by Adrian Speed
“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad,” I smiled. “You looped your own timeline to save my life before. Two of you, side by side, how did that not create a paradox?”
“With great care,” Sir Reginald twitched. “Regardless, the gain was worth the risk. A world without Hannah Delaronde in it was not worth living in, in the first place.” Sir Reginald’s eyes fluttered in irritation as his brain caught up with his mouth. He shook his head at himself and pressed on before I had a chance to reply. “Putting that aside, no. We will not visit the twenty-fourth century. Or ideally any century beyond the twenty-third until we have secured the correct man behind bars.”
“Alright Sir Reginald,” I held up my hands in defeat and I could tell I was hitting a nerve. “It was just an idea.”
“I think the answer lies somewhere in Marlin Arnold’s research,” Sir Reginald said. “I am not sure where, and the prospect of reading twelve heavy boxes of research materials does not thrill me, but somewhere... something Arnold found drew attention to himself.”
“Those boxes are still in Lucon.”
“I know. I would suggest we make a physical reproduction of the digital files he gave you, but for the second part of my point,” Sir Reginald nodded in agreement but held up his hand to quell any other debate I may have had. “Just as it would be a waste of police time to comb millions of hours of footage for a face they have only had described to them, it would be a waste of our time to spend all the time until you must return to Canada reading an old man’s research.”
“Well I don’t have to return to Canada,” I said.
“Which is why I suggest you choose a mystery to solve and I will read the old man’s research,” Sir Reginald finished. “And as I cannot carry around with me hundreds of pages of documents I will...” Sir Reginald sighed. “I will purchase a slate computer to read them on.”
“You want me to solve the mystery alone?”
“Not alone no, I’ll still be there but.... in the background, reading,” Sir Reginald said. “You’ve more than proved yourself capable.”
“Oh I know that, I’m just surprised you would be willing to hang in the background,” I laughed.
“Well I’ll speak up if anything catches my eye,” Sir Reginald rolled his head around his neck. “But I think this is the best way. We do not nearly have enough time together. I am not going to waste it sitting around reading family tree research.”
“Family tree research that might catch a killer.”
“Nonetheless.” Sir Reginald sat back in his chair and waved his hand at Alsa. “Choose any mystery you like.”
“Well... I have been meaning to visit Paris for years,” I said and picked up the letter from the director of the national archives. “Two birds with one stone, right?”
“By your leave.”
Chapter IV
“They’re not real pounds,” Sir Reginald muttered to himself while I set the controls for the time machine. He tapped his forehead against the metal of his new tablet like a woodpecker. “They’re more like shillings. It is more like five hundred shillings. You did not forgo purchasing a house in favour of an irritating computer.”
“The tablet was your idea,” I muttered while I fiddled with dials until I was happy with the spatial co-ordinates Sir Reginald had given me.
“I had forgotten the age of ignorance in which I dwell,” Sir Reginald said with a final tap to his head. He sighed. “Nonetheless it displays the research on command. It shall serve.”
“What are we going to tell people when they see you with it?” I asked. “It’s harder to hide than my phone.”
“We may tell them the truth, it is an electronic book,” Sir Reginald shrugged. “Unless we fall into the lap of a transistor engineer and happen to scribble a schematic onto his face we have little risk of interrupting the flow of time.”
“If you’re sure,” I muttered. I locked the co-ordinates into place, double checked everything was ready, and pulled on the time travel lever.
London faded around us, melting into multi-coloured lightning. I held tightly to the controls as a wave of discomfort rolled through me. Even on a short journey it felt like I was a tube of toothpaste being rolled up from the end. When I built my own time machine, I swore I’d fix whatever caused that.
The time machine came to rest in an underground car park. It was almost deserted, but around the edges one or two beautiful sixties Citroens gleamed as if they had just rolled off the production line. I struggled to contain my excitement at finally being in Paris. I rummaged through the time machine’s supplies with shaking hands until I found Sir Reginald’s Paris parking permit and hung it somewhere noticeable.
