I do then? Why was I doing this? I could very easily be triggering events that were beyond my control. Why could I not just accept what Dr Bairstow had said?

No. I pushed it all away. It’s always better to know. Knowing isn’t always pleasant but it’s better than the soul-corroding not knowing. I would find out what really happened and deal with it. Never mind the future. Always deal with the now.

I laid my hands back on the console and finished the safety checks. Everything was fine. Green lights across the board. I took a final look at the screen – no one had burst into the paint store to stop me – which might not have been a bad thing, but no one did. I said, ‘Computer, initiate jump.’

‘Jump initiated.’

And the world went white.

24

And here I was. Mechelen, Burgundy. 26th June 1483. Just after dawn. Three or four hours ago, I’d been in London, sicking up all over the Time Police.

I was somewhere between the palace and St Rumbold’s, which was exactly where I wanted to be. So far, so good. It suddenly struck me that while everything in the world can – and does – go wrong on legitimate jumps, the illegitimate ones are often problem-free. It’s as if the universe is leading me on . . . straight over the cliff.

We only have tiny mirrors in the pod because mostly we don’t want to know what we look like. I checked myself over as best I could because there wasn’t anyone else to do it for me. I was really quite surprised. I looked just like a nun. Well, of course I did. I was wearing a nun’s habit – what should I look like? A sandwich? I really should pull myself together.

I took out the altar cloth. It was lovely. The embroidery was detailed and exquisite. Which reminded me. I took off my specs. The ones that make me look both intelligent and sexy. I peered at myself in the mirror again. Now I looked much less modern but much more blurry. Ah well.

It was just growing light outside. Dr Bairstow had said they’d delivered the prince sometime today. If he was telling the truth, then I would be here to witness the boy’s arrival.

If he was telling the truth.

If he wasn’t – if there wasn’t a prince in sight – then Dr Bairstow was a flat-out liar, and if he was lying about that, then what else was he lying about?

I stopped again. Did I really want to know? Why didn’t I just let it go? Why couldn’t I let it go? What was wrong with me? I should return to St Mary’s now. Before any more harm was done.

I opened the pod door. Mechelen lay before me. Well, three feet of it did, churned-up mud ending in a blank stone wall. I looked left. The alleyway doglegged out of sight. I looked right. The alleyway ended in a busy street. Right it was.

I closed the door behind me, carefully draped the altar cloth over my arm and set off.

Reaching the end of the alleyway, I stared about me. The street was narrow, but busy. This was a cloth town. Prosperous and well built. I could see the palace turrets rising up over the distant roofs.

The building opposite me, timber built but with a tiled roof, was, as far as I could see from the number of dogs and cats hanging around, a butcher’s shop. Game hung from a set of hooks at one end of the counter, including a couple of massive hares. Various joints of meat swung from other hooks and in the back of the shop, I could see two men butchering a cow. They were amazingly quick. One moment cow – the next moment just lumps of meat and four hooves which were tossed into the gloopy-looking glue-pot.

I turned right again, and sticking to the very centre of the narrow street, headed for the turrets. Church bells everywhere were ringing the hour of prime, so it was about six in the morning. I had a long day ahead of me and I couldn’t lose concentration for a moment in case I missed anything. I had to be able to say, definitively, whether a young prince would be delivered here today. I was prepared to give Dr Bairstow the benefit of the doubt, but he’d just said ‘the next day’, which might mean any time between dawn and dusk. So I had to cover all day, if necessary. I was almost certain there would be a curfew – they would ring the bell around compline – seven in the evening – so I’d have to be back at the pod by then or face some very awkward questions.

I had a whole ton of supplies tucked under my scapula, including a couple of sachets of water and a few of those high-energy biscuits. I sloshed as I walked.

Dressing as a nun had been a good idea. People moved aside to make room. Whether for me or for the altar cloth was unclear, but I was happy to take advantage. I smiled and nodded and walked slowly because people who walk slowly can never be up to anything bad, can they?

The street led into a square, large and quite nicely paved. It had rained in the night. I wondered if this was the same rain that had fallen on me in London. The air was cool and fresh and the cobbles gleamed in the weak, early-morning sun. Houses and shops were built around three sides and what I took to be the Palace of Mechelen occupied the entire fourth side, directly opposite me. I suspected this was the back of the building, which was what I wanted because I had an idea – rightly or wrongly – that nuns didn’t march up to front doors and demand entrance.

I walked slowly through the crowds. Men touched their foreheads or doffed their caps completely, which was reassuring. Nobody shouted, ‘Stone her,’ which is always the first thing I check for in a large crowd of people. Best of all, no voice boomed, ‘Dr Maxwell. My office. Immediately.’ No, it was all good.

The air was very fresh. The breeze tugged at my veil. I could feel it frivolously streaming out behind me. I crossed my fingers and put all my trust in Velcro.

The first thing to do was familiarise myself with the surrounding streets and possible routes back to the pod. I had no one to watch my back. I was completely on my own.

I roved up and down the streets, noting landmarks. A church. A street pedlar on the corner. A woman selling what looked like bunches of lavender. Up and down and round corners until I considered I knew the area well enough should I have to get back to the pod more quickly than usual.

I stopped some distance away and examined the back of the palace. Ahead of me, two long, low, stone and timber buildings presented no access of any kind. They were semi-detached but each with a different roof line. And no door. And certainly no windows. Not that that would have done me any good anyway. I’m very hazy on the more esoteric habits of religious orders, but I’m pretty sure nuns don’t climb through windows. Not in public, anyway.

I rather suspected these buildings were a combination of stables, barns and storerooms. There was another small building to their right, on the corner. I was certain, from the smell, this was the brewhouse. But, between that and the stables stood a pair of wide wooden doors for wagons and deliveries, and with a narrow wicket set therein. Bingo.

The doors stood open which was even more encouraging, although they weren’t unguarded. Two soldiers, one inside and one outside, were watching the world go by. Their jaws were moving so I guessed they were just finishing off their breakfast.

I hesitated. It was tempting to try my luck here – and I would – but a prudent nun takes a walk around the whole building first, sussing out possible trouble spots and escape routes before committing herself. I turned right and walked past the brewhouse.

Rounding the corner brought me to the kitchen. Even over the wall I could hear pots clashing and men shouting. It could have been one of those TV chef shows. Nothing changes, does it?

The kitchens appeared to go on forever, but once past them I was at the main gate. Which was very grand with the Burgundy coat of arms emblazoned in the wall above it. This gate was also open. Which was good in case I needed to get out in a hurry. There were easily half a dozen guards here, however, and, from the sound of it, a good number in the guardroom to the left, as well.

I carried on walking, passing, I think, the chapel, and then around the corner again.

The long front of the building was broken by three turrets. I knew I was in the right place because above a tiny, arched door in one of the turrets hung a diamond-shaped shield, carved with Margaret’s coat of arms. I stood with my back to the building to get the lie of the land and take stock. Another, larger, grander square stood before me, again surrounded by houses but much bigger and of better quality. Guildhalls, perhaps? I was obviously in the better part of town. Over there were the town walls and the River Dijle. The docks here weren’t large – the river was navigable only by smaller boats.

I kept going and turned another corner. Now this was interesting. The front of the building was residential, but there were no buildings behind this wall. I wondered if this could be the garden. There would be a small kitchen garden, I knew, with herbs and suchlike. And possibly a place for flowers in which women could sit and sew, but this seemed quite a large area. Almost the width of one whole side. I was attracted to the garden because I reckoned that’s where any recently arrived young princes would eventually be found.

Keeping the wall to my left, I turned the last corner and was back at the stables again. I took stock. There was the main gate, well guarded, and this back gate, less well guarded, but, I suspected, only on the surface. The small door at the front of the building would be locked, I was certain. And the residential area wasn’t where I wanted to be anyway. It would be the back door for me, as befitted my calling.

The wind stirred my veil again. I looked up at the sky. The sun had disappeared and the clouds were low and grey. More rain was on the way. I needed to get a move on. There’s reconnaissance and then there’s procrastination.

I unfolded the altar cloth and arranged it across my forearms in a manner that displayed the golden embroidery, shook my head to ensure my veil fell neatly down my back and set off across the square.

It’s a strange thing but I’ve noticed this before: the clothes we wear affect the way we move. Well, yes, obviously, but it’s subtler than that. Once, dressed as a wealthy Tudor woman, I’d had to make my way around Holyrood House and the court of Mary Stuart. I’d been up to no good that day and it had taken everything I had not to take to my heels and run away. I’d walked those corridors, chin up, wide skirts swishing, taking tiny steps, heels tapping on the floorboards, exuding high-born Tudor confidence. Guards had saluted me and opened doors. It had been the clothes, I was sure of it. It was the same now. I held the altar cloth as if it was some precious relic and slowly approached the guards standing at the back door. I didn’t stride. I didn’t stare around me. I kept my eyes on the ground in front of me and concentrated on finding a safe pathway across the slippery wet stones.

Plenty of people were using this back gate. Kitchen staff, grooms, the occasional delivery – all were waved in or out by the guards. I suspected, however, that security would not be as lax as it appeared. The delivery men would all be known to the guards. They’d be in and out on a daily basis. I, on the other hand, was a stranger.

Yes, but I was a nun. I stood a little taller, walked a little more slowly and told myself I could do this.

The two guards were just inside the gate, talking to a man with a falcon on his wrist. I stood quite still and waited to be noticed. One of them looked up and saw me. Leaving the group, he strolled across. I braced myself to run but he was very polite. Doffing his cap – really, we forget how important religion and those who represented it were in the Middle Ages – he greeted me. At least, I assume that was what he was doing. There were French words I recognised, but sadly, not in any comprehensible order.

I smiled at him and said quietly and in Latin, ‘I bring the altar cloth of St Mary. As instructed. I believe it is expected.’

Not that he would know, but confidence is key.

I don’t think he understood me. Latin was the international language of the day but not for the lower orders. It set me above him, however, which was what I’d been counting on. He ran his eye over the altar cloth. It was a shame the sun wasn’t shining to pick out the lovely gold thread in gleaming light, but it still looked pretty good. I cast an anxious glance at his really rather grubby hands but he knew better than to touch it.

Stepping back, he nodded. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I hadn’t really expected any difficulty. Mechelen was peaceful and well-to-do. There were no wars – not currently, anyway – and religion opens all doors. I set off for the gate, not hurrying, not looking around, concentrating on my task, taking my time . . .

The guard shouted something and I had a bowel-twanging moment as I thought I’d been rumbled, but he was only calling to his mate to let me through. Both he and falcon man moved aside for me, touching their caps. I smiled and nodded, and crossed the threshold into the busy courtyard beyond.

I was in.

25

The bells were ringing again, the sound hammering out over wet rooftops. Terce – nine a.m. Everyone had been up for hours earning their daily bread – time for me to do the same.

Under cover of adjusting the altar cloth again, I took a quick look around. I was standing in a large, well-paved courtyard. Tall walls looked down on me, broken by small, irregularly placed windows. Behind me, to my left, stood the stables and barns. I could hear the sounds of horses. To my right, the brewhouse and kitchen. As I paused, an unseen someone somewhere dropped a dish – a big one by the sound of it. Someone laughed and a woman’s voice was raised in anger.

Ahead of me, an arched and echoing tunnel led through to the open main gate, through which I could see the square in which I’d stood earlier this morning.

To my right, an open door led, I guessed, to the chapel. That was the direction in which I should go. No doubt, it was the direction the guards expected me to take. If they were watching. I didn’t dare turn around to look. Instead, I turned left. Towards where, if my notoriously unreliable bump of direction was working, the gardens lay.

A tall, ivy-covered stone and brick wall lay ahead of me with an arched wooden door, grey with age, right in the middle. Unfortunately, just when I needed it, this door was closed. Closed doors signified privacy. Ah well – I was a nun. They wouldn’t shoot me. No – they’d send for the nearest abbot, hand me over and he would shoot me. I had no idea what the punishment for nun impersonation was but I was certain it wouldn’t be good.

I muttered a quick prayer to any deity that might be listening – it was a good bet the god of historians wasn’t even up yet – and walked slowly towards the door. No one stopped me. No one hung from a window, shouting the Burgundian equivalent of, ‘Who the hell are you and what do you think you’re playing at?’

I caught hold of the cold metal ring and twisted. Nothing. The door didn’t move. Dammit – I’d come so far and the bloody door was locked. I couldn’t stand all day in this courtyard. I’d be far too visible. My second choice was the chapel but there would be a priest and my cover story wouldn’t bear any sort of close investigation. I panicked for a moment then took a breath and twisted the ring the other way. The door creaked open. Sometimes I’m a complete idiot.

I stared around. This was perfect. Just perfect. Wonderful. Just what I was looking for. Absolutely wonderfully perfect.

I was standing looking into a large garden. A cloister-style structure ran around the outside walls. The centre was grass, heavily speckled with raindrops. Four paths ran diagonally from each corner and in the centre lay the traditional small pool. Tiny bushes lined the paths and each corner had a border where herbs, marigolds and something that looked like daisies all crowded together, their heads drooping after the heavy rain. Lavender hedges made the still air heavy with scent. Best of all, the cloisters were open plan, with benches set against the walls. I suspected they’d been designed so ladies could take their exercise without getting wet. This was exactly what a small nun was looking for. I could walk around the cloister. If anyone challenged me, I was bringing a gift from the convent of St Mary’s – there was bound to be a St Mary’s around somewhere – and I’m awfully sorry but I think I’m lost. If the worst came to the worst and things turned nasty, then I’d just surrender the altar cloth and walk away. I doubted anyone would stop me. True, I’d have to endure the Enderby Stare, but I’d deal with that when the time came.

Leaving the door open so I could keep my eyes and ears open for any possible arrivals, I walked slowly around the cloister, getting my bearings and checking for possible escape routes. There were small arched doorways set into the back and right-hand walls. I was guessing they led to the private residential areas. I made a complete circuit, walking slowly. And then another. And then another. The third bench on the back wall gave me the best view of the courtyard and the main gate. And even if they brought the prince in through the back gate, I’d see and hear him from here. If a prince turned up today then I couldn’t miss him.

I made myself comfortable on the bench, the folded altar cloth in my lap, head bowed, hoping anyone catching sight of me would think I was meditating. Or praying.

I sat there all morning. Loads of people came and went and not one of them looked even remotely like Dr Bairstow, Mrs Brown or a young boy. There were delegations of merchants, a grand group of clergymen, including a bishop – I stepped back out of sight until they’d gone – sundry riders and messengers – it was all go. A widow she might be, but Margaret of Burgundy was obviously at the centre of everything in this part of the world.

I sat quietly and watched all these courtyard comings and goings through the door. No one paid me the slightest attention. My stomach rumbled and I remembered I’d had no breakfast – or, now I came to think of it, dinner last night, either. I chugged some water and nibbled either a high-energy biscuit or a piece of carpet underlay. It’s hard to tell; taste-wise, they’re very similar. The delicious roast meat smells emanating from the kitchens did not help.

The garden and cloister were deserted. No one came out at all. Whether because the morning was cool and damp or because everyone was busy, I had no idea. It wasn’t quiet – I could hear voices, footsteps, doors opening and closing. Half a dozen female voices were shrieking for Jacques, whoever he might be, but they sounded angry so he was obviously in a lot of trouble and, if he had any sense, was halfway to Antwerp by now.

I leaned back against the cold wall behind me and thought. For how long could I do this? How long before someone challenged me? I had no illusions. These windows were blank but the rooms behind them would not be empty. Half a dozen people were probably watching me right now.

I got up – I couldn’t afford to become stiff; my shoulders and arms still gave me the occasional twinge – and resumed my perambulations around the cloister. Anticlockwise this time. Just to liven things up a bit.

I had no watch, obviously, but the church bells enabled me to keep track of time. As noon approached, I left the altar cloth and stood slightly to one side of the door where I had a good view of both gates.

And I waited.

And waited.

Noon came. The city exploded in a cacophony of bells and then fell silent again. I walked round the cloister again and then sat back on the bench, hardly daring to take my eyes off the main gate.

I’m a bit like this with trains. I arrive at the station hours too early and then sit staring at the tracks in case the train slips in and out without me noticing. Obviously I’m the same with princes. I sat and stared and stared as the quarter hours and then the half hours and then the hours dragged past, and apart from what looked like another deputation of citizens, only servants or messengers passed in and out of the gates. Front or back.

At around mid-afternoon I began to panic he had arrived and that somehow I’d missed him. I walked slowly around the cloister again and had a bit of a think.

For a start, I should calm down. I was certain that if a prince was here – if I’d missed him somehow – then he’d gravitate to the garden sooner or later. All I had to do was be patient and wait. And then, once I’d satisfied my burning need to know, I could . . . what?

What would I do if the prince was here? What would I do if the prince wasn’t here? The answer was the same to both questions. Nothing. There wasn’t anything I could or should do. Yes, I’d know whether Dr Bairstow had lied to me or not, but did I actually want to know? I thought about that very carefully and came to the conclusion that yes, I did want to know. Yes, in view of his role as Director, I was perfectly prepared to admit there were some things he should keep to himself and if he’d said, ‘Sorry, Max, you’re just going to have to trust me on this one,’ I probably would have. But he’d left me to die so he could interfere in one of the most important events in English History. And then he’d lied to me about it. And now I strongly suspected he’d lied to me about taking the prince to Burgundy as well. In fact, I didn’t think he’d carried out an honest act or told a truthful word since that night at the Tower. I felt the familiar anger begin to rise again. I’d been on the point of calling all this off and returning to the pod but now . . . Now I was determined to see it through. I was determined to find out if Dr Bairstow had actually delivered the young boy to Margaret of Burgundy as he said he had. If he wasn’t here then . . . then I’d go home and carry on with my life as best I could with the knowledge that I could never trust Dr Bairstow again.

Or the prince was here and despite my best efforts, somehow I’d missed him. I just could not rid myself of that thought. I remembered I hadn’t asked Dr Bairstow exactly how he’d delivered the boy to his aunt. Could he have been smuggled in somehow? I’d seen no children at all – not even a page. And surely Dr Bairstow would have brought him personally. I’d watched the wagons being unloaded in the courtyard. I’d checked out the riders as they dismounted. I couldn’t have been more thorough. No, the boy wasn’t here.

Unable to sit still, I left the altar cloth neatly folded on the bench and began to walk again, head bent and fingering my rosary but keeping my eyes open. I’d been keeping to the public areas. No poking around behind closed doors because if anything happened to me then I had no one to come to my aid.

I’d left a note for Leon under the abandoned mug of tea in my office. The tea itself was thickening nicely. New forms of life would begin to emerge any day now. Given Miss Lee’s determination not to touch it, I couldn’t help wondering whether anyone would ever find the note or whether it would just sit there until the end of time. Very possible.

I’d grown so used to the silent stillness of the garden that when, without warning, a gaggle of colourful young women, giggling together, noisily exited one door and entered another, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Their gauzy headdresses floated around their heads and I think they were all talking simultaneously. The door slammed behind them and the garden was quiet and empty again.

Around late afternoon, about four-ish, the weather changed and the rain came down again. I was dry enough inside the cloisters. I stood and watched the rain run down the roofs and splatter into the garden. It was very hard not to feel despondent. The courtyard had emptied – the guards disappeared to take shelter. I was the only person I could see.

A door opened and a young boy stepped out. My heart leaped – Dr Bairstow had told the truth. He was here. Thank God. I was astonished at the relief flooding through me. He’d told me the truth. Everything would be all right after all.

And then I looked again. Even I could see this was no prince. Just a young servant, bearing a rough wooden tray of platters. He was dark-haired and plump. This was not the little boy I was looking for. The corresponding disappointment nearly brought me to tears. Then I had a sudden thought and moved to intercept him, enquiring after the young lord.

He stared at me blankly, obviously decided he didn’t understand me and walked off.

I was still staring after him, shivering with equal amounts of cold and disappointment when another door opened. This was another boy, slightly older and much better dressed – a chamber servant perhaps. He understood my Latin, anyway.

‘A recent arrival,’ I said, speaking slowly. ‘A young boy. Yesterday, perhaps, or today. Staying quietly inside. Perhaps unwell,’ and watched carefully for even the faintest flicker that would indicate he knew what I was talking about.

I didn’t need to. He nodded. ‘Just after dawn, sister.’

I literally sagged with relief. Dr Bairstow had been telling the truth. It was only at this moment I realised how important that had been to me.

I looked up at the windowed walls. ‘Where?’

He shrugged.

‘What is his name?’

He shrugged again. I wondered if they were keeping him in the private apartments, which would make sense. Keeping him out of general circulation for a few days while they decided how best to keep him safe.

I shook myself. That wasn’t important. I’d got what I came for – I should leave. For the first time, it struck me that making persistent enquiries about a secret guest might not be the wisest thing to do.

The lad was edging away – polite, but wanting to get on. I smiled at him and he scuttled away through a door to my right.

I should have let it go. Why didn’t I let it go? I’d got what I came for. I should shoot back to St Mary’s for a nice cup of tea and an early night. This had been a long day and I still wasn’t completely recovered. I should grab the altar cloth and leave. I actually took a step towards the bench. And then I saw it.

He hadn’t closed the door behind him. It stood half open. Inviting me in. It wouldn’t take long. Just a little walk about. With the altar cloth, looking for the chapel, silly me, however did I get up here? Back that way, you say? Of course, thank you so much, sorry to have troubled you. And I’d know. I’d know for sure which of the princes had made it to safety and if, as I suspected, this was Richard of York, then the chances were that Perkin Warbeck was who he said he was. I had a chance to solve one of the greatest historical mysteries ever. How could I not go in?

I picked up the altar cloth, draped it over one arm and approached, very, very slowly, my heart pounding with excitement.

No one appeared to stop me, which I took as a good sign. I stared inside. The door opened into darkness. Literally. It was a door into darkness. I had no idea what was on the other side. I clenched my fists. That feeling was back. That awful urge to run before it was too late. That this was not somewhere I should be. The feeling was physical. I could feel the weight pressing on me. The voice in my head was screaming at me to leave. To walk away. Now.

I don’t know about anyone else, but whenever I get scared – I get angry. A legacy from childhood, I guess, when there was only me and I stood alone against the world. Fear was no bloody use at all, but anger – anger can be harnessed and drawn upon. Anger gives strength. Fear takes it away. And, right at that moment, I was very, very afraid.

Slowly, very carefully, taking tiny steps and prepared to turn and run at any moment, I stepped up to the door. I could see the coarse grain of the wood, the iron hinges, the rust on the latch. I could see the stone threshold and a small area of terracotta and black tiles leading away into the gloom. Everything else was cloaked in shadow. I literally had no idea what I was walking into.

I took a deep breath, lifted my chin, stepped through the door and—

26

It had been a bad day. Nothing had gone right and now I was running late. Another half hour and Len would be home. And it was Friday. I hated Fridays. Friday was the beginning of the weekend, which meant a solid forty-eight hours of Len.

On Saturday mornings, he would fall out of bed, hungover after a night out with my father, and it would all be Matthew’s fault for not playing quietly. If we survived that, then on Saturday afternoon, he would remember he was a father and we would climb into the car we couldn’t afford and visit a local attraction, just like a normal family. Sometimes that could go well and the resulting good mood might last even until Sunday. If it went badly, then Saturday night would be worse than Friday night and Sunday might well result in driving around the county trying to find a hospital where they wouldn’t know me.

Sunday night he would remember he was back to work the next day and he would have a few drinks to keep that thought at bay while I cleared things up and got Matthew calmed down and ready for the next week’s school. Matthew attended the expensive prep school around the corner (we couldn’t afford that, either) and eventually would go on to the good grammar school in whose catchment area Len had been careful we resided.

I looked at the clock again and glanced around the kitchen. A casserole was simmering in the slow cooker. Another hour and it would be perfect. The kitchen, all the house, was spotless. I was exhausted but the house was immaculate. I swilled my mug and teaspoon under the tap, wiped them and put them away. Glancing into the lounge, I could see Matthew in front of the TV. The sound was down low so he could hear when his father returned. Even as I looked, he stood up and craned his neck to see out of the window. To see if his father was coming yet.

I was desperately worried for Matthew. He’d always been small and quiet, but during these last months, he’d almost stopped speaking entirely. Huge, anxious, golden brown eyes continually watched the world around him. He had cleared a space in his bedroom cupboard and knew, at the first signs, to take himself up there out of the way. I’d bought a solid bolt for the inside of the door and fitted it myself one afternoon, low down, where he could reach it while crouching on the floor.

We couldn’t go on like this. I know there are refuges for people like us. Places that are supposed to be secret, but my father was John Maxwell – head of surgery at the Royal Free, magistrate, member of the Social Services Committee, friend to every senior police officer in the county. He would find us. And being found and returned to Len was not something even to be thought about. But we couldn’t go on like this.

There was a small mark on the kitchen wall where Matthew had banged a toy. I wet a sponge with washing-up liquid and carefully wiped it off. I was just finishing when I heard his car in the drive. Len was home. And he was early.

At once, Matthew switched off the TV and ghosted upstairs, out of the way. He wouldn’t come down until I called him. I checked everything one last time, smoothed my hair and stood ready, waiting for clues as to how bad this Friday was going to be.

It was going to be very bad. Len couldn’t get his key in the lock properly. Possibly, he’d already had a few. I walked to the front door and opened it for him. He pushed past me and dropped his briefcase on the carpet. I looked out through the open front door. It was just beginning to get dark. Lights were coming on in nearby windows. Small, cosy worlds, filled with comfort and love, not fear and violence. Not like this one. Nothing at all like this one. I wondered what it would be like to step outside, pull the door shut behind me and just keep on walking into the purple twilight. But I had Matthew. There would be no walking.

‘Are you going to stand there all night?’

I followed him into the kitchen. He pulled out a chair. ‘I’m meeting your father early tonight, so I’ll eat now.’

Shit, shit, shit.

I made myself stay calm. ‘It’s not quite ready yet. Shall I get you a quick snack?’

‘Why isn’t it ready?’

‘Well, you’re a little early. It’ll be ready in about half an hour. Why don’t you have a shower first and get ready and then eat.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ he said casually. ‘I’ll do that.’

I picked up the slow cooker, meaning to move it out of the way so I could make his sandwich. I never learn. The blow came out of nowhere. I never saw it coming. My whole side and left arm went numb. The pot slipped out of my hands and crashed to the kitchen floor. Boiling stew splashed up the cupboards and across the floor. It went all over me too, although I never noticed at the time.

I couldn’t move. I was lost in a world of pain. It took everything I had to stay on my feet.

‘Now look what you’ve done.’

I heard his chair clatter as he kicked it out of the way. I grasped a drawer handle for support and weathered the storm. All things pass and eventually, so did this. I heard the front door slam, the car started and he was gone. He really was in no condition to drive but I didn’t care. Just as long as he didn’t hurt anyone else.

I let go of the handle and used my sleeve to wipe the blood away from my mouth. I think it was his ring that had done the damage. Slowly, I got my breath back.

Matthew stood in the doorway, saying nothing. He came into the kitchen and picked up the chair. I sat down heavily and tried to find a position that didn’t hurt too much. He started to try to pick up bits of the broken ceramic pot.

‘No,’ I whispered through swollen lips. ‘It’s hot. I’ll do that.’

He shook his head and continued picking up the bigger pieces, placing them carefully on the draining board. Neither of us spoke. I tried to make myself get up and knew I couldn’t, not this time.

I looked down at Matthew, who paused and looked up at me, a world of fear and unhappiness in his eyes.

I said to him, ‘Come here,’ and held out the one arm that still worked. I kissed his hair and blinked back my own tears. Crying wasn’t going to help us now. This was all my fault. I’d allowed things to get this bad. No matter how afraid I was of my husband and my father, nothing was ever going to be worse than watching the damage being done to Matthew. I looked at the skinny, frightened little boy, straightening the kitchen, picking up the pieces, trying to put everything right all by himself and I hated myself so much. Look what my stupid cowardice had done to him. I had to get us out of here. Before it was too late for both of us.

If we were going, then now was the time to go. Len wouldn’t be back until the small hours. We could get a long way by then. All I had to do was get us out of town. We could go north or south. Somewhere well away from John Maxwell’s influence. I had hardly any money in my handbag, but that didn’t matter. I had enough to get us to the train station. We’d get on the first train out and when they came for the tickets, I’d explain. They’d probably chuck us off at the next stop but if I was lucky, it would be a good long way away. If I was doubly lucky, then they’d call the police and maybe they could get us to some sort of shelter.

I got to my feet, leaning heavily on the table and reached for the phone on the worktop to call for a taxi. This marriage was over. I’d given it nine years and that was nine too many. I should have turned and run as soon as I left the church. Actually, I should have turned and run before I even entered the church.

My mind flew back to my wedding day. The reception was nearly over. I was standing in the room set aside for the bride, just prior to changing out of my wedding dress. It had been a magical day. The weather and setting were perfect. My father had kept his distance. Len looked so handsome and I was convinced I had finally escaped my father. I’d kept Len a secret and when I found out I was pregnant, I thought I had left John Maxwell with no other choice than to let me go. That I had won. That I was free of him. Then I turned around. Len and my father were standing a few feet away, looking at me and smiling identical smiles.

My heart lurched with fear and then my father said, ‘No need to be gentle, Len, my boy, I never was,’ and my heart stopped altogether as I realised how stupid, stupid, stupid I’d been and how completely I was trapped. Len turned and smiled at my father, and in that moment, I had a brief glimpse of how my life would be. It turned out to be twenty, a hundred times worse.

Well, not any more. We were out of here. Both of us. Now.

Matthew hovered anxiously, his eyes huge with fear.

‘Get your coat, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘We’re going for a walk.’

He nodded and went out into the hall. I watched him struggle into his coat.

‘And your shoes.’

He rammed his feet into his shoes and as he did so, I heard Len’s key in the lock. Oh my God, he was back. Back already. There was no time to wonder why.

I whispered, ‘Quick – come here.’

Matthew fled back into the kitchen. I shut the door and said, ‘When I say run – you run.’

He made to get past me.

‘No – not to your bedroom. Outside. Through the garden gate.’ I thought quickly. ‘Down the street. To the call box. You know what to do.’

He did. We’d rehearsed this. Against the day when I would no longer be able to protect either him or myself. Run down the street. To the telephone box. Dial 999. Tell them who he was, ask for help and wait. Don’t speak to anyone. Stay in the telephone box and wait. Someone would come.

He clutched my hand. ‘Mummy . . .’

‘It’s all right. Just go. Go now.’

Len was fumbling with the kitchen door. I could hear his muttered cursing. I watched the knob turn. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Neither could Matthew. We both stared. And then, slowly, the door opened.

I pushed Matthew behind me. My heart was in my throat. I leaned against the table for support.

Len stood in the doorway, eyeing us both, and then switched his gaze to Matthew, wearing his coat. ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

‘Now,’ I said. ‘Run. Don’t look back. Run.’

Matthew whirled about and wrenched open the back door. I felt the cold blast of night air, heard his running footsteps on the path and then he was swallowed up in the dark.

Len strode forwards. I slammed the door shut and stood in front of it. Blocking his path. Every moment I could gain for Matthew . . .

He was in front of me . . .

‘Get out of the way.’

‘No.’ I still had one working arm and I used it to hang on to the doorknob.

‘Get out of the way.’ He tried to pull me away from the door.

‘No.’

I saw his fist . . . massive . . . it filled my vision . . . there was a blinding, red-hot, jagged pain. I felt my nose crunch. Tasted blood. Hung on to the handle. Matthew. Must hold on. And another blow. My head flew sideways and hit the door. I was falling. He wrenched the door open, pushed me hard and I fell backwards out through the door and—

27

I was back in the cloister, staring through the open door into the blackness beyond. My face was on fire with pain and—

No, it wasn’t. Slowly, I straightened up and looked down at myself. There was no pain. Only the memory of pain. I looked around. There were the cloisters. There was the bench. There were the gardens. All growing dim as the daylight slowly faded.

I shouldn’t be here. For more reasons than the approaching curfew, I shouldn’t be here. I should go. While I still could. Because I’d been warned. Several times, now I came to think of it. But I’m not bright and finally there had been a warning not even I could ignore. And there would be no more. Something told me if I stepped through that door then I’d never come back. That the darkness beyond was more than just darkness.

I didn’t waste time wondering why, or who. I was out of here. Now. Before it was too late.

Tucking the altar cloth safely in the front of my chasuble, I straightened my headdress, took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and said, ‘It’s all right. I’m going.’

I’ve no idea who I was talking to.

I turned about and walked away. At the garden door I turned and looked back. Darkness had gathered in the corners of the garden. Details were lost in the shadows. I couldn’t see the door.

I made my way back through the deserted courtyard. Lights were appearing at various windows. One of the guards was lighting his lantern. I could smell woodsmoke in the air as someone lit a fire against the damp night.

The front gate would remain open all night, probably, but they were just about to close the back gate. One guard paused when he saw me approaching, holding the door open for me.

I thanked him, stepped through the gate and strode briskly across the square, my skirts flapping around my ankles in my haste. There were hardly any people around now. Dim lights showed through windows. I could hear the sound of shutters closing. Mechelen was retiring for the night and so should I. Before my legs gave way.

I made my way down the darkening streets. The rain was back and giving the impression it was here for the night. I passed the church, turned right at the horse trough, found the pod and called for the door. I ran the last few paces. I was never more grateful in my life to be safely back inside. And that includes a professional career littered with battles and earthquakes and dinosaurs.

Inside, the pod was warm and apart from the occasional tick of the chronometer, very quiet. I flicked on the kettle, and taking great care to concentrate solely on the task in hand and not think about anything else – anything else at all – I undressed, shaking the moisture off my habit and folding it carefully. I laid the altar cloth neatly on the top of the pile, got back into my blues, checked my hair and by that time the kettle had boiled.

I was struggling. For some reason, my left arm ached and wouldn’t work properly. I lost count of the number of times I fingered my nose and ran my tongue around my teeth. Everything seemed intact but there was the memory of crunching bone. My hands were shaking so badly I daren’t fill the mug more than two-thirds full otherwise the tea would have gone halfway across the pod.

I made myself sit back in my seat and just breathe. I had to calm down. I couldn’t possibly go back like this. What explanation could I give? I sat and sipped my tea and concentrated on my breathing.

I know I’m irresponsible. And reckless. And I take unnecessary risks. But I’m not stupid. Well, not that stupid. I know when I’ve been given a warning. Whatever this business was . . . whatever had happened in London and why . . . this was not for me. I was to stay away or the consequences would be dire. And possibly, given what had just happened, not only for me – and that was a risk I wasn’t prepared to take. I finished my tea and looked around the pod.

‘All right. I understand. No more.’

Again, don’t ask me who I thought I was talking to.

At once, that feeling of dread . . . whatever . . . subsided. Warmth crept back. My hands stilled. The memories didn’t go away but they dimmed. My fears dwindled. The world slowly came back. The real world.

I checked the screen. It was properly dark by now. Everyone was inside. I could go whenever I wanted. I poured myself another cup of tea, sat back and thought about Matthew and Crete and Markham’s tireless quest for administrative assistance and Leon and Peterson and Lingoss and very definitely not . . . not . . . about matters that weren’t for me.

I finished my tea. I was quite calm. Time to go home.

I got as far as Wardrobe – fortunately not meeting a soul anywhere – and dropped the nun’s habit and altar cloth on Mrs Enderby’s desk. I scrawled a brief thank-you note and just as I turned to go, I had the weirdest feeling. The world tilted and for a second, I didn’t know where I was. My legs wobbled and my strength gave out. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to sleep. I had to sit down in a hurry. It might be wise to rest. Just for a moment.

I leaned back in the chair and looked out through the open door into the lighted Hall beyond. I could just catch a glimpse of the big whiteboard, bare and shining, waiting to have Crete-related stuff, reminders, queries, bad jokes and insults scribbled all over it. My eyes were heavy.

Markham walked past. I didn’t think he’d seen me in here because I hadn’t bothered switching the light on, but a second later he returned, walking backwards.

‘I thought I saw something. Whatever are you doing in here?’

‘Mrs Enderby asked me to put something on her desk.’ Always tell the truth if you can.

He looked down at me. ‘Should I get someone?’

‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’ I paused, searching for words. ‘Perhaps I came back to work too early.’

Now he paused too and then said, ‘Too much too soon?’

I nodded. ‘So it would appear.’

‘I’ll give you a hand if you like.’

‘Thanks.’

We trailed across the Hall at the speed of a sleeping snail.

I looked around. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Heavy goods lift. I know most historians have mastered stairs but you don’t look to be one of them.’

‘Well, that’s rude. You’re not very tactful.’

‘That was my tactful comment. You don’t want to hear what I was originally going to say.’

We travelled up in the lift, which Professor Rapson regards as his own particular domain. A kind of extension to R&D. It was full of odd pieces of kit, including an iron maiden.

We looked at it as the lift rattled its way upwards.

‘I’m sure I instructed the professor to return that to Thirsk,’ I said. ‘Before we have a terrible accident.’

‘And it’s on the first leg of its journey,’ he said soothingly. ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’

I doubted that but he meant well so I sought to change the subject.

‘There’s a sack of potatoes over there.’

‘Either on its way to or from the kitchen, Max. Stop fretting.’

I peered around again. Propped against the wall was a pile of old wood, surmounted by a lobster pot.

‘There’s a pile of old wood and a lobster pot,’ I said, determined to find something I could complain about.

‘Yeah. Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.’

He walked with me up the last few stairs to our attic room and rapped on the door. ‘Delivery for L Farrell Esquire. Signature required.’

The door opened and there was Leon. My heart swelled. Our sitting room was brightly lit and warm and comfortably untidy. He and Matthew had obviously been working at the table. Leon’s files were spread everywhere and Matthew was bent over his homework. That was when the realisation hit me. This was my world and I couldn’t lose it. I wouldn’t lose it. Whatever it was I wasn’t supposed to know anything about was fine by me. This was far more important.

Leon looked at me in concern. ‘Max? What’s happened?’

I shook my head.

‘Too much too soon,’ scolded Markham, handing me over like an old package.

I nodded. ‘Yeah. Sorry. Nothing serious. An early night should sort me out.’

‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ said Markham and disappeared.

Leon made me a mug of hot chocolate and I sipped while Matthew read me the story he was writing for Professor Penrose. From what I could make out, it concerned a young boy who travels in time and saves the world from a dreadful but unspecified threat. Whole cities were destroyed and everyone died horribly in the end. Something that would have caused me some concern had I not done exactly the same thing at around the same age. My really rather good poem about cannibalism had been returned to me with more red lines through it than I even knew existed, and with the words Unsuitable subject. See me, in red across the top.

