by Dale Smith
He was Mr Li Po, human catalogue of the British Library.
‘Ah! Mr L!’ Li said, abandoning his Chinese accent and replacing it in an instant with a broad Cockney twang. ‘Didn’t know it was you. Would’ve given you a bigger bowl of tea if I ’ad.’
Li grinned broadly. Honoré returned it, but his heart wasn’t in it.
‘Blimey,’ Li said, shaking his head and reaching for a paperback he’d hidden deep in the wires. Honoré saw it was a copy of Eric Clevedon’s The Peculiar. ‘You’re a right barrel of ’em this evening, ain’t you? Don’t s’pose you’re gonna let me finish this chapter neither, are you?’
Honoré shook his head sadly, and pulled up a chair.
‘Sorry, Mr Li,’ he said, meaning it. ‘It’s been one of those days.’
Li nodded, and blinked exaggeratedly. A few moments later, the round-faced woman appeared at the door, summoned by some device buried deep in Li’s workings.
‘Bring Mr L a coffee, plenty of sugar, plenty of cream,’ Li instructed. The woman nodded politely. ‘And bring him his shoes back. And a copy of HG44576.’
Again the woman nodded, and disappeared.
‘So what can I do you for, Mr L?’ Li said, seriously.
‘Information.’
‘Isn’t it always?’ Li smiled. ‘On what?’
Honoré tried to put his needs into some kind of sensible order. The question that kept forcing itself into his head, Li couldn’t answer for him: I need to know if my friend’s going to die.
‘An explosion, last February, this address,’ Honoré held up the paper on which Catherine had written. Li nodded. ‘As much as you’ve got, if it really happened.’
‘Okay, Mr L. Same price?’
Honoré nodded. Li had an addiction to a certain brand of candy that hadn’t been made since before the War. With Emily’s participation, Honoré had managed to secure a steady supply of it – he told Li that he had a contact at the factory where it was originally made. He didn’t think that the catalogue had guessed the truth.
Of course, if Catherine was right, the supply was about to dry up permanently.
Honoré turned suddenly as the door swung open, but it was just Li’s woman returning. She took a quick glance at Li – who had sat back in his cage of wires with his eyes closed and flickering as if he was in a deep sleep – and nodded to herself, satisfied. She set down a silver tray on the reading table, with coffee, sugar, cream, Honoré’s shoes and a small military-issue pamphlet on it. Honoré nodded his thanks, and took the coffee gratefully. He glanced at the pamphlet: it was an instructional manual on the correct procedure for washing feet and keeping them free from odour.
Honoré put his shoes back on as the woman left.
A few seconds later, and a light began to flash deep inside the mess of wires that made up Li’s lower body. There was a harsh metallic clatter, and a thin strip of tickertape started to emerge from the darkness there. Honoré set his coffee down and pulled at it, reading faster than the printer could keep up.
Hello, Mr L, the tickertape read. It always bothered Honoré that the tickertape was written in Li’s Cockney dialect, although he could never quite put his finger on why. Well, the explosion happened, didn’t it? February 23rd. Few reports in the next day’s papers, then... nothing. Reckon somebody got leant on to keep it schtum, don’t I? One report says some guy called Knight blamed the owner: did it for the insurance, he reckoned, but the Old Bill couldn’t prove it. Couldn’t find Knight, neither – one more floater making his way down the Thames there, you ask me. Place was a bunker: no-one knew it was there ’til it went boom. Ground was owned by a ‘businessman’ from round here. His name’s Burgess, but everyone calls him the Albino. Got a club just down the way. Here’s the address.
An address followed, and then a pause.
Two dead, Li’s tickertape continued almost hesitantly. The man’s body was claimed by his family, ’cept they gave a false name and address, didn’t they. Most of the info’s been sealed better than I can get at: must’ve been something pretty strange about him. The young woman, they never identified.
Suddenly the room went freezing cold. Honoré looked across at Li, but he was still in whatever trance it was he went into to retrieve his data. A breeze picked up from nowhere, even though the only door to the room was firmly shut. The hygiene pamphlet took flight and whipped across the room, ending tangled up in Li’s workings. Honoré looked around, but could see nothing. He thought about the ghosts and spirits that Li always told him spent their eternity in the Library.
There was a blaze of light from the far corner, and when it faded, Emily was standing there.
She looked at Honoré with something like relief on her face, and took a quick step forward. But she was being held back by a tall man in an expensive-looking suit. A man with pale skin, pink eyes and snow-white hair – what little there was of it on his scarred and pitted head. An albino. Honoré barely had time to jump out of his chair before the Albino twisted a dial on some device in his hand and he and Emily disappeared again, exactly as they’d arrived.
The breeze died down, and Li’s eyes flicked open.
‘Everything all right, cock?’ he said cheerfully.
Honoré didn’t answer.
Chapter Three
3A. 4 November 1951, 18:56
‘What now?’ Emily sighed as she opened the door.
