‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘Yes, you did. It sounded like you said “play”.’
Sam looked around the pub. The pig-faced barmaid opened the dishwasher, sending a cloud of steam billowing into the air. The two old drunks were outside, smoking roll-up cigarettes. There was a battered fruit machine in the corner next to a jukebox. A man with a shaved head was standing at it with his back turned as he pounded the buttons.
Sam looked back to Eva. ‘Shall I play a song? On the jukebox, I mean.’
‘Sure,’ she said, ‘if you want. Are you going to drink that shot or what?’
‘In a minute.’ He placed the glass on the table and brushed the salt from his hand. ‘Any requests?’
‘Surprise me,’ she said and downed her own shot.
Sam stood and crossed the room unsteadily. He was well on his way to being drunk again without actually having consumed any alcohol. As the man with the shaved head shot him a sidelong glance, Sam realised it was the same person who’d nearly knocked him over while he was waiting for Eva at the underground station.
Sam took his wallet out and looked inside. ‘Excuse me?’
The man ignored him, just like the girl in the green dress had, and continued pressing the buttons of the fruit machine with his right hand. His left hand remained stuck in his trouser pocket.
‘Excuse me?’ Sam said again, this time louder.
The man froze, his finger on a flashing orange button.
‘Have you got change for the jukebox?’
He took a second to digest Sam’s question. ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said, pulling his left hand from his trouser pocket and reaching for the breast pocket of his jacket. Inked on the skin between his thumb and index finger was a small, blue bird with a forked tail. ‘How much do you need?’
‘You know what, it doesn’t matter,’ Sam said. ‘Sorry to bother you.’
He returned to the table feeling the man’s stare burning a hole in his back.
‘What song did you choose?’ Eva asked as he sat back down.
‘Sorry?’
‘On the jukebox.’
‘Oh, nothing. I changed my mind.’
She placed an elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. ‘You really are quite odd, Sam, you know that?’
‘In a bad way?’
‘Not at all. I find it intriguing.’
Sam closed his eyes and was about to form the word ‘now’ in his head when he suddenly had an idea. If he left that minute and hurried home then he might still be able to make his appointment with Dr McHayden, and if he could keep her trust (or, more to the point, prevent himself losing it in the first place) then his position at the Tempus Project would be safe, and with it his continued supply of Tetradyamide.
He opened his eyes, got up and lifted his coat from the back of the chair. ‘Sorry Eva, I’ve just remembered there’s something I need to do.’
‘You’re leaving already?’ she asked, frowning. ‘You want me to come with you?’
‘I wish you could, but it’s something I need to do on my own.’
She sighed. ‘Very mysterious. I’m staying with Doug until early January. Will I see you again?’
‘Of course, remember about tomorrow―’ He stopped short, realising they hadn’t arranged to meet again yet in this timeline. ‘Would you like to come over to my house tomorrow? You could meet my sister.’
‘Sure, I guess. What time?’
‘How about lunchtime?’ Sam said, and then remembered the panic he’d felt at not being able to reach her on the phone. ‘Wait, maybe it’s best if I just call you in the morning.’
Eva glanced at her watch. ‘I should probably leave too then. Doug’s taking me for dinner and I want to have a bath first.’
‘I’ll walk you to the station,’ Sam said.
‘No, it’s fine. I remember the way.’ And with that she stood up, pulled on her coat and walked out of the pub.
As Sam watched Eva leave, he remembered the softness of her lips against his own during the kiss they would no longer share. Suspecting he’d just made a huge mistake, he closed his eyes and mouthed the word ‘now’.
3
Sam opened his eyes and was presented with the view of his own bedroom instead of that of the back room of the Tempus Research Facility. Lewis was sitting on a stool, his back against the wardrobe and his socked feet resting on the corner of the bed. Sam blinked and then gasped as the image began to move, like someone had just pressed play on a paused recording. The slight intoxication he’d felt a minute earlier was gone, replaced by a heavy stomach that could only be the result of a recently consumed cooked breakfast. Rock music thumped through the ceiling from Chrissie’s room on the floor above, and a vinegary aroma drifted up from Lewis’s feet.