I do remember asking if the subject would have been deemed more suitable had everyone lived – which was not well received – and I had to spend two detentions writing about sunbeams and kittens. I think there were butterflies and daffodils involved as well – until I rebelled, reverted to type, and some kind of apocalypse wiped out all life. I think that’s when they brought in the educational psycho. Still, I turned out all right in the end and Matthew would too, I was sure of it.

I went off and had a long, hot bath, and when I emerged, they were watching the TV. Twenty-two men raced pointlessly around the screen. Bloody football.

‘Oh,’ I said, brightly. ‘Football. That’s nice.’

I still felt like shit but to allay any suspicions Leon might have as to how I’d spent my day, and because I’m a wonderful wife and mother, I enquired as to the score.

‘Nil-nil,’ said Leon, apparently unable to drag his eyes from the screen.

‘Oh,’ I said, vaguely. ‘Lovely. What was the score at half-time?’

Two heads swivelled simultaneously and looked at me and suddenly I’d had more than enough of this day.

‘Early night, I think,’ I said, and left them to it.

28

Right. No more of that nonsense. Back to reality. I still didn’t know why Dr Bairstow had done what he did but I could manage the situation. I’d stay right away from him. My reports could be sent electronically. If I needed a signature on anything then I could do it through Mrs Partridge.

I was still angry with myself because I’d thought Dr Bairstow, with all his talk of St Mary’s never leaving their people behind, was different and I’d been wrong. Stupidly wrong. Because, sooner or later, authority always lets you down. Always. Politicians, church leaders, bankers, captains of industry, everyone. They say one thing and do another. It’s always all about them. I’d been stupid to think there could ever be any exceptions. Slam the door, Maxwell, and move on. And it wasn’t as if I didn’t have anything to do. After so many distractions, finally, it was time to get to grips with Crete.

I spent the next day reading through my briefing notes and getting my head around all things Minoan. I bustled about quite happily, laying things out, pinning things to the wall, humming and muttering away to myself until Rosie Lee said how could she possibly be expected to work among all this racket, and I was the noisiest person on the planet, and could she go home early with a headache. Still benefitting from the euphoria of being alive in this world and not battered to death in another one, I informed her she could go home with my goodwill, and she was so surprised she sat back down again and put in another hour’s work before finally disappearing out of the door. How about that?

I always find it’s best to accommodate people’s preferences as far as possible, so I sent a memo round asking everyone for their preferred areas of responsibility in our upcoming Crete adventure. Replies came flying back almost immediately. Everyone was up for this one. It was a long time since we’d had a Big Job. I allocated tasks accordingly and fixed the briefing for the next afternoon in the Great Hall.

The History Department had cleared the tables. Various whiteboards stood around, waiting. Mr Strong had lowered the big screen. I had an armful of files and notes and we were good to go.

‘Right,’ I said, pulling out a seat. ‘Is everyone here?’

They were. Mrs Enderby was representing the Wardrobe Department. Dr Dowson and Professor Rapson had been placed as far away from each other as possible while still remaining in the same room, and historians, scratchpads ready, had seated themselves on anything that looked capable of bearing their weight.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a look at your requests for individual areas of responsibility and it’s all worked out quite well. I’ll run through the teams and then we’ll get down to specifics. Firstly . . .’

From somewhere above our heads, a door slammed. Footsteps raced around the gallery. Matthew appeared at the top of the stairs, white-faced and frightened.

‘Mum. Mum. Come quick. Uncle Markham’s scalded his willy.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence and then, as one, with a unity and sense of purpose that I, as their departmental head, would never have believed possible, the entire History Department rose smoothly to its feet, all set to investigate.

‘No,’ I said, holding up my hand. ‘I’ll check this out. Everyone else will remain here. Mr Atherton, could you alert Sick Bay, please.’

I turned to Matthew. ‘Show me.’

I took the stairs two at a time – which was something I hadn’t done for some time and was pleased to find I could still do – and we raced around the gallery to R&D.

If I’d thought that without the presence of Professor Rapson things might be a little calmer than usual, I was completely wrong. It was chaos in there.

The first thing I saw was a tall metal box, mounted on what looked like caterpillar tracks, careering around the room and bouncing off the furniture. Fresh gouges in the wall bore witness to several collisions.

As I stood in the doorway, a strange metallic voice intoned, ‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’ and a long metal arm with some kind of teapot-shaped device on the end hurled a glittering stream of steaming water up the walls. People were dodging frantically, colliding with each other, shrieking, ‘Switch it off. Switch it off, for God’s sake.’

In the centre of the room, Professor Penrose was wrestling with what looked like some sort of control box. Wires hung from the contraption and a giant aerial protruded from the front. Never mind the boiling water, he’d have someone’s eye out if he wasn’t careful.

I said to Matthew, ‘Stay outside in the corridor,’ and ignored his ‘aww’ of disappointment because I’m a mother and it’s my duty to frustrate and disappoint my offspring at every opportunity.

Markham lay on the floor, half under a desk. He was curled in a tight ball shouting, ‘Jesus. Shit. Bollocks. Bugger. Aaagghhhh.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’

Matthew was trying to push past me. ‘Wait here,’ I said. ‘I’ll need someone to show Dr Stone where to come.’

Not that he’d need directions. ‘It’s easy being a doctor here,’ he’d once said to me. ‘You just follow the screaming.’

Matthew nodded importantly and stepped back to crane over the banisters.

‘Ice,’ I said, urgently. ‘We need ice.’

‘Already on it,’ said Lingoss, appearing with a bag of giant ice. Or do I mean a giant bag of ice? Anyway, she was clutching a massive plastic bag full of ice that was nearly as big as she was. I mean the bag, not the ice itself. I think I’ll just shut up about the ice.

‘Quick,’ I said.

We dragged Markham out from under the desk where he’d presumably taken refuge to escape the attentions of his future assistant. I couldn’t help but feel this was not an auspicious start to their relationship.

‘Bloody hell. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit . . .’

‘Stop being such a baby,’ said Peterson who, with a typical senior manager’s ability to nose out someone else’s catastrophe, had appeared in the doorway.

‘Aaaaggggh,’ cried Markham, obviously feeling such a stupid remark didn’t warrant a coherent response.

We unfurled him, which took some doing because he was tightly curled up on himself. ‘Like a giant woodlouse,’ remarked Peterson, obviously determined not to contribute anything constructive. Nothing new there then.

We prised Markham apart and Mr Swanson threw a towel over him. I don’t know why. He was making far too much noise to be dead. Although this was Markham so you never know. Lingoss carefully and strategically laid the bag of ice where she thought its cooling properties would be most beneficial.

‘Aaaggghhh,’ he yelled, ungratefully.

‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’

Someone else began to lay piles of blankets over him and tightly tucked him in. I don’t know why they did that. With just his red face sticking out of the top and his boots out of the bottom, he looked like an enormous hot dog bun.

In the meantime, Markham’s proto-assistant – well on its way to its first formal warning, as far as I could see – was still orbiting the room drenching everything in its path.

‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’

‘How much water is in there?’ shouted someone, dodging another steaming shower.

‘Enough for a day’s tea requirements for the Security Section,’ panted Professor Penrose, still wrestling with the controls.

‘So about enough to fill a medium-sized reservoir then?’

‘About that, yes.’

‘Shit. Bollocks. Bugger,’ moaned Markham, still enbunned.

Apparently now determined to crush him to death, his assistant raced across the room towards him.

Everyone – possibly including me and certainly including Peterson – screamed at the top of their voices.

‘Would you like a cup of tea, master?’

‘I can’t think what’s gone wrong,’ cried Professor Penrose, a phrase not infrequently uttered in R&D. Glasses askew, he stabbed at random controls apparently without any effect whatsoever. The thing continued to career towards its future employer, knocking glassware off the tables and drenching everything in sight in its single-minded determination to provide Markham with a hot beverage.

Miss Lingoss strode across the room and yanked a plug from the wall.

‘Would you liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii . . . ?’

Silence.

Everyone sighed with relief.

Obviously, now that it was all over, the medical profession turned up. Dr Stone first, and behind him, plodding laboriously up the stairs, Nurse Hunter, who probably had a vested interest in Markham’s injuries, although whether she would regard them as good or bad was anyone’s guess. I distinctly remembered, in the last heavy month of pregnancy, telling Leon he was never ever coming within a six-foot radius of me ever again. He had complacently replied that he’d have to stand much further back than that.

Dr Stone stood in the doorway, ostensibly surveying the scene prior to taking swift and effective action. He’d once confided in me that this was the secret to successful doctoring.

‘Always take the time to have a good look first, Max. If you’re really lucky the patient recovers spontaneously and you can take the credit. If you’re extra lucky, the patient dies and you solemnly shake your head and say there was nothing that could be done. If the luck’s not running your way and the patient does neither, then you have to mentally turn to page ninety-six in the Big Boys’ Book of Doctoring and think of something quickly.’

It would seem that the Big Boys’ Book of Doctoring was not required today. Dr Stone knelt beside Markham and began to pull the blankets away. ‘What’s happened here? I understand someone has been scalded?’

Half a dozen voices tried to explain.

‘Shut up, all of you. Miss Lingoss?’

‘He’s been scalded,’ she said. ‘In an unfortunate place.’

‘What, you mean over by the window?’

‘No, I mean in the . . . groin area.’

Hunter had by now arrived and was surveying her prone beloved with a marked lack of sympathy.

Dr Stone continued. ‘You mean he’s scalded his willy.’

‘Well, not him as such. His new assistant did it, but the willy bit was right.’

He nodded and turned back to the suspiciously silent Markham, peeling back blanket after blanket after blanket. Like an archaeologist unwrapping a mummy.

‘What the hell’s all this?’

‘Ice,’ she said. ‘You put ice on burns and scalds.’

‘Yes – you apply ice to the affected area – not the entire body. You lunatics – you’ve practically stopped his heart.’

And indeed, Markham did look rather pale. And he’d fallen silent. Never a good sign with him.

‘Is he dead?’ said someone, anxiously. Being dead is an awful lot of paperwork.

‘Of course not. But no thanks to you lot.’

There was mass shuffling.

Markham opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Hunter, who slapped his arm. ‘You’re an idiot.’

Professor Penrose appeared, still very much agitated. ‘I told you, Mr Markham – it’s the milk that’s the problem. If you’d consent to add the milk manually, the problem would be solved.’

I nodded. Milk – juice of the devil. No wonder.

Markham gritted his teeth. ‘Absolutely not. I am a Section Head. We do not add our own milk. That’s what designated staff are for.’

‘Right, let’s have a look at the damage,’ said Dr Stone, before any designated staff could take their revenge.

He pulled out a pair of scissors. Markham modestly clutched at his blankets.

‘You lot,’ said Hunter. ‘Out.’

We shuffled towards the door. Peterson, unable to resist adding insult to injury, leaned over Markham.

‘You poor old thing. Would you like a cup of tea?’

Well, obviously there was no briefing after that. It’s not easy getting the History Department to concentrate at the best of times. Even Crete couldn’t compete with a scalded willy.

I let them go and they all scampered off to make inappropriate get-well-soon cards.

I half expected a summons from Dr Bairstow, who would certainly want to know what all the noise had been about, but it never came. Half of me was relieved. The other half was slightly irked. I was supposed to be ignoring him. Not the other way around.

We left it for a couple of hours, just to give things time to settle down, and then Peterson and I set off to Sick Bay. To visit the sick, obviously, and deliver a large number of unkind but really funny cards to our stricken hero.

Markham was in bed, a little pale, and some parts of him were lightly bandaged – as were, I assumed, other parts that fortunately I couldn’t see.

‘What ho,’ he said, quite cheerfully I thought, considering how his day had been so far.

‘You look like something that pursues screaming young ladies through graveyards at midnight,’ said Peterson.

I snorted. ‘He doesn’t need bandages for that.’

‘I don’t do that sort of thing any longer,’ he said, with more dignity than might be expected from a man with a bandaged willy. ‘I’m a ha—’ He stopped.

Peterson pounced. ‘A ha . . . ? A ha . . . what?’ He leaned over the recumbent Markham in a threatening manner.

‘Dunno,’ said Markham vaguely, picking at his bedcovers in a manner made famous in those 19th-century romances where the heroine dies of consumption. ‘I think you should go away now. I am quite grievously wounded, you know.’

Peterson wasn’t going to let it go. ‘A ha . . . come on – you can do it.’

Markham grinned. ‘Do you mean “a handsome young man who usually has to beat off women with a stick”?’

There was a snort from Hunter, entering the room with a tray of instruments and a suspicious stare.

‘Damn and blast,’ said Peterson as we found ourselves once more on the other side of the door. ‘I nearly had him there, Max. One day. One day . . .’

We set off for my office and a nice cup of man-made tea.

‘I have to say, Max, your History Department is the most fun I’ve had in years. A fact that will be reflected in your personal appraisal later this year.’

That brought me up short.

‘You’re doing my appraisal?’

‘I am indeed.’

‘Just mine?’

‘No, all the admin and housekeeping staff, as well.’

‘And me. Why me?’

Because Dr Bairstow didn’t want to do it, was the obvious answer. I strode off in a bit of a huff.

29

Attempt number two at the Crete briefing.

We assembled again in the Great Hall. Time was getting on so I had everyone in this time.

The History Department sat at the front, along with Kalinda, everyone clutching a mug of the amber nectar to see themselves through the rigours of the morning.

Mrs Enderby was present with most of her department. I could already see them eyeing up my historians and deciding who would wear what. It’s always worth keeping on the right side of Wardrobe. Ask Markham, who once had to work his way through an entire assignment clothed from head to foot in pink. Sorry – rose.

The Security Section sat off to one side, pretending they knew how to operate their scratchpads. Markham, now bandage-free, was in a minor sulk because no one would ask him how his todger was faring, in case he took it into his head to show them.

Leon and his crew were next to them, clutching their crayons.

Mrs Mack – in charge of feeding us throughout the assignment and arguably the most important person in the room – sat with Mrs Enderby.

Dr Dowson and Professor Rapson were again as far apart as geographically possible. The professor was firmly sandwiched between Mikey on one side and Miss Lingoss on the other, and Dr Stone, clutching a large mug of cocoa, sat at the back with his medical team. Hunter wasn’t there.

I’d had a brief conversation with Markham a couple of days ago when I’d commented on the extraordinary length of her pregnancy.

‘Well, not really,’ he’d said. ‘You’re the one who shot off to live in 1399 for twelve months. It was only a few weeks for us here. The same for the six months you were off with the Time Police. This pregnancy’s nine months, just like everyone else’s. Which reminds me – how long will we be in Crete?’

‘We’ll be on site for anything up to three months, but it’ll only be a week to ten days here. We’re still working on the precise dates. How long does Hunter have to go?’

‘Just over a fortnight.’

‘You should be fine, but get someone to send you a message on the shuttle if you need to go back early.’

‘You’d be all right with that?’

‘Of course. Clear it with Dr Bairstow, of course.’

He looked at me. ‘You don’t want to talk to him yourself?’

‘No need,’ I said, airily. ‘If he asks, just tell him I don’t have any issues.’

We’d left it at that.

I made sure I had everything ready and then, having discovered years ago that polite throat-clearing was a complete waste of time, banged on the table for their attention.

‘Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. The purpose of this briefing today is to give ourselves a broad outline of the mission ahead of us, draft up a schedule and allocate specific responsibilities. Our objective is Bronze Age Crete – situated at the eastern end of the Med and known as the Big Island.

‘Just a note about names – we have no idea what the Cretan population called themselves then, but they’re known today as Minoans, after Minos, the name of their king. The name was bestowed by Sir Arthur Evans, who excavated Crete in the early 1900s. It’s almost certainly not accurate, but we’ll go with it for convenience.’

I brought up a map of the Eastern Med. ‘Crete is the centre of the Minoan trading empire, stretching from Sicily to Egypt and from Anatolia to North Africa. The Minoans are powerful and prosperous. Their ships command the seas. They have no natural enemies. No one can touch them. However – seventy miles to the north lies the volcanic island of Thera.’

I brought up more images. ‘Thera, as an important Minoan trading post, is also doing very nicely, thank you very much, and would probably continue to do so for some time, except that it’s an active volcano and about to erupt. The massive explosion will very nearly destroy their island, devastate Crete itself and cause widespread damage across that end of the Mediterranean. It’s reckoned the Theran eruption was the largest in the ancient world, greater even than that of Krakatoa in the modern one. Sicily, Egypt, Anatolia, Greece, North Africa – they’ll all suffer the after-effects of this eruption. Even countries as far away as Britain and Ireland will show stunted plant growth as the ash cloud blocks out the sun and lowers temperatures.

‘Crete itself doesn’t actually suffer a great deal from the eruption – there’s nothing like the ashfalls of Pompeii, for example, because the wind carries most of it in the opposite direction. The majority of the damage is caused when the volcano collapses in on itself, causing massive tidal waves to devastate the area. This is a big event, people. China suffers a strange yellow fog and widespread crop failure. The Greeks may even have incorporated the explosion into the Titanomachy legend. Egypt is beset with torrential rainfall. There have even been attempts to link these events to the Biblical Exodus.’

There was silence.

‘Is no one going to say the “A” word?’ said Bashford, chattily.

‘Not in my hearing,’ I said, darkly.

‘Oh, come on, Max. The similarities. The circular island with concentric rings . . . It’s got to be the basis of the legend of Atla . . .’

People clapped their hands over their ears. ‘La la la la la.’

He grinned. ‘Just saying.’

I changed the subject for his own safety. ‘Given the extent of the destruction, and if we can safely do so, part of our mission will be to rescue a few small items, as well.’

‘A few?’ said Kal, suspiciously.

‘I’m so sorry, I should have said: rescue enough items to satisfy the rapacious demands of our overlords at Thirsk.’

‘Better,’ she said. ‘Continue.’

I brought up another map showing the extent of the tsunamis.

‘The principal Cretan city, Knossos, is situated on the northern side of the island, unfortunately facing directly towards Thera. The whole northern coastline will take a real bashing.’ I brought up more images of the excavated Knossos. ‘The enormous structure you can see at the centre is the palace, excavated by Sir Arthur Evans. He called it a palace due to its size, but it was almost certainly a multi-purpose complex – palace, administrative offices, treasury, storerooms, distribution centre and so on. With over fifteen hundred rooms, it was the grandest building in Europe at this time. Even Athens is just a small town – barely more than a village.

‘The Minoans were excellent builders. Their houses are usually built of stone . . .’ I flicked to pictures of the excavated town of Akrotiri, ‘. . . on the lower storeys, anyway, and have upper floors. The palace itself is some four or five storeys high. Almost unheard of in those times. They are a cultured and sophisticated people – their buildings are beautifully decorated. They even have indoor flushing toilets. Any questions so far?’

All I could see was the tops of people’s heads as they bashed away at their scratchpads.

‘OK – that’s the background. On to the assignment itself. The first part is, as usual, for the Pathfinders. Mr Atherton will take a team – I understand Miss Prentiss has volunteered to accompany him – and Mr Irving from Security will keep them both out of trouble. They’ll undertake a series of jumps to identify the best landing places and also to Thera itself to ascertain, as accurately as possible, the date of the eruption.’

I brought up a map showing the relative positions of the two islands and then artists’ impressions of pre-eruption Thera.

‘Akrotiri will be completely buried in the eruption. Please make sure you and your team are not similarly obliterated, Mr Atherton.’

He grinned and nodded. Atherton is the nearest thing we have to a sensible historian. He isn’t continually injuring himself. He’s not having any sort of relationship with a domestic animal. He rarely argues with anyone and never gets into fights. He just happily does his job and everyone likes him. I keep wondering if I should encourage him to breed.

‘Once you’ve established when the eruption occurs, report back here – and with all speed, please, Mr Atherton. Please do not leave things until the last moment. As usual, I’m afraid this precludes you from the main part of the assignment, but once recovered, I’d like you to liaise with the Technical Section and take charge of the shuttle service.’

The shuttle service is a small pod, usually Number Two, which would shunt in and out under cover of darkness, ferrying supplies and people during the assignment.

‘Everyone OK so far?’

Everyone nodded.

‘On to Crete itself, then.’ I brought up a map of Crete. ‘There will – as usual – be two sites, designated – as always – Site A and Site B. Site A will be on the outskirts of Knossos, close enough to be in touch with what’s going on in town but far enough away to avoid any civil disturbances or major fires.

‘This site will comprise Mr Sands, who will be in charge, Dr Black, Mr Clerk, Miss Sykes, Mr Bashford, Mr Lindstrom, Mr Gallacio, Mr Cox and Mr Keller. Your pods will be Numbers Three, Four and Five.

‘Site B, a few miles out of town and higher up, will comprise me, Dr Peterson, Miss Van Owen, Mr Roberts, Dr Dowson, Dr Stone, Mr Dieter, Mr Markham and Mr Evans. We’ll be in Numbers Six, Seven and Eight. Designated first-aid posts are Six at Site B and Three at Site A.’

Just a quick digression. One thing I’d discovered during my fortunately brief spell working with the Time Police was that they had properly designated hospital pods. I’d rather thought our big pod, TB2, might be utilised for this purpose. It wouldn’t take much to convert a part of it for medical purposes. There would be room for comprehensive medical supplies and a dedicated treatment area. Dr Stone had been quite enthusiastic when I’d mentioned it to him and I planned to take it up with Dr Bairstow. Well, I’d write a recommendation and send it via Mrs Partridge.

Back to the briefing. ‘Our main task is to survey all aspects of Minoan civilisation up to but definitely not including the Theran eruption. I know, but this one is out of our league, people. We’ll probably be OK for the preliminaries, but the main event is strictly out of bounds. Dr Dowson is our designated eruption expert.’ I waited for the laughter to die down. ‘Dr Black has managed to blag the very latest in seismograph technology from the geology department at Thirsk. Maintaining that equipment is one of the reasons the Technical Section will have a major role in this assignment.’

‘Aww,’ said the History Department, turning to grin at the Technical Section. ‘That’s nice.’

The Technical Section stared solidly back again and folded its arms – the message being that no historian would be allowed within breaking distance of anything more technical than a box of tissues.

I thumped the table for attention because this was important. ‘I will state now and continue to reinforce throughout this assignment: when Dr Dowson says jump – you will jump. Literally. There will be no hanging around to look at the pretty lava, or admire the speed of the deadly pyroclastic flow coming straight at you, or attempting to assess the height of the ash clouds because there will never be another opportunity, Max. When he gives the word, you will get into the pods and jump out of there. This volcano wrecks an island, people. Not the one we’re on, true, but seventy miles is uncomfortably close. It doesn’t come right out of the blue, however. We should have plenty of warning in the form of tremors, small earthquakes and so on. There will be no excuse for anyone not being at their designated site when the time comes. If, for some reason, you can’t get there, make your way to the other site and ensure the person in charge informs your team leader. I don’t want any major casualties on this one and I certainly don’t want anyone left behind in the confusion. Is that clearly understood?’

Everyone assumed expressions of enthusiastic compliance and assured me they’d definitely be at the correct site in plenty of time to jump safely away. I didn’t believe a word of it. Not even for a moment.

‘Right then – the allocation of responsibilities.

‘Mr Markham and the Security Section will survey the town and palace. They’ll produce a street plan, together with the location and function of important public buildings. I can’t overstress the importance of this. Almost everything will be lost until Arthur Evans turns up millennia later. There is a feeling in some quarters that some of his . . . reconstructions . . . owe more to imagination than accuracy, so this will be a chance to set the record straight.’

I consulted my scratchpad. ‘Dr Black has requested Religion and Ritual. The usual stuff – gods, temples, priests. How influential is the Snake Goddess? Is she another aspect of the Mother?’ I looked at Kal. ‘You know what to look for.’

She nodded.

‘Dr Peterson has requested Culture. Art, pottery, ceramics, architecture, metalwork, sculpture and so on. Please liaise with Miss Sykes who has Language, Writing – the Linear A script – and oral traditions such as stories and so on.’ I turned to her. ‘You’ll probably hear a hundred languages all around you. It might even be possible that the aristocracy speaks a different language to the lower classes, much in the same way as in Medieval England. Any clues that would help translations of Linear A will, I’m sure, be appreciated by Thirsk. And, of course, most importantly, there’s the bull-leaping, which I imagine will fall into the remits of Religion, Culture and Language. How is that organised? Who participates? Which god is honoured, and so forth? Work together on that, please.

‘Mr Clerk has volunteered for Social Structure. Kings, priests, citizens, slaves and so on. I’m sorry, Mr Clerk, I know Culture was your first choice, but, again, I think there will be considerable overlap between the two subjects. Please pay particular attention to the matriarchal aspects of Minoan society.’

He nodded. He didn’t look particularly upset at not scoring his first choice.

‘Mr Bashford is to take on Commerce. Markets, please. Is it a cash society or do they barter? I suspect you’ll spend a lot of time down at the harbour watching what gets loaded on and off the ships. Liaise please with Mr Sands, who will have a specific responsibility for their merchant fleet. Trade is the Minoan lifeblood. We’ll need full details of ships, shipbuilding, crews, warehouses and so on.

‘That takes care of Site A. Miss Van Owen and Mr Roberts will be up at Site B. They’ve got Agriculture. A large part of the population is urban, living in and around the palace of Knossos. There must be a vast and very well organised agricultural structure supporting them. Crops, harvests, livestock and so on. Please liaise with Mr Markham’s team when they survey the palace. We’re particularly interested in whether part of its function is that of storage. Oil, cereals, figs, wine and so on.

‘Mr Roberts, I’d like you also to take on rural life in general. How do they live, the agricultural year and so on.’

I paused for more water. ‘Are there any questions?’

I wasn’t expecting any. This wasn’t our first Big Job. People knew how things would go and what was expected of them. On to the boring but vital stuff.

‘The shift pattern is the usual Rule of Three. Three weeks on. One week off. Teams are a minimum of three, one of whom must be a member of Security. All team leaders will be able to draft people in to work on their teams as required. However, be aware there aren’t enough of us to go around, so negotiate with each other. We can get it all done but only if we work together.’

I paused to stare meaningfully around the room. It’s a miracle I wasn’t blinded by the innocence radiating from every person present. I cleared my throat and continued.

‘Hazards to look out for: the sun, obviously. No one leaves a pod without water. Or sun protection and a hat or head covering of some kind. It will be hot, people.’

Bashford put up his hand. ‘Hostile wildlife?’

‘Surprisingly little. All the snakes are non-poisonous. The Snake Goddess is very powerful so don’t go killing any and getting yourselves into trouble. There are scorpions – check your footwear every morning – along with mosquitoes and ants – don’t leave food around. You will need to watch for jumping spiders. The bites are painful and prone to infection. Report any problems to Dr Stone up at Site B.

‘First things first – get your medicals organised. Dr Stone is expecting you. All field medics, make sure you’re current.

‘Everyone report to Mrs Enderby and get yourselves kitted out. I’m afraid it’s the gentlemen who have drawn the short straw this time round. Most Minoan men wear only loincloths or tiny kilts. This assignment will be hazardous enough without adding in spindly white legs and toast-rack chests, so tunics will be deemed acceptable. They’ll mark us out as foreigners but that was always going to happen.’

There were some sighs of relief from both sexes. Not that I’d done it out of the goodness of my heart. Many Minoan women went bare-chested as well and I didn’t want anyone getting ideas.

‘In contrast to the mainland Greeks, Cretan clothes are sewn, not pinned, and are surprisingly modern-looking. Ladies will be wearing fitted blouses and long, bell-shaped, heavily-flounced skirts. There’s lots of colour. Blue and terracotta are favourites. All waists, male and female, are tightly belted. The fashion is for metal belts but we’ll go with leather. Just for once, ladies, we don’t have to muffle ourselves or cover our heads. Both sexes wear their hair long and curled. Hairstyles are intricate. Oiled lovelocks are fashionable.

‘The ground will be rough underfoot. Crete is rocky and dusty. Sandals can be worn in urban areas, leather shoes for the rougher areas, or boots are all acceptable. Mrs Enderby is expecting you.’ I looked across at her. ‘Do you have anything to add?’

‘My department has a lot to get through,’ she said. ‘It would be most helpful if everyone could provide their measurements in advance. Please bear in mind that self-measured inside legs are always wildly inaccurate. We all remember the sad tale of Mr Bashford’s pantaloons. Measure each other and strive for accuracy, please.’

Sykes raised her hand. ‘Language, Max?’

‘Not clear at this point. However, Crete is the centre of a vast trading empire and there will be a huge mixture of races and languages all about us. In the interests of a sale, I’m certain the locals will have devised many ways of making themselves understood. Anything else?’

People shook their heads.

‘All right then – let’s get cracking. The usual massive amount of work and nothing like enough time to do it in. Thank you, everyone.’

As part of his Pathfinding duties, Atherton was to take a small team to Thera and record the island as it was before a large lump of it imploded and crashed into the sea. His brief – apart from establishing the date of the explosion – was to pay special attention to the city of Akrotiri which would be completely buried under the pumice and lost for millennia.

Pathfinding is a job that manages to be routine, slightly boring and very dangerous. A bit like us, really. The most hazardous part of the job was liaising with Miss Lee, whose vital job it was to keep our dates straight. Atherton would be jumping in and out of the area trying to establish the best time and place for us to be. It’s not as easy as it sounds. You have to be very, very careful not to be in the same time twice. Consequently, he’d start at a date when we knew the island was intact and keep jumping forwards in small increments until either he identified the correct date or was vaporised in the attempt.

Miss Lee maintained the database that would keep a very careful track of his movements and she had the balls to enforce it. Sadly for Atherton, this meant the amount of time he spent on the actual assignment itself might be quite short, but he never seemed to mind. ‘I’m always the first on site,’ he would say. ‘You lot are only following in my footsteps.’

He wouldn’t be alone – he’d have Prentiss and Irving from Security to keep him out of trouble. How effective they’d be against the biggest eruption in the ancient world was hard to perceive, although I was sure they’d do their best. And Atherton is calm, sensible and takes no risks. You can always rely on Atherton.

One minute all was sweetness and light and St Mary’s going about its normal business in Hawking Hangar, and the next, Adrian was flinging himself sideways as a plinth lit up, all the alarms went off and Dieter roared for everyone to get clear.

The pod dropped out of nowhere, thudding on to its plinth with an almighty crash that must have loosened the fillings of everyone in Hawking that morning. Including me, innocently discussing pod availability with Dieter and Leon.

The echoes died away and there was Number Two, gently smoking, and, I’d like to say, looking mostly unscathed, but unfortunately it was looking very scathed indeed. There would be a memo later from the Technical Section.

The automatic powder sprinklers cut in, covering everything and everyone in what looked like a light layer of talcum powder.

I stepped back as Leon and Dieter grabbed an extinguisher each and ran towards the pod. Adrian got there first, picking himself up and getting the door open.

Out staggered Prentiss, closely followed by Atherton supporting Irving. Smoke billowed from the open door. They were coughing and spluttering and covered in thick white ash which appeared to have turned into a kind of paste because they’d been – and still were – sweating heavily. And they had the scorched look common to those who’ve been standing too close to a volcano at just the wrong moment.

Adrian got them out of the way and Dieter and Leon stepped in to deal with any internal fires. It was all neat and smooth and coordinated, and if I’d been of an ungenerous nature, I would have felt slightly resentful. And envious. And reluctantly impressed.

There was a lot of squirting and hissing and then, finally, silence. I stayed around long enough to see that Leon made it safely back out of the pod and then went for a word with Mr Atherton.

He and the two others were sitting on the floor, drinking water.

‘All right?’ I said, showing immense concern for their well-being.

They nodded. ‘We’re fine.’

‘No, we’re not,’ said Irving indignantly. ‘I twisted my ankle.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Prentiss. ‘You fell over your enormous feet as we were running back to the pod. We had to carry you most of the way. I’ve really done my back in, thanks to you.’

Atherton – a fine historian with correctly aligned priorities – turned to me triumphantly. ‘We overshot slightly, Max, but I think we’ve more or less got the date. To within a week, anyway.’

‘Well done. Well done all of you.’

Mr Lindstrom passed him some more water and he gulped it down. ‘Who had 1628BC?’

This was not such an incomprehensible remark as you might think. Different theories abounded and dates ranged from 1750 to 1450BC. There had been a sweepstake. Participation had been enthusiastic and the winning prize was a substantial amount of money. I myself had bagged 1642, 1628, 1611 and 1575. A nice spread, I thought. Elegant, even.

It didn’t register to begin with. And then it did. I’d won!

‘Yes,’ I shouted, planning to put it behind the bar for our return celebration. ‘Me. Me. Me.’

‘He’s got it wrong,’ said Peterson in disgust. ‘I demand a recount. Send them back again, Max.’

‘They’re coming with me,’ said Dr Stone, miraculously appearing as was his wont. ‘The rest of you – and that includes the lucky winner who should know better – should back off right now.’

We backed off and they were led away.

Atherton’s optimistic, ‘I’ll send you my report, Max,’ was cut off short as the door closed behind them. I turned to everyone else.

‘That’s it, people. We’re off.’

30

Crete was fabulous.

Well, lots of people know that already – it’s a very popular holiday resort. Trust me, it was even better in 1628BC. Just out of this world.

I think it’s the colours I’ll always remember. The brilliant blue sky. The glittering turquoise sea. The red, black, white and ochre of the buildings. The bright clothing. The purple crocuses. The huge dark mountains. The silver-green of the olive groves. The unexpected bright green patches of cultivated land. All of it blindingly, brilliantly bright under a white-hot sun.

We landed with a very gentle bump. A natural consequence of keeping Peterson as far away from the console as possible. We checked everything very, very carefully. Minoan society was peaceful. They were too powerful to have any enemies but there’s no point in looking for trouble, so we were cautious. We’d aimed for just before dawn when we guessed few people, if any, would be about.

Van Owen consulted the proximities and reported all clear.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Here goes. Good luck, everyone.’

We opened the door and lovely, cool, pre-dawn air flooded in although we knew it would be hot later on.

I opened my com. ‘Mr Sands? Report, please.’

‘We’re all here, Max. On target and safe. A couple of hundred yards from what we think is part of the residential quarter. Close but not too close. We’re getting set up now.’

‘Well done, everyone. We’ll see you later.’

I stepped outside. The dark smudge that was the palace and town of Knossos lay below us. Hundreds of tiny flickering lights danced in the darkness.

‘That’s good,’ said Markham. ‘They light the town at night. No curfew. I’m off to do the security check, Max.’

I nodded. He and Evans disappeared to check out the surrounding area.

Dr Stone and Dr Dowson slowly emerged from Number Seven. I’m not sure what they were expecting – the eruption already in full swing, perhaps.

I stepped apart slightly from everyone and looked around, inhaling deeply. I could smell hot dust, a faint farmyard smell and a sweet-smelling night plant. I was back in the Bronze Age. I was in Minoan Crete at the height of its powers. What wonders would I see when the sun came up?

We didn’t go far from the pods, waiting quietly until Security reappeared about twenty minutes later.

‘Nothing close,’ said Markham. ‘There are some structures below us. About a quarter of a mile in that direction. Smells like some sort of farm, I think, and there’s a cluster of huts about a mile in the other direction. But otherwise we’re on our own up here.’

I nodded. ‘OK, everyone. Let’s get set up. Quick and quiet. I want everything in place by the time the sun comes up.’

There wasn’t actually much to do. We’ve done this sort of thing before and everyone knew the drill. The pods, Six, Seven and Eight, were parked in the usual three-sided square, their doors all facing inwards for easy defence. Not that I thought we’d have any problems. My only concern was that we might have landed in someone’s olive grove or inadvertently flattened someone’s crocus crop, but we were well out of the way up here.

We rigged up the canvas awnings that would shade both the pods and us because we’d mostly be living outside. We spread out coarse mats in the space between the pods because from now on life would be a constant battle to keep the dust out. That done, we put the kettle on, and as the sun rose, we were sitting comfortably, waiting to see what we would see.

‘This is a pretty spot,’ said Markham, looking around. We were on a small plateau. Above and to our right, olive trees drooped under their burden of unripe fruit. Far over to my left, out of view, stood Mount Ida, the tallest mountain on Crete and birthplace of Zeus, king of the gods.

The ground was rocky but not massively so. I could hear the faint tonkle of a goat bell in the distance as someone led their goats out to forage for the day. They must pass this way occasionally judging by the droppings. Or if not goats then really giant rabbits. Other than an occasional far-off bleat and the continuous, incessant noise of the cicadas, our world was completely silent. Utterly peaceful. And we were high enough to enjoy the light breeze shushing among the trees. It would be sweltering down in the town.

Peterson yawned and stretched. ‘I’m glad we’re not down there, Max. We’re definitely better off here. This is very pleasant. Bronze Age rural life. Pretty and peaceful.’

Frighteningly close, the monstrous bellow came out of nowhere and I nearly dropped my tea. For a very nasty moment, I thought the Minotaur himself had come for us.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Peterson, as we all scrambled to our feet, staring around. ‘What was that?’

We sent Evans off to investigate and he returned with bad news. The optimistically described ‘farm’ about a quarter of a mile below us was, in fact, nothing of the kind. Yes, there were a few huts and a couple of larger structures that looked like barns, and there was the traditional, nostril-searing, steaming midden, but mostly what we could see were cattle.

‘Not cattle,’ reported Markham, squinting through binocs. ‘Bulls. Bloody hell. Big bulls. Look at the size of the one on the end.’

‘Oh, wow,’ I said, grabbing the binocs off him. ‘Jackpot. Well done, me.’

Thirty seconds later I’d completely changed my mind and everyone hated me.

There must have been about twelve or fifteen of them altogether. Each one in his own sturdily built pen, all carefully and firmly erected a safe distance away from each other. As the sun rose, so did they. And they weren’t happy. Whether it was a competition, or they were greeting the sun, or they wanted their breakfast, or there weren’t enough girl cows around, or they were just discontented with their life in general, I don’t know. I do know they really weren’t happy. Not happy at all. They flung their heads around and stamped up massive clouds of Cretan dust. One or two of them slammed their heads into their timber-built pens. The structures shuddered but held. The noise was – noisy.

Speech was impossible. Which was probably just as well. Peterson was shouting about something. I could tell he was complaining because his mouth was moving.

I simply shrugged my shoulders, indicated I couldn’t hear him for the noise of the bulls over there and finished my tea.

