Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Is he not in today?”

  “No, he’s been held up. Somewhere else.”

  The librarian handed her a photograph in a cellophane bag. “He asked me to search for this. I found it in the archive we have of a local portrait photographer. We don’t always have the names, but this photographer was fairly meticulous in cataloguing his subjects, so I managed to find it.”

  Rachel slipped the photograph out of the cellophane wrapper and found herself looking at Richard Parker, a respectable Edwardian businessman, standing erect, one thumb tucked into his waistcoat pocket, a hand on the shoulder of his daughter, Amy, seated on a stool, hands on her lap, both grim faced, a fake drawing room backdrop behind them.

  “Thank you,” Rachel said. “I’ll give it to him.”

  The librarian watched her go back to her desk, her polite smile fading.

  Rachel studied all afternoon and was about to leave when something occurred to her. She walked over to the Directories stack and ran her fingertip along the row of red and black Kelly’s Directories till it rested on the 1912 edition. She slid it out and opened it, smelling its musty pages, but instead of flipping to Alcester Road, she found Anderton Park Road, her finger sliding down to number 28, and the head of household.

  Mr Reginald M. Harper.

  She closed the book and frowned.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out and read the text message from Danny: I’m back.

  — 39 —

  ARABELLA PALMER’S HEART leapt as she opened the door to Beadle. She turned and let him follow her inside and waited till he shut the front door before she fell on him, kissing him so deeply right there in the hallway, unable to wait a moment longer.

  They kissed for what felt like an hour, and she moaned against him, wanting him so utterly with a naked need she hadn’t known she could feel again in her life.

  Then he had to spoil it all by telling her about his day.

  She sat in the parlour and listened as he paced the Persian rug and told her about the letter from his informant, and the arrest report that revealed Daniel Pearce had been in the police cells all night.

  “He was there. Right there in my own cell, and I missed him, by mere moments,” he said.

  She didn’t like the inference that he’d missed him because he’d been here, with her.

  Then she listened with growing fury as he relayed the investigation at the Parker household.

  “I must say, I had an eerie thought. The similarity in your names. Twenty-four years ago this man was about to marry you, Arabella Palmer. Now he, or his son, is drawn to Amy Parker. Could there be something in the names? Is this a clue, a key to unlock this mystery?”

  “Yes, perhaps it was my initials all along.”

  He didn’t see. He didn’t notice her anger, the dolt. He kept on blathering about the strange meeting with Richard Parker.

  “There was something off about him. I thought the daughter was protecting him, protecting some secret. He appeared perfectly lucid and normal, but then he answered as if he were addressing someone else altogether, in a separate conversation, perhaps from the past.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “He kept repeating something odd. Numbers fourteen eighteen, he said. And this was what his daughter knew. Numbers fourteen eighteen. Is that a year? What happened in 1418? Do you have an historical almanac?”

  “There’s nothing I can think of,” Arabella said. “But if it was a date he would just say 1418, why say they are numbers? Perhaps it’s a mathematical problem.”

  “Yes, you’re right.”

  “You needn’t sound surprised at that.”

  He looked up from his reverie and finally noticed. “Arabella, you are angry with me.”

  “Why would I be angry with you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She folded her arms. He really was perfectly obtuse, and no different to the majority of men.

  He slapped his forehead. “You resent that I went alone, without you.”

  “It was to be our investigation,” she said.

  “Arabella. I’m a Detective Inspector. What am I to do when a suspect is brought to my attention and is only minutes away?”

  “You said it was not official business. It was a private matter. You said we shared it.”

  He flapped his arms hopelessly and let them fall to his side. “You are right. I apologize. I did think of you, but I knew it would waste time and he might be gone. And I didn’t feel I could call on them pretending it was official police business if I had my... You with me.”

  “Your what?”

  “You, I said.”

  “You were going to say with your... What am I?”

  “My fiancé,” he mumbled, like it was stupid, like it was embarrassing to him. He looked at the rug.

  “I don’t recall a proposal.”

  He went down on one knee, so suddenly he grunted with the effort. “Arabella Palmer, would you do me the honour of being my wife?”

  She recoiled. It was rather sweet and impulsive and her heart fluttered, even though it was not the proposal she had ever imagined.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “I have some conditions.”

  “Name them.”

  He took her fidgeting hands in his own.

  “We have a year-long engagement. I want to see what kind of man you are before I commit to the rest of my life.”

  “That can happen,” he said.

  “My membership of the suffragette movement continues and is non-negotiable. Even if I am imprisoned.”

  “Done.”

  “Even if you have to arrest me yourself.”

  “Good God, Arabella–”

  “That is also non-negotiable.”

  He thought about it, and she could see the cogs whirring in his mind: how he was retiring soon anyway, weighing up the chance to marry her against a few more years shuffling papers in Moseley police station.

  “I agree,” he said.

  “And if we are to be married, I will not promise to obey you. But I will love and honour you, if you will do the same for me.”

