‘What’s the matter?’ bellowed Tom, his voice echoing around the gallery, as all heads turned to look at him. ‘Not so brave now, are you?’
McSweeny was heading towards the central display, the full skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which towered above the customers, its great jaws open. As McSweeny tried to veer around the display, his feet slipped on the tiled floor and he went down in a sprawl. Tom gave a cry of triumph and quickly closed the gap between them. He stopped a short distance away and approached McSweeny slowly, the sword held above his head. People looked on in mute horror. McSweeny scrambled around onto his backside, breathing heavily. He began to edge away, pushing himself with his feet, his gloved hands held up in a pleading gesture. He kept moving until he stopped with a thud against the plinth on which the dinosaur skeleton stood.
‘Wait, Tom,’ he said. ‘Let’s . . . let’s talk about this!’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ said Tom, grimly. ‘Except goodbye.’ And with that, he brought the sword down hard, with every intention of splitting the man’s head open. But at the last moment, McSweeny swung sideways and it became clear that Tom had underestimated how long the sword was. The end of the blade struck the plinth, hacking clean through one of the dinosaur’s feet with a loud clang. For an instant, there was nothing but a deep, shocked silence. Then a creaking noise from above caused Tom to look up at the great bony beast’s head. It looked, momentarily, as though it had come to life. It was moving, tilting, twisting, the jaws hinging further open, the jagged teeth glittering in the light. And then, with shocking suddenness, the whole gleaming construction came down onto Tom in an avalanche of bone and he was lost in a blizzard of tumbling white shards, raining down on him like a biblical hailstorm. In the midst of the chaos, a gauntlet-covered hand reached up and grabbed him by the throat . . .
Thirteen
Tom gasped, clutching at his throat, still feeling the power of those gloved fingers squeezing his windpipe. It took him several moments to realise where he was, standing in the yard at Laird’s Lodging House, gazing down into a bucket of water that he must have filled from the pump. He had to throw out a hand to the pump to steady himself while he waited for his heart to settle back to a more regular rhythm. There was a thick sheen of sweat on his face, despite the chill of early morning. He leaned over and splashed some icy water onto his face in an attempt to bring himself back to reality. Then he realised that somebody was behind him. He turned and saw a young woman standing a short distance away from him, a woman he had never seen before. She was looking at Tom, uncertainly, as though unsure of what to say.
‘Can I . . . help you?’ he croaked.
The woman came a little nearer. She was a rough-looking sort, Tom decided, her once-pretty green dress tattered and stained, her hair hanging around her face in disarray. Like Nell, her features were whitened with powder and her eyes outlined in black. She held a red velvet purse in her hands.
‘Do you work here?’ she asked him.
‘Umm . . . yeah. Sort of.’ Tom shook the last shreds of dizziness out of his head, but he couldn’t seem to rid himself of that final image. McSweeny’s hand closing around his throat in the midst of a blizzard of falling bone. He swallowed hard. ‘Are you . . . looking for a place to stay?’ he asked. ‘I think we might have a room.’
‘No. I’m looking for my mother,’ said the woman.
‘Your . . . mother?’ Tom was puzzled. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t . . .’
‘Her name’s Mary. Mary Haldane. Do you know her?’
Tom shook his head. ‘No, sorry, I’ve never heard that name.’
The woman shook her head. ‘It’s just that I’m very worried about her. She didn’t come home the night before last and that’s not like her. I waited all day yesterday and all last night, too and . . . well, I’m worried. I’m Peggy, by the way. Peggy Haldane.’
‘I’m Tom.’ He lifted an arm and wiped his wet face on his sleeve. ‘But . . . what makes you think I’d know where she is?’
Peggy frowned. ‘I did some asking around. I spoke to a woman who told me she thought she saw my mother, two nights ago, with that feller they call Irish Billy. Do you know him?’
‘Billy? Yeah, I know him. He’s my friend.’
‘This lady is pretty sure it was him. She said they looked like they was friends and all. He had an arm around her shoulders and they was walking up the close towards this place, looking like maybe they was after a drink or something. Could she have come here?’