Eventually, they quietened down. The bulls, I mean – not my less-than-happy band of campers. They had quite a lot to say.

‘Why here?’ demanded Peterson, gesturing around.

‘Well, I didn’t know, did I?’ I said indignantly. ‘This really isn’t my fault.’

‘Did you just look at a map and stick in a pin?’

‘Of course not,’ I said, even more indignantly, because that was, more or less, exactly what I had done. ‘I surveyed the area with regard to safety, fresh water, level land, proximity to Knossos . . .’

‘And this was the best you could come up with?’

‘Bulls are a major part of Cretan life. It’s a wonderful opportunity to study them up close. You should be thanking me.’

No one showed any signs of thanking me. I moved into unappreciated historian mode and sulked.

‘Are they all bulls?’ said Van Owen, who’d grabbed Markham’s binocs herself.

‘I’m pretty sure they are,’ said Dr Stone, grinning. I could see he was going to be a troublemaker. ‘Allow me to explain the difference between boy cows and girl cows. Can you see that great big dangling thing . . . ?’

‘I meant . . .’ she said, with dignity, ‘there’s some speculation the Minoans might have bred aurochs. For the bull-leaping.’ She paused, confused because aurochs is the singular. ‘I think I mean “aurochses”.’

‘Makes you sound like Gollum,’ said Markham, grabbing the binocs back again. ‘Bloody hell. They’re even bigger than I thought.’

Well, this was interesting. They’ve all gone now, sadly, hunted out of existence, but aurochses – or aurochsen – were huge, undomesticated cattle famed for being horribly vicious and aggressive and doubly so during the mating season. Which was around about now. If the Minoans used aurochses, then bull-leaping wasn’t just some pretty ritual. There would be blood and injuries all over the place and people would die.

‘No,’ said Peterson, squinting. ‘Just bulls. Bloody big ones, though. Perhaps with aurochs ancestors.’

They shut up eventually. The bulls, I mean. I tried to explain how interesting all this was and what a wonderful opportunity we had here and all I got from my colleagues were hard looks. I sighed. There’s a saying somewhere about how a prophet is never appreciated in his own country, and exactly the same applies to an historian in her own department. Similar management principles apply to both bulls and historians though: control and discipline are maintained through a judicious blend of food and sex. I thought about mentioning this but decided to wait until they’d cheered up a little. Although, as I brightly pointed out, there would be no oversleeping on this assignment.

Our neighbours aside, this spot was perfect. Knossos lay before us, slowly revealing itself as the sun swept across the town, turning white walls golden and the shadows a lovely deep purple.

The palace dominated the town. It just went on and on. We were looking down on it so it was just flat roof after flat roof spreading down the hillside. Terrace dropped down on to terrace. Building crowded building. From up here it looked exactly like a giant maze. Or a labyrinth. I could see the vast open Central Courtyard around which everything seemed to be built. I could see stairways and fat, terracotta-painted columns supporting the upper floors. And over everything, on the highest point, a huge pair of stylised bull horns dominated the palace, the town, everything. Wherever you stood, you looked up at them. Or they looked down on you.

‘Interesting,’ I said. The bull clamour had subsided somewhat as they got stuck into their breakfast.

‘What is?’ said Dr Stone, who, unlike the rest of my colleagues, didn’t appear to be holding any sort of grudge.

‘Well, society here is matriarchal. The Mother rules. And yet, when you think about it, you can’t get much more macho than a pair of giant bull horns.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Evans. ‘If you really want macho, how about a pair of giant bull’s . . . ?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ I said. I turned to Markham. ‘Why did you bring him?’

‘For his valuable insights into the social significance of one part of a bull’s anatomy over another. You know you always bring the Security Section along to handle the difficult stuff.’

Time to change the subject. ‘Right,’ I said, before we started brawling. A bad example to set the bulls. ‘We’ll spend the morning exploring and getting our bearings. Sun protection and hats, everyone. Especially the men. Everyone back here for noon. We’ll have lunch and sit quietly for a couple of hours – in this heat we won’t want to do much else – and then down into town to meet the others and sort out our plan of action. Let’s go.’

Everything went well. I allowed myself to hope this might – just might – be a problem-free assignment. We had lunch and then left Evans behind, guarding Dr Dowson and Dr Stone, he said. They both wanted to set up their equipment and he was there to do the heavy lifting. He prepared himself for this onerous task by finding a nice patch of shade and making himself comfortable.

‘I’m like a coiled spring,’ he said, closing his eyes.

We left them to it.

The best bit about being here was that Van Owen and I could stride out with the boys. We didn’t have to shuffle along at the back or cover ourselves up or unsuccessfully attempt to look modest and chaste. We strode downhill, arms swinging, perfectly comfortable in our fitted blouses and bell-shaped skirts. We were covered enough to be protected from the sun but our clothing was light and cool. I was in blue and terracotta with an embroidered apron that fell front and back and Van Owen wore a terracotta skirt and a striped ochre blouse.

It was the lads who suffered. They’d seen sense over the loincloths so they were all in tunics. Very short tunics. Another reason Van Owen and I were at the front. There was a great deal of skin on show.

We’d sprayed ourselves with the strongest sun protection around and before anyone asks – not, repeat not, the stuff knocked up by Professor Rapson and his team – which, I had to admit, did provide a more than adequate protection from the harmful effects of the sun’s rays, because ten to fifteen seconds after application, the wearer was encased in a rigid shell of unpleasant-smelling something-or-other that burst into flames if the wearer incautiously ventured too close to an open fire. Thank you, professor, but we’ll stick to the proprietary brands.

The ground was rocky but there was a goat path and we followed that. We were talking and gesturing and full of high spirits because this was the first day of our spectacular new assignment. We’d been here nearly nine hours and no one was dead or bleeding yet. I had high hopes for this one.

We didn’t rush and it took us just over half an hour to get to the outskirts of town. The houses surrounding the palace that had looked so small from our campsite were actually nothing of the sort. Nothing was under two storeys tall, many had three and some had four. They were sturdy and well built – because of earthquakes, I supposed. They’d used crushed stone for the ground floors while the upper floors were made of traditional fired mud bricks. Most were whitewashed, rendering them dazzling in the bright sunshine, with their architectural details – the surprisingly large windows, the eaves and so forth – picked out in red, black and ochre. Almost all of them were adorned with the symbol of the Labrys, the double-headed axe. An ancient symbol, older even than the legend of the Minotaur.

And they had public art. I was entranced. Blank walls were adorned with beautiful frescos of bulls, dolphins, flowers, birds, ships and horses. The colours were vibrant and intense.

‘The streets are paved,’ said Peterson, looking down.

‘They’ve got aqueducts,’ I said, dragging my eyes away from a lively depiction of a school of dolphins barrelling through bright blue waves.

‘And water butts,’ said Van Owen, looking around. ‘To collect the water off the roofs. This is really sophisticated. Look – is that some sort of pipe system over there?’

Colleagues forgotten, she tried to set off down another street and was pulled back by Markham.

‘We’re here for a couple of months, at least,’ he said soothingly. ‘We mustn’t have all our fun on the first day. Let’s leave something for tomorrow, shall we?’

Site A was about two hundred yards north of the town and laid out in the same configuration as Site B. They not only had their awnings and mats out but they’d identified a nearby well from which to top up their water tanks.

We all had an evening meal together, I checked everyone was clear on their work schedule, we wished them good luck and, at the end of our first day, slowly strolled home in the evening sunshine.

31

Our daily routine was soon established. We rose early – not that we had a lot of choice; the Dawn Bellow saw to that. We’d have breakfast – usually porridge; Markham’s speciality. He’d dollop a great, grey lump into my bowl, I’d force my way through it somehow, and it would sit like a lump of lead in my stomach as we worked our way through our allotted tasks for the morning.

Then there was picking up the mats and shaking the dust off them and sweeping out the pods, because no matter how careful we were, there always seemed to be more of Crete inside the pods than outside.

We had two seemingly never-ending tasks. Gathering firewood and fetching water. We seemed to get through both at an extraordinary rate but it had to be done. And sitting around a small fire in the evening talking over our day and planning the next was a pleasant, relaxing experience. All the firewood was cut to approximately the same size and stacked neatly behind Number Eight.

I’m not actually sure what happened but one evening we chucked on what we thought was an ordinary log and ten seconds later the smell could knock out a bull.

People turned to glare accusingly at Markham, usually the prime suspect for unpleasant odours.

‘What?’ he said, looking up. ‘Bloody hell – who did that one?’

The smell got worse. People began to get up and retch.

‘What the hell . . . ?’

Two minutes of increasingly desperate investigation later – pulling up the mats, inspecting the latrine, sniffing armpits and so on – we discovered some idiot had mistaken a corpse for a piece of wood and that the apparently small log smouldering nicely on top of the fire was, in fact, a very-long-dead Cretan badger. The air was full of abuse, recrimination and thick black smoke until Dr Stone pulled himself together, found a stick, lifted it out of the fire and then paused because he didn’t want to set fire to this pretty Cretan hillside.

Sadly, it smelled even worse out of the fire than in it.

‘Get rid of it,’ shrieked Van Owen, her apron over her nose, from a distance of about twenty feet.

‘How? Where?’

The problem was solved by Markham, who shoved the smoking carcass into a bucket of water. There was a great deal of hissing steam and the smell became unbearable. Half of us were sick. The other half watched the first half and then threw up in sympathy.

Not one of our more convivial evenings. It took ages to clear up the mess. Every log was very carefully inspected after that and we all took a blood oath never to mention this to Site A. Ever.

And, sadly, we’d left the doors open, so the smell permeated the pods, too. Ignoring the feeble bleats of the Security Section, we all slept a hundred yards away in the olive grove that night. And the next.

Fetching water was the other continual chore. First thing in the morning it was off to the cistern with buckets to top up the tanks for the day, and Dr Stone would calculate the water-purification dose. We usually had to top up at noon and in the evening as well. Especially in the evening if we wanted to shower off the Cretan dust after a long, hard day sitting under a tree observing something or other.

Over breakfast and the one cup of tea we allowed ourselves, we’d organise ourselves more or less peacefully into teams and set out, filled with enthusiasm, eager to accomplish the day’s tasks.

Returning at noon – when the day stopped being merely hot and became incandescent – we’d have lunch – bread and something, usually – sit in the shade, compare notes and write up our findings.

We’d be back out again in the marginally cooler early evening air. I’d use this time to visit the other site and have a look at what they’d been up to and then we’d all be back to our pods before dark. The site leaders would do a headcount and we’d have our evening meal. No alcohol – unless it was Saturday night, when we allowed ourselves a mug of wine each. Roberts had brought his guitar. Everyone was allowed two personal items – I’d brought a sketch pad and pencils – and we’d sit around and have a bit of a sing-song. Dr Dowson and Dr Stone were having a chess tournament. They were both very good players and it was a bit of a tussle, apparently. Several people had brought a pack of cards and we’d all brought at least one book so we had a library as well.

Not that we lingered long after our evening meal. Staying up after dark used valuable power so we generally went to bed shortly after the sun went down.

Occasionally a few of us would venture down to a headland – somewhere with a view out over the Med – where we would watch the sea turn into a still cauldron of molten copper, reflecting golden highlights from the setting sun. Trust me, the sunsets on Crete could make your soul sing.

Then it was back to the pods, slipping and stumbling over the rocks, for a hard-earned, good night’s sleep.

I’d made it clear there was a choice. Yes, we could sleep outside on the pods’ roofs, but there must be at least one person on watch at all times. Otherwise it was everyone inside, stifling or not. And no, no air con because it used too much power. We chose to sleep outside and everyone took a turn on watch. An hour each, which was no hardship. I myself would use the time to watch a million stars wheeling across the night sky. And we were much more comfortable outside.

Well, we would have been if not for the bellowing bulls. The noise was sleep-murdering. Interestingly, there seemed to be more bulls in the pens than when we first arrived. Peterson and Markham took a casual stroll one evening to try and find out what was happening. There was hospitality – a great deal of hospitality, apparently. Their pathetic attempts to get back up the steep hillside caused some amusement among their watching colleagues, not one of whom went to help.

They were a little pitiful the next morning, for some reason wanting to stay quietly in one of the pods, but after persistent and ruthless questioning on my part they said they rather thought there might be a big ceremony coming up. This was confirmed by other, subtle clues, on which we, as trained historians, had focused. Without the need to get right royally rat-arsed, as I pointed out in my outdoor voice, just for the fun of watching them flinch.

The streets of Knossos were being decorated with swags of brightly coloured cloth, probably because there were no flowers and precious little greenery at this time of the year. Once the autumn rains came, everything would bloom again and there would be a second spring, but not at the moment. Not at the tag end of summer.

We knew the bull-leaping ceremonies happened all the time – several times a week, sometimes, because we could hear the cheering and the bellowing – but they were always private events. As far as I could see, teams were sponsored by the king or the leading families, who staged these events as they jostled for influence and power. Now, however, there was some sort of public ceremony about to happen. It was difficult to know what, exactly. Peterson, still averting his eyes from direct sunlight, rather thought a new bull was about to be dedicated to the god. Or possibly the goddess. And could I pass him some water so he didn’t have to open his eyes.

It seemed everyone would be going. The days echoed to the sound of hammering as wooden stands and viewing balconies were put up around the Central Courtyard. These would be for the rich and important people. Lesser people and St Mary’s would stand on any available flat roof.

The day dawned. Unsurprisingly it was hot again. Very, very hot. We’d noticed that sometimes clouds would gather on the horizon to the north. Big, white, fluffy things, but they never came anywhere near us. We were actually in the market one day – listening to the conversations around us and trying to compare words to actions so that we could attempt to decipher at least a small part of the language – recording and sweating in equal measure – when a tiny wisp of cloud, the only one in the sky for weeks, drifted across the surface of the sun. It was such an unusual event that everyone looked up. No such excitement today. The deep blue sky was unsullied. I decided I would never complain about rain again.

We were up early. Not because the ceremony started early, but so that we could get a good position. Jumping back more than three and a half thousand years and then missing a key event because you didn’t get up early enough for a good view never goes down well with Dr Bairstow. We arrived around mid-morning, just as the sun ceased to be hot and became molten. All this had been thought of, however; awnings had been erected over most of the town. That didn’t reduce the temperature much but at least we were out of the sun, and there must have been a slight breeze off the sea because every now and then the awnings stirred themselves and flapped sluggishly.

We found ourselves a good position on a large, flat roof. I’d been a bit worried about trespassing, but apparently roofs were common ground. You just chose one, nodded politely to anyone else already in occupation, defined your territory by dropping your possessions everywhere and made yourself comfortable.

We enjoyed our picnic – fruit, cheese and high-energy biscuits mostly – no meat in this heat – munching with one hand and getting shots of people gradually filling up the surrounding rooftops with the other. We had to eat as soon as we arrived. Food went off very quickly in that heat. Despite our coldcups, our water would get warmer and warmer as well. Peterson swore he was going to bring a tea bag one day and see if he couldn’t get a decent cup of tea out of it.

We were surrounded by a reasonable cross section of the population. Men and women in equal numbers, together with their children, mostly in large family groups extending over three generations. Initially, we’d remarked on how few elderly people were present. There was a sprinkling of grey hair among the crowds but not as much as we had expected. Did they stay at home because of the heat? Were they too infirm to climb up to the roofs? Was the life expectancy short and no one achieved old age? Or – and this was the theory we went with in the end – was defying ageing as big a business then as it is now? Close-ups showed discrepancies between wrinkled faces and glossy black hair, shiny with oil and perfumes. The Minoans dyed their hair and covered their faces in make-up in the usual vain effort to turn back the clock.

You couldn’t blame them. They were a very good-looking people. For the most part, their features were strong and regular – in both sexes. They had heavy, well-defined eyebrows, thickened with kohl, I suspected; clear olive skin and very large, dark eyes. Their noses were straight and narrow and their mouths wide and full-lipped and, like the Egyptians, both sexes wore make-up.

They were clean, as well. There were a lot of people around us and it was a hot day and no one smelled any worse than you would expect.

But the most noticeable thing about the Minoans was their posture. Look at their representations of themselves – their art, their friezes, their pottery. All of them, even the women, are the same. Tiny waists, with chest and bottoms protruding. I’d thought it was the house style, but I’d been wrong. This wasn’t as pronounced in real life as it was in their art – obviously they’d airbrushed themselves – but it was there all the same. Chest and buttocks jutting in the familiar Minoan style. This was their stance. A proud, confident stance. I wondered whether art followed life or vice versa.

I was sitting by a well one afternoon, just watching people come and go because that’s one of the best ways to learn about them, and I couldn’t miss the way they were standing. I puzzled over it for quite a while. It didn’t look comfortable. Why would they do it?

And then a pregnant woman wandered past. She’d come from the potters’ quarter and was leading a small donkey with panniers stuffed full of pots. She was talking to a friend and was standing quite normally. I stared for a while and then I had it. She wasn’t wearing the wide metal belt so fashionable among Minoans at the moment. The one that cinched them in really hard. Hard enough for some of them to look as if they had waist measurements in single figures.

I couldn’t believe it. Had I really solved the riddle? Could it really be that simple? The traditional Minoan pose was caused by their need to have the fashionable tiny waist?

Obviously, none of St Mary’s had gone down the metal belt route. We needed our internal organs in full working order. And in approximately the right place.

Even without the wasp-waist though, we looked about as different from the indigenous population as it was possible to look. This didn’t seem to cause them any problems at all. Everyone was welcome on Crete because everyone was a potential customer. Everyone had something to offer and a smiling Minoan would happily relieve you of it. On favourable terms, of course. The whole time we were there we never encountered hostility of any kind. They were accustomed to seeing foreign faces everywhere. We were just a few more.

The Central Courtyard, not normally open to the public, stretched before us. Beneath us were the palace storerooms, administration offices, the treasury, workshops housing weavers, potters, scribes, metalworkers and so on. I looked down at my feet and wondered what we were standing on.

We were on the western side, looking east. A good position – we wouldn’t have the sun in our eyes. And a bad position because we seemed to be on the same side as what looked like the royal box – a big affair decked out in blues, purples and gold – and we wouldn’t be able to record the occupants from this angle.

Kal and Clerk stared thoughtfully and then announced their intention of trying to get themselves a better spot on the other side. I warned them to stay in touch. Peterson warned them not to fall off the roof or drink untreated water. Markham warned them to take Evans with them. Evans warned them he was prone to sudden blackouts whenever he was too far off the ground and eventually they departed.

We sat quietly and waited because it was too hot to do anything else, but there was plenty to see.

The Central Courtyard was enormous which I found reassuring. Markham’s measurements put it at around one hundred and eighty feet long and eighty-five feet wide. I’d worried this would be a few people pitted against an enormous bull in a tiny space with no room for them to manoeuvre and certainly no room for a display of bull-leaping. That, over the centuries, the whole thing had degenerated into nothing more than a token ceremony to the gods, its original purpose forgotten. That just because the art of the time showed bull-leaping didn’t mean it actually happened. We had no idea what to expect. A stylised ritual? A bullfight? A bloodbath?

Construction of the wooden stands had made an arena about twelve or fifteen feet deep and the usual paving had been covered in a thick layer of fine, white sand. Slaves must have been up all night carting it in. I wondered where they’d got it from.

I stared down at the courtyard. Legends say that over the centuries, new palace had been built on top of old palace and I wondered if, beneath our feet, there really was a labyrinth of forgotten rooms below ground level. The stands looked prefabricated to me. Perhaps they were stored underground as well, to be brought up and assembled as required.

Wreaths of greenery that must surely have been grown especially for the occasion hung at regular intervals around the stands, with long, blue, purple and gold ribbons woven through. The arena walls were sheer. Once in, there was no way out except through the hefty double wooden doors at either end.

We looked down over the stands, packed with Minoan nobility. They were colourful and noisy – like a pack of starlings – all dressed in their best, chattering and laughing at the tops of their voices. Fringed awnings sheltered them from the sun but the women still had slaves holding their parasols, together with wine, bowls of sweet things, and their pet monkeys and parrots. I grinned. Just wait till they shit all over you, lady. Or try to bite your earrings off.

I was trying to estimate numbers and composition. At the end of my rough calculations, I rather thought there were about one hundred and fifty people in each stand, with more women present than men, which was interesting. They didn’t sit quietly, either. They chatted to any man within earshot, often shouting over the heads of those sitting close to them in a manner that would never have been tolerated elsewhere. There was none of the modesty expected of mainland Greek women who had no say in their lives, were barely allowed out of their own homes and often weren’t given enough to eat because women were second-class citizens and were therefore only entitled to second-class rations. This bunch here would have had your eye out if you’d tried that on them. They shouted, laughed, ate snacks, drank wine, ordered their servants around and generally carried on as if they owned the place. Which, since women were property owners in their own right, they might well do.

They were all fashionably dressed and beautifully turned out because, of course, this was all about them and not the bulls at all. The favourite Cretan blue was everywhere, especially in their bodices and blouses. Their tiered skirts were boned to stand away from their bodies and, by the sound of it, many had little bells sewn into the flounces so they tinkled with every movement. Their headdresses were delicate structures of silver and gold, worn high on their heads with long dangly bits either side of their face. Again, they tinkled.

Most young men wore the traditional kilts, designed to show off their chest and legs. Their slaves must have spent hours with a pumice stone because other than their long, glossy black locks and dark eyebrows, the men were completely hairless. They were well muscled, too. Whether it was fashionable to spend hours in a Cretan gym or they were emulating the bull-leaper look, it was pretty impressive all the same.

I looked around at the happy, chattering throng. Everyone on holiday and having a great time. This is the downside of our job. To know that in less than a month, all this would be gone. Yes, they would rebuild, but it would never be the same again. The Mycenaeans would seize their chance and that would be the end of Minoan dominance and the beginning of the rise of the mainland. Sad, but that’s the way it is. All empires fall sooner or later. I’ve said it before – a large part of our job is watching people die. We read of these events in the History books and it’s all a comfortably long time ago. And yes, I know – out of destruction comes new beginnings – other people have their chance to flourish – but, it’s not easy to watch. Nor should it be.

Around noon, half a dozen almost naked slaves filed into what we guessed was the royal box and began to plump cushions, lay out refreshments, assemble those giant feathery fans and generally panic over approaching royalty.

I opened my com and called up Kalinda.

‘Got a good view here,’ she said, shortly. ‘Don’t bother me in case I miss something.’

‘I knew it,’ I said. ‘Your old skills have deserted you, haven’t they? You should have got Security to do your recording for you. Why didn’t you ask Evans?’

Something was about to happen and I never caught her response. The crowd was craning its neck. The buzz of excitement increased. People began to stand up. Here we go.

I thought the king would make his way through the palace and appear at the back of the royal box, but that didn’t happen at all. The big wooden double gates at the south end swung open – quite lightly by the looks of them. I made a note to ask Dieter about balances and hinges and things.

The crowd murmured with excitement and craned their necks for a better look. Someone was coming.

The gates opened from darkness. Out here, the light was so bright there was no chance of seeing what was on the other side. Which might be deliberate.

There was an ear-splitting and discordant blast from a dozen brass instruments and, preceded by some ten or twelve guards, resplendent in polished breastplates, greaves and helmets, here he came. King Minos himself, although which particular Minos was anyone’s guess. All their kings were Minos. It was a title, like Pharaoh or Caesar.

He walked slowly, giving people time to see him properly. And he was worth seeing. In fact, he was magnificent. He glittered in the brilliant sunshine. Four near naked slaves held a golden canopy over his head. The fringes swung as they walked. He was swathed from chin to toe in a magnificent golden robe. In this age of male almost nudity, that was unusual.

He wasn’t old. I could tell that because of the way he moved. Other than that, I couldn’t say, because he wore a massive golden mask, so big and heavy it rested on his shoulders. I could only imagine the weight of it. The mask covered his entire head. I could just see a fringe of dark hair hanging down his back.

The face was that of a great bull.

I assumed the mask was partly to prevent unworthy eyes falling upon the face of the king and partly to ensure continuity and stability because no one would ever know when one king ended and another began. A good idea. The king could seem immortal. In fact – and I don’t know where this thought came from – this might not even be the real king at all. If he was old, infirm, sick, it wouldn’t matter. Here was the golden canopy, the golden robe, the golden bull mask – therefore this must be the king.

The head of a bull had been beautifully reproduced. The detail was amazing. The eyes were hollow – just black holes. A reminder that below the golden mask there was a man. There were even horns, glittering with jewels. Heaven only knows how much that lot weighed. And in this heat, too.

‘Interesting,’ said Peterson, next to me. ‘Do you think this is where the Pasiphae sleeping with the bull legend originated? Could it have been some sort of ritual coupling? He wearing the mask and the queen in her role as High Priestess, and it became distorted over time.’

‘Could be.’

Minos walked slowly to the centre of the courtyard and halted. The four slaves carrying the canopy halted as well. With all that gold in all that bright sunshine it was as if the sun god himself had come down to walk among us.

The crowd fell silent. No one moved. Not even the king, waiting under his golden canopy.

The gates at the other end, the northern end, swung open.

There was another fanfare and this time, preceded by a dozen handmaidens, the priestess entered the arena. Interesting. She entered second, but he waited for her. What did that mean?

She wore blue and gold – an almost Egyptian colour scheme. Her golden diadem was nearly twelve inches high. Beneath it, her long, tightly curled black locks fell halfway down her back. She was bare-breasted and bare-faced but she glowed in the sun. I suspected she’d been dusted with gold powder. She wore the sacral knot under her breasts and her flounced skirt stood stiffly from her body. Again, there were little bells sewn into the flounces. I could hear the tinkle from all the way up here.

She was younger than I expected. Barely more than a child. I wondered if perhaps she was one of the king’s daughters. That made sense. Keep conflict between state and church to a minimum.

Both king and priestess waited, unmoving. Two enormous slaves approached, carrying the giant double-headed axe – the Labrys. Sir Arthur Evans interpreted the word Labyrinth as deriving from Labrys – hence the House of the Double Axe – but subsequent investigation has revealed it might be associated with the goddess. Mother Labrys herself. I was standing on tiptoe with excitement. Which of them would claim the axe?

There was complete silence. All chatter had ceased. The only sound was an occasionally flapping awning. Everyone made the sign of respect, bowing their heads.

King and priestess faced each other. They were of about equal height but her ornate headdress made her taller. They were about six feet apart and motionless. Everyone waited. But for what?

Once again the gates opened and two slaves led out a young male calf. Not a big one. This was a pretty little thing, white as new snow with gilded hoofs and a garland around his neck. He was the sacrifice.

He was also drugged. They wouldn’t want any trouble at an important ceremony like this. Head lowered, he was led slowly across the smooth sand to stand between the priestess and the king. The garland was carefully removed. Nothing must impede the smooth stroke of the axe as the covenant between god and people was renewed. The only question was – who would make the sacrifice?

The two slaves presented the axe.

The king shrugged off his robe. It lay in a golden pool around his feet. Apart from a tiny kilt, he was naked underneath. He reached out. Ah, right. The king would make the sacrifice. The great axe was the symbol of the priestess – the sign of great power – but the sacrifice itself would be made by the king. A very neat compromise.

He flexed his quite considerable muscles, took hold of the axe in both hands, planted his feet, cried aloud – to the Mother, presumably – and swung.

A great fountain of scarlet blood arced high into the air. Across the king, the priestess, their attendants, the guards, everyone. The crowd roared. We surmised this was a lucky omen.

There was an indefinable sound that might have been the calf’s last breath or a sigh of satisfaction from the goddess and then slowly, the beast sagged to his knees and from there to the ground, a huge scarlet pool spreading around him.

The king returned the axe – I noticed it took two slaves to lift it, let alone wield it.

The robe lay where it had fallen, the blood slowly seeping into it. Crimson and gold just lying in the sand. Now there was a statement for you. We are Crete. We take the treasures of lesser men and leave them to lie in the dust. This is Minos of Crete and he rules with the blessing of the Mother. I was impressed.

In complete silence, the couple moved slowly across the sand and mounted the steps to the royal box. At some point, the king’s courtiers had turned up and the box was packed. I’d been so enthralled by what was going on in the arena I’d missed their arrival, but the others would have recorded it.

The two thrones were set level with each other. The priestess – because this was the land of the Mother. And the king – because he ruled with her blessing.

Once again, the Minoan people bowed their heads and made the sign of respect. The royal couple seated themselves. After a heartbeat, their courtiers did the same. At no point in the ceremony did the king take off his mask. Her face, on the other hand, was in full view for everyone to see. She had the usual strong Cretan features and I was now certain they’d dusted her with gold because even in the shade, she still glowed.

At this point I gave up craning my neck because now the couple were obscured from my view by other courtiers. I would concentrate on what was happening in front of me and leave the celebs to Kal and Clerk.

The ceremony began with music. Flutes, pipes, cymbals, drums, lovely light floating music, wonderful to listen to and a necessary distraction while slaves towed the dead calf out of the ring. One carefully picked up the robe – would they clean and reuse it, or would they throw it away? Or would it be preserved as a religious relic? I had a vision of a chest, deep in the bowels of the palace – deep in the labyrinth – where bloodstained robes slowly rotted away and flies buzzed.

Slaves brought in fresh sand and as soon as the ring was pristine again, the acrobats entered. Running, jumping, tumbling. Mostly men but some women. They were all virtually naked and one or two of them had nasty scars, especially across their ribs. Were they old bull-leapers, perhaps? Or were there no old bull-leapers? Did they all die in the arena? Eventually.

The afternoon breeze began to pick up as the wind came in off the sea. Life became marginally cooler. No one was much interested in the acrobats. Chatter rose around us. I suppose this was the Bronze Age equivalent of checking your phone before the main event. Obviously, we were all paying close attention to what was going on in front of us but we appeared to be the only ones.

Peterson turned to me. I could see the sweat prickling his brow and top lip. ‘Why hold the ceremony at this time of year, I wonder?’

‘Because it’s the mating season?’

‘Is it?’ said Roberts, smiling down at Sykes and thoroughly pissing off Bashford.

‘For the bulls. What did you think has been keeping us awake every night?’

‘Bulls getting their leg over?’

‘Bulls not getting their leg over.’

‘Seems a bit unfair,’ said Roberts. ‘They buy their girl a drink and just as they’re about to reap the benefits of all that exhausting foreplay, they’re dragged away to entertain the public. Bet that puts them in a sunny mood.’

‘I suspect that’s the whole point,’ I said. ‘We might want to brace ourselves for blood.’

The acrobats withdrew. Silence fell. The silence of anticipation. I looked around at the gaily decorated stands. The colourful crowd. Slaves appeared again, placing gilded containers of what looked like a fine white powder at regular intervals around the arena.

‘For their hands,’ I said, suddenly enlightened. ‘So they don’t lose their grip.’

The fanfare blared again, the gates opened as smoothly as before and a team of seven people entered. I wondered if this was the basis of the legend. Seven young people taken from their home every year to be sacrificed to the Minotaur.

The crowd went wild – as they say. The team marched in single file around the arena, gracefully acknowledging the cheers.

There were five girls and two boys. I say girls and boys because they were all teenagers. I suspect not one of them was over eighteen. If that. All were naked except for a linen loincloth and high, gilded leather boots that came up over their calves. From head to toe, their bodies had been dusted with the same golden powder as the priestess. Except for their hands, which were white.

There were no lovelocks here. All of them had their hair tied tightly back in a big knot at the nape of their neck, their foreheads bare. It looked strange when the fashion was for long, flowing hair, but I could see the sense. Fashion was for lesser mortals. These people needed to be able to see.

The crowd was erupting with excitement, waving and cheering them on. Apart from that brief initial acknowledgement, the team completely ignored them. Little better than performing animals they might be – insignificant people who risked their lives for the entertainment of their supposed betters – but nothing could dent the massive contempt in which they obviously held their audience. They walked around the ring, quiet and withdrawn, psyching themselves up for what was to come.

Gathering round in a circle, they stood for one moment, then, as one, dropped to a crouch. Placing both hands flat on the ground, they bowed their heads. Were they calling on the Mother’s protection? Or Poseidon? To watch over them in the arena, or send them a placid bull? Although given the shouts and bellows and crashes emanating from behind the wooden gates, that seemed unlikely.

The clamour increased. I could hear a dull, booming noise as if something really big and heavy was throwing itself against the wooden doors.

The team dealt with it by ignoring it, stretching, bending and jumping on the spot. These would be their warm-up exercises, as they prepared themselves mentally and physically for the bull. And the possibility of a violent and bloody death. With graceful ease they turned lazy somersaults and cartwheels, still ignoring the screaming crowd around them. Some women blew kisses and threw flowers into the ring. No one made any move to pick them up.

All the team were small and slightly built but the two boys seemed to be the strength of the team. They were stockier and more muscular. They were the ones who threw the lighter girls through the air and caught them on landing. Their hands were caked white with the powder all the way up their elbows.

Interestingly, it was the team who called the shots. It seemed to be for them to decide when their warm-up was completed. There was no signal that I could see, but suddenly they ran lightly across the arena and lined up in front of the royal box. One girl stepped forwards and raised her arm in salute – whether to the king or the priestess or both was unclear from where we were standing.

The crowd roared once and then fell silent. The team moved equally silently and ranged themselves in a half circle, bouncing lightly on their feet, arms slightly away from their sides, ready, waiting for whatever came through the big wooden doors at the other end. There was a huge air of anticipation. People leaned forwards in their seats, craning their necks for their first glimpse of the bull.

32

At one and the same time, I have both the best and the worst job in the world. I’ve seen things no one else ever will. I’ve witnessed the most amazing spectacles. I saw the black ships at Troy. I saw our ancestors as they crossed the Gates of Grief. I talked with Mary Stuart. I’ve witnessed scenes exploding from the shadows of myths and legends to play out in front of me. When world-changing events have occurred, I’ve been there.

That’s the plus side of my job, but for every good there is a bad. If asked to describe my job in three words I would have to say, ‘Watching people die.’ Because that’s what it all boils down to. I watch people die.

I tell myself that most of it happened a very long time ago. That everyone dies sooner or later, whether I’m there to witness it or not. For all I know, one day an historian will turn up to witness my death. Although I think I might be overstating my importance slightly.

But, it’s not pleasant. You could question my motives for doing this job – and occasionally, after a particularly rough assignment, I do – because sometimes, dreadful things happen. But, as I tell myself, dreadful things do not cease to happen because we look away. Someone has to bear witness. Someone has to remember . . .

And now, here I was in Crete, at one of the most spectacular ceremonies of the ancient world. Cretan bull-leaping. Would it be an amazing spectacle or bloody carnage? It could go either way and I had no way of knowing. At that moment I was the Schrödinger’s cat of History. Well, no – but you know what I mean.

The wooden doors swung out into the arena. The same black darkness lurked behind. For a moment nothing happened. The moment stretched on endlessly. How must it have felt to those young people in the ring? And then, with an ear-splitting roar, part bellow, part scream, a huge bull burst from out of the darkness and into the brilliantly lit arena. As if he had erupted into this world from under the earth. I suspected the whole thing was elaborately stage managed to give just that impression. A man with a very sharp stick, I suspected.

He was a big bugger. The bull, I mean. A big, big bugger. His coat gleamed a dark, glossy reddish brown with darker legs and head. His head and shoulders were massive. Well, all of him was massive, but his head and shoulders especially so. There was an odd patch of white on his left flank. The mark of the goddess, perhaps. His horns, gold-tipped for the occasion, grew sideways out of his skull and then upwards again, ending in those wicked golden points. I wondered if the wide space between his horns made him a particularly good bull to work with. His horns were thicker than my arm and they must have been easily three feet long. He wore a garland of flowers and ribbons around his neck. Given the temper he was in, I couldn’t see that lasting long.

He paused in the middle of the ring, looking around, getting his bearings. Staring with his little black, beady eyes. The whites were shot through with red blood. Tendrils of long mucusy dribble swung from his nose. He looked at the bull-leapers and the bull-leapers responded by moving apart, circling him as he stood watching them.

Without warning, before he knew what was happening, two girls ran forwards and vaulted across his back, one from one side and one from the other. Their movements were beautifully synchronised. They crossed exactly at the mid-point on the bull’s broad back. Their golden bodies arced through the air and then they were on the ground again. A perfect, gymnast’s dismount. The crowd clapped politely.

I spoke into my com. ‘Are we getting all this?’

A series of disjointed grunts indicated the History Department hard at work.

The bull was annoyed. I think his dignity had been affronted. He snorted another mucusy tendril and lumbered forwards, aiming for the nearest bull-leaper – another girl, darker and taller than the other two.

She ran forwards, arms pumping hard, her footsteps barely audible in the sand. The bull finally seemed to wake up and lowered his horns. As he did so, the girl leaped over his head, between his wide-set horns, somersaulting and landing with her legs astride the bull’s wide shoulders. From there she brought up her legs and somersaulted again, curving over the bull’s back to land on her feet some two feet behind him as he travelled briskly in the wrong direction. The two catchers stood either side to steady her as she landed but they weren’t required. The girl was a master. She knew exactly what she was doing.

They all did. They were experts. I wondered how many times they performed this show. Every week? They must surely practise every day to keep their edge.

The crowd roared. This was more like it. The girl ran to join her colleagues who were weaving around the bull, twisting and turning in a kind of dance that confused him to such an extent that he had to stand still again to think about it.

This was the pattern for the next quarter of an hour. Dance around the bull, confuse him and then dart in with yet another daring jump. It looked spectacular but I was guessing this was the easy part. The purpose was to wear him out, to take the edge off him and then build to the big finish.

The bull grew more and more irritated. Foam dripped from his mouth. He was hot, bothered and definitely not happy. Sensing this, they all converged on him. All at the same time. The crowd shouted their appreciation. This was a gymnastic display. They were using this mighty bull as a vaulting horse. One . . . two . . . three . . . four of them flew through the air, somersaulting in mid-flight to land lightly in the sand.

Again, the bull halted and looked around. He was beginning to lose his temper. And his dignity. He was being made a fool of. Dirty foam dribbled on to the sand. His eyes held a red glare. He’d been taken from his home. He was hot. He was in this place. There were no girl cows. He wasn’t happy.

He bellowed – a fearsome sound in this enclosed space, the echoes bouncing off the walls. Now he began to paw the ground, raising great clouds of sand into the already dusty atmosphere. The crowd roared again. This was what they’d been waiting for.

The bull-leapers ran around again, getting themselves in position. They’d been at it for over half an hour, giving a non-stop show of grace and precision. Never mind tiring the bull. Fit though they were, they must be tiring. One wrong move . . .