‘Are you all right?’ Lewis asked. He took a bite from an apple in his hand. ‘You’ve got that look again.’
‘What look?’
‘The same look as you had in the canteen yesterday, just before you started talking to that strange girl. Sort of like you’ve been hit over the head with a frying pan.’
‘That was yesterday?’ Sam asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘So today’s Saturday?’
‘Yes, genius. And tomorrow’s Sunday and the day after that is Monday. That’s the way it normally works.’
‘Oh,’ Sam said, but in fact it made perfect sense. If he’d managed to undo being late for Dr McHayden on Friday evening, she wouldn’t have ordered him in again on Saturday, which was today. He wasn’t at the Tempus Research Facility because of changes he’d made in the past that had altered what was happening right now. This was another alternate timeline.
Lewis swung his feet off the bed and leaned forward. ‘What’s going on with you? This is about what you told me after the funeral, isn’t it, when you thought you stopped the bombing?’
Sam stared back without saying anything.
‘Come on, it’s me you’re talking to.’
After a few seconds, Sam shook his head. ‘I’m scared, Lewis. I think I might have got mixed up in something dangerous and―’
The doorbell rang.
‘Expecting anyone?’ Lewis asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ Sam said. ‘No, wait, maybe I am!’
4
Eva looked through the falling snow at the little house, then down at the address on the scrap of paper in her hand. It was weird not having her cell phone and needing to make do with verbal directions and handwritten maps. She scrunched the paper into a ball, dropped it into her handbag and pushed the gate open, the hinges squeaking as it closed behind her.
She wasn’t quite sure what had happened yesterday. Everything seemed to be going well, when all of a sudden a funny look had come over Sam’s face and the mood completely changed. In fact, it was more than just the mood; it was as if Sam himself had changed, the boy sitting across from her replaced by a different person, someone desperate to be someplace else. Eva had spent the rest of that evening and most of the morning wondering whether or not she should just cancel, but in the end she’d decided to give him another chance. After what had happened with Trent, she hoped it was the right thing to do.
She pressed the doorbell and, a few seconds later, heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Sam opened the door looking dishevelled. He was wearing a black hooded top, faded grey jogging bottoms and a pair of threadbare slippers. No other date she’d been on had started like this.
‘You are expecting me, right?’ she asked, even though she’d spoken to him only a couple of hours before.
‘Yeah, I…’ Sam glanced down at his clothes and blushed. ‘You’re just a bit earlier than I thought. Come in.’ He took her coat and then led her down the hall to the kitchen at the rear of the house. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Yes please, something hot.’
He filled the kettle at the tap. ‘Is tea okay? I’ve got instant coffee somewhere, if you prefer.’
‘Tea’s fine,’
she said and sat down at the dining table.
Sam placed the kettle on its stand, flicked the switch and came to join her. ‘Look, I’m sorry about yesterday, running off like that.’
Eva shrugged. ‘It’s okay, you already apologised on the phone. Did you do whatever it was you had to leave for in such a hurry?’
‘Um, yeah, you could say that.’
‘Hello,’ a voice behind her said. Eva turned in her chair to see a tall, gawky boy standing in the doorway.
‘Eva, this is my friend Lewis,’ Sam said.
‘Hi,’ Eva said, ‘Sam told me about you.’
Lewis arched an eyebrow. ‘Only good things, I’m assuming.’
The kettle clicked off. Sam poured boiling water into a mug, stirred the teabag with a spoon and then scooped it out and flicked it into the trashcan. ‘I think I might get changed,’ he said, passing Eva her tea. ‘Will you two be all right for a minute?’
‘Sure,’ Eva said.
Once Sam had left the room, she turned to Lewis. ‘So―’
‘I’m worried about him,’ Lewis said. He took the next chair and swung round to face her, staring intently.
