Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  She gave up. “I’ll have a Guinness.”

  The men around her cheered and she plunged into the booze-soaked night with them. They occupied the entire corner of the bar and she realized that in her present, the corner had gone because the bar extended to the wall. The same benches were around the walls, though, and various drinkers huddled over tables. There were a few women in there, now she looked more, but they were old women for the most part.

  The drinks kept coming and Danny kept buying them, boasting about his winnings. By now, everyone knew he was the Mystery Punter from the newspaper and her fear returned. Half of Moseley would know about it before closing time.

  The musicians in the small back room belted out reel after reel and everyone was rampant drunk on the music. The drink flowed on and on and she found herself laughing off her mission and its failure even while she was berating herself for continuing to screw it all up by being here with him, letting him flash his money so conspicuously.

  Danny ordered another round of Jamesons for his new friends and slumped drunkenly against her and she realized this whole thing was an act of bravado and that he was as scared as she was.

  “Come on, Danny, we’re going home.”

  She dragged him out of the front door and the sweet night air mugged them. She took his arm and waited for a gap in the traffic, rushing over to the other side and the top of Chantry Road.

  He giggled and pointed and said, “That’s where I live, look!”

  “No, we’re going this way.”

  She had to get him inside. Nearly there. They walked along under shade of trees outside the Presbyterian church, a delicious summer perfume that reminded her of hot nights abroad. She wondered if scents were the same as time shifts: altering your place in the universe, transporting you instantly to another time and place.

  He slumped against her, his legs all jelly, as they passed the motorcar garage and WH Smiths and the entrance to the private park. He was singing a tune — How many streets must a man walk down... and she recognized the Stevie Wonder version that had been on the radio every day since she’d been here. Past the Midland Bank that didn’t have a cashpoint because there was no such thing yet, and here it was, the gaping black hole in the row of shops, next to the butcher where she’d bought the steaks this morning. They hadn’t eaten them.

  She thought for a moment of panic that she’d forgotten to buy the booze, the photographer scaring her off, and realized the last thing he needed was alcohol. Almost safe now.

  She glanced to her left. A dark figure leaping out of a car. Footsteps scuffling on the pavement. A big man. He took three steps and pointed at her. There was a clap of thunder. She screamed. The dark figure jumped back in the car and it roared away.

  She staggered back, her ears ringing, and searched around in blind panic.

  Danny was lying in a dead heap on the pavement.

  — 34 —

  THE HOSPITAL WAS CLEANER than Rachel expected. She’d visited one when her Nan had contracted a bad infection and been appalled at how dirty and chaotic it was. Her dad had got her out of there immediately.

  “Come on, Mum,” he’d barked. “We’re taking you home where it’s safe. This place could kill you.”

  She’d thought that hospitals in the past would be worse, but this one was spotless, and the nurses had time to talk, and the waiting room wasn’t full of ranting drunks – there was an air of respect, like in a church or a library.

  “Shall I get us a cup of tea?” said Charlie. He was fidgeting, looking for something to do, something to make him feel useful. It was totally sweet.

  “I think that would be lovely,” she said.

  “I should ask Maddy if she wants one too. Should I go in?”

  This wasn’t Charlie the businessman running a bookmakers and standing up to local gangsters with a swagger, or Charlie the lieutenant in the Blitz, shouting orders at men twice his age; the hospital had reduced him to a fumbling teenage boy again. It made her want to kiss him.

  The ward door opened and Maddy came out, her face stained with fatigue.

  Charlie stood up and ushered her to a seat, as if she might fall half way. “How is she?”

  Maddy shook her head. “It’s not good. She’s fading fast.”

  She slumped in the seat next to Rachel, who took her hand instinctively, and shrugged her shoulders simply, putting on her brave face.

  “I was just going to get us all a cup of tea,” said Charlie, as if it were the most ridiculously inappropriate thing to say in all the world.

  Maddy beamed and nodded with relief. “Oh that would be just the thing now,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He nodded and fidgeted and stared for a moment and then walked away uncertainly.

  “Are you going to stay the night?” asked Rachel.

  “Esther’s with the neighbours. They’re going to take her to school tomorrow. I hope she’s not scared by all of this.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” said Rachel. “Children are a lot stronger than we think.”

  Maddy squeezed her hand and nodded, holding back tears.

  Rachel stared down the long corridor, wondering when Charlie would reappear.

  “You look just like your Mum,” said Maddy.

  Rachel’s blood froze. “I’m sorry?”

  “I remember her. During the war. When I was a girl. It was a cold day. She was with Charlie. Lieutenant Eckersley we called him then. I always loved him a bit, in his uniform. He looked like a movie star. I remember always being shunted around or getting in the way. It was lonely. You were pretty much left to yourself, which seems strange now. It must have been so dangerous.”

  Rachel remembered the smell of ash and bacon. The rumbling of the truck as it passed. The terrible back-draught that snatched the breath from her mouth. The little blonde girl falling back against her knee. Holding her close, safe. After trying to kill her.