Now, one by one, they leaped. One after the other they curled themselves into neat balls and somersaulted over the bull’s back. Only a single stride between each of them. When they’d finished, they ran around to the front and did it all again.

But the bull had learned. He’d learned that a frontal charge was just what they wanted. You could see him thinking. Working things out.

The crowd was cheering. I could see people clustered together in groups passing something between them. I wondered if they were betting. On what would they bet? How long the team could last? How many successful leaps they would make? How many would die?

I could hear the bull’s thudding hoofbeats as he charged at his tormentors, but they were so light on their feet that their footfalls were lost in the clamour of the crowd, who were roaring encouragement with every leap. I don’t know for how long they continued to run at him, but, at no signal that I could see, they halted and drew back against the high wooden walls, leaving him alone, flanks heaving, in the centre of the ring.

The team took no time to regain their breath, running to the buckets and rubbing clouds of powder on their hands and arms. That done, they moved quietly around the outside of the arena to encircle the bull. He stood, his massive head lowered, his legs splayed, waiting, swinging his head to keep them all in sight.

I felt a prickle on my neck. He was still angry but his first fury had passed. Now he was cold and calm and deadly. He’d always been deadly but they’d taken his anger and used it against him. He’d learned not to make the first move. Now he waited for them.

The crowd was shouting encouragement. This must be the finale. The . . . team captain . . . I suppose I should call her, raised her right arm in salute. Silence fell. The bull stood unmoving. I could hear his snorting pants.

And then they all moved at once. One after the other, the whole team ran for the bull. Straight for the horns. The first dived through the horns to land on his broad back and then in the same movement, up and over his tail. As she bounced off, the second, one of the boys, was already diving through the horns and the third one was already running. Absolute trust in your teammates and split-second timing was essential. There was no room for even the smallest error.

They made an error.

As the boy dived through the horns, his hand slipped. Perhaps he turned his wrist, I don’t know, but his hand skidded and he fell to one side and hung there. The second girl, already arcing through the horns, landed partly on top of him. The third, already running, had nowhere to go.

The bull bellowed in fury and triumph. I wasn’t anywhere near close enough but I swear I could see his beady eyes light up. He would gore the girl approaching him and then scrape off the other two, both clinging on for dear life, and trample them. Game over. Back to the bull pens, something to eat and a nice little heifer afterwards.

The spectators – all of them, us included – shouted a warning. Parrots and parasols were dropped, unheeded. The clamour rose above the rooftops and down through the ground. Perhaps even to the Earth Shaker, old Poseidon himself, waiting with his trident. Biding his time.

The arena was filled with the reek of hot bull. I could smell his cow breath all the way up here. His heaving flanks steamed, despite the heat.

The third girl didn’t even break her stride. Altering her direction slightly, she went right. At the same time, the girl still trapped between the bull’s horns twisted and went left. They’d practised for this. How to get themselves and their teammates out of trouble. Each girl seized a horn and hung there. Their combined weight was pulling his head down but not slowing him in any way. I could see them trying to angle themselves so their bodies covered his eyes. He couldn’t see. But he was angry. Very angry. There’s a phrase blind rage and this was it. He stopped running and began to buck. He was enormously agile for such a huge animal. He leaped high into the air, twisting as he went, then hit the ground with all four legs simultaneously. I swear we felt the shock all the way up on our rooftop. The tremendous force of his landing dislodged the young boy still clinging to his back somehow. He fell to the ground in a cloud of sand, rolling and rolling to get clear of the stamping hooves.

The two girls hung on to the horns. They had no choice. The remaining members of the team began to run around the bull, even the boy who’d fallen, limping and with an arm that looked broken to me. I doubt he even noticed.

Shouting, running forwards and tapping the bull on the nose and dancing back out of range, they were doing everything they could to distract him. Still the two girls clung to his enormous horns, both of them, if you will excuse the expression, on the horns of a dilemma. Because if one let go or fell off then the other was finished. The bull would have the other off in a second and all that would be left of her was a long bloody smear around the walls. They had to dismount together. Simultaneously.

For how long could they both hold on?

The crowd was on its feet, men shouting, women screaming. The king and priestess sat unmoved. They might have been watching a display of country dancing. Everyone else was gesturing, pointing, stamping. Some people threw flowers into the ring. I wasn’t sure whether they were a vain attempt to distract the bull or pre-empting the funeral offerings.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Peterson, beside me, recording for dear life.

I would have nodded but that would have blurred the recording so I contented myself with another historian grunt. The sweat was pouring off me. The excitement. The drama. The hot day. Fear for the leapers. They were so young, all of them . . . One of them reminded me of Mikey. Young. Dauntless. Irrepressible. My hands were so wet I could barely get a grip on my recorder.

And still the bull ran blindly, short sharp bursts punctuated by leaps into the air and bone-shattering landings until, inevitably, because bulls have poor depth vision, he ran into one of the side walls with an impact that caused the whole stand to shudder. Women screamed all over again. One girl, the one on his left horn, dropped into the sand and suddenly the bull could see again.

Both the catchers ran forwards, shouting, waving their arms to make him look at them but he wasn’t having any of it. Lowering his head, still with the other girl wrapped around his horn, clinging on like a monkey, he used his free horn to gore the one on the ground. A vicious down and then up movement with the force of his whole body behind it threw her high into the air, arms and legs flailing, before she thudded heavily on to the sand and lay very still. She had that broken look that is never good. One catcher ran to stand over her, shouting, crying, stamping his feet and waving his arms to drive off the bull. The other one ran in, attempting to grasp the now bloodstained horn. The bull wasn’t having any of it. He had the smell of blood now. Swinging his massive head, he knocked the catcher clear to the other side of the arena where he lay, winded, possibly with a few ribs broken as well.

The remaining girl was trying to make a grab for the other horn. I could see her thinking. She would have both horns and could spread herself across the bull’s broad forehead and just hang on until he exhausted himself and then rely on her teammates to get her safely away.

She swung her arm and made a grab.

And missed.

As if sensing her weakened hold, the bull stopped dead and began violently to swing his head from side to side.

She lost her one-handed grip, fell into the sand and, like the catcher before her, began to roll away as fast as she could.

He was an angry bull and he wanted revenge. Lowering his head, he got his horn underneath her and stabbed. Unlike her teammate – now lying dead and unattended – he didn’t toss her. He gored and then he ran, the screaming girl impaled upon his horn for nearly half the length of the arena until her own weight pulled her off. And then he ran straight over the top of her.

All around, her teammates were hurling themselves at him, desperate to distract him. Most of them were streaked with blood. Whether their own or their teammates’ was impossible to say.

What had started as a beautiful display of precision gymnastics had turned into a gorefest. One girl lay dead in her own blood at one end of the arena. The other was screaming as she tried to drag her broken body across the sand. I don’t know where she was going. The big wooden doors remained firmly closed. No one came out to save her. Not one single person did one single thing to save her. Only her remaining teammates, trapped in the arena with her. There was no way out for them. The walls were too sheer to climb. I wondered – would the gates stay closed until they were all dead? Was it only then that men would emerge with poles and hooks to drive the bull away and drag the bodies out? The team were shouting . . . to each other . . . to the bull . . . to their gods . . .

No one intervened. This was the will of the gods. Gods like it when their people die for them.

Eventually, what was left of the team managed to drive the bull away, shouting, stamping and waving their arms. He took himself to a corner where he stood, chest heaving, his horns dripping blood and still looking for anyone he thought might give him some trouble.

A man dropped down into the arena. He too wore a bull mask – although nowhere near as grand as the king’s – and he carried a ceremonial double-headed axe. I thought, in my ignorance, he was here to put down the bull.

I got that wrong.

He walked to the screaming girl, lying in a tangle of her own sand-covered intestines, blind to everything around her except her own agony. I doubt anyone could have done much for her even in a modern hospital. There was no chance of survival in this place. He paused for a moment, dispassionately picking his spot, and swung his axe. The screaming stopped.

Silence fell in the arena.

The wooden gates opened. The bull turned his head and looked. You could see him thinking. Remembering. It was cool in there. There was water. There would be food. He was being offered a choice. I had the feeling that if he chose to stay – to finish what he’d started – then his choice would be honoured. Because it would be the will of the god.

No one moved. There wasn’t a sound anywhere. Even the wind had dropped. There was complete stillness while everyone waited for the god to make his wishes known. And then the bull turned and walked slowly through the doors, which closed behind him. As if he’d returned to the underworld whence he’d come.

The remaining five team members helped each other to their feet and limped to stand before the royal box. Their team leader, the one who had originally saluted the god, was dead. One of the catchers, a stocky boy with tight black curls, raised his arm in a half-hearted salute. None of them looked at the royal box. Or even at each other.

What would happen to them? If a team failed – as this one would be judged to have done – were they all punished? Would they all die for this day’s work? Or would they be mercifully retired? I wished we could find out. I watched them limp from the arena. There was no applause from the crowd. Just excited chatter. I wondered how often this happened. I knew there were bull-leaping ceremonies all the time but most of them were private. These big public ceremonies were only held a couple of times a year. How normal was death in the arena?

Peterson turned to face me, his face running with sweat. He was very pale. I suspected we all were.

‘Well,’ was all he said, and I quite agreed.

I took a few deep breaths and pulled myself together. That seemed to be it for the day. People were standing up to leave the royal box.

The priestess took precedence, followed by the king. Once they’d gone, everyone else just scrambled for the exit as best they could. Minor priestesses and courtiers jostled each other to get out of the heat.

I looked at the crowds standing on every available flat surface. Tier after tier of us. It was going to take us hours and hours to get out of here.

I looked back down into the arena. Slaves had seized the two dead girls by their ankles and were dragging them away, leaving long, bloody furrows in the sand. They were talking among themselves, not even looking at what they were doing. As if they were just taking out the daily rubbish.

Under cover of gathering my gear together, I placed my hands flat on the roof. A gesture of respect for any ghosts that might be lurking nearby.

And bloody hell, it was still hot.

What seemed like a very long time ago – and probably was – people had trickled on to the rooftops and access had been easy. Now everyone was trying to get away at the same time. Everyone was in a rush to attend the family feast or whatever they had planned for the rest of the holiday. I seriously considered locating the nearest water trough and just hurling myself in.

The enormous crush of people, all of whom were waiting about as patiently as people desperate to get out of the sun might be expected to wait, meant our group had to break up and we exited over separate rooftops. We all chose a different route down to street level. I wasn’t too bothered. We were all still in contact with each other.

‘Well,’ said Kal, in my ear. ‘What did you think?’

‘I hardly know where to begin,’ I said, negotiating a rickety staircase leading down to yet another roof.

‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Max, I know it’s not the primary aim of this assignment, but I really think this could bear more investigation. I’d particularly like to know at what point it stopped being a sacrifice of the bull and became a sacrifice to the bull.’

I agreed. ‘I suspect the original point of the ceremony has been lost over the centuries. That always happens with religion. The original purpose or message gets swamped by the ceremonial and political – and religious leaders always have their own agenda, as well – but you’re right. Put my name down for a return trip. If you can persuade our overlords, of course.’

‘That was the deal I did with my overlords – that I would manage you. I did another deal with Dr Bairstow – that I manage them. Leave everything to me. Listen, it’s a public holiday – are you coming back to Site A for a bit of a knees-up?’

‘That sounds very nice. We’re going out by the east gate and I don’t know how long it will take us to work our way around to you, but we’ll see you some time. Put the kettle on.’

I’d stepped aside while talking to Kal – on these staircases it was walk or talk – not both – and the others had somehow got ahead of me. I decided I’d find an open space and call them up.

There was a huge crush of people. Estimates put the population of Knossos at this time as anything between thirty to a hundred thousand and I reckoned a lot of people would have come in from the outlying districts, as well. All the streets and flights of steps were packed solid. The smell of roasted meats began to drift across the city as people prepared for their feasts.

I worked my way past one of the sanctuaries, past a whole range of cool, dark storerooms with huge numbers of giant pithoi stored in the shadows, just following on behind everyone else. There were no city walls here – the palace just evolved into the town itself and then the town just petered out into the countryside.

Achieving street level at long last, I looked about me to get my bearings. Ahead was the potters’ quarter, to my right the metalworkers’. A small river – just a trickle at this time of year – separated the two areas.

Site A was north – to my left, behind the main residential area. If we all met up here and followed the river and crossed the road, we’d be there in no time. This wasn’t the most prosperous part of the city. The streets were less clearly defined and paving – where there was paving – was very uneven and I had to watch where I was putting my feet.

I don’t know what made me look across the road. He attracted my attention immediately. Unlike everyone else, good-naturedly shoving their way homewards, he was motionless. He was taller than most. No one jostled him. He stood like a rock in a stream while people flowed around him. Unlike the mainly bare-chested Cretans he wore a rough tunic, not a kilt. It looked to me like a torn-up bed sheet – that old St Mary’s stand-by – itself quite distinctive in this colourful world. He had short hair. No lovelocks. No curls. His habitual nasty expression. Guess who was back.

33

I’m not quite sure what came over me. Whether I thought I was surrounded by my own people and therefore quite safe – although the converse is usually true – or whether, after the bull-leaping ceremony, my blood was up and I wasn’t about to take any shit from anyone, or whether it was because I was in the land of moira – destiny, fate, call it what you like. Or I’d been out in the sun too long. Or a combination of any or all of those, I don’t know. I do know I was suddenly tired of people interfering (not my first choice of verb) with my life. I was tired of trying to stay out of trouble when trouble always came looking for me.

Well, not today. Today was the day trouble ran from me. It was my moira. I heaved my pack securely over both shoulders, groped in my skirt pocket for my stun gun, jumped up and down, waved my arm and shouted, ‘Yoo-hoo! Clive! Over here.’

He saw and heard me immediately – I suspected they could see and hear me from Mount Olympus – and began to force his way through the crowds.

I assumed my best come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough expression and flourished my stun gun. He stopped dead and looked straight at me. Straight in the eye. I was all set to wipe him from the face of the planet but just then a huge crowd of boisterous people forced their way between us. By the time they’d pushed past and I could see again – he’d gone.

I wasn’t so stupid as to set off after him. Not alone, anyway. I elbowed my way through the crush to a convenient doorway in a private house, touched the little statue of the Snake Goddess for luck and called up Markham. ‘Ronan alert. Be aware.’

He responded instantly. ‘Where are you?’

‘I think I’m about twenty yards downhill from you.’

‘And where was Ronan?’

‘On the other side of the road from me. About twenty feet away. Light tunic. Short hair.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s he doing?’

‘He ran away.’

Markham sounded accusing. ‘What did you do?’

‘I waved at him and he pushed off. No manners, some people.’

‘Shit, Max. Get out of there.’

‘Can’t move in all these people.’

‘Was he armed?’

‘Almost certainly, although I didn’t see anything.’

‘So just a cut throat or a knife between the ribs for you to worry about then. Find somewhere safe and stay there. And keep your distance. I’m not that far away.’ I could hear him issuing instructions to Evans and Cox.

Casually, I leaned back against the door, just on the off-chance it would open. It didn’t move. OK – no escape that way, then. Worth a try, I suppose.

I was wondering how on earth I was supposed to get through all these people and then, suddenly, there was Peterson, nearly a head taller than everyone else, scanning the crowd.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the doorway. ‘Tim, I’ve just seen . . .’

‘Yes, I heard.’

The earth moved for me.

This wasn’t my first earthquake – it wasn’t even my first earthquake on Crete – we’d had several tiny tremors since our arrival – but there’s always that moment when you wonder what the hell is going on before realisation cuts in and you remember the earthquake drill.

Instinctively we both dropped to a crouch, bracing ourselves against each doorjamb. Around us I could hear the clatter of loose masonry, falling pots and so on. A few people shouted or screamed. Dogs barked. And then it was all over. Ten seconds at the most. Although a very long ten seconds at the time. People stood up, dusted themselves down, picked up their bundles and children, and life carried on as normal. This sort of thing happened all the time. No need to panic.

They had no idea what was to come.

I looked up. Our doorway was supported by an ancient wooden beam that looked harder than stone itself. Perhaps it had been here since the Dawn of Time and people had built the house around it. I peered up and down the street. There was no sign of Ronan anywhere.

We stepped out from the doorway and I tapped my ear.

‘Mr Sands – report.’

‘We’re all together, Max. Everyone’s safe. We were in that open space by the well in the weavers’ quarter when it kicked off. Even Bashford’s uninjured.’

I called up my own team. ‘Is anyone injured? Anywhere?’

There was a chorus of reassurance.

‘OK, everyone. Forget the knees-up. I’ve just seen Clive Ronan. No idea what he wants but everyone should report to their team leaders, just to be on the safe side. Report any absences.’

Markham was back. ‘Max, which way did he go?’

‘Uphill.’

‘Well, he didn’t come past me, so he must have veered off somewhere.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Twenty yards ahead of you. Uphill. At the junction with that narrow alleyway. Outside the shop owned by that woman with the teeth.’

‘I’m on my way. Wait for me.’

I turned to Peterson. ‘Did you see him?’

‘I thought I caught a glimpse.’ He was surveying the people still on the streets, now rapidly emptying. ‘I’m coming with you. This way.’

We found Markham easily enough now the crowds were thinning. He was standing behind an overturned barrow. He pointed down a dark lane, narrow and unusually twisty, even for Knossos, where the streets frequently detoured around immovable boulders or ancient olive groves. ‘He must have gone down there.’

The ground moved again. Only very slightly this time. Presumably sated with the blood of bull-leapers, Poseidon closed his eyes, turned over and went to sleep.

‘We have choices,’ said Markham. ‘I would prefer you two out of the way while I call up a full security team to check this out, but by the time they get here he’ll be long gone.’

‘You’ve got us,’ said Peterson, indignantly.

‘And the day just keeps getting better.’

‘He’s getting away,’ I said, impatiently, not daring to take my eyes off the alley in case he suddenly reappeared.

‘Right,’ said Markham, pulling out a small blaster I hadn’t known he’d brought with him and holding it discreetly at his side. ‘I’ll go first. I’ll watch ahead of us. Max, you’re in the middle – you look up. Tim – you watch our rear. Anything you don’t like the look of – sing out and dive for cover.’

‘And then what?’ said Peterson, quietly.

‘We have to get him this time,’ I said, desperately. ‘I don’t care what the Time Police say. If he ever discovers he’s immune from capture there’ll be no holding him. We hunt him down and we exterminate him and face the consequences.’

‘No, we hunt him down and neutralise him,’ said Markham, the unexpected voice of reason. ‘Then we hand him over and let the consequences fall as they will.’

‘No,’ I said, furiously. ‘If we take him in, then those bastards in the Time Police will just let him go again. I’ll do it and take the consequences myself.’

‘No point in arguing about it now,’ said Peterson. ‘Let’s get the bugger first and discuss what to do when we’ve got him. Lead on, Markham.’

‘I suspect you mean “Lay on, Macduff”,’ said our resident pedant. ‘But I get the message. Stick together now.’

We stepped into the alleyway and paused to let our eyes adjust.

‘I’ve got a small torch,’ whispered Peterson.

‘And he’s almost certainly armed,’ whispered Markham back. ‘Trust me, there is no better way to make yourself a target than shining a torch in a dark place. Just go slowly. Test every step. We’ll be fine.’

I gripped my own stun gun – trust me, no one understands the importance of concealed pockets in a garment more than Mrs Enderby – and put my other hand on Markham’s shoulder. Peterson did the same to me and off we went. We inched our way along, covering every angle. I was looking up, watching for a black shadow against the blue sky. Peterson watched our rear.

I had a thousand questions. Why was Ronan here? Was he following me? Was he what I thought I’d seen and heard at our remote site all those months ago? With hindsight, yes seemed a very good answer to that one. How did he know we were here? I had an idea about that, but it seemed a good idea to concentrate on the job in hand, so I’d think about it later. Always deal with the now.

Apart from the main thoroughfares, there were few streets as such in Knossos. There was the very grand road leading off to the north-west that eventually led to the really posh part of town and the Little Palace – we still had to establish who lived there – and another going north down to Heraklion and the huge harbour, but most of the residential houses tended to have that jumbled ‘just built anywhere’ look. Craftsmen’s quarters were even less well organised. There were the houses themselves, with their working areas nearby, shaded by trees or awnings, or even bundles of twigs woven across wooden supports. Then there were the huge storage areas where pots and amphorae were kept safe from tremors in tiers of carefully constructed, straw-packed wooden cages. We, however, were working our way along a narrow path running between the backs of two rows of buildings, full of unwanted materials and a ton of old rubbish.

The little path was narrow and getting narrower all the time. The sun must rarely shine here. It certainly wasn’t shining now. Dark shadows collected in every doorway. Misshaped pots and shards of pottery littered the ground, crunching beneath our feet at every step. Our progress was very slow – and that was before we stumbled up and down uneven steps, slipped in the donkey shit or inched our way around blind doglegs. In my heart I knew that Ronan was far away and getting further away from us every moment. At one point, something furry brushed past my ankles, but whether it was an alley cat or a deserting rat I didn’t see.

I watched the rooftops. Most of the workshops were single storey and set below ground level for some reason, so the roofline wasn’t that much higher than my eyes. There were no signs of movement and hardly anywhere to hide. Only an occasional box or basket placed up there to store something or other out of the way.

We shuffled along. I could hear Peterson breathing and the hubbub from the street behind us growing fainter every minute, but this hot, close space was completely silent. Sweat ran down my face. My eyes stung with it.

After a while, the workshops became further and further apart and then, after two dilapidated old buildings, their wood bleached grey by the sun, and a huge, stinking rubbish heap that must be riddled with rats – we were out in the open countryside.

We looked about us. We’d emerged from the eastern side of the town and the sun was low in the sky and behind us. The slight breeze was very welcome after the stifling heat of that narrow place. I pulled my blouse away from my sweaty self to let the air circulate a little. Peterson mopped his face and Markham stepped aside and opened his com, reporting failure and warning the others.

To our left, a path skirted the town, leading down through ankle-turning rocks. Ahead of us, on the other side of the tiny river, rising ground was covered by a small wood of scrubby pines either too bent or too spindly to use for columns or boatbuilding, peppered with a few deciduous trees. Well above us and just out of sight were the bull pens. Beyond those were our pods. Ronan wouldn’t have gone that way. Not only would he not be able to access them and he knew that, but Evans would be waiting for him.

Behind us lay the great mass of Knossos – palace and town, now settling in for a night of festivities. I wondered again about the remaining bull-leapers. Were they still alive or had they survived the arena only to fall sacrifice to the gods?

I turned back to survey the landscape. Which way would Ronan have gone?

Into the trees would be my guess. There was nothing downhill except a small shrine built around a solitary oak tree. I hesitated. I’d galloped blindly into the woods at our remote site and I couldn’t rely on a bunch of directionally challenged Northmen to bail me out this time.

‘We should get back,’ said Markham. ‘He could be anywhere and our safest place is back at the pods.’

Peterson was nodding his agreement. I wasn’t happy but I couldn’t think of an argument. He was right. We should be getting back. The light was taking on an orange glow as the sun began to set. We turned and followed the little river uphill. Always bloody uphill.

The smell of hot cattle grew stronger as we approached the bull pens.

As I’ve said, there were about fifteen of them, with a clutch of haphazard single-storey wooden buildings in the middle. Our path passed them on the eastern side – a corresponding path on the other side led down to the west side of Knossos and ultimately to the Little Palace over to the north-west. It was a good site for them. The pens fitted neatly between the two paths for ease of transportation, with a ready supply of water to hand and far enough from urban areas so no one was disturbed by the smell and racket. No one important, that was. Historians don’t count.

As far as I could see, only about half a dozen pens were still occupied. I wondered if the other bulls had been taken down to the arena for future, upcoming rituals. Those remaining seemed very agitated, probably because of the recent tremors. They were penned and couldn’t get away and it was making them nervous. Men were running around, shouting, strengthening fences and tethers. The men looked hot, busy and not in a good mood and we decided to leave the path and give both bulls and men a wide berth.

Pausing for breath, we turned our faces north again, always looking for that telltale red glow over the horizon. Or that sinister plume of black smoke warning of the volcanic explosion that would tear Thera apart and send one or more giant tidal waves roaring this way. But there was nothing. The sky was blue and clear.

Roberts was calling me. ‘Max, where are you? Lost again?’

‘We’re on our way back. There’s no sign of Ronan here but keep both sites on high alert. No one goes anywhere alone.’ No one was supposed to anyway but it never does any harm to reinforce these things. ‘That includes latrine breaks.’

‘Oh, great,’ he said, with enthusiasm. ‘Synchronised shitting. That’s always fun.’

Another one taking things seriously.

The sun was lower in the sky. Its colour had changed from incandescent white to a more user-friendly yellow-orange. Soon, the mountains would glow peachy-gold. Then they’d turn red and long shadows would begin to creep across their slopes. There’s not a great deal of twilight in this part of the world. One moment it’s daylight and the next – it’s not, and all good historians should be tucked up in bed.

‘So, what do we think?’ I said as we set off again. Uphill. Always bloody uphill. Logic dictates that with so much uphill there has to be a downhill, but if there is then I’ve missed it. It’s always bloody uphill. And in this heat.

‘About . . .?’ said Markham cautiously.

‘Our day.’

‘Which bit? The assignment so far? Our first bull-leaping? The tragic deaths of those young people? The earth tremors? The appearance of Slimy Clive? Our plans for tomorrow? You need to narrow it down a bit, Max.’

‘Clive Ronan, of course,’ I said, in some exasperation.

‘Well, honestly, if Peterson hadn’t seen him as well, then I might have thought you were having one of your well-documented spells of paranoia.’

‘Um . . .’ said Peterson.

‘You mean you wouldn’t have believed me if Peterson hadn’t confirmed it?’

‘Um . . .’ said Peterson.

‘I don’t think there’s any answer that will make you happy so I’m just going to shut up now.’

‘What about that time at the remote site? It must have been Ronan who chased me through the woods.’

‘Max, we covered the area pretty thoroughly when we were searching for you and we found no trace.’

‘I see,’ I said nastily, but I was very hot. ‘Because Peterson couldn’t back me up, it obviously never happened.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

Peterson tried again. ‘Max, I think . . .’

But we never found out what he thought because a sudden silence fell. The cicadas ceased their deafening racket. Everything stopped. The only sound was the wind, sighing softly in the pines.

Beneath our feet, the earth groaned in pain, sounding for all the world like the bellowing of a massive bull imprisoned deep underground. Poseidon the Earth Shaker was awake again.

Almost immediately the ground jerked quite violently. I fell down into the dust and Peterson fell on top of me. The ground jerked again. As I’ve said, this wasn’t my first earthquake but it’s not a good feeling. The sensation of solid ground, always so reliable and safe, suddenly moving beneath our feet without any warning at all is disconcerting. Sometimes, a split second before it hits, a flock of birds will soar into the sky, shrieking a warning. Or the dogs, sensing something, will howl. Once, at Troy, when we’d experienced an earthquake there, Ian Guthrie had seemed to know in advance. I remembered how he’d clutched at his head. How, in that second before it hit, the slightest sound caused him pain. I believe there are people who have some sensitivity to seismic tremors and with our usual luck, not one of them were here with us today.

The quake seemed to go on for a very long time. Some fifteen to twenty seconds, I think, which I’ll agree is not long in the scheme of things, but try it lying face down in the dirt in a seismically active area on the eve of the biggest eruption in the ancient world and with that great lump Peterson sprawled on top of you. Twenty seconds is twenty seconds too long.

We lay very still long after everything subsided. Just in case. Eventually, Peterson rolled off me and I sat up and wiped the sweat off my face.

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. We were surrounded by the latest in seismic equipment – and yes, all right, Dr Dowson as well, but we could have coped with that. We would have had all the information needed to make an informed decision re evacuation. Everything would have been cool and controlled and calm and lots of other words beginning with ‘c’, that didn’t include panic, pandemonium and some other word beginning with ‘p’. Peeing, probably, if Peterson had anything to do with it. An ordered evacuation – something that I had been greatly looking forward to for its novelty value. Or if not ordered, etc., then at least with considerably less screaming than usual. Typically for the three of us – we were some way from our pods, our colleagues and the equipment that would tell us what was going on.

I reached up to Markham. ‘Was that an aftershock or a fresh tremor?’

‘No idea,’ he said, pulling me to my feet. ‘But that’s three now. And in a very short period of time. Dr Dowson will know.’

As if summoned by magic, Dr Dowson’s voice spoke in my ear. ‘Max, some of these readings are becoming a little worrying. Do you think you could pop by and take a look?’

‘We’re nearly with you. Did you hear the warning about Clive Ronan?’

‘We did, yes.’

Markham intervened. ‘Can I speak to Mr Evans, please?’

‘He’s here with me now. Just a moment.’

‘Evans here.’

‘Evans, get everyone inside. No exceptions. No but I want to stay outside and watch the earthquake whining. Everyone inside. Doors closed.’

‘What about the monitoring equipment?’

‘Inside as well. I don’t think we need it to tell us things are beginning to get a bit dodgy. Most of us noticed that last one.’

‘I was crushed,’ I said to Peterson.

‘Really? I was quite comfortable.’

‘Come on,’ said Markham. ‘We’re a bit exposed out here.’

How exposed, we were about to find out.

34

I think I’ve mentioned the proximity of the bull pens, haven’t I?

And the earthquake?

What I failed to do was put the two together.

I’m going to digress a moment. Go and put the kettle on. Back in our younger days, when we were all in single-person accommodation, I shared a landing with Kalinda Black on one side, and Helen Foster opposite me. On the whole, life was pleasant and peaceful, but every Friday night, Kal and Dieter used to do the Milkmaid from Leipzig and the Cavalry Officer from Dusseldorf thing where Dieter tried to buy a drink of milk from the pretty dairymaid only to find he had no money. There would be a brief discussion over acceptable methods of payment – all of which were disproportionately noisy. I had no idea selling milk could make such a racket. I once had to thump on the wall and demand to know if they had a real cow in there.

Since coming to live a short distance from the bull pens, I’ve now realised just how restrained they’d actually been. You can have no idea of the racket made by a pair of happily-occupied bovines. We’d had to spend several evenings trying to ignore several tons of carnally-inclined beef having a jolly good time.

One lazy afternoon, down in town, too hot to move, there had been a great deal of technical discussion over the number of lady cows an enthusiastic bull could cover in one day – an innocuous subject, you’d think, and you’d be completely wrong.

‘Just think,’ Sykes had said to Bashford, her resentment over years of sharing him with a chicken finally surfacing. ‘Five or six times a day.’

‘Yes,’ said Bashford, thoughtfully – and with a typical disregard for his own life, ‘but with a different cow every time.’

It was at that point, in the interests of the assignment, I’d transferred Bashford up to Site B. Yes, he’d have to share with Roberts, but that was their problem. There were three of them – Sykes, Bashford and Roberts – and only two sites and unless I was prepared to set up a Site C – which I wasn’t – there was no easy solution.

Anyway, the reason I’m banging on about bulls and things is because, just at that moment, we found we had another problem on our hands.

It would be fair to say that being a tiny bit tense was more or less the natural state for these bulls, and now we’d had a couple of tremors and they really weren’t happy. Not at all.

I can only think the structures must have been weakened by the earthquakes. I didn’t see which of them was the first to have his pen down, but suddenly there were crashing timbers and angry bulls scattering in all directions.

‘Shit,’ said Markham, which really didn’t even begin to cover it.

Half a dozen men appeared from nowhere. They were armed with long, sharp, metal-tipped sticks and spent a heroic ten or twelve seconds trying to drive the bulls back towards their pens. They never really stood a chance. The first was tossed. Almost casually, a bull swung his great head and the handler flew through the air, landing on nearby rocks with a very nasty sound. He sprawled face down, unmoving. I suspected he would never move again.

The other men dropped their sticks and ran for the safety of their huts. I didn’t blame them in the slightest. And there was no nonsense about us facing them down. Their handlers were scattering and so should we.

‘Run.’

We ran. Back downhill because it was faster. There was no time to look behind us – Major Guthrie had drilled into us over and over again during training: ‘Never mind what’s happening behind you. You’ll find out soon enough if you keep stopping to look. Just run. Run until you’ve left whatever it is safely in your dust and then run a bit more just to be on the safe side.’ So we did.

We ran in a tight group which wasn’t tremendously sensible. We should probably have scattered, but I had no sense of direction, Peterson had a weak arm and Markham wasn’t going to let either of us out of his sight, so we ran in a tight group. To make it easy for the bulls.

‘Into the woods,’ said Markham and we did, splashing through the river, panting uphill and diving into the trees.

Not all of the bulls followed. One or two just trotted straight past us, snorting and puffing away, their dewlaps swinging, freedom in their hearts. The remainder – still far too many for comfort – had their eyes very firmly on us.

These were veterans of the arena, I guessed, with no reason to love humans. I suspect this trait had been encouraged by ill-treatment. Subtle ill-treatment because these bulls were destined for the pleasure of a god who would certainly turn up his nose at damaged goods. So no scars. No burns. No beatings. Nothing that would leave a mark. But there are many ways of making an animal hate you.

And now they were free. We were faster but we had to dance and dodge roots, hidden rocks, fallen branches and so forth, whereas the bulls just ploughed their way straight through everything. The woods echoed to the sounds of large animals forcing their way through the undergrowth and ripping the occasional branch from a tree. Achieving their freedom hadn’t mellowed them in any way. They bellowed and grunted. Perhaps they would turn on each other and forget about us. Perhaps we could climb a tree.

Evans’s voice sounded in my ear. ‘Take care – the bulls are out.’

Markham’s response was, perhaps, just a fraction on the ungrateful side and not suitable for those of a sensitive disposition.

I managed to puff, ‘No time to talk,’ while concentrating on running downhill without breaking my neck. Most of my attention was on the ground directly in front of me and I was so busy watching where I put my feet that I ran slap bang into a tree, lost my balance and crashed to the ground.

I scrabbled around in the prickly pine needles trying to get to my feet, expecting any moment to feel hot bull breath on my face or feel the ground shake as at least one of them lumbered in my direction. Remembering the bull-leapers, I rolled and rolled, finally finding a semi-refuge among a tangle of tree roots.

The first bull swept past me at a determined trot, his hooves kicking up the dry dust in little spurts. Then another – a smaller, darker one with short legs, snorting great ropes of mucus from his nose. Then another – red with white patches. The ground shook beneath their feet. Not an earthquake this time, although I couldn’t help thinking that between all the seismic activity and these massive creatures zipping around, Crete must vibrate on an almost permanent basis. It was a miracle any of the buildings were still standing. Although not for much longer.

The herd was thinning out, each animal choosing a different path. Off to find some lady friends, I suspected. Well, I wasn’t going to get in their way.

I lay very still, pretending to be a tree root for a few minutes longer, just in case there were any more around that hadn’t been able to keep up, but there was silence under the trees. Bulls tend to have that effect on local wildlife. They hadn’t done me a lot of good either.

Eventually I uncurled myself from between the roots, wiped the sweat from my face and called up Peterson and Markham, who weren’t that far away. Peterson appeared from further up the hill and Markham swung himself, disturbingly ape-like, from a nearby tree.

‘Everyone all right?’ I said, dusting myself down.

We agreed we were absolutely fine.

‘And you,’ I nodded at a disproportionately scratched and bloody Markham, ‘could do with a good shower.’

‘And a strong drink,’ he said. ‘To keep the germs at bay.’

‘What germs?’ said Peterson in disbelief. ‘What germs could possibly want to take up residence inside you?’

‘Infection is a constant danger,’ he said primly. ‘Did you not attend any of Dr Stone’s lectures on the subject?’

‘Time to get back, I think,’ I said. ‘I shan’t feel happy until we’re back with the others. And it’s so bloody hot under these trees.’

And it was. The trees were too skinny to provide any decent shade and yet still managed to make a good job of trapping the heat. Dust kicked up by the bulls hung in the air and stuck to my sweaty face.

We set off again. Uphill. Obviously. Because we’d run downhill. And at some speed, too. Peering through the trees I thought we must be about level with the lower part of the town. A long, long way from the pods. ‘Can we get out from under these bloody trees? I’m about to expire.’

Markham nodded. ‘We’ll walk around the outside of town, find that little brook, tidy Max up a little and then follow it upstream.’

‘Good thought,’ said Peterson. ‘It’s like a pine-scented oven in here. Which way?’

‘This way,’ I said confidently, pointing.

The pair of them turned in the opposite direction.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Max, you are an infallible aid to accurate navigation. As long as we proceed in the opposite direction to your recommendation, we are assured of getting home.’

‘Bastards,’ I said, but without too much rancour. I was saving my energy. Besides, they weren’t altogether wrong.

We set off. After a while the woods began to thin. I could see rooftops between the trees.

‘It’s still very quiet,’ said Peterson as we picked our way over rocks and roots.

I stopped. It was, wasn’t it? The ever-present cicada racket had not picked up again. The only sounds were the occasional shout of a bull-hunting Cretan in the distance. If there was to be another ceremony scheduled for tomorrow, I hoped they had a couple of spare bulls tucked away somewhere because the speed those buggers had been going, they were halfway across the island by now.

The earth trembled again. Just very slightly. Another one. Was it me or were they coming more quickly now? I put my hand on a tree trunk for support. Was Thera gearing itself up for the big finish?

There was a shout and two men, hot and breathless, appeared through the trees armed again with their long sticks, ropes, halters and a very heavy-duty net. Wordlessly we all pointed downhill. They grunted their thanks and set off at a trot, considerably more sure-footed than we were.

We plodded on. I was hot, dusty, sweaty, tired, desperate for a drink and worried to death about the others. I really, really wanted to be back at the pods. I could just imagine the cool caress of a shower. Chugging back a pouch of ice-cold water.

It never happened. Because we’d forgotten about Clive Ronan.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but cut us some slack here. We’d been playing hide and seek with half a dozen bulls. We’d been dodging around trees and rocks and God knows what – there had been a worrying amount of seismic activity – of course we’d forgotten Clive Ronan. Six bulls, people. Probably more. Almost certainly more. Ten, perhaps. Or even twelve. All of them hell-bent on turning us into greasy stains across the pretty Cretan landscape. Wait until you have fifteen, twenty, maybe a whole herd of bulls after you, and let’s see you do better.

He must have sneaked up behind us and, typical of Ronan, gave no warning. He doesn’t really do gloating. Shoot first – gloat later. Which, I suddenly thought, begged the question – why hadn’t he killed me at the remote site? Why hadn’t he shot me just now in the street? What was he playing at? What did he want?