So much for small talk, Eva thought. ‘That’s only natural, I guess. It’s not every day you lose a parent.’
Lewis shook his head, his curls bouncing. ‘It’s not just that. Well, it is that and what’s been happening since. He had a seizure at Matthew’s funeral, you know.’
‘I heard. Doug, my father, was there.’
‘The thing is, when Sam came round again he was acting really strangely. I called an ambulance and was trying to get him to let the paramedics check him over, but he was obsessed about making a phone call, kept ranting about something terrible that was about to happen.’
‘He was probably just confused.’ Eva sipped her tea. ‘There’s a kid at my school who’s epileptic. She had a fit in gym class once, right in front of everybody. When she came round she didn’t have a clue where she was or what had happened.’
‘Maybe,’ Lewis said and rubbed his chin. ‘But I was there. I heard him make the phone call and I heard what he said. He was talking to someone called Inspector Hinds. He told her about a bombing that evening, warned her that she had to stop it. After we got back from the hospital – this was several hours later – there was a report on the news about a failed terrorist attack on a government building. That can’t be just a coincidence, can it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Eva said. ‘What does Sam say about it?’
Lewis laughed, but it came out as more of a snort and he didn’t smile. ‘That’s the really strange bit. At the time he told me that, while he was having the seizure, he saw what was going to happen later that evening, like he was psychic or something, and saw us watching the news report just like before, except this time the bombing had actually happened. He thinks he prevented it, Eva. He thinks he changed the future. What really worries me is that he won’t even talk about it since, and every time I try to bring it up he just changes the subject.’
Eva thought it sounded an awful lot like an elaborate story made up at her expense, but the look of concern on Lewis’s face seemed genuine enough.
‘It’s not the kind of thing I’d joke about,’ he said, sensing her apprehension.
There was a noise by the door. Eva turned to see Sam standing there, now wearing jeans, a grey jumper and a scowl on his face.
‘Lewis,’ he said, ‘what have you been telling her?’
5
Sam had only been away a couple of minutes, just long enough to change his clothes and brush his teeth, but Lewis had a voice that carried and could probably be heard from the bottom of the garden. By the time Sam was half way down the stairs, he’d already heard enough to realise that another person now knew his secret.
Eva tilted her head to the side and studied him with a neutral expression that made it impossible to read what she was thinking. ‘Is this true?’ she asked.
Sam exhaled and slumped in a chair. ‘Sort of. Basically. Yes.’
‘You can predict the future?’
‘In a way.’
‘Okay.’ She pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘What number am I thinking of?’
‘That’s not how it works,’ he said. ‘You make it sound like I’m a fortune-teller or something. It’s not a magic trick and I can’t read people’s minds. What happens is, I can sometimes see things that haven’t happened yet, or go back to things that have already happened. It’s only through my eyes, but like seeing through the eyes of a past or future me.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘Prove it.’
Sam knew he should just laugh the whole thing off, but the tone of her voice made it sound like a challenge and, in spite of everything, he wanted to impress her. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.
Eva reached into her handbag and took out a scrunched ball of paper. She hid both hands behind her back and then held them out, fists clenched. ‘Which hand is it in?’
‘I’ve got a much better idea.’ Lewis said. He got up and left the room, returning a moment later with Sam’s grandfather’s newspaper, which he spread on the table in front of them. ‘Here,’ he jabbed a finger in the middle of the sports section, ‘there’s a race at Newmarket in less than ten minutes. Call the winner before it starts and you’ve proved your point.’
‘No problem.’ Sam went to fetch the portable radio from the kitchen counter, switched it on and spun the dial, skipping past several stations until he found one playing the race. He’d never gambled before apart from the school raffle, and he didn’t think that counted.
It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two since he’d taken Tetradyamide, so it should still have been in his system for several hours yet. He closed his eyes and focused on the time that the race started, but nothing happened. The only thing he saw was the darkness behind his eyelids.
