by Andy Conway
“Look at the list. Future bombings is one thing, but exact locations the bombs fall, actual addresses, the number of casualties? None of that can be planned. It looks more like deranged fantasy.”
A shadow of doubt flickered over Clifford’s face for the first time, wondering if he’d made a fundamental error. “Might be worth looking into, I suppose.”
“I’d get a man onto that right away,” Charlie said. “And put the suspect in the interrogation room. I want to talk to him. Alone.”
“Look here, Eckersley, I have authority here and—’
“This is not some squabble between an ARP and a constable over who’s in charge of a bomb site,” said Charlie. “And I’m not here as an army lieutenant. Special Intelligence Service business takes precedence. I shall report to you in due course.”
Clifford held his glare for a moment, then looked down at his desk. He stubbed out his cigarette and rose from his seat. “Very well.”
Charlie slipped the iPhone into his trench coat pocket and tucked the list of bombings inside.
Clifford said nothing.
— 27 —
RACHEL LOOKED UP AS Constable Davies entered and scanned the hall. She recognized him as the policeman who’d argued over the bomb site last night.
His eyes locked on Amy Parker and he headed for her, helmet tucked under his arm. They talked and Amy’s hand went to her mouth. She looked around the church for help and her gaze fell on Rachel. She said something to the policeman and took Maddy’s hand and walked over. Rachel pretended not to notice her approaching until she was upon her.
“Excuse me, miss?”
Rachel looked up, feigning surprise. “Hello.”
“I wonder if I could ask you a favour.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I have to go to the police station and I need to leave my daughter with someone...”
Winnie carried on working, pretending not to listen, but she smirked, knowing why Amy was reduced to asking a favour off a near stranger.
“You want me to look after her?”
“Would you, please? I don’t think I’ll be very long.”
“Of course. Yes. Leave her with me.”
“She has a habit of wandering off. The kids, they like playing around the bomb sites.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t take my eyes off her.”
“Thank you very much.”
Amy collected herself and became aware of Constable Davies behind her. She leaned down to her daughter.
“Now, Maddy, I want you to stay with this nice lady. She’s Mr Eckersley’s cousin, so you have to be especially good for her. Mummy has to do something important, but she’ll be back soon. Do you understand?”
Maddy said nothing, just nodded and hugged her ragdoll. Amy ran her fingers through the girl’s blonde curls and pushed her towards Rachel. “You be a good girl now.”
She turned and walked out of the church hall with Constable Davies, through a field of whispers.
Rachel held out her hand and Maddy took it. She couldn’t help staring down at the child, as if someone had just handed her a loaded gun.
— 28 —
DANNY SAT AT A WOODEN table in the middle of an empty room, handcuffed wrists on his lap. He was wondering how the hell he was going to get out of this one. Was it Time’s way of fighting back against his influence? Each time he came back and tried to change things, he ended up arrested, as if the forces of history operated through the forces of law and order and were doing their best to stop him.
The door opened and an officer walked in. Danny quailed at the sight of his uniform. Military. This was serious.
“Lieutenant Eckersley,” he said. “Military intelligence.”
The lieutenant closed the door behind him and circled round him, taking him in.
“Name.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’ll be the decider of that. Name.”
“You won’t have it on your records.”
“I’m sure we won’t. Name.”
“Danny. Danny Pearce.”
“Where are you from, Danny Pearce?”
Danny laughed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Why not?”
“Ooh, it’s a long way away.”
“How far?”
“It’s not Germany if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.”
“Look, I’m not a spy or anything like that. How I got here is just a bizarre... accident.”
The lieutenant took the list from his pocket and held it up. “Where did you get this?”
Danny laughed again. How would this idiot understand?
“Where did you get this?”
“All right then. Google.”
“Where’s that?”
“Look, I know what it looks like but I’m not a spy!”
“I know you’re not a spy, Danny. But how am I going to convince that lot out there that you’re a blundering time traveller from seventy years in the future?”
Danny flinched and looked at the soldier for the first time.
“Because you have to admit, it looks a bit bloody fishy.” He shoved the list under his nose. “And it’ll take a miracle to get you out of being shot.”
“How do you know—”
“I know a lot more than you think, you stupid boy. And it’s not just us you’ve put in a right pickle. It’s Amy Parker too.”
“She doesn’t know anything about this.”
“I know she doesn’t. But you’re walking around with nothing on your person but a list of potential enemy bombings and her address. Did you stop to think for one minute how that might look for her?”
Danny shrugged, feeling a lot less clever than when this interrogation had begun. “No.”
“Now, I have to work out how to get you out of here and make all of this disappear.”
“If you can do it before nightfall it would be good.”
“What?”
“Have any of you actually read that list?”
Charlie unfolded it swiftly and scanned the content. He hadn’t read it all, merely seen that the dates continued beyond last night’s bombing. What was he looking for?
“There’s another raid tonight,” said Danny. “And when it’s over, this police station won’t be here anymore.”