The first I knew was the sound of a whining blaster and then Peterson fell against me and we both collapsed on to the ground. For an impossibly long second, I couldn’t think what was happening and then Ronan stepped out from behind a tree. He had the sun low and behind him and I was dazzled. He was only a black shape but I knew it was him.

He raised his blaster again – the two of us sprawled on the ground must have made a very tempting target – and then grunted as Markham charged at him and hit him hard.

I had to leave him to it because Peterson was on fire.

I slapped at the flames, hurting my hands uselessly, remembered the drill and rolled him over, ripping open our tiny packs to splash the contents of our water pouches over him. It was a nasty wound. His upper arm was burned black and red. The heat from the blaster had seared parts of his tunic into his skin.

That wasn’t the worst of it. Ronan had managed to set fire to our surroundings, as well. It was the end of summer. The ground was tinder-dry. Tiny yellow flames ran along the ground. The undergrowth began to crackle. Shit.

Peterson’s face was twisted with pain but he wasn’t going to die. Unless Ronan shot us both, of course.

I turned back to Markham and Ronan, still rolling on the ground and fighting for possession of his gun. Markham had his hands full and couldn’t get to his own weapon. I had mine but they were too closely entangled. I should do something. I circled them warily, looking for an opportunity. They were so locked together I couldn’t see where one left off and the other began.

Markham was panting. ‘Max. Get Peterson out of here.’

‘Not leaving you,’ I said, still waiting for an opportunity to brain Slimy Clive with a rock. With extreme prejudice.

‘Go. Now. You’re in my way.’

He was right. He was doing his job. I should do mine. And there were flames beginning to leap around us. I heaved Peterson to his feet. He was conscious – in pain, but functioning. I couldn’t get him uphill, though. Returning to Site B was no longer an option for us.

We ran. Well, we lurched. Downhill obviously because it was easier. We weren’t fast because Peterson was in a great deal of pain.

My plan was to stash him somewhere safe among the trees and then get back to Markham so, typically, just when we needed them for cover, the trees ran out and we were suddenly in open country. A sloping, rock-free plateau of scorched grass and bare earth stretched before us. Further down the slope, a single tree dominated the headland – an oak by the spread of it, surrounded by a high stone wall. This must be the shrine I’d seen from further up the hillside. Before my life became so full of bull.

God knows where we were. I’d never been to this part of the island before. I could see the sea from here, a distant turquoise and blue, glittering in the late afternoon sunshine.

When the rains came, this meadow would be a beautiful spot, green and lush, providing someone with good grazing for their animals. There would be wild flowers everywhere. At the moment, however, there were no flowers at all and the grass was just dead brown stalks. Some distance away, Knossos spread up the hill above and behind me, glowing in the warm sunlight.

I was surprised at how low down we were. It made sense now to abandon any plans of getting back to our own pods. I would call up Mr Sands, organise a rescue party for Peterson and get back uphill to Markham.

The fire had taken hold frighteningly quickly. Within a very short space of time quite a large area was ablaze. The flames were between me and Markham. I could smell the smoke . . . hear the crackle of flames . . . feel the heat.

I eased Peterson into a rocky crevice. He leaned back, his eyes closed. I could smell scorched material and scorched flesh. I wasn’t going to touch anything. This was one for Dr Stone. I didn’t even have any medical plastic on me.

He opened his eyes and looked down at himself. ‘Why am I soaking wet?’

I couldn’t resist. There would never be a better opportunity. ‘Relax,’ I said. ‘I put the flames out.’

He stared at me suspiciously. ‘How? How did you put the flames out?’

‘Not important right now,’ I said.

He tried to sit up. ‘You didn’t. Did you?’

I smiled down at him. Just to put his mind at rest. Strangely, that failed to work.

‘Max, what did you do?’

I smiled at him.

He stared at me. ‘You didn’t?’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I didn’t.’

‘You did, didn’t you?’

‘Make up your mind.’

‘Max . . .’

‘Gotta go. Markham’s still back there.’

‘Go,’ he said, faintly, leaning back again. ‘Get back to Markham. I’ll wait here and enjoy the view.’

I left him suspiciously sniffing his tunic.

Fatigue forgotten, I tried to run back the way we’d come. Unfortunately, we had a problem. I could see yellow and orange flames dancing through the trees. Shit – had Ronan started a forest fire? At this time of year, with everything so dry, it would burn and burn, endangering all of this part of the island. And possibly Knossos itself. It would be a bit of a disaster if the palace burned down before it had a chance to be destroyed in an earthquake. Guess who’d get the blame for that?

I opened my com. ‘Markham – can you hear me?’

There was no response. I told myself that was because he was busy and wouldn’t want me distracting him.

I stood for a moment, undecided. I could try to circle round and bypass the flames, I suppose . . . I looked around. The pretty little field in which I was standing would soon begin to smoulder. It wasn’t safe. Nowhere was. We needed to get out of here.

I think the same thought had occurred to Peterson because he was already painfully pulling himself to his feet. At the same time, ten or twelve men and boys appeared over the hill. I braced myself for fresh catastrophe.

Oh my God, they were firemen. They were virtually naked, so I suppose I should have realised. Armed with leather hides and big wooden paddles, they began to slap away at the flames. They were shouting at each other. One lifted his head, wiped his sweating face, saw us and shouted, gesturing with his arm. His message was obvious. Get out of here.

‘Well,’ said Peterson, as I slung his good arm over my shoulder again, ‘it’s been a funny old day today, don’t you think?’

I didn’t have time to bloody think. The earth shook again. And it didn’t stop this time. This one was less of a bellow and more of a rumble that went on and on. A burning tree toppled showering sparks everywhere and now the dry grass was alight.

Shit. This was going from bad to worse.

The flames raced in all directions at once. Earthquakes didn’t seem to bother them at all. Or vice versa.

‘We have to go,’ shouted Peterson, master of stating the bloody obvious. All the firefighters were racing to the edge of the plateau and then disappearing. I could only hope there was a path of some kind and they weren’t just hurling themselves out into space.

Peterson was shouting into his com but if he was on the communal link then I couldn’t hear any response. I staggered to the edge of the plateau and looked down.

Again – shit. There was a path but it was bloody near vertical. Fine if you were a Minoan, born and bred to it, or one of their goats – less so if you were from St Mary’s with non-Velcro feet.

The tremors did not die away this time. They increased. Once again, the bull beneath the earth bellowed. The ground shook. More trees crashed down. Smoke caught at my throat. Sparks flew through the air, settling on us and the ground around us. I slapped at my skirt which was beginning to smoulder as well. This was why the firefighters had fled. We needed to get out of here. Fast.

Once, at St Mary’s, we’d tried to reproduce Hannibal’s method of splitting rocks using fire and vinegar – and very successful we’d been too. Rocks had cracked and exploded in all directions. This was something very similar.

The rock cracked. A dark line zigzagged across the ground. The rumble turned to a clatter. Small rocks and loose shale bounced past us. I lost my footing and fell over. Then the entire plateau decided that being attached to Crete was so yesterday, people, detached itself and slithered down the slope, taking me with it. I caught one last glimpse of Peterson falling to the ground and then everything was about protecting my head and banging my knees and elbows and spitting earth out of my mouth and rolling over and over and being hit by every rock on Crete.

I was very nearly laughing. This was so ridiculous. Dr Stone was going to have to write really small to get all this lot in the cause of death box on our death certificates. Bulls. Earthquakes. Clive Ronan. Fire. Landslide. He’d probably have to attach a file.

I rolled and rolled down the hillside. This was obviously the god of historians’ idea of a joke. I’d been moaning about always having to trudge uphill so now it seemed I could only go downhill. I’d raced across this bloody island in all sorts of different directions – up, down, left, right. I had a horrible feeling every moment was taking me further from the safety of our pods. Even the ones in Knossos town. If they were still here. My instructions had been explicit. At the first sign of trouble – you jump. They might well have gone already. And I had no idea where Markham or Peterson were. Or how they were.

I stopped rolling. Small rocks and soil still slithered past me but I’d found some sort of root to cling on to and cling I did. For dear life. At some point the tremors had stopped. Now I had only the aftermath of a landslide to deal with. Things were looking up.

Around me, small rocks were still tumbling downhill. I really should get out of here before I finished up in the sea so somewhat unsteadily I sat up, wiped the blood and sweat from my face, reached down my blouse to remove large lumps of Crete from my nooks and crannies, untangled my skirt, tried to shake the dust from my hair, climbed unsteadily to my feet and surveyed the shattered landscape.

Just in time to be knocked down by another tremor. But there was something different about this one. This wasn’t a fluttery tremor. This was a ripple – a convulsion, if you like. And worst of all, to the north, a red glow showed over the horizon, getting larger and larger by the second. Like a second sunrise.

I was lost. I had no idea of Markham’s whereabouts. Or Peterson’s. And the eruption had begun.

35

I am about to use bad language. Please feel free to turn the page, or fast-forward, or chuck the kids out of the car, or whatever. You might want to stop the car first, obviously, although now might be a good time to discover if the little devils really can tuck and roll.

Fuck. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

OK. All done. You can let them back in now. Down I went again. I was hitting the ground more often than a screaming heroine in a 1940s B-movie. I lay, blinking in the dust, thought, sod it, and decided to stay put for a while. It might be that the god of historians had suddenly read the job description and was trying to tell me something. At some point during the landslide, my earpiece had fallen out. And I’d lost my stun gun. I still had my recorder though, and if that bastard Ronan turned up, I was all set to club him to death with it. I peered up at the rock- and tree-strewn slope above me. My gun was somewhere among that lot, I supposed.

As was Peterson. I pulled myself wearily to my feet and stared around, convinced that at any moment, I’d see him picking his way over the rocks and grinning at me prior to saying something daft. Because this was Peterson. He had to be here somewhere. Why couldn’t I see him? Where was he? It hadn’t been a huge landslip but there was no sign of him anywhere. Was he buried under that lot? How would I ever get him out? Was he even alive? Without my earpiece or my com, how could I get help? And where, in all this, was Markham?

I shouted, ‘Markham! Markham – can you hear me?’

I was so busy shouting at the landscape that I didn’t hear him to begin with. And then, behind me, a rock clattered. Someone was carefully making their way towards me. Oh, thank God. I turned around.

Not Tim. Not Markham. Clive Ronan.

I stood on that Cretan hillside, disaster and ruin all around me, and knew that this was the end. One or both of us was never going to get out of this.

Looking at him, he’d been swept up in the same landslip as me. He too had that bloody and battered just fallen down a rocky hillside look about him. The good news was that he also seemed to have lost his weapon somewhere along the way. The bad news was that there was no sign of Markham. There could only be one reason why. He would never have let Ronan get away from him. Not if there was breath left in his body. My chest closed. This couldn’t be happening. Not both of them. We’d been together for so long. Shared so much. We’d picked each other up off the ground. We’d shouted and argued together. We’d got drunk together. We’d been injured together. I remembered Tim after Thermopylae, barely able to stand, writing his tribute to the Spartans on the cliff face.

And Markham, covered in lesions, bites, skin eruptions and soaking wet after Tim and I had been forced to throw him into the Nile. For his own good, of course. The thought of losing both of them . . .

I thrust those thoughts away. I couldn’t afford to think about either of them. Not just at this moment. I needed to focus. What to do next? Running away was out of the question. The ground was rough and jumbled with fallen rock and not all of my legs were working properly. I suppose I could have jumped Ronan as he picked his way towards me although given my aching bones and fuzzy vision that probably wouldn’t have gone well. He wasn’t looking too good himself but he was still streets ahead of me. We regarded each other through the smoke.

I said, ‘Not now, Clive. I’m busy.’

He ignored me. ‘Where is it?’

I blinked to try to clear my vision. ‘You’re going to have to be a lot more specific.’

He seized my arm and shook me which didn’t do my poor head a lot of good at all.

‘Where is it?’

I was bewildered. ‘Where’s what?’

He shook harder. I swear my teeth rattled.

His face was scarlet with effort and heat. And rage. I’d never seen him so out of control. Dust was stuck to his forehead and cheekbones. He looked almost unhinged. The thought crossed my mind that this was not the time to be messing with him.

I shouted at him. ‘I don’t know what you want. I don’t know why you’re here. What do you want from me?’

‘Tell me.’ He was practically screaming.

So was I because I had no idea what this was all about. ‘Tell you what?’

He was gripping my arm so tightly I could feel my hand throbbing with the lack of blood. I took a deep breath and made a huge effort to speak quietly.

‘Clive . . . Clive. What is it? What do you want?’

His grip tightened even further although actually I don’t think he was aware of it. I made up my mind I was going to lose the arm.

‘The pod, of course.’

Now I was bewildered. ‘Which pod? Yours? Mine? Which?’

He stepped back, taking his face out of mine. He let go of one arm and wiped his face, leaving streaks of Cretan dust all over it.

‘Theirs.’

I shook my head. I’d just been chased by bulls, caught in a forest fire and fallen down a hillside. I was going to need a moment. ‘Whose? What are you talking about?’

The ground rippled again and we both staggered. It was like trying to keep my balance on a trampoline when someone else was using it. I had my back to the sea, but I wasn’t imagining it. The sky was darkening. Thick grey and black clouds, lined with red, were drifting across the face of the sun. The tremors were now only moments apart.

His hot breath gusted in my face and the memory came flooding back.

Hello, little girl.

Again, I felt his breath hot on my cheek. It hadn’t just been a nasty way of frightening the living daylights out of me as I’d thought at the time. No, it had been a case of mistaken identity in the dark. He’d thought I was someone else. And now I knew who. This was what he and I had fought over in the Cretaceous. The bait we’d dangled in front of him to draw him into our trap. How stupid of me to think he would have quietly given up. This was what he’d been looking for at our remote site. When he’d mistaken me for Mikey. Who’d announced her intention of visiting the latrine. And I’d followed her into the night. And somehow, in the dark, he’d found me instead.

He was still after the teapot.

A quick word of explanation before anyone thinks I’ve sustained yet another blow to the head and lost my wits again. I’m not talking about tea-dispensing equipment. I’m talking about Adrian and Mikey – described either as those lovable scamps or those irresponsible idiots, depending on whether they were being described by us or the Time Police – who had put together a pod that somehow – and no one knew how – managed to bypass all the usual in-built safety protocols. In this pod you could jump to anywhere you liked and do whatever you liked when you got there, including stealing whatever or whoever you liked. It was – and this is the Time Police talking now, although I am inclined to agree – the most dangerous piece of equipment in the world. We’d dangled it in front of Clive Ronan as bait and he’d jumped at it and missed. And now, here he was. Back for another try.

The teapot wasn’t here on Crete but I couldn’t tell him that. We never leave St Mary’s unguarded but it was functioning on a skeleton staff at the moment. Most of us were here and the place was being manned mainly by the Kitchen and Admin crews. True, in their own ways, they were as lethal as the Security Section – if not more so – but they’d be taken unawares and I had no idea of the resources at Ronan’s disposal. Since Laurence Hoyle’s attempt to change History at Bosworth, I’d sometimes wondered, vaguely, whether there wasn’t some link, however tenuous, between Ronan, Halcombe and Hoyle’s ‘shadowy figures’. I don’t know if anyone’s ever noticed my not terribly high opinion of politicians and the government, but it really wouldn’t surprise me if, somehow, they’d all found each other. For what purpose, I had no idea, but that wasn’t important at the moment. And if there was somehow a connection between them, that could explain how Ronan knew we were here.

I said stupidly, ‘You’re after the teapot?’

‘Where is it?’

I nodded my head vaguely in the direction I supposed Mount Ida to be. ‘Up there.’

‘No, it’s not.’

I nodded, sincerity oozing from every orifice. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘And why would it be up there?’

‘Birthplace of Zeus,’ I said, making it all up as I went along. ‘They should be stripping his shrine right now. Lots of gold.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You gave that up too easily. It’s still at St Mary’s, isn’t it?’

Yes, it was. Along with Adrian, Mikey, Leon and Matthew, Professor Penrose and everyone else I held dear.

‘Yes,’ I said quickly. ‘You’re right. We didn’t bring it on this assignment because . . .’

‘Shut up.’ He stood for a moment, thinking. I took a quick look around because things weren’t getting any better anywhere else, either.

The world was full of sound and fury. The rock beneath my feet shuddered at regular intervals. Even from here I could hear the shouting and screaming in Knossos as people jammed the streets. I hoped they were evacuating. Go up, people. Climb. Get as high as you can. Dogs were barking and howling. Over to my left, the fire was spreading and the drifting smoke wasn’t helping visibility at all.

He looked over at the city. Terrace after terrace of buildings, storerooms, sanctuaries, and the palace itself, all surmounted by those massive bull’s horns.

‘It’s over there, isn’t it? Inside the palace.’

I suppose one of the shortcomings of being a villain is that you assume everyone thinks the same as you. Because that’s where he’d be, helping himself to any treasure he found lying around, he’d assumed that’s where we’d be, too.

I bit my lip and said nothing, giving, I hoped, a masterful impression of an historian with something to hide. All the time I was thinking about how to get out of this. How to look for Peterson. And find Markham, about whom I had the gravest concerns. How to get them out of this and up to safer, higher ground. If they were still alive. Of course they were still alive. They both had too much to live for. Markham with his unborn child – and any year now, Peterson would get around to initiating some sort of relationship with Lingoss.

Ronan was staring over my shoulder. Turning, I could see distant black smoke boiling up into the heavens, lit underneath by that sinister, ever-growing red glow. Thera was seventy miles away and I was certain I could hear the rumbles. Feel the continual tremors. Between Ronan and the volcano, I really couldn’t see how I was going to get out of this.

I had to raise my voice to be heard. ‘Clive, you should get out of here. You know as well as I do that Thera is about to blow. Get out while you still can.’

He shook me again, shouting, ‘I’ll ask you one last time. If you won’t answer then there’s no point in me keeping you alive.’

I was staring at him, trying to think of something – anything – that would keep him away from St Mary’s, when there was a sudden and familiar wind in my face. My hair streamed out behind me. But it couldn’t be. This was impossible. Obviously, the day had got away from me and I’d finally gone mad. I wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised. Everyone always said it was bound to happen one day.

He screamed over the noise. ‘Where is it? Tell me!’

Truly, the god of historians was on form today. And yes, I know Peterson and Markham were missing and Thera was about to disappear beneath the waves and Crete would be overthrown by fire, flood and invasion, but sometimes a benevolent Universe sends you the perfect moment.

I grinned at him. ‘It’s behind you.’

36

It bloody was, too. I wasn’t mucking about. There it stood. Just what you expect to see in Bronze Age Crete right in the middle of an epoch-ending earthquake – a twelve-foot-high teapot. Happens all the time.

Incredibly, Ronan believed me. He spun around, dropping me. I fell to the ground and frankly was quite pleased to stay there because events were getting further away from me every minute.

For anyone who wonders why Mikey and Adrian’s pod is called the teapot, it’s because that’s just what it looks like. It’s a precarious-looking, top-heavy structure, bulbously teapot-like in appearance. An extrusion on one side looks like a spout and a corresponding extrusion on the other side resembles the handle. Its khaki and brown paintwork was dented and blistered – where it hadn’t been scraped off altogether. A hand-painted Union Jack adorned the side.

Ronan stood and stared. I don’t know if he’d never actually seen it before and its appearance had come as a surprise to him, or whether he was just gobsmacked at it turning up like this. As was I. What the bloody hell was going on?

The teapot sat there. Nothing happened – it just sat there. I crawled to a comfortable-looking rock and pulled myself on to it. I needed to conserve my strength for whatever fresh disaster was about to occur.

The hatch slowly opened. Normally, either Mikey and/or Adrian’s heads would pop out, rather in the manner of a couple of surprised meerkats, and there would be cheery greetings and a great deal of unfocused enthusiasm. Not this time, however. Dr Bairstow looked down at me but his gun was pointed at Ronan.

‘Good afternoon, Dr Maxwell.’

So here we had it. A full set of catastrophes. Peterson MIA. Markham MIA. Ronan sadly not MIA. Earthquakes. Bulls. Volcano. Fire. To say nothing of the most dangerous piece of equipment in the world right here in front of me. Exactly where it shouldn’t be. Together with a boss I no longer trusted to do the right thing. I felt quite light-headed. It’s quite liberating to know there really isn’t anything else that could possibly go wrong.

Too taken aback even to speak, I raised a hand in polite acknowledgement and waited with considerable interest to see what would happen next.

‘They did warn me,’ said Dr Bairstow, wiping his mouth with a spotless handkerchief. ‘But it would seem they didn’t tell me the half of it.’

I nodded. I’d made any number of jumps in that teapot and the best you can say is that it’s rough. Gut-churningly, bone-shakingly rough.

Dr Bairstow swept on. ‘Good afternoon, Clive. How are you these days? Do step back, there’s a good fellow.’

Good to see Ronan was as completely gobsmacked as me. Stubborn as always, he stood his ground, but he really should have heeded Dr Bairstow’s advice. I, on the other hand, was very familiar with the usual method of entering and exiting this pod and was already moving out of range as the heavy wooden ladder thudded to the ground. Clive Ronan had to skip sideways out of the way pretty sharpish and while he was doing that, Dr Bairstow took the opportunity to throw his gun down to me.

I caught it neatly – although I nearly didn’t – and by the time Ronan had found his footing again, he was peering down the wrong end of Dr Bairstow’s long-barrelled gun – or cannon, as it was sometimes described. The one he usually kept in his top drawer. For those days when the Parish Council were being more than normally difficult, I suppose.

Slowly and painfully, Dr Bairstow made his way down the ladder, eventually arriving at the bottom.

‘Goodness me,’ he said, dusting himself down. ‘What a very inconvenient method of egress. Of course, I suppose if you have two working legs, then it doesn’t represent too much of a challenge but sadly, those days are done for me. Well, you’d know about that, wouldn’t you, Clive? It’s very hot, isn’t it? Please excuse me while I mop my brow.’

He took out his spotless handkerchief again and mopped his brow. I felt even dirtier and sweatier than ever.

I had mixed feelings about this arrival. Yes, it was good that Ronan was no longer about to brain me with a rock, but at the same time, it was very, very bad that Dr Bairstow was here. And with the teapot. In fact, this was a catastrophe. I’d been fine. There was no need for him to be here. I had the situation under complete control – Clive Ronan and the teapot had been separated by several thousand miles and several thousand years. There hadn’t been a problem. And now there was. Why? Why would Dr Bairstow be so . . . unwise . . . as to be jumping around in a pod that, officially, no longer existed?

The answer came before I’d finished asking myself the question.

Bait. He was using the teapot as bait. And me as well. I’d been bait. And possibly Peterson and Markham. He’d used us all. And worse – he’d never said a word to any of us. We’d all marched blindly into this situation, completely unprepared. Defenceless. To be used as cannon-fodder in his determination to take down Clive Ronan. None of us were going to come out of this alive. The pair of them were on a course of mutually assured destruction. They were going to wipe each other out and take us with them. If the tidal wave didn’t get us all first, of course. Have I ever mentioned the benefits of an office job?

Carefully keeping his distance from both of us, Ronan was staring at the teapot. ‘Why are you here, Edward?’

‘To extricate my people from the difficulties in which they appear to find themselves.’

I don’t know why he thought he was assisting me. I had a massive gun. I wasn’t having any difficulties at all.

‘I mean – why have you brought . . . that?’ He gestured to Mikey and Adrian’s beloved teapot.

‘This? Needs must, I’m afraid. All our pods are already here.’

No, they weren’t. Numbers Two and TB2 were both back at St Mary’s, ready for instant use. And in the unlikely event of us ever running out of pods, there was always Leon’s tucked away in the paint store. He was lying again.

Ronan was eyeing the teapot. ‘This really is very kind of you, Edward. Both of you together in one neat package. And the indescribably irritating Dr Maxwell, too. And her two colleagues are out of the picture, as well – permanently, one can only hope. This is really turning out to be a very fortunate day for me.’

‘I’ve only come for my people, Clive. Do not get in my way or I will shoot you. Dr Maxwell, make your way into the pod, please.’

‘Markham and Peterson are missing.’

‘Not important at this very moment,’ he said, and as if to contradict him, a really strong tremor shifted the rock beneath me. That was a big one. Loose stuff clattered down the hill again and the teapot shifted slightly. I had been about to make a joke about it being as unbalanced as its owners but Dr Bairstow’s habit of sacrificing his employees to the greater good was beginning to annoy me.

‘Dr Maxwell, over here, if you please. Time is short.’

Easier said than done. The ground was trembling almost continually. I couldn’t guarantee my footing. And Ronan stood between us. He’d be waiting for an opportunity. Why give him the chance?

I hesitated. Smoke drifted past, stinging my eyes. Whether from Knossos or from the wooded area behind me, I didn’t know. I only knew Peterson and Markham were here somewhere and I had to find them.

I turned to face Dr Bairstow. ‘Put up your hands, please.’

He stared at me. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Step back, please, Dr Bairstow. Away from the pod.’ I gestured with the gun.

He moved a reluctant step.

‘And another, please.’

I turned to Ronan. ‘Take it. Take the pod and go.’

Dr Bairstow wheeled on me and nearly lost his balance. ‘Are you insane?’

‘Yes. Probably. There’s nothing we can do.’ I let contempt bleed into my voice. ‘We’re not allowed to kill him. Let him kill himself in that thing. Or the Time Police will catch him eventually. Let him become someone else’s problem. I’ve more important fish to fry at the moment.’

I gestured to Ronan. ‘Go. Up the ladder. Pull the hatch down after you. Get out of my sight. If you’re still here in five seconds, I will shoot you.’

Ronan looked at me. ‘Sensible.’

I shrugged. ‘Just piss off out of it, Clive. I’m bored with you.’

He flushed with rage. Good.

I gestured with the gun. ‘Four.’

‘Dr Maxwell, I order you to surrender your gun.’

Ronan put his foot on the first rung of the ladder. ‘Turned on you at last, have they, Giles?’

Dr Bairstow’s voice was icy. ‘It’s Edward, Clive, as you well know.’

‘Well, that’s so typical of you, isn’t it, Edward? Discard the name and discard the guilt. I knew they’d find you out one day. Has your ability to sacrifice friend and foe alike finally opened their eyes? How many has it been over the years? Since the day you killed Annie, those around you have just dropped like flies, haven’t they?’

‘You don’t ever get to speak her name, Ronan.’

I jumped at his tone. I’d never heard him use that voice before. Not even in his more exasperated moments.

‘Cut the moral crap, Edward. I’m doing this for her. So she can live again.’

Dr Bairstow gestured. ‘All this? Everything you’ve done over the years? All the destruction you’ve wreaked? The lives you’ve ended? You’ve done it all for Annie?’ His voice dripped contempt. ‘I don’t think so, Clive.’

‘She was the reason. She’s always been the reason.’

‘She was the excuse.’

‘I can save her. With this pod I can save her. I will save her. She can live again.’

Shit. I knew suddenly why this pod was so important to him. He was planning to use it to rescue Annie and that would bring down disaster upon us all.

A long time ago in the future, Ronan, Annie Bessant and Edward Bairstow were the dream team. And then there’d been a falling-out when Annie became sick. Ronan had shot his former friend, Edward Bairstow, and left him for dead while he and Annie jumped away. He shouldn’t have done it. He’d taken her back to St Mary’s for treatment – in direct contravention of the rules – and when they discovered what he’d done, they’d tried to arrest him. He’d made a desperate effort to escape, grabbing a still sick Annie and trying to fight his way to a pod.

She’d died in the crossfire and he’d escaped. Alone. And now, it seemed, he had a plan to rescue her before she died. Up until this moment that hadn’t been possible because he was already there. It’s an inviolate rule. You can’t be in the same time twice. Now, partly thanks to Dr Bairstow and partly thanks to me, he could. He had a pod that could bypass all the safety protocols. And, probably, destroy the universe in the attempt. We were in trouble. So much trouble.

Dr Bairstow’s voice cracked. ‘You have to face it, Clive. She’s dead. Dead and gone.’

If I hadn’t seen Ronan speaking, I wouldn’t have recognised his voice. ‘No, she’s not. I won’t let it happen. I won’t let them kill her.’

‘She’s dead, Clive. She died in Hawking. In the crossfire.’

They were shouting at each other.

‘She didn’t just die. You bastards killed her. She wanted to be with me and they killed her because of it. They deliberately killed my Annie.’ He was beside himself. Shaking with rage and emotion. Very nearly as unstable as the volcano behind me.

Dr Bairstow wasn’t much better. I could see the effort it took for him to regain self-control. Taking a deep breath, he spoke very quietly. ‘No, they didn’t. No one deliberately killed Annie. It was your own sick, obsessive behaviour that dragged her from Sick Bay. If you’d left her there, she’d have been safe. You killed her, Clive. She was caught in the crossfire of your escape attempt.’

‘They should have just let her go. If they’d just let her come with me . . . She wanted to be with me.’ His voice broke.

I was suddenly aware of how quiet everything was. At this moment, the earth was still. The air was still. Was this the calm before the storm? I wondered if I should mention the volcano. You know – just a casual reminder. I wasn’t given the chance. I think they’d forgotten I was here. They’d forgotten everything except each other. Long buried emotions came boiling to the surface as they confronted each other at last.

Dr Bairstow’s words scythed through the thick atmosphere like a pendulum slicing time. ‘I said you killed her, Clive, and it’s the truth. It was your bullet. In all that hail of gunfire, in your frantic scramble to get away, Clive, accidentally or otherwise, you were the one who killed Annie. Your bullet. Do you hear me? You killed Annie Bessant. No one else. Annie died because of you.’

The blood poured into Ronan’s face. His eyes bulged. A big blue vein throbbed in his temple. His cheeks turned purple. I honestly thought he was about to burst a blood vessel. Or perhaps even have a stroke. And then it all drained away, leaving him white and hard and vicious. ‘You’re lying. It was them. They – you – killed her. You killed Annie.’ His voice was rising. The emotion in the air was thicker than the lava about to engulf Thera while they stood on the brink of catastrophe, shouting at each other.

I thought, shit – he’s going to do something stupid – and I wasn’t sure which one of them I meant. I had to do something.

It was so tempting just to let Ronan go. To tell him to take the pod and piss off forever. I could find Markham and Peterson and get them, together with Dr Bairstow, to the safety of higher ground and wait for St Mary’s to rescue us. After all, wasn’t that what Dr Bairstow had originally intended? That’s why he’d said he was here.

Unless, in his own way, he was as insane as Ronan. Consider his recent behaviour: interfering with History. Abandoning me to die. Breaking every rule in the book. About which I still felt justly aggrieved because breaking the rules was my job.

I honestly had no idea what to do for the best. Letting Ronan go would solve the immediate problem, but what greater crisis would that precipitate? If there were two of him in the same time . . .

Or I could shoot him – that also would solve the immediate problem – but ditto with the greater crisis. If there were still actions he had yet to perform . . .

I stood upon a knife edge of indecision. These events were beyond me and I no longer trusted Edward Bairstow to do the right thing. I took a deep breath of smoky air and invoked the first rule. Always deal with the now.

‘Stop talking, both of you.’ I gestured at Ronan. ‘You – get into the pod and piss off forever.’ I gestured at Dr Bairstow. ‘You – step back out of his way and shut up.’

I’m not sure he heard me. ‘Give me back my gun, Dr Maxwell.’

I shook my head. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘In order that events may take their designated course.’

I stopped. What designated course? Was Ronan about to die? Or Dr Bairstow himself? Or most likely of all – were they both about to kill each other?

He said very quietly – I don’t think Ronan would have heard – ‘It is very important that you attempt to give me my gun, right now.’

There was something in his voice. I had no idea what was going on and I was almost too hot to think straight. I should give him back his gun and let him sort it out. I took a cautious step towards him. The ground was covered in loose rocks and shale. Stumbling now would not be a good idea. Slowly, carefully, never taking my eyes from Ronan, I held out the gun to Dr Bairstow – and at the same moment, seventy miles away, without any preamble – the volcano exploded.

The shockwave came fractionally ahead of the sound. I felt it in my chest. As if someone had given me a hard push. I staggered. We all did. The heavy gun slid from my sweaty hand. At the same time an almighty crack seemed to explode inside my head and hurt my ears, all the way down to my jaw.

The sky turned orange. The glow on the horizon exploded and expanded until all the sky was molten red and orange with a white-hot glowing core that seared my eyes. I looked away before I went blind. Purple and green after-images danced in front of my eyes. There was something. Something important.

The gun.

We all lunged for it. Ronan, who must have been waiting for the opportunity, got there first. He threw himself at the gun, rolled and fired. But not at me. Dr Bairstow fell backwards out of my view.

On the horizon, massive volcanic plumes split the sky. An immense pillar of white fire stabbed the heavens. For all the world like a giant Roman candle on Bonfire Night. The force was astonishing. And the height. Both were beyond anything I’d ever seen. As if a gigantic ancient god had opened his mouth wide and was spewing forth red hot rocks and lava to cover the earth.

I saw Dr Bairstow on the ground. Ronan, on his knees, raised his arm for the kill shot – and somehow, this made my decision for me. Suddenly it was easy. I couldn’t let Ronan go. I mustn’t let him go. Whatever had happened to Tim and Markham – this was more important. Whatever Edward Bairstow had or hadn’t done was not my business. My priority was to prevent Ronan from carrying out his crazy scheme to rescue Annie because that would endanger everything. And by that, I did mean everything. In reverse order of importance – me, St Mary’s – present and future – History, Leon and Matthew. Everything. This had to be stopped. And it had to be me. There wasn’t anyone else. I had to do my duty. Oh God, I was turning into Miss North.

I threw myself at him as another tremor hit us. For once it worked in my favour, driving me hard into him. Ronan went down. I went down. It hurt. There are no soft rocks on Crete.

He kicked out at my head and for a moment all I saw was red flashes – although that might have been the volcano – and all the time, in my head, I was cursing Dr Bairstow for having brought Ronan the very thing he wanted and the very thing he shouldn’t have.

By the time I could focus properly again he was trying to get himself up the ladder. He hung on one-handed and turned back to Dr Bairstow for another attempt at the final shot.

For a moment we were frozen together. Just the three of us. And then Dr Bairstow, white with shock and blood loss, lifted his head. ‘For God’s sake, Maxwell, get off your arse and sort this out.’

When Dr Bairstow uses that tone, you don’t hang around. I grabbed the ladder and tried to yank it away but it was too heavy and Ronan’s weight made it heavier. My effort did, however, unbalance him sufficiently for him to abandon his attempt to kill Dr Bairstow and concentrate on getting himself into the pod instead.

I followed him up the ladder, grabbing at his ankles. I think I planned to yank his feet off the rungs. A fall of six or eight feet on to sharp Cretan rocks – again, there are no other sort – wouldn’t do him any good at all.

It didn’t work. He was hanging on for dear life. He kicked back, missing my head by a fraction of an inch, and I had to let go. He climbed another two or three rungs and then he was at the hatch, which Dr Bairstow had, unaccountably, left open.

I went up after him. I had no idea how to stop him. I just knew that I must. I closed the distance as he was wrestling with the hatch, trying to pull it shut, and suddenly it was coming down and I was in the way. I saw it coming and did the only thing I could. It was too late to go back. I could only go forwards. I hurled myself headfirst into the teapot. Sadly, one arm didn’t quite make it in time.

Hot red pain exploded all the way up to my shoulder.

I dangled for a moment and then my own weight pulled me free and I crashed down on to the floor, bringing Ronan down with me. That bloody hurt as well. I was really losing my enthusiasm for today. I heard the gun skid away somewhere out of sight.

Ronan was able to pull himself to his feet before me. By the time I’d got myself into a sitting position, he was staring at the console.

I didn’t blame him. For a start, the interior of the pod was lit with a lurid blue glow that always makes the occupants look as though they’ve been recently embalmed. And he was obviously completely unfamiliar with the toxic health hazard that is the average teenager’s bedroom. The console was littered with drinks containers, dirty paper plates, odd scraps of scribbled paper, a paperback with its spine bent back and a half-eaten sandwich that I swear had been there since the last time I climbed into this pod. Somewhere underneath all that were the controls. He swept his arm across the console and the whole lot tumbled to the floor.

I thought I had him now. He’d have to take a moment to study the panel. He would have to calculate his coordinates. No one can just leap into a strange pod and immediately expect to drive the thing off the forecourt.

The pod rocked from side to side. They must be having some serious tremors out there. No time to think about that now. Or Markham. Or Peterson. Or even Dr Bairstow. I was trapped in the teapot with a madman who was about to do something incredibly stupid and even more incredibly dangerous and I was the only person who could stop him.

Ronan was still studying the console. I didn’t waste time trying to get up. I rolled over and tried to pull his legs out from underneath him. I was only partly successful. He staggered but stayed on his feet.

The pod tilted again and I heard the gun skid somewhere else. I had to find it. I had to stop him. Before he killed us all.

The pod tilted again and down he crashed. Now we were both on the floor. And there was the gun. Under the console. I lunged and so did he.

I was shouting, ‘Clive. Clive. For God’s sake. Let it go. You can’t go back to Annie. You’re there already. You can’t take the risk. Let it go.’

The pod tilted back the other way. The gun skidded again.

He was screaming with rage and coming at me with knees, fists, teeth, panting, his breath hot in my face. ‘No. No. I’ve spent years working this out. I can do it.’

‘No, you can’t. No one can.’ Our faces were only inches apart. I made a huge effort to speak calmly and quietly. ‘Please, Clive, your younger self is already there. I beg you – for God’s sake, for everyone’s sake – let it go.’

He rolled away from me and pulled himself to his feet. Bending down, he seized a handful of my poor, mistreated blouse and hauled me up. ‘You underestimate me. I have the exact moment . . . that split second . . . I can do this. I can jump—’

It always amazes me that people wait politely for their opponent to finish making their threats before kneeing them in the balls.

It wasn’t as successful as I would have hoped. We were both a little off-balance. I hurt my knee but I hurt him more. He made a kind of ‘oof’ noise and let me go. I dropped to the floor and rolled under the console. Partly to get out of the way because he wasn’t going to be in the best mood, and partly to find the gun.

Sod the bloody Time Police and their ‘let him get on with his life to avoid disrupting the timeline’ attitude. This was all their fault. Because if he did this – if he jumped back to try to prevent Annie dying – then he’d do more than disrupt the timeline – he’d destroy it. St Mary’s and the Time Police agree on only one thing: you can’t be in the same time twice. You just can’t. And that was exactly what he was about to do.