  “And there was a young woman who came with Uncle Charlie,” said Maddy. “She looked after me and, I don’t know what it was, but I felt safe with her. Protected. I felt like she was one of the only adults who was ever nice to me. Funny what you remember.”

  How they’d all thought she’d saved the girl’s life: Amy hugging her child so close and saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you’.

  The woman who was now dying on the other side of that door.

  “It was a brief visit,” said Rachel. “During the Blitz. She told me about it. She spoke fondly about Moseley, and I remember her mentioning your mother. She said she was a lovely lady.”

  “You don’t need to say that.”

  “It’s true. She told me about her. The beautiful woman and her lovely little daughter who always carried the rag doll around with her.”

  Maddy looked at her with amazement. How could she have known that? She gripped Rachel’s hand and a quicksilver tear rolled down her cheek.

  Rachel sighed. How had it come to this? She was sitting here comforting the woman who was her enemy. Maddy, her mother, her daughter, Esther: three generations of women who existed solely to steal Rachel’s life from her. Maddy was the girl she’d thought about killing so she could get her own life back. And she was here, comforting her, while Danny, the man who’d caused it all, was out there somewhere living it up.

  “I wish he hadn’t come back,” Maddy sobbed. “I wish my mum didn’t hate him so much. This was too much for her.”

  Rachel felt her face burning. “Who’s that?”

  “It was Danny turning up at the door that gave her this turn. She went mad, screaming, horrible.”

  Rachel nodded, pretending to understand. “And why’s that?”

  Maddy sniffed into a crumpled handkerchief. “It’s because of what he did to me; how he left me.”

  Rachel shrugged, head craning, offering her sympathetic ear.

  “We’ve not seen him since... well... you know.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  Maddy looked surprised. “Oh. You t
hink everyone knows your business in Moseley. Danny hasn’t been seen since... well...” She lowered her voice and leaned in close, almost miming the words. “He’s Esther’s father.”

  The end of the long corridor leapt for Rachel’s face and she jerked back as the ground shifted beneath them. They were at sea, drifting, unanchored, and her face was burning so badly. She must have caught the sun today.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, her voice calling as if from a passing ship.

  She walked down the corridor breathing in the brine scent of disinfectant and couldn’t feel her feet.

  Her knees turned to liquid and the corridor capsized.

  — 35 —

  CHURCH BELLS WERE CLANGING across Moseley village. Kath wondered if it were to announce a Sunday evening service. She looked out of the window at the quiet village green, again stilled because England were about to play. The tiny black-and-white TV in the corner showed the players about to start. She’d begun to feel excited by it – something she hadn’t expected as she’d never been remotely interested in football. Bobby Moore, the England captain looked so dashing though. She knew they would win the World Cup – everyone knew that – but she had no idea how they’d won it, so it was all new to her.

  She heard Danny turn over upstairs – the jingle of bedsprings. She had nursed him all day as he’d lain there, feverish. He’d taken some fluids earlier but had thrown them up again within the hour. She would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so bereft: he’d been shot at and she’d spent the entire day nursing him through a hangover.

  The bullet had missed, but the alcohol had scored a bullseye.

  While he’d slept through most of the day she’d sat and thought about what to do, mulling it over again and again, chasing her tail like a cat under a full moon.

  She couldn’t forcibly take him back to the present; she didn’t know how he came to the past. Her own way might not be his. They were safe as long as she stayed inside and didn’t leave the flat. But someone had tried to kill him and that meant there was no more time to discreetly observe and report back. It was life or death now and she needed to do something. But what?

  She wrote a report and filed it in the safe in her room, creeping quietly in case he woke up and heard her, and as she placed her new index card in the envelope and was about to lock it away, she had an idea.

  What if she asked Mrs Hudson for help?

  She was writing these reports so that Mrs Hudson and Mitch could read them sometime in the future, whatever time that was. But it didn’t matter when it got read. They could read her distress call and come to her aid. Couldn’t they? Had this been done before?

  She took another index card and scribbled a quick message on it.

  Sunday 24 July, 1966. 7.30pm. Urgent. Please help if you can. Attempt made on subject’s life last night. Great danger. Need help.

  Would it work? She placed it in the envelope marked Winston, shoved it in the cigar box and locked it away. She slumped against the safe, her cheek to its cool metal, as if listening. What would happen? Could she open it now and find a message for her? No, they would have to have read it in the future, travelled back to before 1966 and planted it there for her to find – and there had been nothing in there for her. No, it had to work a different way.

  Someone rapped the door downstairs and she jumped.

  The sound she’d been dreading since yesterday. Had the killers found them? She had to stay quiet. Was the TV on loud downstairs? Could they hear it? If they did, they might shoot the door open.

  Rat-a-tat-tat.

  She crept out to the landing and padded down the stairs trying not to make the floorboards creak under her weight.

  “Katherine. It’s me. Mrs Hudson. Don’t be scared.”

  She rushed to the door and opened it.

  Mrs Hudson bustled through and shut the door, sliding the bolt across as if it were her own apartment, which it was.

  “Is he here?”

  “Sleeping.”

  Mrs Hudson nodded and took her arm and pushed her into the living room. The TV muttered to itself, showing England in grey and white.