It wasn’t exactly the warm welcome Honoré had been hoping for, but she did let him into her apartment, even though she looked like she was about to head off to bed: she had a heavy woollen dressing gown hastily thrown around herself, and was holding it tightly shut. Given the excitement of the previous 24 hours, he couldn’t really blame her for wanting to sleep – even if, from their point of view, they’d only just woken up a few hours earlier.
The apartment looked like a heard of buffalo had just recently ridden through on their way back home. Clothes were strewn across the floor and furniture, and dirty crockery was doing its best to hide amongst them, for fear of being caught and washed. One of the threadbare armchairs in the corner was mercifully free from clutter, so Honoré headed for it.
‘You’ve cleaned, then,’ Honoré said, as he settled himself into the chair. It was still warm: he guiltily realised he’d just stolen Emily’s seat.
Emily gave him a sideways glance.
‘Help yourself to coffee,’ she said archly. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’
She disappeared into the back bedroom. If it was like this out here, Honoré didn’t even want to begin to imagine what the bedroom looked like. He considered fighting his way into the kitchen and making coffee, but he could still feel the powerful brew that Li’s helper had given him sloshing around inside. Any more and he might start getting jittery, he thought to himself with a wry smile. Emily was fine: she was here, alive, and he still had time to keep her that way.
‘What’s wrong?’ Emily said, appearing in the doorway an indecently short amount of time later.
She was wearing a long, black skirt and fur-lined coat, ready to venture out into the world outside. She even had her boots on: long, army issue things that she’d made Honoré procure for her after far too many hours spent trawling through mud and God-knew-what on foreign soil and future battlefields. He had a vague feeling that she had been wearing them before she’d gone to get dressed. But who wore boots to bed? Not even Emily, surely?
‘I’m all caffeined out,’ Honoré said, even though he knew that hadn’t been what she’d meant.
Emily gave him that look that said she knew he knew.
‘There was an explosion,’ Honoré admitted, looking down at his hands. His skin was rough and worn. ‘A bunker in Shoreditch.’
Emily’s eyes brightened.
‘When?’ she was already heading for the door, ready for adventure.
‘February,’ Honoré said.
Emily gave Honoré a strange look, and laughed nervously.
‘Have you told the police?’ she asked. ‘There can’t be a second to waste.’
Honoré didn’t smile. Didn’t even catch her eye. He wasn’t sure he could tell her this if he could see her looking at him. It felt like it was him killing her, just by saying it. He felt her blood drying on his hands.
‘There was a woman in the café,’ he said, eyes still on the pile of washing at his feet. ‘She said you died there.’
Emily looked at Honoré for a long moment. There was something in her eyes that he couldn’t quite pin down. There was always something about her that he couldn’t quite pin down.
‘I see,’ she said, primly.
Honoré looked at her, and wished he could reach out.
‘We’ve got only her word for it,’ she added, ‘I suppose?’
Honoré nodded. ‘The police found two bodies,’ he said, as if it had no connection to him at all. ‘The young woman was never identified.’
Emily nodded, but said nothing.
Honoré set his hands on the arms of the chair, and looked up at Emily. She didn’t catch his eye – God alone knew what she was thinking. Honoré couldn’t even guess what he would think if the circumstances were reversed. But he knew what she would do, if they were: she would refuse to accept it, and she would do whatever she could to stop it happening.
‘We can stop it,’ he said. His fingers tensed on the arm of the chair. ‘I know how.’
‘How?’
‘We go back,’ he said. ‘Should be easy enough to find someone. We go back to January, find the bunker and blow it up.’
Emily looked at him, and he felt that it wasn’t just that he was seated that meant she was looking down at him.
‘And change history,’ she said coldly.
Honoré looked at her.
‘And change history,’ he agreed. ‘To save your life. We’ve done it before, haven’t we?’
He could tell she wanted him to apologise, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine what for: they’d walked around two different 1985s, and stopped Emily from being killed, and there was no reason why they couldn’t do it again. His strange relationship with time had caused Honoré enough problems – he had to be able to take the advantages as well, didn’t he?
‘That was different,’ Emily said, a shadow crossing her eyes. ‘That wasn’t meant to happen, and we set it right. We don’t know anything about this, and you still want to go back and change it? No, Honoré – where do we stop? We could change everything... including ourselves. Shall we stop you getting injured in Belgium? Or just stop the whole War?’
‘Why not?’ Honoré asked. ‘There’s a hell of a lot of people would be alive today if we did.’
‘And two people who would never have met,’ Emily said quietly.
Honoré pulled up sharp at that. Emily just looked at him, her eyes soft – but she didn’t reach out to him. No, not that much.
‘We have the power to choose what should happen and what shouldn’t, throughout all of time,’ she said, as casually as if she was laying out the options for the evening’s entertainment. ‘But who would we be if we used it, Honoré?’
There was a silence then, for a moment.
‘So what do we do?’ Honoré asked, eventually.
‘We see what we can find,’ she said, matter-of-factly. ‘Don’t we?’
‘You’re sure?’
There was only a brief pause.
‘I’m sure,’ Emily nodded.