— 29 —
AMY FOLLOWED CONSTABLE Davies out of the church into the afternoon’s grey light. At the top of the steps he turned to her.
“We’re going to Woodbridge Road station,” he said. “We’ll have to walk.”
Kindness in his eyes. He was desperately trying to make this as painless as he possibly could, embarrassed that he had to bring her in. She knew Constable Davies had feelings for her, in the way that any woman knows a man is sweet on her. But he’d never had the courage to cross the line that divided her from respectable Moseley society. She had no feelings for him; only for that young man who visited her life like an avenging angel, wreaking havoc, and disaster and love, then disappearing for years.
She followed him down the steps and round the corner to the village green. They said nothing as they walked up the rise, though he did turn to her and open his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it. There was no pleasantry to ease this over.
They came to Woodbridge Road and, across the street, a queue of ladies with empty baskets outside Shufflebotham’s all turned and gawped, vicious tongues wagging. This was why he had announced they were walking. He knew he was going to have to publicly embarrass her. If he had a car, he might have driven her round the corner. That was almost sweet of him.
They walked up Woodbridge Road till they had left the queue behind, then crossed over to the police station. Another cluster of people reading the casualty list on the notice board outside. Up the three stone steps, past the sandbag-lined entrance, staring at the granite floor, acutely aware that every pair of eyes in Moseley was watching her latest shame, every pair of
lips in Moseley gossiping her fall from grace.
Davies led her inside and asked her to sit waiting in the reception area.
Sergeant Webster bundled over, barking instructions and she kept her eyes on the granite floor.
“Right, Davies, I’ve got a job for you. The Chief Inspector wants us to check our visitor isn’t some escaped crazy, so someone’s got to telephone all the loony bins and make sure no one’s gone AWOL. That someone is you.”
She heard an awkward pause and knew that Constable Davies had flustered with embarrassment and that Sergeant Webster had remembered Amy Parker’s first shame—her own father dying in the loony bin. The sergeant’s voice stumbled on.
“I’ve, er, got a list of all the, er, asylums over there. I’ll go and check on the prisoner.”
His boots shuffled out. Constable Davies’ boots remained for a few moments, wondering if he could attempt once more to cross the divide to her, decided that he couldn’t, before he too left her alone, studying the marble floor.
Another pair of boots marched towards her.
“Hello, Amy.”
She looked up to Lieutenant Eckersley, the only other man in Moseley who had always had a keen look in his eyes for her. Not love, but kindness. None of the harsh judgement that others gave her.
“Could you come with me, please?”
He led her down a corridor through to the cells at the rear of the station and turned to her, gripping her arm.
“Am I being arrested?” she said.
He thought about it, as if trying to find the right words. “No. We simply need you to identify a prisoner.”
Her head swam. What was this all about? Who did she possibly know that she might recognize? And then, all at once, she knew. A static charge fluttered through her heart and swept all up to her face.
There was only one man it could be.
“Amy, no matter if you recognize this man or not, I want you to do me a favour,” he said.
“Yes?” she asked, surprised.
“I want you to pretend to them,” he nodded his head back to the reception and the police officers there, “that you don’t recognize him. Have you got that?”
She was confused, as if in a dream with familiar faces and no rules. She had no idea what was happening. It was always the same when he came to her.
“Yes,” she said. “But why?”
“Because it’s very important that you don’t get involved in this. For the sake of your daughter, you don’t want to be involved in this. Do you understand?”
She gazed into Charlie’s kind eyes, desperate to understand what was happening, desperate to see him again, but only comprehending danger, the terrible danger he always brought with him, every time taking a different form.
She nodded and Charlie led her through to the cells and she looked through the bars to find him sitting there, looking up with relief to see her.
Danny Pearce.
He was back in her life again, his face again, almost identical to the last time she’d seen him, his face that never aged – never showed the ravages of time, the bitter lines etched around the eyes and mouth – unlike hers. He was back in her life again, arrested, and had named her. She wondered at his capacity to bring such casual disaster to her life, every time he came to her. She knew that this time he would again leave her alone, bereft, her life changed for the worse, and she wondered what exact form this disaster might take, and why, knowing all this, she still felt the same quiver of excitement stir within her for him.
“You’re safe,” he said.
“How can you be him?” she said. “You haven’t changed.”
He looked at his feet, awkward, boyish. “It’s... complicated.”
“Complicated?” She felt a sudden surge of anger inside her. “Do you know what I’ve been through? Do you know what it’s been like since you... You just disappeared!”
“I told you it was complicated,” he said.
“Do you have any idea what you did to me?” she spat. “You ruined my life!”
He looked shocked and hurt and puzzled all at once, and shook his head. “But I saved your life, Amy.”
She backed away, shaking her head, hating him, loving him. Lieutenant Eckersley’s hands took her gently and he turned her around and put a finger to his lips and led her back up the corridor. He stopped before they reached the reception area.