‘So?’ Eva asked.
Sam opened one eye, then the other. She was staring at him with a curious smile on her face.
‘Let me try again.’ He took a deep breath and, holding it, closed his eyes so tightly that it almost hurt. There were no spinning shapes, only darkness and the sound of Lewis tapping his foot under the table. Sam heard the house phone ring twice and then stop. He opened his eyes again. ‘It isn’t working.’
Eva slapped her knee and laughed. ‘That’s a good one! You almost had me going there. Ooooh, I can see the future,’ she said, putting on a British accent. ‘I can see the through the eyes of a past and future me. It’s original, guys, I’ll give you that.’
Something wasn’t right. Sam had experienced no difficulties when he’d undone being late for Dr McHayden, so what had changed?
‘It’s because I don’t have the drug in my system anymore,’ he said.
‘What drug?’ Lewis asked.
‘The Tetra...whatchamacallit. Without the drug I can’t control when it happens.’
‘You can give it a rest now,’ Eva said. ‘I’m not biting. I mean, how dumb do you think I am?’
‘I’m not making it up,’ Sam said. ‘I originally took the drug this morning when I was at the lab, but then, by leaving the pub early yesterday, I changed what happened and created an alternate timeline – now.’
Lewis rubbed his face. ‘Mate, you’ve totally lost me.’
‘This is an alternate timeline?’ Eva asked. ‘Doesn’t feel very alternate to me.’
‘It wouldn’t to anyone else, only me,’ Sam said. ‘In this reality I didn’t take Tetradyamide this morning because I didn’t visit the lab as a result of the changes I made yesterday. In this timeline I wasn’t late yesterday and we didn’t kiss.’
‘Excuse me,’ Eva said, ‘but did you just say we kissed?’
‘Yeah.’ Sam could feel his face starting to heat up. ‘But that was an alternate yesterday. When I left the pub early I changed everything that happened after.’
‘Some things aren’t that hard to put right,’ she said, a half smile creepin
g across her lips.
At that moment Chrissie ran into the kitchen, sliding across the floor in her socks. She bumped into the table, knocking over the vase in the centre, which would have rolled onto the floor if Lewis hadn’t jumped up and caught it.
‘Eva, this is Chrissie, my sister,’ Sam said. ‘She’s not usually in such a hurry.’
‘Hi,’ Chrissie said, and turned to Sam, panting. Her eyes were wide with joy, her cheeks flushed with colour. ‘You’re not going to believe what’s happened!’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘The hospital just rang. It’s Mum, Sam, she’s woken up.’
6
George had never been short on self-confidence, but even he would never have imagined the way in which the last few weeks had unfolded. After hanging up on Inspector Hinds, he’d followed departmental procedure to the letter. All non-essential personnel were evacuated, leaving only a skeleton crew to maintain the appearance that the building was occupied. George had led a unit including a bomb disposal team to the basement car park, where he had stationed a man on the kiosk at the entrance and positioned four snipers to cover all angles of approach. The rest of his team, five men and three women, crammed into the back of an unmarked surveillance van.
Tempers had simmered during a five-hour wait in stuffy, cramped conditions. After several false alarms, George began to suspect the whole incident might develop into an embarrassing blemish on his record, but then his radio had crackled into life and the man at the entrance informed him a delivery truck was approaching. It seemed to take forever to descend the ramp and lumber into view. The driver pulled into a bay in the middle of the car park – the place where any blast would do the most damage – and killed the engine. A trickle of sweat ran down George’s temple and into his eye. He blinked and wiped it away. The door of the truck opened and a man wearing a Royal Mail uniform climbed out of the front cab. George focused the lens, straining to catch a glimpse of the face. Looking the other way, the man walked round to the rear of the truck and was momentarily obscured by a pillar. George zoomed out. A second later the man reappeared. As he reached for the handle of the back door, he glanced in George’s direction.
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