“How do we get out of here?” I asked, switching into French now we had arrived.
“There’s a staircase, over there,” Sir Reginald replied in kind and pointed without looking up from the tablet. He was already digging through Arnold’s research. “Is this your first time in Paris?”
“Well, I did a weekend here when I first came over from Canada,” I said, thinking how that weekend wouldn’t happen until the next century. “But I didn’t get to see much. Eiffel tower, shuffled around the Notre Dame, had the Mona Lisa waved at me at great distance. I didn’t get to... you know... experience Paris.”
Sir Reginald stayed quiet, and I didn’t question it as I raced up Victorian iron staircases towards the surface. The cold iron under my fingers slowly grew warmer as we reached the surface and the warm, balmy May weather of the city.
We emerged out into Paris from between two stone buildings, flush with ironwork. They capped at seven stories with blue tiles that shone like the sky. The air smelt of the arriving summer. The street was narrow, almost not wide enough for two lanes of traffic. There were no shops, but lots of trade entrances and a shadowy maw formed the car park entrance for people who couldn’t teleport inside.
At the end of the road though I could see the wide, tree-lined boulevards I always thought of when I thought of Paris. Not thinking about the dangers of traffic I rushed towards the boulevard and took in the sight of Paris proper. The tiny side road we landed on led into a crossroads that could not have been more of a stereotype. A bistro sat opposite a tobacconist, flanked by a bakery. It didn’t matter that they were unique and individual shops, or they were hemmed in between a photograph development shop, a chemist, and an estate agents. It was as if I had returned to Canada and my first sight was of the hockey rink and a mountie offering me poutine.
It was embarrassing to be so much of a tourist but I couldn’t help myself. It was a city I’d read about since I was a child, I was standing in it and this time I wasn’t a tourist packed in like a sardine. I was just me, free to explore the city as much as I wanted.
Yet, it was tinged with a sense of unease. A few dead leaves scuttled as the wind picked up. A faint roar, growing louder, came with it. Not the natural rush of air over the ears. This was a distant cry of passion picked up and carried across the city. I felt a chill run over me despite the warmth. Looking around I couldn’t see a soul except myself and Sir Reginald. Not a car on the road, not a pedestrian in the street. The shops were shut up and closed. The wind died, and the city fell silent.
“Is there... is there a football match on or something?” I turned to ask Sir Reginald.
“No,” Sir Reginald said. I glared at him. He knew what was going on, I could see it in his eyes. What was it he had said back in London, he’d rather visit the Great Fire of London than Paris in 1968?
“What happens in Paris, in May 1968?” I glowered.
“Well, my dear, you see, I wasn’t entirely... certain...” Sir Reginald lowered the tablet. “You know how sometimes I get dates a little muddled. I visit Italy in AD 90 and wonder where Pompeii is, I’m never sure whether to ask for Petrograd, Leningrad or St Petersburg and I can never remember when the Greater Republic of Angola goes to war with Imperial Scotland.”
“The point, Sir Reginald.”
“Students are r
ioting throughout Paris, millions of workers have gone on strike in sympathy and the government is powerless to stop what they think might be a communist revolution.”
Another great roar wafted past us on the wind.
“But primarily,” Sir Reginald continued. “That’s all on the Left Bank, we are happily in Le Marais, on the Right Bank and if we proceed immediately to the National Archives we should be safe.”
“You could remember all that, but not the month?”
“The month isn’t in the rhyme,” Sir Reginald pointed the direction we should go with his cane and urged me to follow over the bridge. “’Remember Paris 1968/Student love turned to civil hate’. I should probably educate you in them. A chrononaut needs to be adroit with all of history if they are to avoid strife.”
“It hasn’t helped us this time,” I said darkly. My eyes settled on a piece of graffiti my mind had previously ignored. Communist propaganda slithered into a vulgar comment about Charles de Gaulle. I tried not to let my bitterness settle on Sir Reginald. I should have remembered this. De Gaulle had been a month-long topic in history back at school.