  “That is rather radical,” he said. “I don’t know that we’ll get a vicar to agree to that.”

  “Of course,” she cried. “That’s it!” She snapped her fingers and rushed to the bookshelf.

  He got up from his knee and sat with a sigh. He really was in no fit state to be chasing criminals.

  She heaved a thick volume down and slammed it on her lap, sitting next to him.

  “The Bible? Do you want me to swear on it?”

  “Not that, silly.”

  She flicked through the thin scritta pages, through Judges, Joshua and Deuteronomy, till she came to it.

  “The Book of Numbers,” he said. “Of course.”

  She flipped to Chapter 14, her finger gliding down the page to verse 18. “The Lord is patient and full of mercy, taking away iniquity and wickedness, and leaving no man clear, who visitest the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”

  “Numbers fourteen eighteen,” he said. “You think this is what he meant?”

  “He said his daughter knew it, didn’t he?”

  “He’s going to punish her for his sins?”

  “Or he thinks God is going to do that. He’s a rather cruel God to do that, don’t you think?”

  Beadle stood and paced again. “Tomorrow we should go to St. Mary’s. That is key to this mystery. And while we’re there, we can talk with Reverend Colmore.”

  “Is this about our wedding arrangements?” She smiled, so he would know she was teasing him.

  “Not just yet,” he said. “You want a long engagement, remember?”

  — 40 —

  RACHEL TEXTED DANNY that she was in the library. In an hour, he came, still in his Edwardian suit, although with his shirt collar open he simply looked like a ret
ro hipster, nothing too unusual. He had his carrier bag, which must have contained his hat. It was funny how in films people looked at a time traveller and noticed how strangely they were dressed. In reality, no one noticed much at all. It was another thing the movies had all wrong.

  He slid into the chair beside her and threw his head back. “You won’t believe what’s happened.”

  “How was prison?”

  “Grim as. I’m just glad that drunk wasn’t in there with me. I’m going to get Amy to run away with me. If she runs away with me, it can’t happen. Which means she can’t die.”

  Rachel glanced around. There were a handful of people in the Local Studies section, but all too far away to hear. The redheaded librarian girl was watching them from her reception desk, but she couldn’t hear them.

  “Do you think it’s healthy falling in love with a girl who’s over a hundred?”

  “I like mature women,” he laughed, spinning the revolving chair.

  He was in love with himself more than Amy Parker, that was clear. It was all about Danny Pearce and how brilliant he was to cheat time. It had always been about him and his control, never about the past and what it meant just to see it, observe it, maybe even learn from it. It was a giant river and you could sit on the banks and watch it. But Danny wanted to drive a digger into it and alter its course, just so he could say I did that.

  “I found out what General Paralysis means,” she said.

  “I know what it means.”

  “What do you mean? You thought it meant just dead, you said.”

  “I know. And then I found out what it really meant,” he smiled, holding up his iPhone.

  He was so infuriatingly smug she wanted to slap him.

  “It’s the polite term for syphilis,” she said, realizing she was blurting it out before he could. “They put it on death certificates so it wouldn’t cause a scandal. That’s why he’s mad. It eats away at the spinal cord or something. Sends you crazy.”

  “I know,” he smiled. “He goes to that chemist in Highgate for Salvarsan injections. It’s a revolutionary new treatment. In 1912. But I think it’s come a little too late for Mr Parker. It’s certainly come too late for Amy.”

  “You can’t save her, Danny,” she said.

  “Just watch me.”

  “It’s already happened.”

  “Not yet it hasn’t.”

  She reached for the stack of books in front of her and pulled out the photo book, holding it up in front of him.

  “Look at this.”

  She flipped through pages of mugshots till she came to his picture.

  “There.”

  He took it from her, staring in wonder.

  “Daniel Pearce,” she said. “No Fixed Abode. Drunkard. Arrested a hundred years ago.”

  “So that’s how he knew my name,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “An inspector called on Amy, this morning. I was there. He asked her about me. I had to run out the back door.”

  “The police are looking for you? They know you’re up to something with Amy? Jesus, Danny, you have to stop.”

  “Edwardian cops are so slow. I don’t think they’d ever catch me.”

  “They caught you yesterday. You want to go back to an Edwardian prison that much?”

  He just stared at his photo in the book with a stupid grin. “This is awesome. I need to get a copy of this.”

  He was such an idiot. “Don’t you get it?”

  “What?”

  “This book has been in this library for years. Your photo’s been in it for years. Before you got arrested yesterday, before you met Amy Parker, maybe even before you were born.”

  “Mad, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is! It’s mad that you think you can change anything. She’s dead. It’s in the archives right here. It’s already happened. Just like your arrest.”

  He shook his head. “Well, I’m going to change it.”

  He looked over his shoulder and checked the librarian. She was watching, but at his look she turned and busied herself shifting stock. Danny ripped the page out of the book, folded the page and tucked it inside his pocket.