Honoré stood up to join her. Perhaps Li’s coffee had been stronger than he’d realised, or perhaps he’d just stood up too fast: whatever, he suddenly found his head swimming and the floor shifting under his feet. He stumbled a little, but luckily Emily was there to steady him. He grabbed her arm tightly, and looked into her eyes and...
... she was running down a dark corridor, somewhere every one of her senses told her was underground. Up ahead, she could just make out the back of another figure, running for his life. Running from her. No, not from her. From something else. Something they were both running from, even though neither had any chance of escaping it. Something...
A bomb. A bomb was about to go off, and Emily and the man were going to die. And...
... Honoré blinked. Emily looked at him suspiciously, as if he was about to crumble to dust before her very eyes. Just a flash-forward. He should be used to them by now: ever since his accident, time had liked playing jokes with him. This was nothing new. Except... except he’d never been able to read Emily’s time-snake before. Not even a bit of it. He steadied himself, and turned away – he suddenly found that he couldn’t face Emily.
‘You’re sure you’re sure?’ he asked.
‘I’m sure!’ she said, exasperated.
Honoré nodded, and didn’t tell her what he’d seen.
3B. 4 November 1951, 18:30
‘Honoré!’ Emily said.
But the Albino moved too quickly, and the office faded around her. Suddenly, she wasn’t really anywhere: the ground she was standing on wasn’t really ground, and the blackness pulled her into its embrace. She could feel the cool pressure of the Albino’s hand on her arm, but worse than that, she felt the cold, aching presence of Little Honoré in her head. There was a distinct taste of copper in her mouth, and electricity seemed to crackle around her brain.
This was different from travelling with Honoré – that felt wrong in an entirely natural way, like creation’s time-keepers looked the other way whilst the two of them slipped between the moments that made now. This felt mechanised and ugly, a great steam turbine punching a hole in reality and powering through. And she could feel Little Honoré pushing her, controlling her, using her without apology or permission. If she never travelled like this again in her life, it would be too soon.
She thought of the real Honoré, sitting in her armchair and telling her the future. Emily fought the machine as hard as she could.
She felt heat in her mind, friction as her intention and the machine’s rubbed against each other, incompatibly.
She thought of Honoré, with all her will.
The darkness started to lift. Objects started to appear where before there had been only dark shadows. Slowly, a room appeared – different from the one she had been in before: this was a gloomy reading room, lit only by a few reading lamps and the warm glow of a fire in a grate. There was a large table on one side of the room with an electronic throne drawn up to it, a small, dark-haired Chinaman crouching deep in its heart. The Chinaman’s eyes were closed. Standing in front of him was Honoré, staring back at her with a look of concern and surprise on his face.
He was just how she’d pictured him: warm chocolate skin, dark soulful eyes, wrapped neatly up in his favourite trenchcoat-and-hat combination. She wanted to reach out to him, to tell him not to worry and not to go round to see her. Not to start this whole mess off. But she didn’t have the chance: even as they appeared before her, Honoré and the room were already starting to fade. She could feel the mechanical grip of Little Honoré snaking back into her brain, biting with a stronger tooth.
Emily found she was too weak to resist again, and the room dissolved around her. She fell back into the darkness, the Albino’s cold hand still clamped on her arm.
They fell...
3C. 4 November 1951, 19:30
Catherine did her best not to struggle, but it was hard. Leiter’s hands were gunmetal cold, and they pinched and bruised wherever they held. She told him that every bruise would cost the Albino in the end, making her customers awkward and money-conscious. But it didn’t make any difference. Any tenderness his body had possessed had been lost the moment the first valve had been stitched into his flesh.
Any one of her customers seeing her now would be surprised by the change in her. On stage, she was in supreme control, every move calcul
ated to evoke the maximum of desire from her audience, yet imply just the right level of her contempt. The customers could sense it in her, and deep down somewhere they knew that they deserved it, and so they flocked to her. But here – even though she was dressed in her same flimsy stage outfit, red silk split to reveal legs, belly and breast – she was revealed as nothing but a puppet, a rag doll to be dragged and flung at her owner’s whim.
She wore glasses with smoked lenses when not on stage, to save her eyes from the harsh light. To stop her having to hold another human gaze. Her outfit was unsuitable for the outside world – it threatened to tear and fall open as Leiter shook her – but it didn’t matter: she never left the Albino’s club any more, no matter how hard her clients begged and bribed her.
Without letting his grip on her weaken, Leiter tapped on the door with his foot. Without waiting for a reply, he pushed it open with a shoulder and spun Catherine into the room.
She stumbled, slightly, and heard Schreck sneer.
‘Who are these people, Catherine?’ the lawyer barked.
Catherine righted herself slowly. Every second she waited to answer was a deliberate insult to Schreck. She looked at the two people the lawyer had indicated. After all this time. Standing there next to Schreck was her saviour, the Negro Lechasseur – looking as strong and capable as he had the last time she’d seen him: coffee skin and soft, feminine eyes. Had he come for her, she wondered? The girl, though... she was a small, dainty thing, dressed as if for an evening on the town but wearing hideously oversized boots. She looked...
Emily Blandish.
‘I don’t know,’ Catherine answered, her heart pounding.