‘Well, we get a lot of people in at night,’ admitted Tom. ‘Most of them like a drink. But I don’t know if your mother came here. What does she look like?’
‘Och, just an old lady with white hair. Hardly any teeth.’
That made Tom take notice. It came to him then, the image he’d seen in his head that time, an image of Billy sitting at their usual table in Laird’s with an old lady beside him. Billy was joking with her and had an arm around her shoulders. He looked at Peggy, not wanting to alarm her. There was only one question to ask next. ‘Did your mother . . . I mean, was she wearing a red striped dress?’
‘She was!’ said Peggy, excitedly. ‘You have seen her!’
‘Umm . . . well, I kind of think I might have,’ admitted Tom.
Peggy came a step closer. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘You kind of think? Either you’ve seen her or you haven’t. Which is it?’
‘What’s going on here?’ demanded a voice and they both turned to see that Margaret standing on the step by the back door, her hands on her ample hips. She studied Peggy with her beady black eyes and didn’t seem to like what she saw. ‘Who are you?’
‘This is Peggy,’ said Tom. ‘She’s . . .’
‘Wheesht! I’m sure the lady is quite able to speak for herself,’ said Margaret coldly. She kept her gaze fixed on Peggy. ‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘I’m looking for my mother. Mary Haldane. She went missing two nights ago and this boy here was telling me that he thinks she might have come here with that Irish Billy.’
There was a silence while Margaret absorbed this information. She looked at Tom for a moment and her eyes flared with some kind of inner anger. But that settled after a moment. She returned her gaze to Peggy and her features quickly rearranged themselves into an expression of relief. She came down off the step and hurried across the yard. ‘So you’re Peggy!’ she gasped. ‘Thank the Lord. Mary has been asking for you and we didn’t have the first idea where we might find you.’
Peggy lifted one hand to clutch at her throat. ‘Asking for me?’ she whispered. ‘What do you mean? Is something . . . wrong with her?’
Margaret slipped a meaty arm around Peggy’s shoulders. ‘Now, you’re not to worry, my dear,’ she said. ‘Mary was here the other night, and she . . . well, she took a bit of a bad turn, so she did. Came over all dizzy. At first we thought it was the whisky, but then I realised it was more than that. I didn’t know what to do for the best, so we put her to bed. She’s very weak, poor thing and a little delirious. But all she kept asking me, every time I went in to check on her, was that she wanted to see her Peggy. We didn’t know where to look and Mary, poor lamb, was quite incapable of telling us. But now, thank God, here you are.’ She started to pull the woman towards the door. ‘Mary’s sleeping just now, but I think a stiff brandy would be good for you, while you’re waiting for her to wake up.’
‘How bad is she?’ whimpered Peggy. Tom could see that she was close to tears now. ‘She’s . . . she’s not going to . . . ?’
‘Oh, now don’t you fret, my dear. She’s as strong as an ox. I’m sure a couple of day’s rest will see her straight.’
‘But . . . I don’t know how we’ll pay for the room,’ protested Peggy.
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that! We wouldn’t dream of asking you for one penny. That would hardly be the Christian thing to do.’ Margaret turned her head and looked at Tom. ‘Boy, I want you to run straight to Rymer’s shop. You’ll find Billy having his breakfast
there. Tell him I need him, right away.’
‘Yes, Margaret.’
‘Tell him Mary’s daughter’s here and she’s concerned for her mother. Oh, and as soon as you’ve done that, I want you to go on to the baker’s shop in the Quartermile and ask him for a loaf of rye bread. Tell him to put it on our account.’
Margaret led Peggy towards the back door and Tom got himself moving. He let himself out of the yard and started walking briskly along the close. He’d gone some distance before it occurred to him that something here didn’t quite make sense. If Mary Haldane was ill and had been lying in a bed at Laird’s for a couple of nights, how come nobody had ever mentioned it to him? Margaret didn’t tell him everything, of course, but surely he’d have overheard her talking about it to Billy or Will? He shook his head, trying to push the idea away, but for all that, he still felt unsettled.