The gun was here. It had to be. I was certain I’d seen it skid under the console. I groped frantically. I could hear Ronan moving around. It was here somewhere. Where the bloody hell had it gone? I was scrabbling around in God knows what. You would not believe the crap under here. Where was it? I had to find it before we jumped.

I heard him at the console. Should I abandon the gun and tackle him instead? No, he was far stronger than me. I needed that gun. The gun was the only way to stop him. Before he brought ruin down upon us all. It was here somewhere. Somewhere under all the odd socks, discarded clothing, books, papers, plates, drinks containers. It was here. Find the gun, Maxwell. Find the bloody gun.

My mind was racing. How long to lay in coordinates? He wouldn’t have to waste time with calculations. I was betting they were seared into his brain. I was panicking. Why couldn’t I find this bloody gun?

Stop. Stop. Take one second to slow down. You know it’s here. Be methodical. Take one second to slow down.

I did. I breathed in and then I breathed out. Then, ignoring the hot pain in my arm, I moved both hands in small circular movements, methodically covering the area.

Success. I found it almost immediately, under a plate smeared with what I could only hope was very old tomato sauce. I grabbed it, wriggled backwards out from under the console and, still on my back, I raised the gun, tried to ignore the really sick-making pain in my forearm and fired.

The shot sounded enormously loud in this small space.

I caught him high in the shoulder. The impact jerked him backwards and swung him around. He fell across the console. For a moment he sprawled and then, with a shout of triumph, he reached across. He’d found what he was looking for. The ignition, as Adrian and Mikey called it. Clenching his fist, he hit it with a thump.

The whole pod began to vibrate. There was an ear-splitting whine escalating to a scream – although that might have been me.

Typically, I’d achieved the very thing I’d been trying to prevent.

There was the familiar lurch. My stomach fell away. Everything flickered.

And the world went purple.

37

Until I’d actually had to make a series of jumps in this pod, I’d had no idea how rough time travel could be. How cushioned we were in our really rather luxurious pods. Safety protocols hadn’t been the only thing Mikey and Adrian hadn’t bothered with. Comfort was obviously not a word in their dictionary, either. I felt the familiar urge to bring up my lunch, together with the even more familiar too weak to do anything about it sensation. Not a good combination.

The only good thing was that it had affected Ronan the same way. I’d been expecting a rough jump. He hadn’t. He was sprawled all over the console with that strange, inward look of someone struggling to keep his insides inside.

Believe it or not, the best and quickest cure is cheese. At this point, Adrian or Mikey would usually hand me a sweaty lump of yellow stuff, I’d munch away, and slowly my insides would resume their proper form and function. I didn’t have any cheese on me at the moment, and neither, I was fairly certain, would Ronan.

Wherever and whenever we were – we landed hard. Very hard indeed. Already on the floor, I bounced. I lay for a while, fighting nausea and disorientation, and then I remembered where and when we’d probably landed and decided I’d better get up and do something about it. People tell me off because apparently I don’t always stop to think, but sometimes there’s just no time. Reflexes kick in. If we were where and when I thought we were . . . then we almost certainly had two Clive Ronans in the same place. One in here and one out there. I’d been too late to prevent the jump but perhaps I could minimise the damage . . .

I lifted the gun to fire again.

He pushed himself off the console and faced me. Blood was staining his tunic, running down his arm and dripping off his fingers. I could hear the individual drops splat on to the floor. His teeth were bared. Whether in pain or in triumph, I had no idea.

We looked at each other. This was the end. For one or both of us – this was the end. Time telescoped . . . the moment hung endlessly . . . I sighted down the gun, my damaged arm trembling with the strain . . . and then . . . something was . . . wrong . . .

I stared at him. It was his eyes. Something was horribly wrong with his eyes. His left pupil slowly expanded until it was enormous. It filled his iris. At the same time, his right pupil shrank to invisibility. The tiniest pinpoint. It was beyond unsettling. It was terrifying. He reached out hands for me.

Instinct told me to get as far away from him as possible. Still clutching the gun, I scrabbled backwards across the floor until I was hard up against one of the bunks. I don’t know for certain but I think he was blind. I wondered if he was in pain, but when I thought about it afterwards, I don’t think he was feeling anything at all. I think he was already dead.

His right leg jerked so violently he nearly lost his balance. Then his left. At the same time his arms made a series of uncoordinated spasms that weren’t related either to each other or his legs. It was as if every part of his body was operating independently. And wrongly. Like a badly articulated puppet. A puppet with tangled strings.

He jerked his way around the pod, one limb at a time. There was no control. No coordination. I wondered if he’d had some sort of neural event and then I suddenly realised – the smartdust. The stuff the Time Police had implanted in his brain that would detonate at the correct time and kill him. ‘People will think he’s had a stroke,’ they’d said.

This didn’t look to me like any sort of stroke. This was a nightmare. A vision from hell. I couldn’t believe this was how he was supposed to end. Typical bloody Time Police. Even their smartdust hadn’t worked properly.

The pod was suddenly filled with the smell of faeces and urine. A dark patch appeared on his tunic. At the same time, in a high, hideous, off-key voice, he began to sing. The melody – if you could call it that – was familiar but not familiar. I couldn’t make it out to begin with and then I had it. The children’s favourite.

‘All things bright and beautiful.’

The hairs on my arms rose up. The skin tightened on the back of my neck. I was trapped in this small space with this . . . this . . . I’m not sure, at that point, what he was. Whatever had made him Clive Ronan had, I think, departed. And then he fell over me.

I can’t describe the revulsion of having him sprawl across me. He felt heavy. Heavier than expected. I couldn’t get out from under him. His hands were cold and wet and flopped about like dying fish. One rested on my face. The other entangled itself in my hair. His breath stank of something that had turned rancid a long time ago, and gusted into my face. This close, the whites of his eyes were shot through with broken veins. Even as I looked another starburst of red appeared. His hands pawed at me. I don’t think he was aware of what he was doing. Or of his surroundings. I don’t think his brain was working. Not the higher functions anyway. He began to grunt.

I struggled, panic gnawing at the edges of my thoughts.

One of his jerking arms knocked the gun out of my hand. It fell next to him and I think his hand closed automatically. And now he had the gun.

I found some strength, pushed him off me in revulsion and scrambled to my feet. Every bit of me wanted out of that pod but I couldn’t. I didn’t know whether keeping Ronan here, with the hatch shut, actually prevented him contaminating the outside world with his other presence, but it was a straw I was prepared to clutch at. At the moment I’d clutch at anything. So the hatch would stay shut.

The first shot ricocheted around the pod. I saw sparks as it caromed around the walls. Shit. I rolled back under the console again and then peered out. I had to get the gun off him before he did some serious damage. Either to the pod or to me.

He was jerking his way around the pod, still singing – if you could call it that – knees pumping high, arms swinging, eyes operating independently of one another. Blood ran from his ears.

‘All things wise and wonderful.’

His high-pitched, almost child-like voice was setting my teeth on edge.

The gun went off again. The shot embedded itself in one of the bunks. I don’t think he was deliberately firing, I think his muscle contractions were setting the gun off – and of course, he had no idea what he was doing or the danger of doing it in here.

The smell of cordite was very strong in this tiny space. And all the time he was juddering and shuddering around the pod, his arms thrashing wildly at the empty air. There was no way I could get close enough to him to get the gun off him.

For how long would he be like this? This shell – this jerking, malfunctioning puppet thing – was only a former human being . . . How long could he last? His convulsions were becoming more and more violent. The gun went off again. Again, the bullet sang around the walls.

I pushed myself further back under the console.

He stopped suddenly. His head rolled around on his shoulders. As if he didn’t have the strength to support it any longer. He giggled horribly and didn’t seem able to stop. Bloody mucus ran from his nose. His giggles rose higher and higher until he was squeaking with laughter.

The Time Police had told me the smartdust would explode. It didn’t. Yet another thing they got completely wrong. It imploded. His head imploded. A crater appeared over his right temple, spreading outwards. He stood still, arms hanging loosely at his sides, like an ape. Then his eye socket collapsed. His eyeball fell on to his cheek. His body began to shudder. He dropped the gun.

His cheekbone sagged – as if his face had gone soft. The corner of his mouth drooped. Now the whole right side of his face was just . . . hanging there . . . like an empty sack, as if only the skin was holding it together. He must have been in agony. If he was capable of feeling pain.

It was horrible. The gun was right in front of me. Without taking my eyes off him, and holding my breath because I didn’t want to do anything to make him notice me, I very slowly reached out and gathered it in.

The terrible convulsions still had him in their grip. So violent were they that at one point, I think he’d dislocated his shoulder. This was inhumane. No one should have to endure this, no matter what they’d done in the past. I swallowed, found my voice, and because these were his last moments, I said, ‘I’m sorry, Clive. If I’d had my way, you’d have gone quickly and cleanly in the Cretaceous,’ and aimed the gun.

I hadn’t noticed we were on fire. For which I think I might be forgiven. One of his bullets must have done some damage somewhere. Flames were licking around his right leg. He didn’t seem to notice. I could smell burning flesh. With a small roar, flames ran across the floor. In a moment the blankets on the bunks would be alight and I needed the bunks to climb out through the hatch.

I said again, ‘I’m sorry,’ and tightened my finger on the trigger.

I never had to fire. At exactly that moment, his head jerked back and his whole body stiffened in one final, brutal convulsion. I heard a spine crack. When he crashed to the floor, he was dead.

Finally, completely and utterly dead. Trust me – I checked.

38

The first thing I did was the second most important thing. I tripped the power switch. There was a gurgling noise and everything went dark. This was Adrian and Mikey’s pod. Of course, they didn’t have emergency lighting. Why would they? Or fire extinguishers. Or a spare ladder.

The second thing I did was the third most important. I pulled the blankets off the bunks, threw them on the flames and stamped until the flames died away. When the fire was out, I crossed my fingers and flipped the switch back up again. There were a couple of clunks – giving me a very nasty moment – and then everything hummed back into life. This pod was a great deal more robust than it looked.

The third thing I did was the most important. Still coughing from the smoke and smell, I found a pen rammed into an old coffee mug. Miraculously, it worked. I ripped a piece of paper off the crowded wall – Adrian called them mood boards, everyone else called it litter – and, eyes streaming, flicked back through the coordinates until I found the ones I wanted.

We have a kind of shorthand for writing coordinates. There are certain combinations that can be represented by a symbol. Two long sets of numbers and letters can take a long time to write and so sometimes we take shortcuts. Not today. I made myself ignore the smoke and the coughing and the runny nose and meticulously copied every last figure. And I did it properly. I didn’t want anyone confusing a g with a 9. Or an s with a 5. Or an o with a 0. Or a 1 with a 7, or any of the other many things that could go wrong. When I’d finished, I checked every single digit. I read them aloud, comparing them to the read-out on the console. Then I tucked the piece of paper away. Very, very carefully.

I left the gun behind. If I was where and when I thought I was, I couldn’t see it doing me the slightest bit of good. And besides, it belonged to Dr Bairstow.

I climbed up the bunks, fumbled for the hatch and somehow got it open. A small cloud of black smoke exited with me. It occurred to me I’m not really what you’d call an ideal house guest.

I called, ‘My name is Maxwell and I’m coming out. I’m unarmed.’ Very slowly and cautiously, I stuck my head out of the hatch.

I’ve never seen so many guns and I speak as someone who’s enjoyed more than her fair share of winding up the Time Police. On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling if they hadn’t grown accustomed to battered and bloodstained historians falling out of their pods then they just weren’t doing their job properly.

As I suspected, I was at St Mary’s – in Hawking Hangar, but not my Hawking – this was a future Hawking Hangar.

I wasn’t much in a sightseeing mood but there were things I couldn’t help noticing. This one was a different shape, constructed of different materials and with far fewer pods. I suppose some of them could be out but there were fewer plinths as well.

The basics were the same. Such pods as they had were parked in the familiar formation along the walls. Everything was very tidy. There were no trailing umbilicals. All the electrics were neatly stowed away. There was better lighting. The place seemed perfectly clean but there was . . . I don’t know . . . an air about it. I don’t want to be unkind, but ‘sterile’ was the word I would have used. I like a bit of St Mary’s clutter. Leon’s Hawking is crowded, but sharp and crisp – things happen in it – but this one . . . Of course, that might be because something awful had just finished happening here.

My second impression was that I’d been right. Something terrible had happened here. I could smell cordite and the burned-paper smell of blaster fire. People lay dead. I could see three . . . no, four blanket-covered bodies lying around. If I listened, I was sure I’d be able to hear the dying echoes of gunfire.

Over to my right, lights strobing over an empty plinth denoted a recently departed pod. No prizes for guessing who that had been. My stomach clenched. Clive Ronan had got his calculation fractionally wrong. His younger self had jumped at literally the same moment his older self had landed. Had there been just the tiniest fraction of an overlap? Was that why he’d imploded? Or was it that his time was up and his smartdust had gone off? I’d probably never know. And actually, did I care? Because whatever had happened, the main crisis was over with.

That thought was short-lived. Every gun in the place was pointed at me and no one looked very friendly.

At the base of the flashing plinth, a young woman in a hospital gown red with blood lay on her back staring up at the roof. Her arms were outflung. A medic knelt beside her, quietly putting away his equipment. She was dead. There were long bloodstains smeared across the floor. Ronan must have tried to drag her into the pod. Had she already been dead? Dr Bairstow had said Ronan himself had killed her. By accident, he’d said. I could picture the scene. A hail of gunfire – Annie struggling to get away. Making a run for it. Ronan chasing after her, firing as he went. A careless shot, perhaps. Or a ricochet. Whichever it was, they were both dead now.

The circle was closing.

I sighed and dragged my eyes away from the remains of Annie Bessant.

I couldn’t even begin to count how many guns I was looking at. Behind me the pod was still belching out smoke. The smell was awful, although to be fair, the smell had been quite bad before.

An elderly man stepped from between the ranks. I was convinced I’d seen him before. ‘Would you come down, please?’

Actually, easier said than done. We had to wait while someone found a ladder. A little bit of an anti-climax but finally, I was at ground level, having very carefully secured the hatch behind me.

The guns looked even bigger from down here. Two people pushed past me with some sort of fire extinguishers. Because whatever this current crisis was, a pod apparently on fire and possibly about to blow up topped everything, up to and including a nuclear explosion.

I said, ‘It’s OK – the fire is out.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Certain.’

They stepped back.

The elderly man said, ‘I am the Director of this establishment.’

I nodded. Yes, he was. I had seen him before. When we and the Time Police signed the Treaty of St Mary’s.

I said politely, ‘My name is Maxwell. I am Chief Operations Officer at St Mary’s. We have met before.’

He nodded. He knew who I was. ‘Are you alone?’

Now what did I do? My instinct was to say nothing about Clive Ronan. This was their timeline. Clive Ronan was a young man who had just disappeared in a stolen pod to begin a career of murder and mayhem. I shouldn’t do anything to jeopardise that. Edward Bairstow was upstairs, seriously ill, and Leon hadn’t even been recruited yet. He was out there somewhere, going through his own personal hell. I should allow events to take their course.

I nodded. ‘Yes – just me.’

‘Why are you here?’

A good question. I needed to tread carefully. ‘May I see Ed . . . Giles, please?’

‘He has been injured. Can it wait?’

‘I’m afraid not. His life, my life, other members of St Mary’s – many lives depend on me seeing him today.’

‘Why?’

I looked him straight in the eye and said clearly, ‘I’m here to close the circle,’ and crossed my fingers that he would understand.

He looked around his hangar. He had more important things on his mind than me.

He gestured with his head. ‘You will find him in Sick Bay.’

I remembered not to take off at the speed of light. Not with all those guns pointing at me.

The Director barked something. Two people – a man and a woman – shouldered their guns and gestured for me to follow them.

I was just about to depart when he touched my arm and nodded at Annie’s now blanket-covered body. ‘He doesn’t know.’

No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t yet know that Annie was dead. That this was the darkest day of his life. I nodded my understanding.

The three of us – my two guards and me – trotted down the hangar and waited for the blast doors to release us. We took the lift because I’d done more than enough running uphill that day and now that I had time to think about it, my arm was killing me.

Their Sick Bay layout was completely different. The place had certainly been modernised many times over the years and I had no idea which way to go. They nudged me towards a plain white door on my left. Where the old isolation ward of happy memory used to be.

They waited outside, which was good of them, and I found myself in a four-bed room, blinds drawn, quiet and gently lit. Only one bed was occupied and that was the one nearest the door.

He wasn’t young. It was tempting to wonder if he ever had been, but he was about the same age as I was now. And he had hair. Not a huge amount but more than I was accustomed to seeing. It was disconcerting, somehow.

I stood at the foot of the bed and said urgently, ‘Wake up.’

He blinked himself awake. His face was grey with pain. His heavily bandaged leg was raised in a complicated cat’s cradle of pulleys and wires. The sort of thing that in the hands of Professor Rapson could have sent half of St Mary’s into another dimension. He really didn’t look at all well.

He frowned and looked at me, saying weakly, ‘Annie? What’s happening?’

I said carefully, ‘Who’s Annie?’

He blinked. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

I needed to tread very, very carefully – the wrong word at the wrong time . . .

‘You don’t know me. My name is Maxwell. I will be the bane of your life but you have a little while yet. There is something I must give you.’

‘What must you give me?’

‘The most important piece of paper of your life.’

He squinted. ‘What is it?’

‘It doesn’t matter right now.’

‘Why are you giving me this?’

‘One day you’ll need it.’

‘When?’

‘You’ll know when.’

And he would. I had no doubt he’d check them out, discover they were the coordinates for a certain Cretan hillside on a certain date and wait for the right moment. Just because effect comes before cause doesn’t mean you mustn’t close the circle. You must always close the circle.

He squinted again. ‘What does this say? Bring teapot?’ A little of the old – or should I say ‘later’ – Dr Bairstow emerged. ‘Am I expected to bring refreshments?’

‘You could bring that bloody great cannon you’ll keep in your top drawer,’ I said, ‘and at the appropriate moment, tell me for God’s sake to get off my arse and sort things out.’

I turned to go. With everything sorted here, my mind was turning back to Crete and all my people there.

At the door, I looked back. He was watching me and despite the pain, the drugs, the anxiety, his eyes held that familiar gleam of cold intelligence.

Somewhere out there is a T-rex who evolved into Dr Bairstow.

39

Ten minutes later I was back down in Hawking. The bodies had been removed and I was desperately but respectfully trying to persuade them to let me take the teapot back to Crete.

‘I don’t think you quite understand the seriousness of the situation,’ I said, attempting to be polite. ‘Thera has erupted. My people are injured, buried or missing. I don’t even know if they’re alive or dead. I have to get back.’

No reaction.

I took a deep breath and said, ‘And Clive Ronan is there.’

They looked at me but no one said, ‘Of course, you must depart immediately. How can we help?’

I tried very hard to hang on to the ragged remains of my temper.

‘That’s the same Clive Ronan you unleashed on the universe because you, Director, weren’t paying attention to employee dynamics. That man upstairs nearly died. Annie Bessant did die.’

I gestured at the spot where she fell, now just a bloodstain, and tried hard not to shout. People don’t listen if you shout.

‘Scores of people have died because you people here didn’t keep your eye on the ball. It wasn’t your unit he blew up. It wasn’t your child he stole. It wasn’t your best friend he gunned down in her own Sick Bay. One day, when you’re not sitting comfortably here at St Mary’s, you should compile a list of all the death and destruction for which you bear not a little responsibility. Now, if you’re not coming with me, then get out of my way and let me get on with saving my people.’

I tried to push past them and they weren’t having any of it, giving me all sorts of crap about how it was too dangerous because the safety protocols wouldn’t allow the teapot to get close enough to my departure time to save them, as I tried not to scream with impatience. I argued this was exactly why I had to take the teapot because it didn’t waste its time on unnecessary frivolities like safety protocols.

They said it was damaged and could blow up at any moment and they couldn’t possibly allow me to do anything so foolish.

I’m afraid, in the end, I really lost my temper. As Markham would have said, ‘There’s another century I can never go back to.’

Another ten minutes later, when things had calmed down a little, a security team of six – four men and two women – all that could be spared, apparently – piled into a medium-sized pod I didn’t recognise, although there was no reason why I should. I limped my way towards the teapot. Some courteous soul had left the shiny aluminium ladder against it. Somehow it didn’t look right.

I scrambled inside and picked my way through the detritus. I threw a singed blanket over Clive Ronan, stepped over him, sat at the console and crossed my fingers. There was an anxious moment, then a click and a hum; some of the lights flickered wildly and worryingly, and then everything settled down. I don’t know why I was worried, actually. This was Mikey and Adrian’s pod and I couldn’t imagine for one moment they’d ever been careful drivers. I suspected today was not the worst their pod had ever encountered.

I wasn’t a careful driver, either, forcing in coordinates just this side of safe. The teapot touched down lightly enough, but we must have been on a steeper slope than even the teapot could cope with because, after a moment’s wobbly indecision, the bloody thing slowly toppled over on to its side. As did I. I fell on top of Ronan and then every loose object in the pod fell on top of me.

Well – that was embarrassing. The big, brave rescuer crawled out of the hatch feeling a complete berk.

A lot had happened since I’d left. Great clouds of thick black and yellow smoke were drifting southwards from Thera, lit up by the same blood-red sky. In the other direction, far to the south, I could just make out a tiny sliver of blue sky. It was strange to think that elsewhere the sun still shone and it was a lovely day. Although, for this part of the world, not for much longer. The equivalent of a nuclear winter was about to fall.

Lesser clouds of smoke rose from the fires around me and up in Knossos as well. Today was a public holiday. There would have been cooking fires everywhere. I could imagine braziers being overturned, oil spilled, dry foliage exploding into flames. I craned my neck to see if I could actually see flames licking the palace walls. Not a problem – if they couldn’t put it out by themselves then a giant tsunami would soon do it for them.

Northwards, the volcano was really getting going. Every now and then, brilliant, glowing orange specks that were probably massive pieces of molten rock were being hurled heavenwards, cartwheeling slowly across the sky to land God knows where. At seventy miles away, the people on Crete must have thought themselves safe enough. And they were right. It wasn’t the eruption itself that would finish them, but the explosion as the volcano collapsed, initiating the mega tsunami that would devastate the whole island.

The rescue team from St Mary’s had arrived slightly ahead of me and Dr Bairstow was already receiving treatment. Two of their medics bent over him, ripping open field dressings and trying to get him to lie still. Their leader looked down at him then across to me and raised his eyebrows. I shrugged. ‘This is Dr Bairstow – Director of St Mary’s.’

Dr Bairstow looked up at me. ‘Report.’ It was more of a whisper than a bark.

‘Dead.’

He’s a big fan of brevity.

He nodded. I could see the news came as no surprise to him. It was the confirmation of Ronan’s death he’d been seeking.

‘Peterson? Markham?’

‘Searching for them now,’ I said, turning away.

‘Wait.’

I turned back.

‘Should I not survive, I nominate Dr Peterson as my successor.’

I nodded.

He grasped my sleeve. ‘And look after Markham.’

He let his head fall back and closed his eyes, which I think was a relief to everyone. Two minutes later they had him in their pod.

Awkward and obstructive this particular version of St Mary’s might be, but they were very well organised. And their equivalent of tag readers and proximity meters were considerably more effective than ours. They organised themselves into a line and began to move uphill, consulting their instruments as they went and methodically covering every inch which, yes, I know, was so much more efficient than me just ripping at the rocks with my bare hands, but I kept imagining Peterson lying beneath my feet, crushed, suffocating, dying as I stood around doing nothing.

Some of my impatience must have conveyed itself to them. ‘We’ll find him,’ said the team leader to me, watching his team. Whether Peterson would be alive or not he hadn’t gone on to say.

And find him they did. Up near the top of the slope. I was convinced this would be good. It meant he hadn’t fallen very far. He wouldn’t be seriously injured. I struggled up the hill. It wasn’t steep but the surface was perilous and for every two steps forward I slipped back one, eventually arriving breathless, hot, dusty and nearly frantic.

He was scrunched in a heap between two boulders. Battered but conscious. The rocks had protected him to some extent.

‘What ho,’ he said weakly as we carefully lifted half of Crete off him. ‘Everything OK, Max?’

‘Absolutely fine,’ I said, brushing off the earth, small stones and God knows what under which he was buried.

He caught my wrist and whispered, ‘Ronan?’

I nodded my head.

He raised an eyebrow.

I nodded confirmation.

‘Best served cold,’ he said quietly.

‘What is?’

‘Revenge.’

His voice was as cold as revenge itself and his eyes empty and I hated Ronan all over again. Not just for the people he’d killed over the years, but the damage he’d done to those of us who were still living.

He looked around. Ronan was dismissed to the past. ‘Where’s buggerlugs?’

‘Heaven only knows,’ I said, trying not to sound anxious. ‘Somehow he’s managed to get himself lost between there and here. I’m just off to look for him now.’

‘You might as well,’ he said. ‘I can’t see you being any use here.’

I left three of them arguing about the best way to get him down to their pod and set off with the other half of the team to look for Markham.

Actually, it’s a good job they came with me because I’d have gone off to look for him where we left him, which was in the heavily smoking woods still dotted with little pockets of fire, and he wasn’t there.

‘Not that way,’ said the one consulting his tag reader. He pointed. ‘Down there.’

He was pointing towards the shrine on the headland.

I went to call Markham’s name, remembered Ronan might be around, then remembered he was dead and that I didn’t have to worry about him ever again and yelled for Markham with enthusiasm.

They consulted their equipment. ‘There’s movement down there.’

We scrambled downhill. This lower area seemed almost untouched by the fire. Perhaps the wind was in the wrong direction. And probably the enclosing wall had protected the shrine from the flames.

‘He’s not alone,’ said someone as several proximity meters began to bleep at the same time.

‘Is he alive?’ I said, anxiously.

He consulted his instrument again. ‘It doesn’t say he isn’t.’ Which I recognised as something you say when you’re convinced someone is dead but don’t want to admit it.

We set off at a fast trot towards the shrine.

Well, this was weird. This was something we hadn’t yet come across during our time here. Typical, isn’t it? We’d discovered something of real interest about thirty seconds before we should evacuate.

There was no roof – which, since it had a socking great oak tree in the centre, was no surprise. The encircling wall was big enough to encompass the tree’s spread. Which was big.

Isn’t it interesting how often oaks are sacred? There were the druids, with their sickle knives and their mistletoe. And what about the Sacred Grove at Dodona, a branch from which had been incorporated into Jason’s ship, the Argo? And not just oak trees. All over the island I’d seen olive trees with small gifts laid out around them or hanging from the lower branches. Some of them were incredibly ancient. Even in modern times they reckon there are olive trees on Crete that are over three thousand years old. It’s strange to think there might even be one or two alive now, that as a tiny, tiny sapling, saw me trotting past on my way to watch the bull-leaping.

The encircling wall was made of good stone, some ten feet high and nicely built. Someone had put some effort into it. The finish was smooth and professional and there weren’t enough chinks to scramble up and over so I ran around, looking for the entrance.

There was no door – not even a wooden gate to keep the goats out. I kept running. I could hear the rescue team’s tag reader bleeping away for dear life. They were behind me but where the hell was Markham? He must have taken refuge behind the wall. Where the bloody hell was the way in?

I finally found the entrance, marked by two fat ochre pillars, each bearing the sign of the Labrys, and skidded inside.

And stopped dead.

Well – this wasn’t something you saw every day.

Inside the shrine, the air was very still. Stuffy, almost. The sounds of Thera were muffled. The heavy red sky turned everything the colour of blood. The oak tree dominated the space – which was the whole point, I suppose – and it was magnificent. In the prime of its life. Its lower branches were hung with ribbons and tiny bronze ornaments. These were the offerings. The priestesses would listen for the voice of the goddess in the rustling leaves and relay her words to the supplicants. I could hear the ornaments tinkling even though there was no wind inside this shrine to give them movement. The tree was trembling. It wasn’t the only one.

Tumbled and shattered pillars lay everywhere. There must have been a sacred avenue leading to the altar under the tree. That was all gone now and the altar itself, a large, flat stone, lay in two pieces on the ground. My eyes were drawn to the shallow grooves running across it. To channel the blood away from the sacrifice.

Most eye-catching of all – and that included Thera vomiting all over the Eastern Med – a naked Markham was tied to the tree with three very nasty-looking women standing around him. One held the traditional double-headed axe and the other two stood by with wide, shallow bronze bowls all ready to collect his blood.

Markham didn’t look good at all. At some point he’d been badly knocked around. I wondered if he’d been unconscious when these three witches came across him. They might have regarded him as a slightly scruffy gift from the gods and now were making haste to return him to them in an effort to allay the wrath of Poseidon.

His ribs were black and blue and his hands bloodied around the knuckles. A long tear down his ribs was bleeding sluggishly and the whole left side of his face was badly bruised and his left eye swollen shut. Whether these injuries had been caused by Clive Ronan or he’d been beaten up by the three women was hard to say. Whichever it was, if we got out of this then I swore he’d never hear the last of being tied naked to a tree. If we ever got out of this.

Because this was human sacrifice. There’s always been speculation that in their last desperate moments, the priestesses of Crete had made the ultimate sacrifice. Not them personally, of course. Some hapless man would have been designated. Archaeologists have turned up bodies at several sites across the island. I couldn’t remember if this was one of them.

I’ve no idea where the rescue team were at that point. They must have been with me but I have no memory of them. I shouted, ‘Hey,’ and burst through the entrance.

The only reason they didn’t kill me straight away was probably because I was female, although I’d been through a lot that day and probably wasn’t looking my best. They might have thought I was one of the Furies, and with a backdrop of those huge black clouds clutching at the red sky like angry hands, they might have been right. I will admit I wasn’t in the sunniest mood.

And I couldn’t afford to hang around. They had an axe. They had Markham. Peterson and Dr Bairstow needed urgent treatment and sooner or later there would be a bloody great tidal wave.

I’d long since lost my stun gun. God knows where that was, but a long-haired historian is never without a weapon.

The priestess’s two assistants tried to block my progress but I really wasn’t in the mood. I went straight through them, trusting the team from St Mary’s would have my back.

I found myself in an open space. Markham and his tree were slightly to my left with a tripod belching aromatic, sleep-inducing smoke next to him. The priestess with her very-much-larger-than-I-had-realised axe stood defensively in front of him and the broken altar stood between me and her.

I meant to vault neatly over the top of the low altar, and of course that didn’t happen at all. I don’t know why it would, I’d never vaulted over anything in my entire life – and that included doing gym at school, where I tended to curl my lip in derision at the idea of any such foolishness and marched myself straight off to the detention room because – as I always pointed out to my ungrateful teachers – it was easier and quicker that way and saved everyone a lot of effort.

I leaped for the altar, quite forgetting one of my arms wasn’t working properly. They both gave way and I crashed to the ground. The right side of the altar, fortunately.

I cursed fluently – because there’s no point in cursing any other way – and staggered to my feet. The priestess regarded me in complete amazement and Markham, somewhat groggily, demanded to know what the fu— what the hell I thought I was playing at.

‘I have no idea,’ I said, putting my hands to my head in an apparently pointless attempt to tidy my hair.

Behind me, I could hear shrieks and curses as my temporary colleagues struggled to get through the narrow entrance and the two assistant priestesses tried to stop them. I heard the zap of several stun guns.

Markham’s priestess pulled herself together and whirled to face me, axe held high. Markham tried to kick her as she passed him. She backhanded him and I took enormous pleasure in embedding two sharpened hairpins into the fleshy part of her underarm.

She shrieked with pain. I didn’t blame her. It’s one of the most painful things you can do to someone. I left her to the others and staggered towards Markham.

‘Are you all right? Have they hurt you?’

‘Yes, absolutely fine,’ he said, slurring his words. I kicked over the tripod to get the smoke out of his face.

Being Markham, he bypassed gratitude. ‘You took your bloody time, didn’t you? Where have you been?’

‘Fire. Landslide. Clive Ronan. Dr Bairstow. Teapot. Sorting out the future. Earthquakes. Rescue. Imminent collapse of volcano. Need to go.’

I was quite proud of my briefing. All the salient facts and in the shortest possible space of time. Professional to my fingertips.

I gestured around. ‘What on earth happened to you?’

He was indignant. ‘I had a bit of a struggle with Ronan but he got away from me. I was all set to go after him when I was jumped by three of the most peculiar women you ever saw in all your life, and that includes the ones at St Mary’s.’

I ignored this. ‘Where are your clothes? Wardrobe’s going to kill you.’

‘Oh great,’ he said gloomily, shrugging off the last of his ropes. ‘Another set of vengeful women pursuing me with sharp implements.’

‘Yeah,’ said someone, holding him up. ‘They don’t call them pinking shears for nothing.’

It took two of them to keep him on his feet but, finally, there he was, naked, bloody, grubby and grinning at me.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said, averting my eyes although there are some things you can never unsee. ‘Find some clothes.’

There was foot shuffling among the security team and general muttering along the lines of, ‘He’s not having mine.’

‘Take hers,’ said someone and we all looked down at the priestess, face down in the dust.

‘Well, I’m not undressing an unconscious woman,’ said Markham, stirring her with his foot. ‘Sends out all the wrong messages.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said again. Bending over, I untied her embroidered apron and passed it over. It had a front and back and as long as he didn’t actually attempt the cancan he should be decent enough. ‘Here.’

Was he grateful? Was he buggery?

‘I’m not wearing women’s clothes,’ he said, indignantly.

‘Then we’ll have to leave you here,’ said one of the security team. ‘Clothes must be worn in the pods at all times. House rules.’

His team turned to him. ‘Since when?’

‘Since I made it up about three seconds ago.’

Markham sighed and tied the apron around his waist, finishing with a neat little bow. There was still far more of him visible than many of us were comfortable with but the salient areas were covered. They’d sewn bells on to the apron and he tinkled prettily with every movement. No one said a word.

‘What do you think?’ he said to me, looking down at himself.

‘Believe it or not, I’ve seen you look worse.’

‘And we’re just grateful,’ said the team leader. ‘We should go.’

I nodded. ‘Yes. We can’t afford to hang around here.’

We trotted out of the shrine. Markham had an escort on either side because, as he said, wearing a skirt had caused his legs to become a little wayward.

Now that I had him safely under my belt – or someone’s belt, anyway – I’d gone back to worrying about Peterson, but there was no need – they’d got him out from the rocks and were helping him down the hill towards the pod. We all arrived outside their rescue pod more or less together. Peterson and Markham looked at each other.

‘Well,’ said Peterson. ‘I’ve been in a landslide. What’s your excuse, Tinklebell?’

‘Grabbed by a bunch of women and had my clothes torn off,’ he said wearily. ‘You’d think I’d be used to it by now.’

I’m sure Peterson had something truly pithy to say but it never happened because that was the moment the volcano chose to literally blow its top.

40

We all felt it. And saw it. And heard it.

Something punched me in the chest. I was blown backwards off my feet.

A huge incandescent orange glow lit the sky. Even from this distance I could see white-hot giant rocks and lava being hurled high into the air. The noise was indescribable – a cross between a crack and a roar – and we were seventy miles away. Thick black smoke boiled across the sky. Lightning flashed in the depths and thunder rumbled in the skies – only to be echoed by a similar sound beneath our feet. As if the earth and the sky were shouting at each other.

I pulled myself to my feet and groped for my recorder, miraculously intact. Thank you, god of historians.

A giant fan of lava, smoke, bubbling steam, rocks, sulphur dioxide, vaporised buildings and people and animals erupted high into the atmosphere. There were never any bodies found at Akrotiri and archaeologists have always assumed that because of all the mini quakes, such as the ones we’d been suffering, people had plenty of time in which to escape. That was very possible, but I couldn’t help wondering if, when the caldera collapsed so suddenly and so violently, it took the population with it, and the reason their bodies have never been found is because they’re all at the bottom of the sea. That’s not a nice thought. The inhabitants fleeing in blind panic, and suddenly the ground gives way beneath their feet, and thousands of screaming people and millions of tons of rock crash down into the boiling sea.

The wind was blowing the fan of smoke sideways. It streamed away to the north. Away from Crete. I looked at my tattered sleeve, lightly coated with ash and dust, but that could as easily have come from the fires around us. So far Crete had got off lightly. It was the wave that would do the damage.

Dr Dowson had taken us through this several times so we’d know what to look for. There are two types of tsunamis. The first is caused by undersea earthquakes. With that type, the height of the wave rarely tops a hundred feet. Which is devastating enough.

The second type is caused by water displacement. In other words, something massive falls into the sea. A meteor strikes, a cliff face tumbles, or an entire volcano collapses in on itself, shifting huge amounts of water, so the resulting wave is correspondingly massive. Half of the island of Thera had just imploded. Thera was only seventy miles away to the north. The giant wave would be on its way. From where we were standing, we had an excellent view of the Cretan coastline – which meant we were definitely below a safe height.

Nothing seemed to happen for a long time. I stood with the others, the wind flapping my clothes around me, recording for dear life and waiting to see what would happen next. I didn’t notice at first, but once I saw what it was, there was no missing it. The sea level was dropping. Slowly but surely, the sea began to pull back. Glistening wet rocks appeared where none had been before, exposing pieces of broken masts and even the occasional nearly complete wrecked ship.

The world was growing darker by the minute. The orange sky had faded to blood red again. Red-lit clouds of steam boiled in the sky. I could smell sulphur in the air. Crete would not be smothered in the sixty-foot-deep layer of ash currently enveloping Thera. We just had the wave to worry about.

‘Can you see it yet?’ said Peterson, appearing next to me. His arm was neatly encased in plastic and he wore a sling. St Mary’s Security Section were fussing around him, trying to get him back into their pod.

I asked their leader if he’d been able to raise anyone else from my teams.

He shook his head. ‘We’ve been calling them since we got here. There’s no answer. They’ve all evacuated.’ He paused meaningfully. ‘As should we.’

I was still recording because this was all good stuff. ‘Just another thirty seconds.’

‘You do remind me of our own History Department.’

I beamed. ‘Thank you.’

‘It’s not a compliment. Get back into your pod while you still can.’

I looked over my shoulder. The teapot lay on its side, hatch open, and with a dead Clive Ronan still inside. It was almost certainly still functioning but it occurred to me – here was a perfect opportunity to tidy up all sorts of loose ends. Both of them swept away in a massive tidal wave. Both finishing up at the bottom of the sea. Both out of reach forever.

I shook my head. ‘My pod’s dead.’

‘Then use ours.’