  He winked.

  She wanted to vomit in his face. “You’re used to getting what you want, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It’s just a playground to you. Just a game. It’s all laid on for your personal amusement and you’re going to change the past just because you can!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Have you ever thought there might be some things you can’t change? Have you ever thought maybe some things are just never going to change?”

  Tears pricked her eyes and she turned so he wouldn’t see. He couldn’t see anything but his own desire, anyway.

  “No. I haven’t,” he said. “That’s why I’m not like you.”

  She snatched up her bag and stood. “Just leave her alone, Danny.”

  She marched off, across acres of orange carpet, and stomped down the escalators.

  Outside it was night and a fierce wind blew through Chamberlain Square. She shuddered, hugging her thin jacket closer, her belly rumbling, longing for the safety of home and Nan’s overcooked dinner. Home seemed a million miles away.

  Trudging through the city, she decided that in the morning she would have to find a way to stop Danny changing history. She didn’t know why she needed to – it meant nothing to her – but somehow it seemed like it was a matter of life or death not for Amy Parker, but for Rachel too.

  — 41 —

  DANNY WORKED ON ALONE on the sixth floor, which slowly thinned as people packed up their research and went home. He noticed it was mostly old men, retired, working through archives, trying to find their past, living out their final days in a world they could never have.

  He was different. He could live in that past, a past they could never grasp. He laughed as he imagined striking up conversation with one of them to find out a little about their research, to find out where they longed to be again, so he could go to that time and screw it up for them. Just for the fun of it.

  He didn’t have a pen or paper on him, only his phone, which was running low on battery. He was unprepared for this, he thought, then laughed at his ability to visit the past, be in it, change it.

  He walked over to the reception desk and noticed the exhibition on the Titanic. The 100-year anniversary. Photocopied pages of the ship, its captain, the newspaper report about the terrible loss of life. Amy had read that actual newspaper, and it was news to her. And he, could he go back and change it? Go back to a little earlier and warn them of the iceberg, warn everyone that the ship was going to sink? Could he somehow control when the touchstone would let him go to? So that if he failed to save Amy tomorrow, he could try again and again till he got it right?

  The redheaded librarian on reception desk seemed startled to see him.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’ve been very silly and come out without a pen and paper. Would you be able..?”

  She smirked. “Doesn’t your girlfriend have one?”

  “What? Oh, Rachel. She’s not... No. She’s gone.”

  Was she checking him out? How could he tell her that he was only interested in a girl from 100 years ago; how could she possibly even begin to understand that?

  She slid a couple of sheets of A4 scrap paper across the desk and an old biro.

  “There’s something I need to find out. I wonder if you can help?” he said.

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “There’s a murder that happens in 1912 and I’m trying to find out the exact time of day it happened. I’ve looked for newspaper reports but there’s nothing, do you have police reports?”

  She shook her head and ran her hand through her hair, even though it was pinned back in a bun. “We don’t have anything like that.”

  “What about asylum records? I know the killer was committed to Winston Green asylum.”

>   “Ooh, we do have those records, actually. Do you have a name?”

  He wrote it down, Richard Parker’s name and age, the date of Amy’s death – tomorrow, exactly 100 years ago – and ripped off a square of paper for her.

  “Let me check,” she said.

  She walked off and took a spiral staircase to an upper archive room. He couldn’t help examining her legs as she climbed the stairs. Back in 1912 that would be shocking, seeing that much of a woman, almost pornographic, and here it was nothing. He realized he hadn’t seen so much as Amy Parker’s bare elbow.

  He sat back at his desk and a gnawing pain in his gut reminded him he hadn’t eaten all day. A sudden blanket of fatigue weighed on him.

  “You’re lucky.”

  He opened his eyes. The redheaded librarian was standing over him with a large, square cardboard box. She placed it on his desk.

  “I should make you come back tomorrow as there’s a privacy law that covers this for exactly 100 years. But I’ll let you off.”

  “Lucky me,” he said.

  “Sign this.”

  She gave him a chit to sign to say he had them and he wouldn’t take photographs or steal them or release the information into the public domain ahead of the hundred-year privacy rule.

  He opened the box and found various old folders full of reception reports and statements. Flicking through the names he thought Parker would be missing but it was the last in the box.

  The pages were musty and mottled with damp. The whole Local Studies section smelt of this. Most of the library, in fact. The past reeked of it. But it wasn’t the past at all. The past didn’t smell like that. It was all the time between then and now that had that disgusting smell.

  The reception report was brief. Someone had scribbled answers to a series of printed entries. He read the entire thing, the whole sad history of Richard Parker arriving disoriented, talking in riddles about ‘closing the lodge at three degrees both within and without’ and answering almost every question put to him with the response, “numbers fourteen eighteen’, till he deteriorated rapidly and died after a fit.

  A fit. That was it. You could have a fit and just die.