After ten minutes, he came to Rymer’s and went inside. Sure enough, Billy was sitting at a table in the low-roofed, rough-timbered bar, eating ham and eggs and talking loudly to the portly barman and a couple of regulars, who, despite the early hour, were already getting stuck into drams of whisky. When Billy saw Tom, he stopped talking and studied the boy.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Margaret sent me. She says she needs you at the house, straight away.’
Billy sneered. ‘She’ll have to wait till I’ve finished my breakfast,’ he said. ‘I’m not hurrying myself on her account.’
‘It’s just that a woman called Peggy Haldane came looking for her mother. Margaret took her inside to see her.’
Billy’s eyes narrowed. He seemed to be thinking about something. He got up from the table. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I’m not really that hungry.’ He gestured at the barely-touched meal. ‘Tell you what, Tom, why don’t you finish this for me? I dare say you could use something decent inside you. Better than the muck that Jamie brings you every morning.’
Tom looked at the meal and his stomach rumbled. It looked a hundred times better than the bits and pieces he usually settled for. ‘Umm . . . it’s just that Margaret wanted me to go to the bakers on the Quartermile,’ he said. ‘So . . .’
‘Ah, there’s no hurry for that!’ Billy assured him. He pushed Tom down into the vacant seat. ‘You take your time now,’ he said. ‘Sure, the baker’s doesn’t even open for another hour.’ He gestured to the bar. ‘Bring the lad some more bread and butter and a sup of tea to have with this,’ he told the barman. ‘Put it on my account.’ And with that, he winked at Tom and went out of the bar, into the street.
Tom picked up Billy’s knife and fork and went at the meal with a vengeance, cramming his mouth full of food and using the slabs of bread and butter to mop up the meat juices and egg yolk. After the slim pickings he been forced to eat lately, this tasted like heaven on a plate.
It was only when his hunger had been properly sated that he thought once again about Mary Haldane. If she really was ill somewhere in the lodging house, surely Nell would have said something? The two of them spoke often and chatted about most things that went on at Laird’s. He sighed. He took a last slurp of tea, got up from the table and with a nod to the barman went out onto the high street. Again, something struck him as odd. Margaret had never sent him to the baker’s before. And why would she choose one that was so far from home and moreover, one that wasn’t even open for business?
He shook his head. He was too wary of Margaret to question her orders, so he walked all the way up to the Quartermile, waited twenty minutes for the shop to open, got the loaf of bread and retraced his steps back to Laird’s. He went in at the back door and found Billy, sitting at his usual table, eating a bowl of watery porridge. It looked like a poor substitute for the meal he had abandoned back at Rymer’s. Tom set the loaf down on the table top.
‘Here’s the bread Margaret wanted,’ he said.
‘Good timing,’ observed Billy, grinning. ‘I’ll have a slice straight after I’ve finished this.’
‘Thought you weren’t hungry?’ said Tom.
‘I got my appetite back,’ said Billy, with a shrug.
‘For Margaret’s porridge?’ asked Tom, incredulously.
‘Ah, you get a taste for it, it’s not so bad.’
‘How’s Mary?’
‘Ah, the strangest thing,’ said Billy. ‘As soon as she set eyes on her daughter, she made a miraculous recovery. Sprang up out of that bed like a twelve-year-old, so she did. The two of them set off for home not ten minutes ago. You just missed ‘em. But Peggy said to thank you for all your help.’ Billy spooned porridge into his mouth and gulped it down. ‘By the way, your friend Jamie is waiting for you out in the stable.’
‘Oh, right. Thanks.’ Tom turned and headed for the door. ‘He seemed worried about you,’ added Billy mysteriously. ‘Said something about you disappearing the other night?’
‘Oh . . . er, yeah . . . I . . . I’d better go.’
Tom let himself out and crossed the yard to the stable. As he neared the entrance, Jamie came out, looking concerned. ‘T . . . Tom!’ he said. ‘You’re back. I was g . . . getting really worried. And when you weren’t here this morning . . .’