‘Just one more minute.’

‘Get in the bloody pod.’

That was the same sort of voice I used to get Matthew to bed. The voice that says, ‘OK, I’ve given you an extra ten minutes but now is the time to stop pushing your luck.’

I nodded. He was right. We should be going. In just one minute.

Tsunamis speed up as they approach shallow water. And this one only had seventy miles to travel. I made a pathetic attempt at some dirty maths. Dr Dowson had estimated its speed at between three and six hundred miles an hour. Say five hundred. Thirty minutes to travel two hundred and fifty miles. Fifteen minutes to travel one hundred and twenty-five. Seven and a half minutes to travel sixty miles. So seventy miles was . . . shit. How long had I been recording? How long did I still have? I continued panning around.

At that moment, every alarm in the pod went off. People started shouting. A dark line appeared on the horizon. Increasing in size all the time. Peterson grabbed my arm. The one that hurt. Now it hurt some more. Someone else grabbed the other. The dark line was growing larger and larger. A strange, cold wind blew in my face. The temperature dropped noticeably. I wondered if the wave was pushing colder air ahead of it. Someone shouted at us to move. Now it wasn’t a line – it was a wall. All across the horizon. A wall of water was headed towards us. Not a wave. There was no curling white top. It was just water. Dark water. Roaring its way towards us. Towards Crete. The noise was intense. The speed was unbelievable. The wave was here. Hanging in the air above us – poised to crash down upon Crete.

Someone threw us into the pod.

‘Computer, emerg—’

And then we were moving. I felt us leave the ground as we were swept along. Someone shouted to buckle up but there was no chance of that. I could hear bumps and crashes as the pod collided with whatever was being swept along with us. I was reminded of one of the more exciting fairground rides. And then we tilted. I wondered if we’d gone over the cliff and were about to plunge into the sea. We all rolled to one end of the pod. I was on the bottom, crushed, unable to breathe, panicking, suffocating . . .

And then we rolled back the other way and I was free. I sucked in a massive breath and grabbed for something to hold on to. Everyone else was struggling to do the same. The lights flickered wildly. Something went bang under the console. Someone shouted to power down, power down, for God’s sake.

I looked up. The trip switch was over my head. I was the nearest. Using Peterson, I clambered to my feet and lunged. I got it on the second go, pushed it up and now we were in complete darkness. The emergency light flickered. Someone rolled into my legs and down I went again.

I was expecting the pod to come apart at any moment. I know they’re designed to take a lot but surely not this. We were being swept along at a huge speed. Along with rocks, trees, houses, boats, people, bulls, the teapot . . . everything. Nothing could withstand the power of this wave. It was unstoppable. It ended a civilisation, so God knows what it would do to us.

I have no idea for how long we tumbled and rolled. For how long we collided with whatever was being swept along with us and it collided with us. And things were fairly hazardous in here. Locker doors swung open, depositing their contents all over us. Blankets, equipment, first-aid stuff . . . you name it. And then there was a bang from the bathroom and I realised I was wet. The toilet had exploded. It was depressing to know they still hadn’t managed to stop them doing that. The pod was full of a chemical smell.

I fought my way clear of a blanket that had wrapped itself around my face. We were slowing. I was sure of it. We were level, anyway, and more or less the right way up. I tried to sit up. We were in the semi-dark and I had no point of reference but I thought we’d stopped tumbling. The noise outside was less. Nothing heavy seemed to be hitting us. In fact, nothing was hitting us at all. There was a slight bump and then silence. I suspected that like the Ark on Ararat, we’d landed.

Oh no, we hadn’t. I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me before. What goes up must come down. Waves crash upon the shore and then recede again. After a moment’s blessed stillness – during which I just had time to assimilate how much I hurt all over – we were on the move again. Backwards this time. Or that’s how it seemed to me.

This time, though, we were more prepared. In fact, you could say we’d become experts. Everyone grabbed something. A seat, a locker door, each other . . . We braced ourselves. Which was just as well because there was a lot more tumbling this time because we were going downhill. There were shouts and cries of pain – from me, mostly. I didn’t dare think how Markham and Peterson were faring. Or Dr Bairstow with his gunshot wound.

The only good thing was that it didn’t last as long as before. We hit something hard – the entire pod reverberated – and then we stopped. I rather suspected we’d become wedged somewhere.

We gave it about twenty seconds, just in case everything started up again, and then someone said, ‘Shit,’ and tried to sit up.

‘Everyone take it slowly,’ said the leader. ‘I need to check we’re all present and correct. Maxwell?’

‘Yes.’

‘Markham?’

There followed a long stream of curses.

‘Just a yes will do. Peterson?’

‘Here.’

A pause and then a tactful, ‘Sir?’

A thin voice informed us Dr Bairstow was still with us.

He ran through his team. Everyone answered. A bit of a miracle, I thought.

‘Power on, someone.’

I heard the trip switch clunk and here we all were.

The inside of the pod looked like a war zone. Things had broken, burst, snapped, buckled or shorted out. The panels had come away under the console. One of the boards looked damaged. The bathroom door was swinging off one hinge. The floor was awash with something I didn’t want to think about.

The locker doors were buckled so badly they wouldn’t close. I doubted they’d ever close again. This pod was going to need a complete refit. I wondered if they’d send us the bill.

Sadly, the human element was even more damaged. Most people had suffered cuts and bruises. A couple were bleeding from nasty head wounds. Someone had a broken wrist. Dr Bairstow was wedged between two seats, white but conscious. With no clothes to protect him, Markham had started to bleed again, although according to Hunter he bleeds at the drop of a hat and it’s nothing to worry about. I found a damaged first-aid kit. The contents were almost completely destroyed but packets of dressings had survived. I ripped a couple open and tried to mop him up as best I could.

‘It’s your own fault,’ scolded one of the security team, bending over him. ‘If you’d worn that nice lady’s pretty clothes you wouldn’t be in this state. You only have yourself to blame.’

Markham told him to go forth and multiply. Now.

They were gathering around the console, checking systems. It was crowded. People were bumping into each other in this small space. I seized on the excuse.

‘We’ll get out of your hair a moment,’ I said. ‘We’ll be just outside if you need us.’

They started to say something but I was already opening the door. I wanted to see the extent of the damage.

There were no words to describe it. Behind us, the technical conversation stopped as everyone else crowded around the door. I stepped outside to give them room. We all stared. The world, as we’d known it, had gone. Everything had just . . . gone.

Remembering who I was, I pulled out my recorder again. There would never be another opportunity.

The first thing I noticed was the sound of water. Everything was wet. I was up to my ankles in water. It ran down the rocks to form small pools and waterfalls of dull, dead water. There was no sunlight to reflect. More water cascaded past us on its way back to the sea. Everywhere was water.

And it was cold. Dark clouds completely obscured the sun. The temperature was dropping all the time. A chill wind blew past me. Everything was cold and wet. The blue skies and bright sunshine would not return for a very long time.

Crete had been scoured. Well, this part had. We were down to bedrock here. Trees were either completely gone or snapped off about three feet above ground, their roots exposed because all the soil had been washed away. And not just the soil. Crops, vines, trees, bushes, every living green thing – all gone.

Instead of the familiar landscape there were piles of sand, seashells, seaweed, dead fish . . . Some gigantic force had scooped up the sea bed and deposited it all the way up here. Wherever here was. I had no idea. Nothing was recognisable.

I turned, slowly, getting everything. It was the same everywhere I looked. As if the island was at the bottom of the sea. Something flapped at my feet. There was an octopus. We were a hundred feet up and there was an octopus. An actual octopus was gripping a tree root and trying to get itself into a nearby pool of water. I watched it work its way along. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

I had no idea where we were. A thick pall of smoke hung seemingly only just overhead, leaving us in semi-darkness. The precursor to two years and more of winter.

I turned to look at the pod. It had suffered but survived. It was leaning at an angle and some of the outer casing had been ripped away. One corner was crushed but otherwise it looked intact. Dirty water was running out of the door.

We’d come to rest in a small gully. I looked around. There was no sign of the teapot anywhere. I hadn’t expected there to be. It and Ronan had been washed away and, with luck, they were both either at the bottom of the sea or smashed to pieces on the rocks somewhere. Even the teapot couldn’t have survived the power of the wave. I felt a sadness for it – it had been my home for a little while – but a certain amount of relief as well. Let the Time Police do their worst. We’d told them the teapot had been destroyed and now it was. Problem solved.

I took a deep breath and turned my recorder north.

The sea no longer reflected glittering shards of eye-watering sunshine. There was no sun. There was no sea, either. It was invisible beneath a dense mat of shattered timber and broken boats. Mighty Cretan ships had been brought almost to nothing. Pieces of people’s homes, debris, full-grown trees torn apart, dead animals, dead people – everything that had been on the north side of Crete was now in the sea. The wave had picked up everything in its path. Ship had crashed into ship. Building had crashed into building. Nothing remained.

It was as if the sea and the land had changed places. The sea was up here – the land was down there. And that was just the stuff that floated. I wondered what was, at this moment, falling slowly and silently to the sea bed, never to be seen again.

A few people lay on the top of this vast interwoven mat of . . . stuff. Just lying where the water had tossed them. Whether they were dead or alive I had no idea. They weren’t moving. I wondered how many were trapped beneath the surface. Whether they’d ever be able to fight their way out.

The whole tangled mass was constantly moving in a heavy swell. Up and down, up and down . . .

Where were all the people? I turned west to where I thought Knossos should be. It wasn’t there now.

It had been vast – terrace upon terrace, hall upon hall, pillars, columns, storerooms, courtyards and, like everything else, it had gone. The Minoans had built it well but nothing could withstand the power of Poseidon. The lower part had been completely swept away. You could clearly see the path of destruction. The only walls still standing were those that had faced away from the sea. Anything looking towards the sea had disappeared. Roofs, bricks, the wooden columns, barely anything remained.

Only one thing had survived more or less unscathed. Almost mockingly, the giant bull’s horns still stood on the highest point. Slightly askew but still there. Making their point, I suppose. Today, Poseidon had truly overcome the Mother.

I panned across what remained of the landscape. The Minoans would rebuild, but nothing would ever be the same for them. Their civilisation was gone – most of it smashed to destruction. And not just here. The whole Eastern Mediterranean coastline had taken a massive bashing. Wherever they had been when the wave hit, the Minoan fleet had been destroyed. The foundations on which their wealth and power were built had been swept away in one dreadful day. Poseidon had spoken. The mainland Greeks, the Mycenaeans, would move in. The Mother would be subjugated to her husband and society would become patriarchal. I tried to take a moment to remember those handsome, bright, confident people – men and women – and then Peterson nudged me.

‘Max.’

At the same time, someone said, ‘Uh-oh.’

I don’t know why I thought there would just be the one wave. Another dark line was forming on the horizon. Someone pulled at my arm.

‘Hang on.’ I panned three hundred and sixty degrees. Slowly, Maxwell. Take your time. Get it all. Don’t rush.

They were shouting at me.

Still recording, I backed into the pod. Someone pushed me into a seat. I buckled up because I didn’t want to go through all that again.

‘Computer – initiate jump.’

I crossed my fingers but the computer responded. ‘Jump initiated.’

The world went white.

41

They took us straight home. We landed on the pan outside Hawking. I’m certain they could have landed us inside, but it’s considered very bad manners just to drop in uninvited. As I had done, of course, but I think everyone will agree that was an emergency.

My people couldn’t have been back long because the security team surrounding us was still in Cretan dress. Not so their weapons, however. Very modern and very pointed at us. Markham, still supported on both sides, nodded approvingly.

‘Right,’ said our leader. ‘Someone go out there and persuade them not to shoot us and we’ll start unloading the wounded.’

We all looked at the apron-clad Markham.

‘I’m not going out there,’ he said. ‘Not dressed like this.’

‘You’re Head of Security,’ I reminded him.

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I’m Head of Security. A senior member of staff. I have my credibility to think of.’

‘Oh, mate,’ said Peterson, sadly. ‘That ship sailed long ago.’

Markham sighed, threw back his shoulders and gestured for them to open the door. Cool daylight flooded into the pod and out he went.

We waited. All we could hear was a disbelieving silence and then Evans said, ‘Why are you wearing a pinny?’

‘Badge of honour, mate.’

‘Only I wondered if, you know, in these days of gender diversity . . .’

‘I was attacked by Clive Ronan, then three of the weirdest women you ever saw in your entire life, then there was an earthquake, then the bloody volcano went off, then there was a tidal wave and if I want to wear a bloody apron then I’ll wear a bloody apron. Is that clearly understood?’

Evans snapped to attention. ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Only it was the little bells we were all admiring. They’re so pretty . . .’

Fortunately, before Markham put himself on a disciplinary charge by murdering his entire section, Hunter turned up, gazing at her beloved with the sort of placid resignation you have to adopt when you’re just too pregnant to do anything else.

He grinned at her. ‘Can we organise some stretchers, please. We have wounded here.’

No one died. A state of affairs so unusual that Dr Stone wandered in three times a day just to check, instead of pursuing his usual policy of ignoring us until we got better on our own. A lot of people were damaged, not just me. Peterson, Markham and I hadn’t been the only victims of Thera’s seismic enthusiasm.

No one had left it as late as us to evacuate – Sands had got them all away in good time – and Evans had, they told me, dealt efficiently and effectively with Dr Dowson’s determination to stay to the bitter end by simply picking him up and carrying him, together with all the equipment to which he’d been attached, dumping the whole lot in the pod and forbidding him to leave. There had, apparently, been sulking.

The injuries were mostly sprains – wrists and ankles where people had fallen down. A tree had fallen on Bashford – naturally – and when Keller went to pull him out its neighbour fell on him. As I said – nothing serious.

Dr Bairstow was spared the horrors of Sick Bay. He spent the time recovering quietly in his own set of rooms. I was relieved. I still wasn’t sure of my feelings towards him.

Everyone recovered. All wounds healed. Dr Stone kept everyone in for four days and then we were all discharged together. Noisily and cheerfully. Mrs Mack had something special waiting for us in the dining room. I sat with Leon and Matthew, alternately staring out of the window and thinking how green everything was and how crowded the sky seemed with all those big fluffy clouds after the empty blue of Crete, and eating more sausages than was wise. Or even legal.

That was the Friday. My plan was that we’d spend Saturday and Sunday alternately resting and partying – the History Department was convinced it could do both at once – before I drove them to the point of exhaustion as we set about sorting and classifying the vast mass of material we’d brought back with us. And after they’d finished that, I’d be after them for their reports. And harassing the IT section for some spectacular holos. And the Security Section for their street plan. I really don’t know why anyone thought this assignment was over with.

The one report I had already written – by hand – was the one concerning Clive Ronan’s death. I wrote it late one night in Sick Bay while everyone else was asleep. I sat in my little circle of light and wrote without pause. I kept it factual – I didn’t need to revive memories I knew would stay with me for a long time – and ended with my theories on the cause of his death.

- That the smartdust had somehow malfunctioned, causing seizures, loss of control and so on.

- That his life had been due to end because I was about to pull the trigger and the smartdust had functioned correctly and the Time Police simply hadn’t bothered to tell us how bad it would be. Perfectly possible for those bastards.

- That in his desperate effort to get to Annie before she died, Ronan somehow cut things too fine – he clipped his original timeline and just for a nano-second there’d been two of him together, and his subsequent implosion was the result. His older self was the fuse that had blown to prevent a bigger catastrophe.

I shoved it all in an envelope, sealed it and addressed it to Mrs Partridge for her to do with as she pleased.

And then, Saturday evening, in the bar, as Markham was juggling a sausage roll, a beer and a packet of crisps and, if truth be told, making more than a bit of a mess, Peterson tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘You need to get yourself up to Sick Bay, mate. Quick as you can.’

He dropped the lot and fled.

Sunday was lovely. The windows were open and the sun – no longer an incandescent ball of heat because this was a proper English summer – was shining through. Everyone was sitting around enjoying their last afternoon of freedom.

Peterson and I were in the bar, relaxing with a quiet drink. I was waiting for Leon, who was kite-flying with Matthew, and Peterson was waiting for Lingoss. I heard a stir and looked up. Dr Bairstow entered. He actually entered the bar. For social rather than disciplinary reasons. And he had a guest. The room went quiet. If we’d had a piano it would have stopped playing. And then everyone turned back to their drinks and their conversations and the world returned to normal.

He was moving slowly but seemed well enough, ushering Mrs Brown to a quiet table in the corner. I’m sure he would have ordered his drinks at the bar like the rest of us because he’s quite democratic like that, but one arm was in a sling and the bar staff got to him first. They took his order and he sat down.

I shifted my position slightly so I didn’t have to look at him. If Peterson noticed he said nothing. Well, no, that’s not quite true. If he was about to say something, he never got the chance because Markham – and I hesitate to use the word after recent events – erupted into the bar, coming to a dead stop at our table. He was in a bit of a state. Actually, he was in quite a lot of a state. If it had been anyone else, I’d have said he was in shock. His whole body was shaking and he was managing, at one and the same time, to look delighted, terrified, overwhelmed, exhausted and all points in between.

The conversation died even more quickly than for Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown’s debut appearance.

Markham seized the back of a chair for support. ‘It’s here,’ he said, barely able to get the words out. ‘At last. It’s here.’

Peterson shot to his feet and got him to sit down before he fell down, saying, ‘Well? What is it? Don’t keep us in suspense.’

‘It’s a girl,’ he announced, beaming from ear to ear.

The room rang with congratulations and applause. People slapped his back and called him dad.

‘Typical, isn’t it,’ I said. ‘Hunter’s done all the work and you get all the glory.’

His face lit up even more. He was going to burst into flames any moment now. ‘Isn’t she amazing?’ He stared at his hand. ‘Although I think she’s broken two of my fingers.’

‘I commend her restraint,’ I said. ‘I’d have broken a lot more than your fingers.’

At that moment the barman turned up with one of those enormous brandy glasses filled with a substantial amount of liquid. ‘Compliments of Dr Bairstow and congratulations.’

Markham accepted the drink, looked over my shoulder and raised his glass in thanks. His hand was still shakier than a politician’s integrity and I honestly think if it hadn’t been in one of those big glasses most of his drink would have gone all over the room.

‘So,’ I said eagerly. ‘Does she have a name? When can we see her?’

‘Does she look like Winston Churchill?’ asked Peterson.

‘What? No, of course she doesn’t. Why would she look like Winston Churchill?’

‘All babies look like Winston Churchill.’

‘No, they don’t,’ said Markham, half an hour into fatherhood and already an expert.

I changed the subject. ‘What’s her name?’

His grin reached from ear to ear. I’ve never seen anyone look happier. ‘Flora.’

‘Oh, that’s so pretty.’

‘She’s a very pretty baby,’ he said, clutching his glass to his chest as if it was all that was holding him up. ‘Mother and baby doing well.’

‘Which is more than can be said for the father,’ said Peterson.

‘Flora Markham,’ I said, trying it out. ‘That’s lovely.’

‘Is it?’ said Peterson suspiciously.

I turned to him and frowned. ‘Yes, of course it is. It’s a lovely name.’

‘No, I don’t mean Flora.’ He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and leaned over the table. ‘I’m talking about the Markham bit.’

Markham sighed. ‘There’s always something with you, isn’t there? What are you on about now?’

‘You don’t mean whether he’s married or not, do you?’ I said.

He waved a casual dismissal. ‘No, I’ve lost interest in that. I want to know what your first name is. In fact, everyone wants to know what your first name is.’

Markham blinked. ‘Why?’

‘Well, we’re getting near the end. People will want to know.’

‘Want to know what?’

‘What your first name is.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Peterson spoke clearly and distinctly. ‘Your first name. What is it?’

‘You know what my first name is.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Yes, you do. Of course you do. You’ve been using it for years.’

Peterson sat back in astonishment. ‘Your first name is Bloody?’

‘No, stupid. My first name is Markham.’

Peterson was bewildered. ‘Who has a name like that?’

‘I do, obviously.’

‘All right – I’ll play along. What’s your surname then?’

‘Not telling you.’

Peterson breathed heavily. He was going to have his own neural event any minute now. I should distract them.

I gestured behind me in the direction I estimated Dr Bairstow and Mrs Brown to be sitting. ‘Do you think we’re going to have a Mrs Director?’

‘Don’t see why not,’ said Markham, obviously feeling he was entitled to some revenge. ‘We’re about to have a Mrs Deputy Director.’

Peterson went scarlet and just at that moment, Lingoss appeared in the doorway.

‘Gotta run,’ he said, downing his drink. ‘We’re off to the Arms for a . . . a special event.’

I looked at his smart jacket and very nearly tidy hair and managed a smile. ‘Enjoy yourselves.’

‘See you later.’ And he was out of the door at very nearly the speed of light.

I watched him go, thinking thoughts.

‘It wouldn’t have worked, you know,’ said Markham, very quietly.

I blinked. ‘What?’

‘You and him. It wouldn’t have worked and it would have broken both your hearts.’

I didn’t know what to say. Or do. In times of doubt and indecision – turn to alcohol.

‘Let’s have a toast,’ I said, raising my glass. ‘To Flora. Long life and happiness to her.’

He nodded and raised his glass.

I don’t know what was in his drink but it must have packed a hell of a punch. He took a hefty glug, sucked in a breath, screwed up his eyes and somewhere a memory stirred. My world stopped. Because it couldn’t be. It was impossible. I stopped. Everything stopped. All thoughts and words failed me. There was a darkness behind my eyes. Ice ran through my veins and slowed my heart. The world faded . . .

I became aware I was trying to put down my drink before I dropped it and all that was happening was my stupid arm was making strange ineffectual pawing gestures that were nowhere near the table.

Someone took my glass from me, set it down and held my hands, saying quietly but urgently, ‘Max. Come back.’

I blinked, blinked again and dragged my eyes from Markham holding my hands, across the room to Dr Bairstow, still sitting with Mrs Brown. His gaze drifted casually around the room, passed over me and then snapped back again. We both looked at each other for a long, long second. He said something to Mrs Brown, stood up and limped over to where we were sitting.

Markham stood up, saying quietly, ‘Sir . . .’

‘So I see, Mr Markham.’ He looked at me. ‘My office, I think. Not here.’

I have no memory of getting up the stairs. I must have done so because I remember passing through Mrs Partridge’s office. She took one look at us, said, ‘I shall see that we are not disturbed,’ and locked the outer door. And then I was in Dr Bairstow’s office and the three of us were looking at each other across his desk. Mrs Partridge came in quietly and seated herself behind Dr Bairstow. She didn’t look at him – she looked at me. They were all looking at me.

‘I am tempted,’ said Dr Bairstow, ‘to comment on your suddenly restored memory, but you never lost it, did you? You and I have been lying to each other for a long time now, Max. A reluctance to discuss certain matters has led to us not discussing them at all. We have both taken the easy way out and, sadly, for us, the easy way out has turned out to be not so easy in the end.’

He was right. They say the truth is hard, but sometimes, lies are ten times harder.

He sighed. ‘We – all three of us,’ he gestured to Markham and Mrs Partridge, ‘have been to extraordinary lengths to protect you, Max.’ He stopped and then said, ‘You were going to jump to Burgundy, were you not?’

I nodded.

‘I knew you would,’ he said heavily. ‘You wanted to witness the arrival of a certain young prince. To see whether I had told the truth.’

I nodded.

‘You made your way to the palace and while you were there, a young servant told you the prince had arrived safely. Just after dawn that morning.’

He looked at me.

‘Yes,’ I said, slowly. ‘But how did you know? Were you there?’

‘In a way. Having received the information you wanted, instead of leaving quietly as we so hoped you would, you went to investigate, didn’t you? And in so doing, you underwent . . .’

He stopped.

‘An experience,’ I said, and my voice wasn’t steady because the world was sliding away from me again.

‘It wasn’t an experience,’ he said, bluntly. ‘It was a warning. Carefully calculated to ensure you left well alone. Which you did.’

‘How?’ I said, hoarsely. ‘How do you know all this?’

They all looked at each other.

‘You never left St Mary’s,’ said Mrs Partridge quietly. ‘In fact, you never left the Wardrobe Department.’

I must have gaped like an idiot.

‘You went to collect your costume from Wardrobe. You felt tired. At my suggestion you sat down to rest. You closed your eyes. Just for a moment.’

I stood up so quickly that my chair fell over. Markham slowly picked it up.

‘You drugged me?’ I remembered my aching arm. Not from the blow as I’d thought but from an injection.

‘Only lightly. You were still very tired.’

I stared at them. This was rubbish. This couldn’t possibly be true. ‘But I . . . I remember the light on the wet cobbles. The way the rain ran down the roof. The drops of water on the leaves. The smell of the lavender. I was there.’

‘You were dreaming.’

I could feel my anger rising. ‘Oh my God – what did you do to me? This is memory implantation. You implanted memories in my mind.’

The chair didn’t topple this time. I picked it up and threw it across the room. It bounced very satisfactorily. Markham went to pick it up again.

‘I’d leave it if I were you,’ I said nastily. ‘Otherwise you could be at it all day.’

Dr Bairstow said quietly, ‘Max, I promise you . . .’

‘You messed with my mind.’

I struggled with the thought of these people getting into my mind, rummaging through my memories, manipulating my thoughts . . .

I wheeled on Mrs Partridge. ‘You did this. Didn’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Of course you did. That’s just the sort of thing you do. Problems with this reality? Never mind that – we’ll just pick her up and dump her in another one. She won’t mind. And who cares if she does.’ I paused. ‘Well, go on – tell me you did it for my own good. That’s the usual story, isn’t it? That’s how you usually justify your actions.’

‘Dr Maxwell, I assure you . . .’

‘You’re lying. On top of everything else – you’re lying.’

‘No one is lying,’ said Dr Bairstow. ‘In the same way that traumatic memories can be manipulated or removed to relieve distress and suffering, so can memories be inserted. It’s actually slightly easier than the other way around. Memories were introduced that would, we hoped, reconcile you to recent unfortunate events.’

Unfortunate events? I looked at the two of them. The Muse of History. The Director of St Mary’s. Fine representatives of the authority I’d always despised. And for good reason. Authority always has its own agenda. Authority sells its schemes with the promise it will benefit everyone and what they mean is that it will benefit themselves and their friends. Bugger the little people. Our only function is to pay for everything – including their very expensive mistakes – and then quietly die as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Bastards, every one of them. And they’d kidded me it was all so very different here and it was nothing of the kind. St Mary’s was just like everywhere else. I was so sick of being used. Everyone exploited me for their own particular schemes and no one ever told me anything.

The Time Police had deceived me over Clive Ronan. Because it suited them. Mrs Partridge had once dropped me from one universe into another. Because it had suited her. Dr Bairstow might carry on about how he’d done me a favour by not telling me anything, but the truth was I simply wasn’t important enough to know. I was just here to be used. Just like all the other little people. And they’d done it so well. They’d led me to believe I mattered. That I had a voice. That my actions counted for something. And none of it was true. I was simply here to be manipulated, controlled . . . used. The betrayal was almost too much to contemplate. I could barely speak. ‘Why? Why would you do that to me?’

‘To try to keep you from the truth.’

‘Again – why? And do not tell me it was for my benefit.’

‘It was.’

‘Don’t give me that crap. You mean it was for your benefit.’

He made no response. None of them did. Red hot fury boiled inside me. I wheeled on Markham. ‘Get up.’

Warily, he got to his feet.

I picked up his chair and that followed its fellow down the room.

No one said anything. Oddly, that made me angrier than ever.

I turned back to Dr Bairstow. ‘You drugged me.’

‘It wasn’t really necessary,’ he said, quietly. ‘You were still exhausted from the after-effects of your immersion in the River Thames.’

Well, he’d brought it up. ‘Oh,’ I said grimly. ‘Yes. I remember that. When you left me to die.’

His old sick look was back. He said quietly, ‘I wanted so much to believe you had no memory of that night, but you do, don’t you? I’m sorry, Max, but I had no choice. No choice at all. Believe me, it was the most difficult moment of my life and I’m truly sorry for what I had to do.’

I was trying so hard to be calm and rational. To be completely on top of the situation, but that didn’t work at all. Suddenly it all came pouring out. ‘Why? How could you just leave me like that? Why would you leave me like that? And then you lie to me. And then you mess with my mind to stop me finding out. Why would you do this to me?’ My voice cracked.

He took a long, slow breath and said, ‘Because, as I reached out to save you, I saw that young boy’s face clearly for the first time and I realised who he was.’

In my mind I relived the scene. The dark Thames slapping at my face. The flickering sky. The tug of the current. That little face, eyes tightly screwed up against the water . . . Eyes squeezed tightly shut . . .

My lips wouldn’t work properly. I both knew the answer and didn’t know the answer. Two trains of thought battled inside me. It took a long time but finally I was able to say, ‘So who was he then? Who could he possibly be that was so important . . . so . . . ?’

‘He was me,’ said Markham, simply.

42

Well, thank God for Mrs Partridge is all I can say. I opened my eyes to find myself stretched out on the carpet with two worried men not really being a lot of help and Mrs Partridge holding a glass of water to my lips.

‘Just lift your head and sip slowly, Max.’

‘I fainted?’ I said, in disbelief and disgust at doing anything so girlie.

‘You are still very tired after your long assignment,’ she said tactfully.

They helped me up. I suspected Dr Bairstow was none too thrilled with me sprawling all over his carpet. He had two virtually unused armchairs on the other side of the room and that was about as informal as he was ever likely to be.

Markham had retrieved the chairs again. I sat down with a bump and tried to think what to do next. What to say. We sat in silence. No one else seemed anxious to speak. They were all watching me. Presumably in case I ended up on the carpet again.

I turned to Markham. ‘You were the prince in the river?’

He nodded. Strangely, it never occurred to me to disbelieve him. His face was so white I could see the freckles on his cheeks. Those purple shadows under his eyes were back. He must have run through every emotion known to man in the last few hours and he looked terrible. Really ill. Actually, I think we all did. I felt myself standing on the brink of something . . . not unknowable . . . but something that would change my world. Possibly forever. Did I want to know any more? Well, of course I did.

‘Which one?’

‘Richard.’

‘You’re Richard? That young boy we saw in the Tower?’

‘Yes.’

‘Richard Plantagenet?’

‘Yes.’

‘Richard, Duke of York?’

‘Yes.’

‘Son of Edward IV?’

‘Yes.’

‘Brother to Edward V?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Princes in the Tower?’

‘One of them.’

My mind took refuge in familiar trivia. ‘So – Perkin Warbeck was a fraud, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘You never went to Burgundy?’

‘No.’

‘Did Edward?’

‘I don’t know. He wasn’t well. He might not have lived long enough.’

‘What happened to him?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. No one does.’

I sat back and tried to take control of the spinning plates that were my thoughts.

‘No, you’re not Richard.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘You can’t be. You were with me at Bosworth Field. You watched King Richard die without . . . without a trace of emotion. He was your uncle.’

‘Well, several points to make about that. Young Hoyle was being difficult and I was concentrating on him. You were hell-bent on some hare-brained scheme to keep History on track and I was concentrating on you. Plus, there’s at least a fifty-fifty chance that good old Uncle Richard had issued instructions for my murder. And it’s not as if I didn’t know how Bosworth was going to end. And, not least, it happened a very long time ago. I’m not that person any longer.’

‘But he was your uncle.’

‘He died bravely. As he would have wanted. His death ended the war. New king. New era. To be honest, I was more concerned about the business in the car park afterwards. About which, of course, we know nothing.’

‘But . . .’

‘I was concentrating on you, Max. I was keeping you alive.’

‘So I could go on to save your own life,’ I said, bitterly. ‘That’s what it’s always been about, isn’t it? All these years you’ve been keeping me alive so I could keep you alive.’

He swallowed. ‘A little, but mostly because, despite all your best efforts, you’re quite likeable, you know. I can’t tell you how shit-scared I was you wouldn’t make it back from 1483 safely. That you’d drown because of me. That my life was saved at the expense of one of my best friends. I sat in Sick Bay and I waited and waited for you to come back and there was nothing I could do. And then Dr Bairstow came in with Mrs Brown and I could see by his face that he knew who I was. We had a long, long talk and all the time we were waiting for news of you and whether you were still alive.’

I remembered how haunted he’d looked when I came round in Sick Bay. How he’d looked after me when I was so ill. How I’d thought it had been a good job he was there. And then I started thinking properly. ‘There was nothing wrong with you, was there? When you were in Sick Bay. You made yourself ill.’

‘Well, of course I did. I had to. I couldn’t go on that jump and I couldn’t let anyone else go because they’d keep you out of the river.’

‘You were spectacularly ill,’ I said suspiciously.

‘Ipecac.’

I blinked. ‘What?’

‘Ipecac. I dosed myself with ipecac. Every time I started getting better, I dosed myself again. And filthy stuff it was. It was no fun, I can tell you.’

‘How did you get hold of . . . ?’ I stopped, guessing the answer and not wanting to get her into trouble. Too late.

‘Hunter,’ he said briefly.

‘But why didn’t you just tell . . . ?’ I glanced at Dr Bairstow.

‘I couldn’t take the chance. My memories of that night are very jumbled. I couldn’t do anything that might jeopardise the three of you being in the right place at the right time.’

No, no, he couldn’t, could he? It occurred to me for the first time that somehow it had all been meant. The coordinates had been perfect but we’d landed in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we hadn’t been outside the gates, we’d never have been able to follow them out of the Tower. We’d never have been able to rescue that little boy.

I looked over at Dr Bairstow. ‘And you knew? When we jumped to the Tower, you knew?’

‘No, no, I assure you, Max, I had no idea. None at all. I’ve been completely ignorant all these years. It was only when I was about to pull you out of the water and he surfaced right in front of me.’

‘And you recognised him?’

‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It just didn’t seem possible.’ He seemed to brace himself. ‘I could only pull one of you out and I had only a split second in which to make that decision.’ He stopped and said with some difficulty, ‘I chose Markham. I had to.’

I was back in the river again. The cold water slapping at my face. The weight pulling me under. The water burning my throat. Unable to breathe . . . going under . . . I looked at him and said, ‘Yes . . . you did, didn’t you?’

‘I can assure you, Max, it was the most difficult choice I’ve ever . . .’

‘No,’ I said.

He seemed to flinch.

I said, heavily, ‘There was no choice to make. None at all. You couldn’t possibly have acted in any other way than you did without bringing disaster down upon us all. Markham’s life is woven into the very fabric of St Mary’s. You had no choice but to save him. This is the very thing the Time Police were banging on about with Ronan. We say it ourselves. Nothing ever happens in isolation. Everyone’s life thread is interwoven with everyone else’s. Change one thread and you change many. I might have died in the Thames but I would definitely have died if you hadn’t pulled him out. He’s saved me on many occasions. And not just me. You might not have liked it – and I’m certainly not happy – but I don’t believe you had a choice.’

For a moment he stared out of the window and then turned back and said, ‘That is very generous of you. I am more relieved to hear you say that than you can imagine. These last months have not been comfortable. Perhaps I should have told you everything and we should have discussed what happened. What I did. Perhaps it would have helped.’

It would. I could see why he’d kept it from me – he’d done it for Markham’s sake. And mine. Because if this ever got out . . . But he should have told me. I looked over the desk at him. He still looked old and ill. He’d been carrying a massive burden. And I hadn’t helped. Well, I could lie a little, as well. Let’s face it, I’ve been lying to authority for years. Time to show him how it should be done.

I said cheerfully, ‘I have to disagree, sir. It wouldn’t have helped at all. I’d have lamped you with a chair – this one, probably – and then you’d have had to sack me. If you ever regained consciousness, of course.’ I thought for a moment. ‘It was you who sent the Time Police for me, wasn’t it?’

‘I did. I bundled my two very wet and shocked passengers into the pod and we jumped to TPHQ.’

‘I bet they were thrilled when you dumped that little lot in their lap.’

‘It would be accurate to say there was some resistance, yes. It took all my powers of persuasion to convince Commander Hay I’d done the right thing. I pointed out that as the future Mr Markham, this young boy would have considerable interaction with future timelines and that, as with Clive Ronan, he must be allowed to continue. Without the smartdust, of course. I went on to point out that many people alive today would have died without him. While they were still reflecting on that, I told them I was merely following the example they themselves had set with Clive Ronan, whose life thread – to use your own vivid analogy – was also closely interwoven with our own. I told them if this young boy did not grow up to become Mr Markham and play an important part in all our pasts then whole tranches of History would unravel and they would be contravening the very purpose of their existence.’

‘And they accepted that?’

‘Good heavens, no. I was up all night arguing with them.’ He smiled. ‘Fortunately, I have been instructed in the Black Arts of Successful Argument by a master.’

‘So you sent them to find me? I can imagine their reluctance.’

‘There was a certain amount of muttering but they jumped in the end.’

‘Just in time, as it happened,’ I said, closing my eyes and feeling the cold waters close over my face again.

‘Yes – I can’t tell you how many anxious moments Mr Markham and I endured until you were deposited, dripping, on our doorstep.’

I was trying to pick a path through all this. ‘So you arrived back here, with Mrs Brown . . .’

‘And we went straight to Sick Bay, where Mr Markham was waiting for us – in a state of considerable anxiety, I might add – and then we waited, very, very fearfully, to hear that the Time Police had successfully retrieved you.’

I thought about that for a while. No one said anything as I pieced things together in my mind.

‘So,’ I said to Markham. ‘What happened to you afterwards? What did they do with you? Where did you go? Did you stay with the Time Police?’

‘Oh no. Trust me, they couldn’t get rid of me quickly enough. Which turned out to be a continuing theme in my life. Everywhere I went, people couldn’t get rid of me quickly enough. Initially I was placed with a family who had a history of service to the Crown. Loyal, discreet people.’

‘Did they know?’

‘They did, yes. I was a very medieval prince and that had to be explained away somehow. Unfortunately, I didn’t like them and they definitely didn’t like me, although I can’t have been easy to live with. I was the son of one king and the brother of another and it took me a long time to get over that. My problem was that this world was new and frightening and the only thing I could hang on to was my identity, but that always led to trouble. Then there would be even more trouble. Many efforts were made to thump it out of me and it took a spell in one of those homes for troubled children – where, incidentally, I learned all sorts of useful things – before I learned to keep my mouth shut. Fortunately, by this time I was integrated enough to have some sort of cover story – illegitimate son of someone important, I think it was.’

I nodded. That was basically what Ian Guthrie had believed and the story he had, in all innocence, told to me last Christmas.