“Now, Sergeant Webster will sit you down and take a statement from you. But remember what I said. You did not recognize him. He’s a complete stranger to you. For Maddy’s sake. Hmm?”
She nodded, trying to collect herself.
He waited till she calmed, then led her back to the marble floored reception and handed her over to the sergeant.
— 30 —
AS DUSK GATHERED OUTSIDE, the church hall still thick with the sounds and smells of the families who lived there, Rachel moved among the camp beds and pews, dispensing a batch of buns that had arrived.
The dusk made them talk low, an awful pall of fear falling over them.
The bombers would come, and the terror begin all over again.
She wondered how long these bombed out refugees would have to stay here and how many more would join them tomorrow, and it struck her that these were not the unfortunate ones; these were the lucky ones.
Maddy, Amy Parker’s little girl, clutched the hem of her dress and followed her round like a puppy on a lead. Rachel found herself giggling. It was too ridiculous. She’d come back to kill Amy Parker, and now she’d become her babysitter.
“I remember you.”
Two women who looked out of place. Their hair lank and greasy, their clothes ill fitting.
The two women from the bombing last night. She handed them buns, like it would help, like it would change anything.
“I saw your face as they pulled me out of the ground,” Helena Bright said. “I thought you were an angel.”
The words were coming out but she was talking to herself in a foreign language. There was a thread of menace in her voice, a bitter tinge of accusation.
“Angel of death,” she said. “You brought the bombers here.”
The other woman – Maude, it was – leered at Maddy. Her eyes lit up with recognition. She reached out and snatched Maddy’s ragdoll.
“There you are! My baby!” She clutched it to her breast so tightly. “There there,” she crooned. “Shhhhh.”
Rocking it to and fro.
Maddy looked up at Rachel, blue eyes imploring. Rachel pulled her away, fearing an explosion. The girl didn’t cry, only gazed back at her doll and its new mother.
“You brought the bombs here!” Helena Bright screamed.
Rachel dragged Maddy away, the fuzz and haze of the long day ringing in her ears. She pushed through the obstacle course of camp beds, eyes set on Winnie at the tea station. If she could get behind that trestle table, it was like a barricade that might protect her from this madness.
“You’re crying.”
The little girl had spoken.
Rachel wiped tears from her face. Stupid tears. She hadn’t even noticed.
Mary Lewis bustled over and grabbed her. “What’s all this commotion?”
She stopped dead at the sight of the girl still clutching Rachel’s skirt.
“What’s she doing here?”
“I’m looking after her,” said Rachel. She giggled through tears and wondered why. It was all so ridiculous, all you could do was laugh. Then a ball of anger formed in her throat. She wouldn’t be bossed around by this battleaxe. Who the hell did she think she was?
“Well, you’d better make sure she doesn’t get under my feet, that’s all. We’re not running a nursery here. Not for the likes of her.”
Rachel shook Mary’s fist off. “Why don’t you leave the poor kid alone?”
Mary Lewis stepped back and glanced around quickly to see if anyone had noticed. “You mind your mouth, young girl.”
“Or what? You’ll tell Mr Harper?”
Mary’s mouth fell open and she gasped, like someone had punched her in the gut.
“Or maybe Winnie’s father, eh?”
“You cheeky little b—”
“I may be cheeky, Mary Lewis, but I’m not a hypocrite. Come on, Maddy.”
She ran to the tea station, grabbed her coat, snatched Maddy’s hand and marched out into the cold dusk.
— 31 —
RACHEL PULLED MADDY through the scrum of people milling about outside the church, and took in the fresh air, tinged with the smell of charcoal and bacon. She’d walked twenty yards up the street before realizing she was heading to her home, her old home, to a father that wasn’t born yet.
She let out a cry of rage and went to cross the street. A bus sped past and blew dust in her face and she choked for breath and felt despair and wanted her dad so badly.
She skipped to the safety of the other side, pulling Maddy with her. The dark church loomed across the street, mocking her.
She looked down at the girl and felt a sudden pang of pity.
“Are you okay? You look miserable. You missing your Mum?”
Maddy nodded.
“They’re a cruel bunch,” she said.
Maddy looked back up at her without expression.
“They’ve no right to say the things they do.”
She saw Charlie approaching, thirty yards down the road, coming round the curve of the corner from the village green. Amy Parker was at his side. Rachel’s heart iced over.
Amy Parker. The woman who shouldn’t be here. The woman who’d taken Rachel’s life from her. She gripped Maddy’s hand a little tighter.
An army truck was hurtling down the road in the distance. Rachel saw it and looked back down at Maddy.
“But the thing is,” she said. “You should never have been born, anyway.”
Maddy recognized the shape across the road as her mother and her face brightened.
“Your mum was supposed to die years ago.”
The truck rattled closer at full pelt.
“Till he interfered.”
Amy and Charlie both saw Rachel with Maddy; Amy with a smile of recognition, Charlie with a frown.