  “Oh, Mrs Hudson, I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve messed it up so much!”

  She thought she’d tell her off, call her stupid, demote her, but the old lady just smiled and hugged her.

  “Now now, Katherine, don’t be silly. I’m sure we can sort it all out.”

  “The mission has gone right down the drain, though.”

  “Never you mind the mission for the moment. I need to sit down; it really does tire me out.” She pushed Kath onto the sofa and sat beside her, stroking her hand. “Now, let’s assess the immediate danger. There’s been an attempt on his life?”

  Kath nodded and felt herself choking with emotion. “Someone shot him.”

  “Dear God. Shot him?”

  “Shot at him. They missed.”

  “Well, thank Heavens for that. Who wants to kill him?”

  Kath shook her head. “I don’t really know. A policeman came the other day looking for him, and a photographer from the Evening Mail. He said there were some powerful people who were angry with him.”

  Mrs Hudson gave a low whistle. “Do they know he’s here?”

  “I don’t think so. If they did they would have come already.”

  “Bloody Fenwick put him up to this, I know it.”

  “I think he’s getting the money for a woman. He’s mentioned her a few times, when he’s drunk.”

  “Yes, yes, the one whose life he saved. If we knew who she was, we could possibly end this right now. What about the girl?”

  “What girl?”

  “The girl from 2012. The one he’s been travelling with. Have you seen her?”

  Kath shook her head. “I remember her from the Library. No. I’d recognize her. She’s not here with him.”

  “Something’s happened with her. They were in it together at first when they were time-breaching to 1912, then he came to the shop on his own asking about 1940, but she was definitely there for that one too because I saw her come back from it. Not with him, though.”

  “Do you think they fell out?”

  Mrs Hudson patted Kath’s knee. “Never mind. She’s probably the key to it all, but if you go looking for her you risk more danger and you can’t let her see you, anyway. It would give away our secret.”

  Kath held her breath. Had Danny stirred again? No. Silence.

  “Maybe we should do that,” said Kath. “Come clean with her. Maybe she should be a part of our ... you know ... Maybe Danny should be too.”

  Mrs Hudson shook her head. “We can’t be certain they’re safe.”

  “They’re both travelling. We could supervise them.”

  Mrs Hudson pushed herself up from the sofa with a groan. “You’ve done what you can. The moment anyone recognizes you, you must abandon the mission and return home. I don’t want you in any more danger.”

  “But what about him?”

  “Leave him here if you have to. It’s all about the money. He’ll stay till he’s got it.”

  “I think there’s more to him than that,” said Kath, following her to the front door.

  Mrs Hudson turned and smiled sweetly and stroked her cheek. “Of course you do. You’re in love with him.”

  Kath blushed and looked at her feet.

  “But he’s not in love with you. And you can’t let him drag you into the darkness. You have to know the moment you should let go. Only you can know it.”

  She unbolted the door and stepped out onto the wrought-iron landing. “Now close the door and be safe.”

  Kath closed the door on Mrs Hudson’s smiling face. When she peered through the spyhole, there was no one there.

  — 36 —

  RACHEL HAD BEEN AWARE of the bed, and the noise of traffic beyond the closed curtains rising and falling and rising again, and Charlie at her side, sometimes at night, sometimes during the day, mopping her forehead with a wet facecloth or makin
g her swallow tomato soup. She felt a ravenous ache in her belly that was beyond hunger. The bedside clock had panels that flipped over to show the day and date and she was shocked to realize it was Monday 25 July, 5.03 p.m.

  She had been asleep all of Sunday and half of Monday?

  She pushed herself up and pain shot through her limbs. Why did she have this stupid fever now, when she needed to act? Was it an effect of the touchstone?

  It was a silly thing, to be bedridden for an entire day. But it had knocked her out, totally. She felt old. Was this how her Nan felt all the time, sitting hunched over in the armchair in the granny flat that Martyn had built for her? Was this how old people always felt, which was why they moved so slowly? Even voicing thoughts made her realize her tongue was coated in sand.

  She looked to her bedside table and reached over for the glass of water Charlie had left for her. It felt like lifting one of the old kitchen scale weights that her Nan had used. They had been her mother’s: Winnie’s. They were probably being used right now in a house a few streets away.

  She sipped at the glass, let the water slide into her mouth, and had to put the glass aside. Something sparked inside her head and she felt more awake. They didn’t drink enough water back here in the past. But who was she to lecture them? The girl lying in bed.

  She had fainted, at the hospital. How had she got back here? Maddy had told her the awful truth.

  Danny was Esther’s father.

  Esther would grow up to marry Martyn, who was supposed to be Rachel’s father, but never would be.

  She shivered. She could stop it. Could she stop it?

  If only she could control which date she could travel to, she could go to 1959 and stop them. The touchstone had been random at first: 1912 and then 1940, for no reason. But this time she had read Charlie’s letter from 1966 and gone through exactly to 1966. But she hadn’t really thought about what time she would be going to. Maybe that was the key: to have a desire but not to think about it too much.

  How could she want to go back to 1959 and not think about it? It was impossible.