I should never have imagined that I could have a fairy-tale Parisian experience anyway. That Paris doesn’t exist, not really. Taking coffee outside Parisian cafes, mincing through art galleries, watching the mimes, picking through open-air bookshops; none of it could mix with work. Or at least, it shouldn’t mix with work.
Paris was a real city, with real people, and they had real problems. I couldn’t solve the reasons they were rioting, but I could solve one little mystery and maybe provide some relief in troubled times. Sir Reginald, I thought, probably felt like this all the time. Almost every city in history had been romanticised by someone, somewhere, somewhen. Everyone and everywhere would be tinged by disappointment.
“Which way to the Archives?” I asked.
“We’re close. If we follow the Rue De Bretagne we’ll meet Rue Des Archives. Which as its name suggests...” Sir Reginald lifted his foot to start walking and I jumped into motion to lead the way. He wanted me to solve this case while he worked on the other. I couldn’t let him fall into the habit of leading.
The silence of the city was haunting and oppressive. There were no cars, no buses, and almost no people. Those I did see were walking as fast as they could without being threatening, and trying to avoid eye contact with me. Some shops had stayed open, and the largest crowd was around the newsagent as people read the paper. Some scoffed loudly as we passed, but it rang hollow with fear.
Just the same as the first time I landed in London, I couldn’t help but stare at the city we passed through. It’s a hard instinct to overcome. Especially seeing it now, in the 1960s, with its old fashioned cars everyone thought of as new, and its old roads, and old road signs. There was no Centre Du Pompidou, I thought. No Musée D’Orsay, no Opéra Bastille. In some ways I hoped I didn’t get too used to this Paris, in case I got lost in the twenty-first century. No wonder Sir Reginald got confused sometimes, I thought. Tramping the same street in every century as the buildings rose and fell... your feet would never know where they were going.
We reached the Rue Des Archives and headed south. It was a tiny, dingy little street like the one we emerged on, overhung by Parisian townhouses. Sir Reginald read as he walked and as far as I could tell never looked up from the tablet. I couldn’t tell if the unease of the city had penetrated behind his eyes.
The National Archives of France sat at the end of Rue des Archives like an exhausted old man sprawling across a sofa. The building looked like a palace of honey-coloured stone and enclosed a courtyard large enough to hold an army. The gates were wrought iron and chained shut.
“Are you sure this is the place?” I asked Sir Reginald.
“Hotel de Soubise,” Sir Reginald nodded. “This is the place. I suggest we find the worker’s entrance. If there are any workers that have not fled to join the revolutionaries, of course...” Sir Reginald began to walk around the archive but a flash of movement caught my eye.
A pudgy man in a business suit came rushing out of the archive and across the courtyard.
“Are you Sir Reginald?” he called out in heavily accented English.
“I’m Hannah Delaronde,” I called back in French and grabbed at Sir Reginald to stop him. “This is Sir Reginald!”
“Oh thank goodness, give me a moment with the key,” the businessman rushed to the gates and glanced around suspiciously as if every shadow hid revolutionaries. He unlocked the chain on the gate and ushered them inside. He snapped the gate closed a hair’s breadth behind us. “Can’t be too careful. Paris has lost its head,” he warned. “I am the Director of the Archive, Monsieur Michel.”
“A pleasure Director Michel,” I offered him my hand in greeting but he turned to Sir Reginald.
“I was told you’d have a hat,” Director Michel said. “The last Englishman with a top hat.”
“Believe me, I am the first person to be annoyed I do not have my hat,” Sir Reginald twitched with irritation and ran a hand through his naked hair.
“Thank goodness you wore the suit, or I might not have recognised you as saviours, but hoodlums.” The director shook his head and directed us across the courtyard towards the Hotel De Soubise. Gravel crunched under his sparkling shoes. “Truth be told, I did not expect you to come so swiftly. I heard the channel ferries had stopped. And there’s no petrol to be found anywhere.”
“Oh we in the Derby and Delaronde Time Travel Company have our ways,” Sir Reginald smiled politely but his eyes were screaming at the director to acknowledge me.