‘I had to do an errand for Margaret,’ Tom assured him. ‘I’m fine.’
‘B . . . but what happened to you last n . . . night? Where did you go?’
Tom stared at Jamie, remembering what had happened back at the Surgeons’ Hall, how his friend must have seen him disappear, right in front of his eyes.
‘Jamie, it’s going to sound really weird. But . . . I’ll try and explain while we eat.’ He followed Jamie into the stable and the boy gestured at something that was sitting on top of the barrel, just inside the doorway. A big round cream cake.
‘L . . . l . . . look what I got us!’ cried Jamie delightedly. He was so excited, he was almost dancing a jig.
Tom stared. For once in his life he had a full stomach but there was always room for cake. ‘How much did that cost?’ he protested.
‘Tuppence,’ said Jamie, leading him inside. ‘It’s a good job you’re b . . . back, or I would have had to eat it all by m . . . myself.’ He grinned, showing his rotten teeth. ‘D . . . don’t worry, by the way. I’ve still got your tuppence. W . . . Will said to pass it on to you.’
‘You shouldn’t go spending all your money like that,’ Tom chided him. ‘But I’m glad you did. I’ll give you half the money.’
‘Oh it d . . . d . . . doesn’t matter,’ Jamie told him. ‘We’ll be paid the s . . . same again tonight. Just try not to d . . . d . . . disappear on me this time!’ He pointed and Tom turned his head to look.
The four-wheeled trolley was parked just inside the door. On it stood another tea chest, the lid nailed shut.
Fourteen
I’m going to be stuck here forever, thought Tom bleakly. He lay in the stall, gazing around at the grim, smelly stable that was now his domain. Since making the second trip up to Surgeons’ Hall with Jamie – twelve pounds for the contents of the tea chest that time and no sign of Doctor Knox – the days had slipped steadily past. Now here it was, mid October, the weather getting bitterly cold and there was no sign that he was ever going to find his way back to his own time.
He was starting to feel depressed. For one thing, he looked and smelled like a tramp. He’d had no opportunity to change any of his clothes since he’d arrived here or even to have a proper wash, apart from the habitual splash of freezing water from the pump in the yard. His jacket was virtually falling off him, his trousers gone at the knees and his precious iManc T-shirt looked like something the cat had dragged in. Any attempts to ask Margaret if he might have a bath somewhere in the lodging house had been met with terse refusals. Did he have any idea how much it cost to heat up a tin tub of water? Such things had to be reserved for paying guests!
The other problem was that there wasn’t much variety in his life. Every morning, he breakfasted with Jamie and whenever they could get away, the two of them visited the McCallums (seeing
Cat was the one bright spot in an otherwise gloomy landscape). But lately, during the day, Margaret had taken to giving Tom every menial job she could think of – washing pots and pans, cleaning floors, running errands all over the city, so finding the opportunity to get away was difficult to say the least. In the evenings he was expected to hang around Will’s drinking den, collecting tankards and watching as a motley collection of wastrels drank themselves insensible. Occasionally there was a fight to break up the monotony. Usually it was a couple of customers who’d fallen out with each other, but on one memorable occasion it had actually been Margaret and Nell who’d come to blows. Tom had been aware from the start that the two women had a low regard for each other, but this had been a screaming, cursing, hair-pulling catfight with the two women insisting that the other had been giving them ‘the evil eye.’
Afterwards, Nell had been all for leaving the lodging house and finding accommodation elsewhere and indeed, she and Billy had taken themselves off for a few days to stay with Billy’s brother in Gibb’s Close. But after a short absence they came back rather sheepishly and moved into their old room. Billy said that he’d been missing the booze and Nell, she simply had to swallow her pride and make the best of it.
The only encouraging thing was that since his weird experience in the National Museum Tom had seen nothing more of McSweeny and he was beginning to think that his bad dreams – if indeed, that’s what they were – had finally worked themselves out of his system. But, given his current situation, it was hard to see the good side of anything.
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