‘I was passed around an astonishing number of families and guardians. I never stayed anywhere for very long. It was always made clear that I was only there on sufferance and that no one wanted me, and I resented it. Don’t look like that, Max, or feel sorry for me, either. They didn’t behave well but neither did I.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t really want to talk about it.’

I could just imagine it, actually. I could just imagine some idiot handing him an enormously long list of things he couldn’t do, or see or say, and being Markham, he would have thanked them politely with that stupid grin of his and immediately proceeded to work his way through it.

‘I got in with the wrong crowd – trust me, there are always plenty of people hanging around the fringes just waiting for someone like me – some yob with a sense of entitlement and a chip on his shoulder.’ He sighed. ‘I can see now how close I came.’

‘To what? You mean the establishment might have had you . . . ?’

He laughed. ‘Well, it’s not as if it’s never been done before.’

‘Surely . . .’

‘Come on, Max, think back. Our royal family has over a thousand years of experience in dealing with pretenders, imposters, inconvenient scions and so on. They themselves probably don’t actually come at you with a dagger in the dark – not these days, anyway – but trust me, nothing else has changed.’

I blinked and readjusted my ideas of a bunch of amiable, waving, smiling people who never answered back. Well, they didn’t have to, of course. They had people to do that for them. And, it would seem, by methods rather more drastic than simply penning a stern letter to The Times.

‘Anyway, one day I went too far and did something really stupid and everyone suddenly decided enough was enough. That might have been the end – I told myself I wasn’t bothered – but someone must have spoken up for me and I was offered a deal. The army or something even worse. As you know, I chose the army and Captain Guthrie – as he was then – took me on. My cover story was that I was just a young yob – uncontrollable and his own worst enemy. Which was not so far from the truth.’

‘But why? Why were cover stories necessary? Does it really matter who you are?’

‘Not to me. Not any longer. But others care. It’s not that long since we had a civil war, and Laurence Hoyle isn’t the only nutter out there. Governments get very nervous about this sort of thing. Suppose someone decides my claim is stronger than the present incumbent and tries to install me instead so that I could be some sort of puppet. The thing is, Max, the one thing the monarchy provides is continuity and stability. The last thing they need is a pretender turning up and undermining all that with a possibly better claim.’

‘Yes,’ I said vaguely, closing my eyes and following the royal succession back through the centuries to 1483.

‘See?’ he said sharply. ‘You can’t help yourself, can you?’

‘But surely, you’re the last Plantagenet. You’re the . . .’

‘No, I’m not,’ he said firmly. ‘Since then, we’ve had the Welsh lot, the Scottish lot and the Germans. We’ve moved on. Besides, I’m at St Mary’s now and I really like it here.’

He had a point. I couldn’t help feeling the monarchy should be kept away from Markham for much the same reasons they had to keep the One Ring away from Sauron. I could just imagine him, sword in hand, knighting yet another government-sponsored idiot: ‘Arise, Sir . . . Whoops. Bollocks. Sorry. My bad. Don’t stand in the blood, anyone.’

He was still speaking. ‘I was never going to give up what I have now for some poncey waving and ribbon-cutting job. I signed a ton of papers and got on with my life.’

‘You certainly have,’ I said, remembering little Flora upstairs.

‘Yeah,’ he said uneasily.

‘You weren’t supposed to have children, were you? Your line was supposed to die with you. That’s what the letter was about. The one you got last summer. After the steam-pump jump.’

‘Yeah,’ he said again.

‘But . . . didn’t you have . . . you know . . .’ I glanced uneasily at Dr Bairstow, not wanting to shock him if he didn’t know about such things. ‘The snip?’

‘Of course I did,’ he said indignantly. ‘And then I met Hunter and got unsnipped.’

So he’d done it deliberately. Of course he had. ‘How much trouble are you in?’

‘Hard to say,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘It probably ranges from a lot all the way up to an absolute shitload. But, to stop talking about me for a moment – I can’t say I’m sorry this has come out. I haven’t done you any favours today, Max, telling you this, but ever since we met, I’ve been wanting to say thank you. Thank you for saving my life and giving me a future.’

‘An honour and a privilege,’ I said and really meant it. A thought struck me. ‘Did you know, sir? When Markham came to St Mary’s?’

‘Not at all,’ he said calmly. ‘Major Guthrie showed me Mr Markham’s file when I recruited him. There was a remarkably long list of transgressions and we agreed it was an unfortunate start to a young life and left it at that. I had no idea until he bobbed up in front of me in London. For one moment, I was really quite perplexed as to the correct course of action to take.’

I remembered the expression on his face. The horror. The fear. The hard choice he’d had to make. And how, when you thought about it, it hadn’t really been a choice at all. It hadn’t been his fault. It certainly hadn’t been mine, but it hadn’t been his, either. And the thing in Mechelen – which turned out to have been the Wardrobe Department – when he’d done his best to keep me from harm. The thought struck me – far too late, of course, which is how my thoughts usually strike me – how likely was a young page to have a knowledge of Latin? And when that hadn’t been enough – there had been a warning. An unpleasant and unmissable warning. Danger to both me and my family. Finally, I’d got the message.

I sat and looked at my hands. Now what did I do? The hurt was still there. And the anger. I could hold on to them both. I could let them poison my life as I’d let them poison the last months. And for what? It hadn’t made me any happier.

I looked at Dr Bairstow. His face told me nothing – well, it never did. I looked at his hand as he moved a file to the other side of his desk. There was just the very faintest tremor, and it occurred to me that if I hung on to this then it wasn’t only myself I would be damaging.

I looked at Markham. His problems were so much more serious than me just having a bit of a strop. I wasn’t the important one here. I should let it go. For the sake of everyone.

So I did. I sat up straight, took a deep breath. I nodded at Dr Bairstow, who nodded back again.

I let it go.

43

In the same way I didn’t remember getting up the stairs, I didn’t remember leaving the Boss’s office, either. Somehow, Markham and I were out on the gallery.

I should have had a head full of questions – did Richard try to kill his nephews after all? How did Markham feel about that? What about his brother? Had his becoming a father changed anything? And like an idiot, I just stood on the gallery giving an excellent impersonation of someone who didn’t know where to go or what to do next. Someone whose world had picked itself up, turned itself around and was now facing in another direction.

I travel in time for a living. Stuff that can’t be explained just has to be accepted and I’d accepted a lot over the years. Now, I didn’t even know what was real and what wasn’t. How did I know this wasn’t a dream? Or was I dying somewhere and these were my last thoughts? Was I even now sinking into thick black Thames mud? Lost in a world of watery silence forever?

Someone poked me. ‘Oi.’

Typical Markham. You don’t even get to die in peace. ‘Ow. That hurt.’

‘Sorry, but I thought you needed bringing back.’

I looked around me. The problem of what to do next was far too big for me to grapple with. I’d just stand here for a while.

‘Do you want to come and see her?’

‘Who?’

‘Flora, of course.’

‘Is it allowed?’

‘Of course it is. You’ll be the first person to see her. Her first visitor.’ He looked down at his feet. ‘It’s the only gift I can give you, Max. I don’t have any money nor ever likely to have.’

‘I’d love to see her. And then you can buy me a drink afterwards and we’ll call it quits.’

‘Deal.’

The women’s ward – or as Dr Stone now insisted on calling it, the St Mary’s Maternity Wing – was quiet and peaceful. It was almost a shock to see that nothing here had changed. The same sun still streamed in through the windows. Hunter was sitting up in bed, cradling a small bundle. She looked tired but happy.

Markham crossed to her and kissed her gently. ‘How are my girls?’

‘We are neither of us your girls and you are about to embark upon a lifetime of hardship, strife and being outnumbered.’

He kissed her again. ‘It won’t be any of that if you’re there.’

They smiled at each other for a moment and then she looked past him. ‘Hello, Max.’

‘I can go away,’ I said. ‘You must be tired.’

‘No, it’s all right. Come and say hello.’

I approached the bed and peered down. A tiny scrunched-up face looked back at me.

‘Would you like to hold her for a moment?’

‘Oh. Um . . .’

I wasn’t given a choice. I sat in the window seat and Markham handed her to me as if she was the Crown Jewels.

You forget. I’d certainly forgotten. You forget how small they are. How fragile. How precious. Those tiny, tiny fingers. The soft, wispy hair. That new-baby smell. I’d forgotten. All that had been ripped away from me one dreadful day and whether my memories had faded naturally or in self-defence . . .

I don’t know where it came from. Something huge and horrible, that had been inside me for so long that I’d forgotten it was there, just burst forth. I gave a great sob that hurt my throat. Tears streamed down my face. The sobs wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Each one tore at my heart. One after the other. Like waves on the shore.

Someone must have rung for Dr Stone because suddenly he was there, looking down at me.

‘Finally,’ was all he said.

Fortunately, Markham took little Flora away before I dropped her or drowned her and somehow, I was shivering in Dr Stone’s office with a blanket round me.

He said gently, ‘Shall I fetch Leon?’

I shook my head. Leon was out kite-flying with Matthew. Both of them doing something nice and normal. I could deal with this alone. All I had to do was stop crying and everything would be absolutely fine.

He made me some cocoa. Apparently, it cures everything except in-growing toenails. No one knows why not. One of life’s great mysteries into which he was researching. He chattered on, bustling around his office doing God knows what, and eventually I subsided.

‘Well,’ he said, sitting opposite me. ‘That was a long time coming. How do you feel?’

I shook my head. ‘Like shit.’

He pointed out that was because I hadn’t drunk my cocoa.

I sipped obediently because although he looks about twelve years old and his ears stick out like the wing mirrors on an old car I once owned, he’s one of the greatest tyrants in History and I’ve never known him not to get his own way over anything.

‘Better now?’

I nodded and put the mug back on his desk.

‘Every Friday,’ he said. ‘Three to three thirty.’

‘What is?’

‘Your appointment. Every Friday you come and talk to me about your week. Or your past. Or your future. Or anything you want. But every Friday, you come and talk to me. After which, you can go and drink wine with Peterson or blow yourself up in R&D, or participate in a sporting bloodbath – however you traditionally round off your working week. No ifs, no buts, no arguments. Be here. Don’t make me come looking for you.’

I nodded, too tired and too overwhelmed to do anything else.

‘Well,’ he said, standing up. ‘That was easier than I thought it would be. I’ll show your visitor in now.’

He pushed a piece of paper across the desk and left the room.

I thought it would be Leon but it was Dr Bairstow.

He sat in the other visitor’s chair and we faced each other. I knew I looked terrible and he didn’t look much better.

‘Did he suffer?’

He wasn’t talking about Markham.

I nodded. ‘Horribly.’

He looked down at his feet. I knew what he was thinking. With Ronan’s death, a big part of my life and an even bigger part of Dr Bairstow’s had come to an end. I knew how I felt but what about him? Of the three of them – Dr Bairstow, Annie Bessant and Clive Ronan – he was now the only one left. He’d once said to me, ‘Never be the last to leave the party, Max,’ and then failed to follow his own advice.

I think each of us was waiting for the other to speak.

Eventually, he said, ‘Well, Max, where do we go from here? Is this the parting of the ways for us?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think I know anything any longer. My world is . . . not what I thought.’

Silence fell and then he said, ‘My dear, it is very important to me that you know this. When you were in the river . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘I couldn’t come myself – so I sent.’

I knew what he was saying. That he hadn’t been able to return to help me out so he’d sent the Time Police. He’d done what he could. I stared at my hands.

‘Max, speak to me. Say what you are thinking.’

I don’t know if the crying had helped – loosened something, perhaps – but suddenly everything was easier. I looked him in the eye and said, ‘I trusted you.’

He nodded. ‘This may not be what you want to hear, but we did it for your benefit, Max. No, I know that is the age-old excuse, but in this instance it is true. On my recommendation, the Time Police are about to declare 1483 to be a Triple-S area. Completely out of bounds to everyone.’

‘What reason will they give?’

‘They don’t need a reason, or so they tell me, and in this instance, I am happy to go along with that. Max, I know you better than you know yourself. I knew you would attempt to jump back to discover the truth. I knew you’d go alone and could only imagine the amount of trouble you would get yourself into. I wasn’t stupid enough even to consider forbidding you to go. So you didn’t actually jump. I couldn’t allow you to. You just thought you did. You thought a prince had been delivered to Margaret. Your misgivings were stilled. You let it go. Voluntarily. You had the protection of ignorance. Until today. Max, this is dangerous knowledge. I’m sorry to say. I have no idea how the appearance of little Flora will alter the status quo but I’m sure it will. And so, to return to my original question – where do we go from here, you and I?’

There was a very long silence. I stared at the floor hoping to give the impression of someone weighing the issues and working her way towards an informed decision, whereas actually, I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what I wanted. I wasn’t lost, as such, but I was . . . I think ‘adrift’ might be the word I’m looking for. Thoughts and images whirled through my mind. In a single twenty-four-hour period, my whole life had changed. I knew things I thought I’d wanted to know and now realised I didn’t. Trust me, ignorance is bliss. Clive Ronan was out of my life. I could do anything I wanted. If only I knew what I wanted.

Dr Bairstow was watching me. I waited hopefully, but when it became apparent he wasn’t going to say anything, I asked, ‘What is your recommendation, Dr Bairstow?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to say to you. I cannot pretend the next months will be easy, even by our standards. And times are changing. New people will be joining us with new ideas and new ways of doing things. There will be new challenges. New problems to solve. No one could deny these last years have taken their toll on you, but Clive Ronan is dead and his balance sheet is clear. You could walk away and begin a new life and no one would think any the worse of you.’

I nodded. All true. And all very tempting at this moment. On the other hand, making a decision now, while I was still, if not full of white-hot fury, at least feeling a little heated, would not be wise. And I had Matthew to think of. He’d had so many homes. He was settled here. And happy.

More silence fell.

‘And,’ he continued, folding his hands on his stick and not looking at me, ‘our friends in the Time Police are expressing a strong desire to . . . discuss . . . recent events regarding Clive Ronan and his misuse of the teapot with you. I believe the expression “her head on my desk by morning” was used by Commander Hay. It would certainly be prudent to distance yourself from any possible fall-out. In fact, Max, a wise historian would disassociate herself from us as quickly as possible. Our future here could range from slightly uncertain to downright perilous.’

I lifted my head. ‘You’re telling me to leave?’

‘Well, I think you should know – our future here may not be peaceful, and you’ve certainly earned the right to a long and peaceful life. Free from the sort of stresses that are bound to be coming our way before long.’

I frowned and tried to work out how I felt about a long and peaceful life. And then my eye fell on the piece of paper shoved at me by Dr Stone. Not a prescription, as I’d thought, but just a few words on a scrap of paper.

Would you be running to or would you be running from?

Well, that was a very good question. Dr Bairstow, surprisingly, was advising me to leave. To run from the Time Police and the trouble he thought was coming our way. But what would I be running to? Besides, running never helps. Trust me. Far better to stay put and kick the living shit out of it. Whatever it is.

I stared out of the window. ‘Can I think about it?’

‘Of course.’

I took myself off to the one place I felt safe. My office. It was the weekend and Rosie Lee wouldn’t be there. Of course, she wasn’t there much during the week, either.

Markham was leaning on the banisters, waiting for me.

‘How are you feeling, Max?’

The accent had gone again. This was the real Markham showing himself to me. The least I could do was return the compliment.

‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘I still feel used and manipulated but mostly I’m ashamed at being so . . . I don’t know . . . so wrong. I don’t feel I can trust my own judgement any longer. And if I can’t, how do I expect others to?’

He leaned on the banisters again and we looked down into the Hall below, empty at the moment but with boxes and boxes of data stored around the walls, waiting for us to get stuck in.

‘You’re wrong there, Max. There’s nothing wrong with your judgement. Look around you. Everyone here relies on you to some extent. Dr Bairstow may be the head of this unit but you’re the heart. People will follow you anywhere. Don’t you remember after Matthew was taken – people couldn’t give you anything except silent support. The entire unit waited with you – over there – on the stairs. It was all they could do and they did it.’

I shook my head, very nearly overcome again. He took my arm, saying, ‘Come on,’ and we began to walk around the gallery.

‘Max, thanks to you I’ve had a life. I have friends. I have a family. Things I never thought would happen. All thanks to you. I don’t have that many friends and I can’t afford to lose even one of them.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Besides, your son hasn’t yet finished building my personal assistant and if you do leave, then you’d probably want to take him with you, wouldn’t you?’

‘Probably, yes.’

‘You do know I want you to stay and have nothing to bribe you with, don’t you?’

I was still thinking about that dreadful day. The day Ronan snatched Matthew. Everyone had done a little something to help. Rosie Lee had even made me a cup of tea.

I stopped dead and Markham walked into me.

‘For God’s sake, Max. Hand signals would be helpful.’

I saw my office. My briefing table. The scattered files. That mug of malevolent tea. Or malevolent mug of tea. One or the other. Squatting in the middle of my table probably until the end of time because I wasn’t going to shift it and I was bloody sure Rosie Lee wouldn’t.

Markham was watching me anxiously. I smiled suddenly at him and he took a step backwards.

I took his arm.

‘Actually . . .’

It was Monday morning and I was preparing to crack the whip. The History Department awaited me downstairs. I was pulling my notes together ready for the debriefing. Rosie Lee was assisting me by watching.

I rummaged through a drawer. ‘Have you seen the file on . . .?’

The door crashed back against the wall making me nearly jump out of my skin. And I dropped my notes all over the floor.

‘What the hell . . . ?’

Six hazmat-suited figures burst into the room. One of them was clutching a loudly ticking machine which might have been a Geiger counter but was more probably an alarm clock in a metal box. He waved it wildly around the room.

‘It’s here,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve found it, sir.’

Markham strode into my office. ‘You know the drill, Gallacio. Locate. Isolate. Destroy.’

Gallacio waved his clicking machine towards my briefing table. The clicking increased impressively. ‘Here, sir. I’ve got it.’

‘Right. Stay back, everyone. Out of harm’s way. Designated staff – move in.’

Cox moved in with a pair of those extendable tong things but Evans stopped him. ‘Sir, there are civilians present.’

Markham recoiled dramatically. I began to enjoy myself.

‘Dammit, man,’ he roared. ‘This is a catastrophe. Initiate decontamination procedures.’

Evans shouted back. ‘Are you sure, sir. This is an enclosed space. Confirm senior officer override of all safety procedures.’

‘No time,’ bellowed Markham back at him. They were all of six inches apart. ‘Every second counts. Saving the civilians is now your number one priority.’

‘Understood, sir. Step forwards, decon crew.’

Cox and Keller bounded forwards, clutching a complicated piece of kit that looked as if a giant goldfish bowl and a reticulated python had enjoyed an intimate experience. The bowl was full of a strange green sludge that appeared to glow slightly. I began to enjoy myself even more.

Evans pointed at Rosie Lee. ‘Saving Female Civilian Number One now, sir. Female Civilian Number One – assume the position.’

Well, even I knew that wouldn’t go well.

‘The hell I will,’ she snarled. ‘You point that thing at me, Evans – and yes, I know it’s you – and I’ll use it to perform a tonsillectomy on you. Taking the scenic route. With the blunt end.’

‘Female Civilian Number One refusing to cooperate, sir.’

‘Move to DEFCON 2, Mr Evans.’

‘Moving to DEFCON 2 now, sir.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she shouted. ‘Will you lot bugger off?’

‘We’re trying to save your life, you dozy bint,’ he shouted back, abandoning military protocol in favour of civilian insults. ‘You’ve been exposed to a toxic hazard but we think we can save you.’

She pointed to the green sludge. ‘What the hell is that?’

‘Well, we usually keep it for the drains and even then only in emergencies, but Professor Rapson says it’ll be ideal for neutralising the biochemical hazard apparently residing in this office. It shouldn’t cause a problem as long as we wear protective gear.’

‘It appears to have escaped your notice that I am not wearing protective gear.’ She was really losing her rag. I began to enjoy myself immensely.

Evans shifted uneasily. ‘Nothing was said about civilians wearing protective gear.’

‘Perhaps it’s already too late,’ suggested Keller, backing away from her. He pointed at the mug of ex-tea. ‘This stuff’s been here for weeks.’ He looked up in excitement. ‘It’s very possible everyone along this corridor is already as good as dead.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Markham firmly, reigning in this inappropriate enthusiasm, ‘we are the Security Section and we must do our duty. On my mark . . . pump.’

Rosie Lee uttered a shriek of rage that would have shattered the windows if they hadn’t already been open. ‘If so much as one drop of that stuff falls on me . . .’

‘You’ve been exposed,’ began Markham again, but she elbowed him aside, seized the mug and flung it and the contents out of the window. There was a moment’s silence and then the sound of shattering china.

Below, Bashford’s voice rose in complaint. ‘Oi! Some bastard’s just dropped a mug down here.’

Rosie Lee hung precariously out of the window. ‘It’s your own fault for standing there, you moron. Why aren’t you in the Hall with the proper historians?’

‘I was just taking Angus for a walk.’

‘Then it’s your own fault. If you’d stayed inside then you wouldn’t have been hit, would you?’

I could hear the grin in his voice. ‘Actually, it wasn’t me that was hit.’

There was a very nasty silence as everyone mentally reviewed the whereabouts of everyone else. Historians downstairs. Techies in Hawking. Security Section in here with me. R&D R&Ding with the doors shut. In other words, everyone exactly where they should be. Which left just one person unaccounted for . . .

‘He’s on his way up,’ shouted Bashford. ‘Angus estimates you all have about seventeen seconds of life remaining.’

Rosie Lee stood frozen for a moment and then grabbed her bag. The Security Section parted to let her through. Evans politely held the door open for her. Her footsteps quickly died away.

Evans strolled slowly to the window and leaned out to see the car park. ‘Female Civilian Number One is leaving the premises, sir. Mission accomplished.’

‘Nice,’ I said. ‘Well thought out and beautifully executed.’

‘Good bit of improv, I thought,’ said Evans, pulling off his helmet.

‘Guys, I’m touched you would go to all this trouble. Thank you.’

‘With the added bonus of not seeing her for a couple of days,’ said Markham. ‘By the way, you owe me for the bottle of something fiery and expensive I had to bribe Bashford with. OK, guys, thanks very much.’

They filed out.

Neither Markham nor I were tall enough for a high five but we did manage a medium three and a half.

I grinned at him. ‘Thanks.’

‘That was fun,’ he said, tucking his helmet under one arm. ‘And you looked as if you could do with a bit of that. I think you should seriously think again about leaving us. You’ll never get another Security Section to clear up your dirty mugs the way we do.’

‘You could have just washed it, you know.’

‘Not the Security Section way,’ he said. ‘Think about what I said.’ He closed the door behind him.

It was a lovely evening with a lovely sunset and no sign of a mega tsunami anywhere. Leon and I were in our room enjoying a quiet moment together and discussing the future.

‘It’s our tipping point, Max,’ he said, topping up my wine. ‘This is the point at which we could, if we wanted, step back from St Mary’s and take a different path. Or stay on here and wait to see what the world chucks at us next.’

I sipped. ‘What do you want to do?’

He put his arm around me. ‘Actually, I don’t know. Is it a cop-out to say “whatever you want to do”?’

‘It’s not just about me though, is it? There’s Matthew to think of. He likes it here.’

‘He likes Professor Penrose.’

‘We all like Professor Penrose.’

He frowned severely. ‘Some of us just a little too much.’

I patted his hand reassuringly. ‘He’s my first reserve, in case you and I end badly; then I’ll have an older man to look after me.’

‘He’ll definitely be older after he’s spent ten minutes in your company.’

I smiled. ‘Don’t you want to see how it all ends?’

‘In blood and fire, probably,’ he said gloomily, topping up his glass.

‘Well, you wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?’

He sighed. ‘As if I’d ever be given the opportunity.’

I smiled and rested my head on his shoulder. ‘Looks like it’s time for the decision-making tool again. Got a coin?’

He looked around. ‘Where are my trousers?’

‘Up there.’

‘Good heavens.’

‘I believe that’s what I said at the time.’

He pulled them off the light fitting and rummaged in the pockets. ‘Heads we stay – tails we go.’

The coin rose into the air, turning over and over, catching the light. It must have landed somewhere because – you know – gravity, but I’d found something else to do. Historians have a very short attention thingy.

A good while later, Leon broke off to say, ‘Aren’t you interested to see how it landed?’

I grinned. ‘Who cares.’

THE END

Acknowledgements

My grateful thanks to Dr Craig Lambert’s Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project, ‘The Evolution of English Shipping Capacity’, for their assistance on all matters relating to medieval shipping.

Thanks to Phil Dawson for his advice on the wording of Leon’s arrest warrant.

Thanks to my agent, Hazel Cushion, happy in her prosecco haze.

Thanks to everyone at Headline, especially my editor, Frankie Edwards.

All mistakes are theirs because they obviously weren’t shouting loudly enough.

Have you met the Time Police?

A long time ago in the future, the secret of time travel became known to all and the world nearly ended. There will always be idiots who want to change history.

Enter the Time Police. An all-powerful, international organisation tasked with keeping the timeline straight. At all costs.

This is the story of Jane, Luke and Matthew – the worst recruits in Time Police history. Or, very possibly, three young people who might change everything.

THE CHRONICLES OF ST MARY’S SERIES GUIDE

Don’t know where to start with Jodi Taylor’s CHRONICLES OF ST MARY’S series? Never fear! We know timelines are a tricky business, so we’ve created a go-to guide to help you navigate the series and make the most of your adventure with the tea-soaked disaster magnets of St Mary’s as they hurtle their way around History.

JUST ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER

So tell me, Dr Maxwell, if the whole of History lay before you . . . where would you go? What would you like to witness?

Recruited by the St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, Madeleine Maxwell discovers the historians there don’t just study the past – they revisit it. But one wrong move and History will fight back – to the death. And she soon discovers it’s not just History she’s fighting . . .

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I never meant to write a bestseller. I just wanted to see if I had the mental discipline to write a book. I have to say no one was more surprised than me that the answer was yes. The only thing that surprised me more was that it did so well. I’m continually amazed that historians and physicists don’t spit on me in the streets. Although give them time.’

Available to download

A SYMPHONY OF ECHOES

Wherever the historians go, chaos is sure to follow . . .

Dispatched to Victorian London to seek out Jack the Ripper, things go badly wrong when he finds the St Mary’s historians first. Stalked through the fog-shrouded streets of Whitechapel, Max is soon running for her life. Again.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘This is the Jack the Ripper story! I frightened myself to death over this one. And it’s got dodos as well.’

Available to download

WHEN A CHILD IS BORN – a short story

It’s Christmas Day 1066 and a team from St Mary’s is going to witness the coronation of William the Conqueror. Or so they think . . .

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘Christmas was coming and the decree came down from above. “It’s Christmas, Taylor – we need a short story. Don’t just sit there.” So I didn’t. I think my publishers would like me to point out I’m not usually so obedient. Not unless electrodes are involved.’

Available to download

A SECOND CHANCE

I could have been a bomb-disposal expert, or a volunteer for the Mars mission, or a firefighter, something safe and sensible. But, no, I had to be an historian.

It began well. A successful assignment to 17th-century Cambridge to meet Isaac Newton, and another to witness the historic events at The Gates of Grief. So far so good.

But then came the long-awaited jump to the Trojan War that changed everything. And for Max, nothing will ever be the same again.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘This one was fun. I really enjoyed writing this one. St Mary’s really goes through it. Heh heh heh.’

Available to download

ROMAN HOLIDAY – a short story

Question: What sort of idiot installs his mistress in his wife’s house? Especially when that mistress is Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator, Queen of Egypt and the most notorious woman of her time?

Answer: Julius Caesar – poised to become King of Rome. Or as good as.

Question: At this potentially sensitive point in your political manoeuvrings, who are the last people you’d want crashing through the door, observing, recording, documenting  . . .?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘This is the embarrassing one. I wrote it because I couldn’t work out how to operate the door in my offspring’s flat, so I was trapped. All day. I wrote almost the whole story in one day. Ten thousand words, people! And everyone laughed at my predicament because children today have no respect for their elders.’

Available to download

A TRAIL THROUGH TIME

Sometimes, surviving is all you have left.

From a 17th-century Frost Fair to Ancient Egypt; from Pompeii to 8th-century Scandinavia; Max and Leon are pursued up and down the timeline, playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek, until finally they’re forced to take refuge at St Mary’s where a new danger awaits them.

Max’s happily ever after is going to have to wait a while . . .

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I really didn’t think people would like this one but it’s turned out to be many people’s favourite so, like Jon Snow – I know nothing.’

Available to download

CHRISTMAS PRESENT – a short story

It’s Christmas Eve at St Mary’s

And all through the house

Nothing is stirring . . .

Except for Max, Peterson and Markham, sneaking out at midnight for an assignment that is very definitely off the books.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I was a bit worried because this story was supposed to be a Christmas story and it was all about Boudicca sacking Colchester, so I tried to keep the nasty bits to a minimum. It’s the one where Bashford waves to Boudicca because, well – why wouldn’t you?’

Available to download

NO TIME LIKE THE PAST

A Fete Worse Than Death . . .

The St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research has finally recovered from its wounds and it’s business as usual for those rascals in the History Department and Max must struggle to get History back on track.

But first, they must get through the St Mary’s Fete – which is sure to end badly for everyone.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I wanted St Mary’s to have an open day. The phrase “A Fete worse than death” shot into my head – trust me, there’s plenty of room – and I just had to write it.’

Available to download

THE VERY FIRST DAMNED THING – a short story

Ever wondered how the St Mary’s of the future came to be?

Warning: this story may contain scenes about stolen furniture, a practical demonstration at the Stirrup Charge at Waterloo, students’ alcohol-ridden urine, a widowed urban guerrilla, a young man wearing exciting knitwear, and four naked security guards.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I think I’d written more than four or five books before I wrote this prequel. I don’t know why I was suddenly overwhelmed by a need to go back to the beginning but I did. Normally my overwhelming needs involve chocolate. I always say to people – don’t read this one first. Get a couple of books under your belt first otherwise some of it might not make sense. Which assumes the rest of it does . . .’

Available to download

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

To do what I do – go where I go – see what I see – it’s a wonderful, unique, never-to-be-taken-for-granted privilege.

With great privilege comes great responsibility, something Max knows only too well, and as newly appointed Chief Training Officer at the St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, it’s up to her to drum this guiding principle into her five new recruits.

Expect a training programme that includes Joan of Arc, an illegal mammoth, a duplicitous Father of History, a bombed rat, Stone Age hunters and Dick the Turd.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘My personal favourite. I’ve been a training officer. I’ve been in that particular hell. I’ve questioned my life choices, my sanity and the intelligence of trainees. On the other hand, there was the episode of the bombed rat.’

Available to download

SHIPS AND STINGS AND WEDDING RINGS – a short story

It’s Christmas at St Mary’s and time for Max’s obligatory illegal jump. On this occasion, however, they’re right up against it. And as if that’s not enough, someone (Max) has inadvertently poisoned Mr Markham.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘This is what happened when I was bored and there wasn’t anything on TV and I was reduced to reading the small print on a can of WD40.’

Available to download

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND HISTORY

I’ve done some stupid things in my time. I’ve been reckless. I’ve broken a few rules. But never before have I ruined so many lives or left such a trail of destruction behind me.

Max has never been one for rules. They tend to happen to other people. But this time she’s gone too far. And everyone at St Mary’s is paying the price.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I wrote this one to avenge myself on my brother who abandoned me on top of Doward Hill because there was a cow on the horizon. It was the size of a dachshund but apparently had a nasty look in its eye. He said. I didn’t get time to argue because he was off. Normally I’d let him go but he had the car keys.’

Available to download

THE GREAT ST MARY’S DAY OUT – a short story

Astonishingly, Dr Bairstow has declared a holiday. Even more astonishingly – he’s paying for it.

Needless to say, there are strings attached. They have to record the 1601 performance of Hamlet, with Shakespeare himself in the role of the Ghost.

It doesn’t go well, of course. With Dr Bairstow and Mrs Mack turning a simple visit to a street market into a public brawl, Professor Rapson inadvertently stowing away on a vessel bound for the New World, and Shakespeare himself going up in flames, it would seem that Max, of all people, is the only one actually completing the assignment.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I challenged myself to get the words “Dr Bairstow” and “selfie” in the same sentence. Challenge accepted!’

Available to download

MY NAME IS MARKHAM – a short story

Like a smaller and much scruffier Greta Garbo – finally – Markham speaks!

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘This is the one told by Markham himself. I wanted to give a tiny but tantalising glimpse of his background.’

Available to download

AND THE REST IS HISTORY

Because, my dear Max, you dance on the edge of darkness  . . . and I don’t think it would take very much for you to dance my way.

When an old enemy appears out of nowhere with an astonishing proposition for Max – a proposition that could change everything – Max is tempted. Very tempted.

With an end to an old conflict finally in sight, it looks as if St Mary’s problems are over with. Can they all now live happily ever after?

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘Ah! The dramatic one. Probably best if I don’t say any more.’

Available to download

DESSICATED WATER – a short story

Professor Rapson breaks astonishing new ground with his latest feat of scientific invention.

MARKHAM AND THE ANAL PROBING – a short story

When Markham disappears in the middle of nowhere, Max jumps to the logical conclusion – alien abduction.

A PERFECT STORM – a short story

For Max, what starts off as a perfectly normal week is about to degenerate into a quagmire of egotistical film producers, monumental pub crawls, unsigned contracts, exploding rocks, Professor Rapson and his megaphone, the world’s biggest bacon butty – and Angus – the third component of the most notorious love triangle since Menelaus, Paris and Whatshername – the one with the face they launched ships off.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘Oh yes. Calvin Cutter – bless him. His one-sided telephone call to Marge, his PA, as she’s trying to have her baby in peace was so much fun to write.’

Available to download

CHRISTMAS PAST – a short story

The First Farrell Family Christmas.

Max, Leon and Matthew – together at last for Christmas at St Mary’s – a time of conspicuous consumption, riotous misbehaviour and the traditional illegal Christmas jump. And this time, it’s inter-generational.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘The one where Matthew and Max take their first steps towards an understanding. The king-sized picnic they take to the starving boys was personally researched by me. I don’t think anyone realises quite how many sausages authors must force down for the sake of verisimilitude. A little more sympathy, please.’

Available to download

AN ARGUMENTATION OF HISTORIANS

They say you shouldn’t push your luck. Max gives her own luck a massive shove every day – and it’s only a matter of time until luck pushes back . . .

January 1536 – the day of Henry VIII’s infamous jousting accident. Historians from St Mary’s are there in force, recording and documenting. And, arguing – obviously.

A chance meeting between Max and the Time Police leads to a plan of action to bring down Clive Ronan, once and for all.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘Well, obviously, once I discovered the collective noun for a group of historians was an argumentation, there was no holding me back. Sorry!’

Available to download

THE BATTERSEA BARICADES – a short story

It’s not easy being a rebel.

So many new skills to assimilate.

Never mind strategic planning, weapons expertise and the like – there’s bicycle-stealing, oil-stain removal and boat steering to be mastered first. And quickly.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I’ve had people accusing me of being able to see the future but I swear I can’t. I made it all up. I suspect politicians are now lining up to spit on me in the streets.’

Available to download

THE STEAM-PUMP JUMP – a short story

Not one to let being banged up in Sick Bay stop her, Max has had a brilliant idea. But she needs Markham to execute it on her behalf. Told in Markham’s own words, this is the story of an intervention – St Mary’s style.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘This is the one set in Raglan Castle which I visited with my brother. The purpose of our visit was to discover where the steam-pump was installed. There was a certain amount – actually, a huge amount – of arguing. We waved our arms and shouted. I had to remind him of all the times he’d been wrong throughout his life and it took a long time. People moved away from us. I googled it when I got home and discovered we’d both been wrong. Quite embarrassing actually.’

Available to download

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT – a short story

Here’s a question for you. What’s the most exciting thing ever found in a fire bucket? And don’t say ‘fire’ because you’ll be wrong.

Every Christmas, for reasons which seem good at the time – especially after an eggnog or two – Max and the others leap into the nearest pod and indulge in their illegal Christmas jump. It’s a tradition. This year, however, just to be different, they find themselves part of someone else’s illegal Christmas jump. It’s time to don a spacesuit and bring your own urine!

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘I actually wanted to write this one years ago. It’s why I kept mentioning the Mars Project every now and then. And I wanted to do something completely different.’

Available to download

HOPE FOR THE BEST

You can’t change History. History doesn’t like it. There are always consequences.

Max is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands. Especially when she’s had A Brilliant Idea. Yes, it will mean breaking a few rules, but – as Max always says – they’re not her rules.

When History goes rogue, there’s a St Mary’s team right in the firing line and Max must step up.

You know what they say. Hope for the best. But plan for the worst.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘So I rang the offspring and said, “What do you know about sex clubs?” and was pleased/horrified/surprised/disturbed to find out he knew quite a lot. Hmm . . .’

Available to download

WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER? – a short story

Max, your father is here. He’s come to take Matthew away.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Max’s husband met Max’s father? What would Leon do? This is the story of what to expect if St Mary’s doesn’t like someone. As in, really doesn’t like someone. It is also a story of revenge. Because this is payback – St Mary’s style.

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘This is the one that kept me up all night, writing. It was quite a job devising a solution in which no one died and nothing caught fire – St Mary’s usual method of conflict resolution.’

Available to download

Psst! If you like your short stories all in one place, then these two collections are perfect for you . . .

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT

In print for the very first time, The Long and Short of It collects eight unmissable short stories from the international bestselling Chronicles of St Mary’s series including:

When a Child is Born

Roman Holiday

Christmas Present

The Very First Damned Thing

Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings

The Great St Mary’s Day Out

My Name is Markham

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘A collection of the earlier short stories. Initially we put it together in response to those who didn’t have kindles and therefore couldn’t access them.’

Available to download

LONG STORY SHORT

This collection brings together seven short stories and one special guest tale from somewhere completely different:

Christmas Past

The Battersea Barricades

The Steam-Pump Jump

And Now For Something Completely Different

When Did You Last See Your Father?

Desiccated Water

Markham and the Anal Probing

Little Donkey

Jodi Taylor says . . .

‘The usual thing. The telephone rings.

“We’re putting together another collection of short stories, Taylor and your readers would appreciate you writing a new one.”

A short pause.

“Have you finished it yet?”

And it includes Little Donkey from one of my other series – Frogmorton Farm. How not to bathe a donkey.’

Available to download

From Ancient Rome to the Tudor court, revolutionary Paris to the Second World War, discover the best voices in historical fiction and non-fiction.

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