“I could not be more glad you arrived,” the Director said as we climbed the steps up to the building. “The communists have occupied the Sorbonne and tried to march on the Place de la Bastille. It’s 1789 all over again. If they knew...” the director’s voice fell to a whisper. “If they knew someone had broken into a government building it would kindle their courage. If thieves can break into the Hotel De Soubise, why not revolutionaries into the Palais de l’Elysée?”
“Yes, I understand. You can rest assured the revolutionaries will never hear of it from our lips,” Sir Reginald said and made one final valiant attempt to subtly direct the director towards me with his eyes. It failed, and Sir Reginald gave in. “However, I am here... as more of a... consultant. Your lead detective will be my dear associate Ms Hannah Delaronde.”
The look Director Michel gave me will live in my memory forever. I’d never seen disappointment like it. The passion in his eyes died, the excitement in his face switched off like a light. Cheek muscles sagged, eyebrows dropped, and lips relaxed. His entire face became like a rubber mask.
Here was a man, I thought, who believed in equality for women right up to the point where it meant a woman was in charge.
“Hannah has worked with me for several years, and is an exceptionally capable detective, she will serve you well,” Sir Reginald said and turned his eyes down to the computer tablet. “I will be here as her assistant.”
“Ah.” Director Michel’s lips came together and fell apart again, like circus seal. “We certainly support any choice of yours Sir Reginald but I was expecting... a more experienced...”
“I am the only person with greater experience, and I am already here,” Sir Reginald said.
“Of course, of course, but...” The director’s body sagged, as if I had sucked all the hope out of him. What a promising start.
“Take me to the scene of the crime,” I ordered. “And we’ll see what can be done.”
“As you wish, follow me.” Director Michel sighed and unlocked the entrance to the Hotel building.
Inside the Hotel the first few rooms had been laid out like a museum, with artefacts and documents labelled in glass cabinets. The director swept past those, ignoring the treasures as a homeowner ignores his furniture. The squeak of the director’s shoes echoed in the museum. It was the loudest sound I’d heard in Paris so far.
Out of the museum we were led to a door
marked private which unlocked with a pass code. So far, I thought, the security was about what I expected for a museum. I’d have to check if the cabinets were alarmed, but it would be no small feat to get through this many locks without raising the alarm. An inside job? There had been no sign of damage so far.
“The archive seems very empty,” I said as we drew deeper into the building.
“I sent the staff home,” Director Michel said, his voice echoing off the unadorned corridor. “Most of them went on strike with the rest anyway. It’s only the academics left.”
“I thought all the academics were in the Sorbonne, with the radicals?”
“That’s what the radicals want you to think,” Director Michel scoffed. “Perhaps we archivists are too sedate for revolution. Or perhaps our archive means we know revolution’s true cost.”
We reached a set of stairs and climbed to the next floor. There didn’t seem to be any windows in this part of the building, and it seemed newer than the museum part. Certainly, it didn’t seem like the inside of a medieval palace.
“Along here,” the director led us out into a common area. The space was dimly lit and filled with desks for inspecting ancient manuscripts. It was conspicuously clean save for the half dozen people lounging around it. “These are your suspects,” the director added coldly. “And this is where the crime took place.” He led us to a doorway on the edge of the common area. Inside sat row upon row of documents, carefully stored in racks and separated by black cotton. A box of white cotton conservation gloves sat by the door. It was cool, and dry, and just on the edge of hearing I could hear a rumbling air conditioning unit keeping the room at optimum conditions.
“When did you notice the treaty had been stolen?” I asked.
“Yesterday afternoon, late. I scarcely had time to write a note before the last post,” the director said.
“And who found it had been stolen?”
“That would be us,” one of the ‘suspects’ in the common area stood up. He was in his late thirties, with worry lines around his eyes and wrinkling his forehead. He had curly black hair, cut short, and a large nose dominated his face. It was not unusually large but everything on his face seemed to retreat from it.